Balta1701

I'm only a Commie-Demycrat, but this scares the Hell out of me.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 12:27 PM) When you don't have to work hard for your success, you don't build a work ethic. For an example on this one...think "Brian Anderson".

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 12:15 PM) It will be a tight race, but I think Clinton will pull it out. A tight race is a huge win for Obama. Penn is the last real chance she has to boost her popular vote totals and close the delegate gap. Anything closer than say 7-8 is a huge Obama win because it goes from having 80% of the votes counted to closing in on 90 without having her close the gaps.

Carmelo Anthony picked up a DUI last night.

I'll be noting this in the NBA thread in a moment, but it's an interesting data point here too. Carmelo Anthony appears to have picked up a DUI last night.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 11:43 AM) Good question, as it depends on a number of factors. If everybody is healthy and the starting pitching is hanging in there, I agree that Owens would be the best candidate. If Thome or Dye are trying to play through nagging injuries, Fields would probably be the best option. If the 'pen is struggling and Ozzie/KW decide that they don't want to use an option, Wassermann might be the guy. I find it difficult to understand why this team as constructed would want to consider a 13 man pitching staff, especially since it's already carrying a long reliever.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 09:39 AM) Would you buy that load of crap if anyone fed it to you? Would the vast majority of the voting public? If Hillary were to start sweeping the last few states, scoring big wins in a lot of them, then you sort of start really getting in to that messy area where those loads of crap become worth wondering about. Where Hillary is winning the popular vote outright but not the delegate count, then you get in to a big argument about how much weight should be given to the caucus system, which is just a mess.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 10:35 AM) If all you're going to do is use Frowens as a PR then why bring him up ? Ramirez is just as fast or nearly as fast and hasn't had lingering Pods-like injuries this spring. Speed isn't everything on stealing bases. Technique can take a guy like Podsednik, who's not the fastest person on the team, and turn them into a 70 steal person. Problem is of course, Owens doesn't have great technique himself. But probably better than Ramirez, who hasn't seen moves by any of the pitchers at all. Anyway, if that's the question we're debating, then hell, just use Ozuna as your PR and put together the lineup that does the best job with the bat and the glove.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Apr 13, 2008 -> 08:40 AM) If I had to choose which president I would want my back in a fight, it would probably be Jackson... maybe Lincoln, I heard he was actually a very good wrestler.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 10:16 AM) I thought she was behind no matter what you tried to do to with the numbers? If you count Michigan and Florida exactly as polled...where Obama gets no votes in Michigan since he wasn't on the Ballot, and the ones who went for Hillary count as for Hillary, that covers the spread.

Another point on Ehren/MMac...so far, in the first 2+ weeks of the season, I've counted basically 1 game where I said "you know, this is a point where Ehren would be real useful", about 2 weekends ago against Detroit where Linebrink, Dotel, and Jenks had all pitched the 2 days beforehand and could probably have used the day off, so one more trusted righty reliever would have been useful But, thankfully, Liney et al. came in and did their job, and a rain out, a couple grand slams, and a long relief job by Masset have kept us from hitting that point again, and we won't reach it again tonight or tomorrow because they didn't pitch last night. In other words, only once in the first 14 games will it have mattered at all which guy we had up. Otherwise, it's entirely been a question of which guy we'd throw in for a junk inning or two in a game where one of the two teams has taken over. And even in that game, it didn't matter because the guys we have did their jobs anyway. Maybe Ehren would be a better pitcher right now than MMac. But with the way our team is running right now, it hasn't made one bit of difference.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 10:04 AM) I'm fine with keeping Owens in AAA. He has the capability to steal 50+ bases a season and can play CF competently. Given that, he has a legitimate chance of starting next season and needs the at-bats. He won't develop as a hitter while riding the pine in Chicago. I'm also fine with demoting Alexi Ramirez to the minors to bring up Richar as a bench player. I like Richar to get work at 2B, as it looks like he's our future there. But I strongly prefer Uribe out there defensively. Here's the way I look at it: 2 potential benches. 1. Anderson, Richar/Uribe, Hall, Ozuna 2. Anderson, Ramirez, Hall, Ozuna. The 2nd of those is a little more flexible in terms of the Of since Alexei is a better CF than Ozuna. But we already have 1 backup CF on the roster in Anderson, I'm not sure why we need 2 guys who can play those positions. Ozuna can play OF in a pinch, so he can cover that slot if everything goes wrong for a day. The big benefit of the first one of those as opposed to the 2nd is that it gives us a left handed bat off the bench, whereas the 2nd one gives us an all righty bench. I can certainly envision circumstances where this could be useful late in a game as an option.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 08:53 AM) Do you really think that the vast majority of super-delegates are going to go against the will of the Democratic voters, especially after the debacle of the 2000 election? Keep in mind most of these people are also elected officials who would like to keep their offices. The problem is, how do you define "The will of the voters" especially at the current stage? There are so many different ways of counting, and it's entirely possible to come up with ways to count them that favor Hillary. Do you go with the popular vote? If so, how do you count FL and MI? If you count them the right way to minimize Obama's numbers and increase Hillary's, then it's still possible to come up with a count that gives Hillary the lead. But that minimizes the contribution of caucus states since fewer people show up there anyway, so how do you weight those correctly? And then you can throw in arguments about the impact of the electoral college itself, and that muddies the mess even further. A solid win or two by Obama to stretch the margin a little bit more would finally shut it up. But that's not going to happen until NC it looks like.

Yay. Articles suggesting the correct thing will be done.

Mark, just close your eyes. Don't look at the uniforms, just pitch.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Apr 13, 2008 -> 07:48 PM) injured, when they get healthy, watch out. Even completely healthy...nothing stops us from putting up that first 5 spot on Kenny Rodgers as far as I can tell. He didn't have it and we hit him hard.

I think it's actually a reasonable expectation that Hurricanes could become more intense due to climate change because you can develop a causal mechanism for why it would happen. Same number of hurricanes + warmer water in the areas that feed them = more energy available for hurricanes = more energy dissipation by them = stronger storms. But the fun of any climatic system is, every level of advancement is going to allow us to better analyze some of the complexities of the system. Wind shear plays an important role in disrupting hurricanes as they form, so that's a potential complication. And so on.

Ugh, stop talking about trading away the starting 3rd baseman for the team with the best record in the AL.

Thornton with a beauty of an inning there.

Nice game Javy. Let him come out for 1 batter in the 8th so that the Crowd can give him the standing-O, and then bring McDougal/Masset in.

Anderson and Alexei in, Swisher to 1b, Balta Happy.

I'd really like to see Anderson PH for either Dye or Konerko this inning.

That Grand Slam just became a great Red Bull ad.

Ok, now I really want to see Anderson, Alexei, and Pablo get some playing time.