Balta1701

QUOTE (Frankensteiner @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 04:37 PM) It's a close game. Those guys don't exactly inspire confidence. Can Linebrink and Jenks pitch 3 days in a row? I'm pretty sure they've already done it once this season.

So, if this isn't a sign that the official party is pretty unhappy about last night...I don't know what is. I would take that as a pretty clear "This can't go on any longer after last night" message, wouldn't you?

99 pitches for Guthrie through 6.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 04:35 PM) What kind of a starter could a package of Fields + Danks/Floyd get us? Could we pawn Contreras off if Fields is in a deal? The way they're pitching now...unless it was getting you, um, Pujols, I'm not sure why we'd even want to move Floyd or Danks. They've both put together some REALLY good looking outings so far this year.

QUOTE (Greg The Bull Luzinski @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 05:25 PM) Thome's spotless defense makes us forget about his hitting woes. I'm sure the Red Sox would happily swap him for David Ortiz.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 02:37 PM) I'd be in favor of this, although I'm willing to give Juan until June to get his act together. I'm not convinced that Roberts isn't a lesser Jason Giambi. Here's my thinking. If Mid May, Juan is still hitting at Juan Uribe levels...that's about when Richar should be finishing up a rehab stint if he's on schedule. If Danny performs well in the minors with the bat, then by June 1, bring him up and at least treat it as a righty/lefty platoon & see what kind of numbers each of them put up. There's certainly no guarantee Danny will be ready to carry the position yet given that the word to describe his performance at every level in the minors has been "Raw", and although I think we're going to have a good enough offense to put up with a Uribe/Richar platoon at the worst at 2nd base, that gives us 2 months before the deadline to decide whether or not we need to upgrade.

QUOTE (sox-r-us @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 02:33 PM) Quick q: since WSCR radio feed is free on the internet, why would anyone pay for the MLB radio package? Anyone here doing that? If yes, why? The game itself will be blacked out on WSCR's stream.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 01:37 PM) Let's wait and see closer to the deadline. If the team is faltering with Swisher as lead-off, but still veeerrryyy close to first and Uribe is doing his best Juan Uribe impersonation, then maybe I would say go for him. Otherwise, this sounds like a trade that could hurt more than it helps. Not that Roberts is a bad player, but it seems this could be one of those chemistry trades, where team might feel they don't need the help and kinda quit. i don't know why I have that feeling, but I do. Of course, if Uribe is faltering with the bat, a much cheaper potential solution is to give Danny a shot when he returns from the DL in a couple weeks. But I digress.

You know the interesting thing about this thread? I think that the discussion that has come up actually illustrates pretty well why someone like History's Greatest Monster needs to do exactly this and be the person who goes in to Gaza and elsewhere and tries to set up talks, because right now, the only ones who might have any interest in getting this mess settled are the ones who haven't any real power. You've got the other countries of the Arab league, who send along money, but as others have pointed out, really don't want a settlement if it requires them to take in any of the expelled peoples, and also, let's be honest, benefit quite a bit from being able to whip up their people against Israel every now and then. You've got Israel, who's people would benefit a lot from genuine security, but who doesn't want to be stuck paying to rebuild those territories, who will never give up Jerusalem, and who's leadership is, thanks to their parliamentary system, overly beholden to a fairly small minority who thinks that expansion, settlements, and taking land is the way to secure that country. You've got the U.S., who could really, really, really benefit from finding a way to bring peace to that area so that everyone and their grandmother in the middle east doesn't blame the U.S. for building the craft that bomb Palestinian targets, but who's leadership is, for various reasons, going along totally with whatever Israel wants to do and refuses to put any pressure on them to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. You've got the Fatah leadership, who has demonstrated again and again that they're just not up to the task of rebuilding those territories and have better things to do with the money spent there. And you've got Hamas, who sadly, comes closest to actually representing the interests of some of the people there by being the only group actually really working to try to provide aid to the people, who also just happens to be a terrorist group that we refuse to negotiate with. So pretty much, every single group in power out there has no reason right now to negotiate for anything, especially not a genuine, long-term peace settlement that not everyone is happy with but which finally works. The only ones who have any interest in having that happen would be the people of every single one of the countries involved, including us.

This is a fascinating statistical note.

McCain will be on George Stephanopoulos's show this weekend. Based on previous standard, I think appropriate questions for him would certainly include a detailed examination about whether or not he did any improper favors for or had an extramarital relationship with that lobbyist as the NY Times alleged, his seeming inability to keep straight which ones are the Sunnis and which ones are the Shi'ites, and why he keeps being seen at events without a flag pin on.

QUOTE (the People's Champ @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 01:09 PM) If he don't catch Cliff Politte Syndrome AKA a torn rotator cuff? Yeah, if Boone catches that it might hurt him.

Excerpt of the beginning, full remarks in the video. If you watch the video, I think the best part's his little move at about 3:00 in. Could well be a Pop culture reference.

Whoever voted no....BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to you.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 01:17 PM) I guess that is what I was thinking of when I said let's hget off these topics and on to others. I understand ABC did not pull this off, but I even appreciate the "silly fluff" pieces. I think that if there were a reasonable number of "Silly fluff" pieces in a campaign, but the media and the debates spent a reasonable amount of time actually working on issues, policy, things that might actually matter, then a.) I wouldn't be so annoyed about the silly fluff pieces when they do show up, but also b.) we wouldn't have a debate where 2/3 of the time is spent on silly fluff pieces. You've got 2 of the 3 people campaigning for the most powerful position in the free world on a stage in front of you, and you spend that time talking about flag lapel pins, whether or not Obama's pastor loves America as much as him, and whether or not they'll be on the same ticket for the 4th time.

Vladimir Putin reportedly prepared to marry 24 year old Russian Olympic Medal winning Gymnast.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 11:39 AM) Anyone else notice Hillary Clinton makes a lot of promises that cost money? Now, to be fair Obama has made some proposals. But every group she gets up in front of, she panders to the group by saying "i'll give you a tax credit for this. Or. I'll start this $100 billion program, or I'll spend money on this". That's a hell of a lot of money if she REALLY plans on putting all of them in place. I'm sorry, but on this one I just can't see how there's any relevant difference. I'll almost guarantee you that if you added up all of the proposals people put forth for tax cuts and spending increases, the winner for biggest hole in the deficit would be McCain, and Hillary and Obama would be somewhere well below him, and even then, it'd be a matter of how you count proposals and tax increases as to who comes out on top. Everyone does some version of this. The only question that matters is whether or not the media calls them on how they're going to pay for things. Obama got called last night on some of his tax increases, which conveniently would have raised taxes on the 4 "middle class" folks on the stage.

QUOTE (G&T @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 11:28 AM) I feel like a lot of this has to do with strength of schedule. I haven't checked other teams, but the Sox have played 9 games against teams that are 5-10. I realize that the Sox were partially responsible for that, but I doubt the rankings take that into account. Here's the issue with that though. Coming in to the season...I believe most people looked at our April schedule and said that April was the hardest part of this year's schedule IIRC.

:::yawn:::

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 10:09 AM) I'd give up Fields for him with no hesitation if we also have a resigned Crede. Then by definition, you're not trading Fields for him until next offseason.

Despite all the reports you read on Drudge about how the globe stopped warming a decade ago, how this was the coldest winter in years, etc., the global data is now in for March. Thanks to what appears to be another big T spike over the big Eurasian continent mass, March comes in as the 2nd warmest March on record, and the warmest on land ever recorded. January to March comes in overall as the 11th warmest.

The longer we get no respect, the longer the team plays hard trying to earn the respect they feel they're not getting. If it works for the Pats, I'll take it. Move us downwards!

QUOTE (iamshack @ Apr 17, 2008 -> 08:09 AM) Not to be a jerk, but wasn't it Hughes and Kennedy? Heyman at SI wrote a couple weeks ago that it was Hughes and Joba. That basically Beane decided he was willing to move Haren, but wasn't going to start over on his staff entirely, so unless he got an overwhelming offer he wasn't moving Blanton.