Balta1701

I wonder if Pablo has ever tried throwing a knuckleball.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jun 11, 2006 -> 09:29 PM) I can think of maybe one or two games in which it looked like the team had no life. That's about it. They've had the never quit thing goin' all year. That stretch back there against Toronto, Cleveland, and Texas, this team started to look that way. They found some balls against Detroit.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Jun 12, 2006 -> 08:38 AM) Hire Boston's hitting coach he has got to be great......................... Mike Lowell, Kevin Youkilis, Willy Mo Pena...they've managed to take some guys and really get some consistency out of them either right off of struggles or early in their careers.

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Jun 12, 2006 -> 08:00 AM) I think the hitting coach is kind of overated anyways..... especially on a veteran team like ours. I mean every team needs one but I wouldnt credit our hitting coach for the way the team is hitting and I wouldnt discredit the hitting coach if the team wasnt hitting. Personally I believe the pitching coach is much more important. I agree on a veteran team, the hitting coach is sometimes not that important...but it's mostly with the veterans that the hitting coach isn't important. Most of the veteran guys on our team, the Konerkos, Dyes, Thomes, and so on, have been able to find some swing that is working consistently for them, and have been able to make adjustments otherwise. The problem though is with the guys who really need someone to teach them how to hit big league pitching. Joe Crede the last couple years, or Uribe, or Anderson, or Rowand, etc. Crede's finally catching on this year, but the other 2 still aren't. With a young guy like that, a hitting coach is actually needed to first help a guy get the kinks out of his swing, but even beyond that, a hitting coach is needed to help a guy come up with a plan for how to go after a pitcher. With the young guys on our team, Walker just hasn't helped at all. It keeps taking guys years to figure things out on their own, when other teams get by doing the same work in months.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 11, 2006 -> 02:47 PM) I was thinking last night that I actually loved the lineup we ended up having late in the game. I believe it was Ozuna, Iguchi, Thome, Konerko (assuming Gload's not in), Dye, Cintron, AJP, Pods, Mackowiak. It seemed so much more balanced. We're just lucky our pitchers were making good pitches while that lineup was in, since a few balls into the gap would have been problems. But yeah, that's probably a pretty good offensive and balanced lineup (especialy if you could stick in Crede)

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 11:35 PM) Wood would not go in that deal. Hell, I remember them not wanting to give up Wood for Manny Ramirez. I don't see why they would give him up for a lesser player. That $15 million difference between Manny and Crawford's yearly salary might have something to do with it. That and the fact that Wood has struggled a little bit with his batting average at AA.

No. Ex. Cubs. Especially not ones who already have a nasty relationship with the city and its media. All we need is to get one of those guys, have them struggle a little, and then have their minds blow up when all the same media guys come down on them, once again.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 08:32 PM) Rex. How many billions of dollars of aid have we sent to countries in the middle east? How many times have we stepped in to help out when they had an earthquake or some other catastrophe? It doesn't matter to these people what we do, they are all getting programmed from birth to hate us. As long as you have representatives of the Islamo-fascist movement controlling education over there then there's going to be terrorism and I don't see what you can do or say to combat that. Funny how you talk about American values. You're spot on right. Only problem is that Americans are so spoiled, lazy and unwilling to get involved that they would laugh at such a request. Americans are not interested in sacrifice, hell, you can't even get them to stop driving their SUV'S for an errand thats 3 blocks away to save gas...( they sure want to b**** about the price at the pump though........THE IDIOTS!!). Americans want to drive their SUV'S, want a huge house, they want to all live the bling-bling high life and they all want to sit around and eat cheeseburgers and drink beer all day. What's worse is that they want to complain and file lawsuits when they have to pay for it all and when they become obese. What a bunch of spoiled, whiny b****es we have become. Our ancestors would be ashamed of us. America has never been challenged as it is being challenged now and has never faced a greater threat than it does now. This is no time to be sitting around wringing your hands and whining about our methods, this is a time for bold, decisive action. We have the means to defeat terrorism but I'm afraid that we don't have the will to use them. Those who would hamstring our war on terror are every bit as dangerous as the terrorists themselves. First of all, I think you're completely wrong in saying that America has never faced a greater threat than it does now. Do you seriously think that a few people capable of detonating bombs in department stores is as big of a threat as a nation that was armed with 20,000 nuclear warheads, most of them pointed directly at us? Or against a nation that believed so strongly in its own racial superiority that it tried to enslave the rest of the world and killed millions? Or against a military machine that was able to overrun almost the entire western Pacific in 6 months? Even if Bin Laden was able to do everything he wanted to do, and even got his hands on a nuclear bomb, this nation would survive even if we did nothing. It wouldn't be smart obviously, but there is simply no way that this is the greatest threat America has ever faced. Secondly, with your 2nd paragraph, you illustrate one of the greatest tragedies of 9/11, the failure of the U.S. to use it as motivation to actually gear the people of this nation up to fight the war on Al Qaeda. What were we, the average American, asked to do after 9/11? Shop. That is the only thing that we were ever asked to do after 9/11. We weren't asked to enlist, we weren't asked to cut back on driving, we weren't even asked to sacrifice. The unity and determination that this country had in those weeks and months was used to get us to invade Iraq. Even if that war had to happen, then there was still a great opportunity for a real leader to use that disaster to unify Americans to make this nation a better place. Instead, we were asked to shop, and within a few years, the opportunity was gone. Would actually asking Americans to sacrifice, to either enlist, or to conserve, or to cut back on driving & turn off their lights, actually worked? Personally I think it would have to some degree, especially if it was teamed with education programs designed to help people. But we'll never know.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 08:28 PM) Agreed on all counts, that's exactly right. And the NFL is an interesting point.....they have all kinds of guys on HGH I'm sure (probably more than baseball), but nobody even says s*** about it. Not sure why things work that way. It's only a matter of time before the NFL finds itself with a lot of scrutiny. Why? Because all the stuff going on in that league is already starting to kill a lot of former players at very very young ages. 300 pound linemen don't exactly live that long anyway, and mix in some steroids to get up to 340, and you get the idea.

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Jun 11, 2006 -> 01:43 PM) He is good, but just like Jenks (probably should had said that about him too) I want to see them do this for a whole season. You got to be crazy if you believe he'll keep this up. He's pitched way out of his mind right now. And especially considering this is his first year even closing whereas Jenks already has experience last year, (and in the playoffs) thus has more video footage on him. Papelbon has quite a few of his saves against weak teams as well (4 of his 20 are against the D-Rays, 20%.) Zumaya threw a couple of innings today to get his first save, but at the end of the game, with like 2 outs in the ninth, he threw a pitch too low, called Pudge out to the mound with some pain in his side. He finished the game, but that's got to be your real concern with a guy like Zumaya...overworking a guy that young could destroy his arm.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jun 11, 2006 -> 02:19 PM) Problem is, that's not the DeLay route. DeLay denied everything, pledged to fight, and stuck around in Congress for several months insisting on his innocence and being a pain in the ass, before finally retiring and saying he did everything with honor and integrity. If you want the DeLay route, this is going to be awhile. As long as there's a resignation somewhere along the lines.

Freddy...take care of business. Please. Let's go on the road on a high note.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Jun 11, 2006 -> 01:35 PM) Give him the Pujols treatment, unless V Mart is red hot, and call it a day. He's a monster, and even moreso against us. Martinez has been red hot this month. Walking Hafner in May would have been a great idea.

I spent most of my speech bashing the administration at my school and I didn't get noticed by ABC.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jun 11, 2006 -> 01:45 PM) Wars on nouns are tough. I thought BHam had a legit point. You might expect at least a small bump in the polls, but no. Most Polls take at least 3 days to be fully completed, if you want to run for 1000+ people and actually get a reasonable margin of error. This thread shouldn't have appeared until the middle of next week.

Lieberman was ahead in similar polls taken in early 2002 as well. Why? Because he was the #2 guy on the 00 ticket, and despite the fact that people who actually read the paper know who people like Feingold, Bayh, Warner, et al. are, most of the people who are sampled by large scale public polls only really know the guy who was on the ticket last time.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 11, 2006 -> 07:25 AM) All thought it is a fair request, I would still love to see the same respect paid to the religious right, and fiscal/small government conservatives... I would love for Mr. Jefferson to take the Delay route and retire now.

If other people are allowed to hold gatherings of any sort on the site, then sure.

Maybe even more interesting is this story...the DOJ is asking Bonds's ex girlfriend (who previously testified under oath that she thought he was juicing) to not cooperate or speak to George Mitchell's investigation, because things she say there could interfere with any case the DOJ is able to build against Bonds.

QUOTE(Jeckle2000 @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 04:01 PM) How on earth does this even happen... It's not like she can just buy the ticket with her minimum wage job at McDonalds... Parents who give their kids credit cards is my guess.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 05:15 PM) So we're halfway around the infield now. I'm assuming Tadahito Iguchi will be the next to feel shoota's wrath? He was getting close before today's game, but I think he's earned a bit of a reprieve.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 04:41 PM) And by 'Republicans', you are not referring to anyone currently in office, right? Hannity, someone from Fox News, etc is what you are saying, right? Painting with a broad brush again, I see. Or maybe you were assuming that since Republicans didn't rush out to condemn her, that it implies support of her words? That surely can't be the case, can it? Otherwise, Democrats would never get anything done, having to spend all their time condemning what others do who happen to have Democrat as their political affiliaton. ”Does this mean that you agree with (insert leftist name) when he/she attacked Republicans with the following statement (insert radical lib over the top statement here)? Your silence means that you agree. Mary Matalin, former counsel to Vice President Cheney and assistant to President Bush, and current Treasurer of the campaign of Repub. Presidential Hopeful George Allen (and wife of James Carville btw) refusing to condemn Coulter and arguing that the outrage is misplaced.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 04:33 PM) How many more wins does he need to become the winningest pitcher post steroid suspension? Screw steroid boy Montero. Rincon and Betancourt probably have pretty decent head starts on him.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jun 10, 2006 -> 01:47 PM) Ok, so, Einstien of foreign policy, what would you do? "Negotiate"? IT DOESN'T WORK. To me, the weenie asses in this country want the war to be easy, "peaceful"... (love that oxymoron), and let them deal with the aftermath. "We didn't want this war"... too f***ing bad. They brought it to us. How convenient it is to forget that. "Iraq wasn't part of 9/11"... NO!! It wasn't. But the IDEOLOGY was. And that ideology needs to be eradicated. Period. And it will last a generation, at least. Iraq had nothing to do with that ideology either. Iraq wasn't producing terrorists, Iraq wasn't radicalizing people, Iraq produced almost no portion of Al Qaeda's men, Iraq was at least on some level a secular regime which allowed some degree of religious tolerance (even Christians in the government). You don't fight an ideology by strengthening it. Sure, negotiating with terrorists is stupid on its face, depending on who you classify as terrorists. Negotiating with Bin Laden? Yeah, that would be insane. But that doesn't mean you can't cut off his supply of men by trying to actually make the lives better for the people of the region. That's the idea here...yes you have to kill some of them, but you also have to make sure you're not creating more than you kill, and we've been doing that since 2003. By a lot.

Not nearly enough Hair on that Crede...