Balta1701

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Feb 5, 2006 -> 07:55 PM) I disagree strongly. They missed big time calls that would've changed the outcome of the game. 1)Pass Interference call on Darrell Jackson. Very ticky-tack. Only 1 announcer out of like 10 said it was Pass Interference. What really pissed me off about this call is that the ref didn't call it until Pitt's DB started complaining. It was the definition of a late call. 2)Holding call on the Seahawks in which Hasselbeck completed a pass to Jeremy Stevens that put them at the 1-yard line. When looking at the replay, John Madden even mentioned, "I don't see the holding. There may have been holding on that play, but it sure as heck wasn't by the guy they called it on." 3)Ben Roethlisberger's TD run. He was stopped short. Replays showed that the ball never broke the plane. What's even worse about this is that the ref told Holmgren while heading to the tunnel for the half that he didn't think Ben got in. The ref is the one who makes the call. If you don't think he got in, you don't make the call he made. You overturn the call and it's 4th down. He didn't say he thought it was "inconclusive" he said he thought Ben didn't make it. 4)Horse-collar tackle by Mr. Big Mouth, Jerry Porter. A horsecollar tackle is supposed to be a 10 or 15 yard penalty automatically added onto a catch. Seattle gained around 7 yards on that play I think and calling that penalty would've added 15 more yards which would've been an automatic first and better field position. Seattle was already driving. 5)The 15 yard penalty on the illegal chop-blocking/holding on Matt Hasselbeck after the interception. Matt Hasselbeck clearly went for the guy who had the ball and he's the only one he touched. For some reason though, the refs don't see it that way(it was pretty easy to tell) and 15 yards are added on after Pitt's already at the 35 yard line. I would change the order slightly...because I think that the replays on Roethlisberger's touchdown were about as conclusive as the Replays on AJ taking first base (There are 2 scenes which are just too damn fuzzy, with the ball buried in Ben's arms - it may very well have slightly crossed while the tip was out of view). I flip-flop your #'s 3 and 5, but otherwise, you're right on.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Feb 5, 2006 -> 07:57 PM) So it's just like the actual Super Bowl halftime show then? Well...let's see, they brought out a bunch of kittens for the Puppy Bowl half time. The NFL brought out a bunch of mummies which were apparentely preserved in ice for several years. Bring the kitties back out in like 18 years, and then yeah, it'll be exactly like the Super Bowl halftime show.

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Feb 5, 2006 -> 07:55 PM) Lofa Tatupu just admitted the Steelers were the better team. Pretty crazy when Seahawks players can admit it, but fans can't. Well, he is right to some extent...the Steelers did get some plays past that defense that they should have stopped if they wanted to win (Parker, 'Twaan). They didn't stop those plays, so they lost. I still would have liked to see who would have been the better team in a fairly officiated game.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Feb 5, 2006 -> 07:49 PM) I'm not saying the game was fixed, or that any were....but if any sport were going to fix the games, it would be the NFL. The ONLY reason that sport is so much more popular than the others is gambling, and for them to cater to Vegas would not surprise me in the least. Roughly $2.2 billion was estimated before the game to have been changing hands today through gambling nationwide. Had the Refs given the Steelers that Hasselbeck fumble...Hell I might have been agreeing that the game was rigged. I just think they did a horrific job and made 2 bad calls at the worst possible time for the Seahawks, and made almost no bad calls that went against the Steelers. These things seem to happen...the Refs were pretty bad in the Pats/Broncos game, pretty bad in the Steelers/Colts game, etc. Sometimes you just get a bad year. At least they got the coin toss right.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Feb 5, 2006 -> 07:44 PM) Want a laugh? Go read the Seahawks scout board....they are calling Holmgren a hero for not shaking Cowher's hand, saying they hope the refs die in a plane crash on the way home, and saying the NFL rigged the game WWE style so the popular east coast team would win. It's a hilarious and over the top meltdown. If I was a Seahawks fan, or had money riding on the game, I might be at that level too. Well, except for the dying in the plane crash part. That's crossing the line. But like I said...the refs HANDED the Steelers that game. I was quite actively rooting for the Seahawks in the 4th quarter just because I didn't want the game to be decided on a pair of incredibly bad game-changing calls within a few seconds. But it turned out that it was. At least the Puppy Bowl seems to have been a fair contest.

Newsweek's running a version on this story I've brought up...can the President order a killing on U.S. soil?

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Feb 5, 2006 -> 07:37 PM) BTW, Jerome Bettis just retired. Man, did that ref who threw the holding call on the Seattle Pass to the 1 give him a nice retirement present.

Buehrle in Game 2 and Garcia in Game 4 of the W.S. are tied for me.

I haven't bought an MP3 player yet...but I know quite a few people around Caltech who have had problems with theirs' as well. One of the reasons I haven't bought one is that it seems like the technology isn't quite up to par yet given how much they cost.

So...tomorrow the Senate's hearings on this illegal program will start. One decent place for coverage would be Glenn Greenwald's spot, as he'll be live-blogging the hearings and also appearing on C-Span. Arlen Specter, who will be running the hearings, took a swipe or two at the program today on "Meet the Press", and went at Gonzalez by name.

Seems a 3rd guy was removed from the State of the Union speech. A guest of a Florda Congresswoman, who has a U.S. security clearance. It seems they saw his face, spent a few minutes talking, and decided that he might resemble someone on the terror watch list. Time.

So...QVC wasn't running White Sox merch immediately after the World Series ended as far as I saw, but they're running Steelers merch now. We're always disrespected!!!

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Feb 5, 2006 -> 07:11 PM) No he didn't shake it, Cowher stood at mid-field for like 5 minutes looking around in disbelief. Holmgren's probably about as pissed from watching the way the game was called as I was, and I wasn't even rooting for anything but a fair game.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Feb 5, 2006 -> 07:10 PM) Seattle did a lot of things themselves to hand that game to the Steelers. The game might have went different with a fairly called game by the refs, but Seattle screwed up so many times that they got what they deserved. Seattle made a few mistakes...but conveniently it seemed like the worst mistake they made (the pick) happened sandwiched between 2 completely phantom calls by the Refs.

Man, after watching that game, I can't help but think that the Refs just absolutely handed that trophy to the Steelers on a silver platter.

Sometimes, I just thank God that our President is so adamantly supportive of scientific exploration and using technology to go to the future. I can't imagine how this country's research departments are falling gradually behind the rest of the world with his support. Must be those unions. Link.

WaPo. So in other words...the President is lying when he says the program is only used against people speaking with Al Qaeda. It actually is data mining of a huge number of overseas calls.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 5, 2006 -> 12:02 PM) Just to clarify, I wouldn't want to eliminate any country from the UN. They all need a chair at the table. I just think that some countries' human rights records are so obviously disgusting, that there is no reason why they need to be given "their turn" on that particular committee. That placement should be earned, and voted on by a majority of countries (not a select few). I think this would be a good time to note that something similar to what you are describing was what Kofi Annan was hoping to accomplish with his Human Rights Commission reform plan. That, however, is not what Bolton tried to do with it. Bolton has, once again, managed to take the negotiations over this reform issue and stalemate it by insisting on the permanent 5 members of the Security Council each getting a guaranteed seat on the new HRC and most likely some sort of veto there as well. Basically of course, this would make it almost impossible for any criticism to happen of any of the countries on the new council, because if the U.S. wanted to file a complaint against China, the Chinese could just stop it, or could respond by filing some sort of complaint against the U.S.

-lgfwatch.

QUOTE(3E8 @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 08:16 PM) I agree with this guy. The combination of Everett, Thomas, and Rowand drove in 25% of our runs last season. One quarter of a run total that was in the bottom-half of the AL from that group! A lower run total this year is not out of the question in my opinion. We all know how I feel about Thome. Anderson will be below average offensively but we can't expect much there, and Crede batting behind him (not a fan) will hurt us some. Konerko's probably more likely to regress from last season's totals. I like Uribe as much as anyone here, but a .300 OBP from the 2-hole won't cut it. I'd consider him the most likely candidate for improvement however. There are a couple of things worth noting here. First...Yes Everett drove in a lot of runs, but he was also in the best RBI spot in our lineup...immediately behind Iguchi and Pods, which meant he was up all the bloody time with RISP. He was in a spot where he should have drove in a ton of runs. But, let's look at the other side of that token. Thomas, Rowand, and Everett combined only scored 154 runs. That is basically only 20% of our total runs scored last year. Everett in particular only scored 58, and that was hitting directly in front of our best hitter by a long shot. If healthy, over the last 9 years, aside from 2005, Jim Thome has averaged 103 runs scored, and that's without a bopper like Konerko hitting behind him much of the time. That's more than Everett and Thomas combined last year by 26 runs. That's a lot, especially if he winds up hitting in front of PK. I just keep looking at this offense and really liking what I see. Up and down the list. We've improved the bench. We've added a left handed bat, so that Ozzie can't try his failed All-Righty Santana lineup. And we've got a bunch of people who simply cannot do worse than they did last year. AJ - last year was his worst season in the big leagues. Crede - last season was a massive disappointment if you look at his monthly numbers. Uribe was massively down last year. Iguchi took several months to adapt to the league, and his power took that long to show up as well. Konerko struggled mightily in the first 2 months. Carl Everett was simply a fill-in in the DH spot. Rowand was a gigantic disappointment. Podsednik was unable to steal the last 2 months of the year. The only guy in that lineup who I would say "I don't hope he'll do any better than last year, I just hope he'll repeat his numbers" is Dye. That's it, and that's given Dye's dead-like start to the year. Konerko hit .315 after June 1, which had he done that the first 2 months of the season as well would have put him very very high on the MVP list. Crede was very good for everything but 2 months of the year, 1 of which was injury plagued. He had the highest OPS in the AL for the month of September when he had his swing working. Podsednik did great in hitting .290, he just needs to avoid long-term nagging injuries that slow him down. He should have swiped 80+ bases last year with the tear he was on. Pierzynski suddenly dropped form a .300 hitter to a .250 hitter. Even a Marginal improvement will push him back to .275-.280. No one hit more line drives right at people last year than he did. The numbers say it just has to even out for him. Anderson may well struggle, but it's almost impossible for him to put up worse numbers than Rowand did last year, given how bad Rowand actually did. On the other hand, Anderson still has a much higher upside, and it's entirely possible that having faced big league pitching and ran with the team through the entire playoffs last year, he'll come in more ready to play than anyone thinks next year. Uribe still needs to figure out a way to lay off some pitches. Hopefully hitting behind Podsednik and in front of Thome will help, since he'll get a ton more fastballs (do you really want to face Thome with 1st and 3rd?). All he needs is a little bit of patience and a willingness to hit the ball to the RHS. If Jim Thome is healthy...he will put up massively higher numbers than Everett. And if Thome gets hurt...for a DH, Everett's numbers last year were really so low that a trade for a career AAA guy may very well get enough to replace him. Hell Borchard could almost replace him with those numbers. Everett just wasn't that good at all last year, no matter what %age of our runs he knocked in. All he had to do was put the bat on the ball to knock Podsednik in a lot of times. And by having Everett getting on base so few times last year, Konerko's RBI numbers really were knocked down. On top of that, the bench is massively upgraded, so hopefully we won't see any more .218 hitting guys starting games as our leadoff hitter very often, and that's worth probably 10-20 runs right there. This team will be significantly better with the bats next year. Count on it. It just can't get any worse. And if everything were to go right, they can seriously challenge for the best offense in the league.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 10:34 PM) 2. THere is nothing out there that could make us any better for this year unless some team is stupid and wants to give up an Ace type pitcher. THats why they aren't trading Contreras. And KW has said on numerous occasions that he will always listen but won't trade Contreras away unless it is for pitching that can help us win a WS this year. KW is not looking for a bat, unless somebody is willing to give us something for nothing. If he traded Contreras it would be for good pitching and Gavin Floyd is not good pitching. Somebody that is an Ace type pitcher like the front office expects him to be this year. A significant portion of me tells me that this sort of talk is just rhetoric from KW. First, he doesn't want to sound like he's desperate to trade Jose, so that someone will try to offer him the sort of deal boston offered for Crisp; a blow-you-away type deal that will make you better for years. When you don't NEED to trade someone, you can wait for the right deal to come along, and that's where KW is sitting right now. Personally though if I'm in his chair...I wait until the season starts and I see how my guys get through the WBC. I try to deal well before the trading deadline. Especially if Contreras keeps up what he did in the 2nd half of last year...he'll be an incredible trading asset. Imagine what you could get for a #1 or #2 guy in the league in wins. If Jose struggles, BMac will probably replace him in the rotation pretty quick anyway, but if he's dominant...I try to see what I can get for him just because his value would be so damn high. But overall...yeah I don't make a deal without a backup plan. At least not an early one. If June rolls around, BMac and the other 4 starters are healthy and have only pitched a limited amount of innings...I see if someone in the NL might be willing to make a deal to make a big run. I still hate the idea of losing Jose for nothing player-wise, not even draft picks.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 07:13 PM) Other than his second full season sophomore slump in 2004, his numbers look pretty consistent with his career so far. Unless Crede learns some plate patience and starts drawing walks, the only way he will see an .800+ OPS is if he puts up a ~.500 SLG. Right now, Crede IS a mediocre hitter. Teams would want him at 3rd base more for his glove than his bat. But Crede IS entering his prime years so if it's going to happen at all it would probably have to happen next season or 2007. Until I see otherwise, I'm going to continue to hope that Crede can find something to turn himself into the hitter we keep getting glimpses of. You all know as well as I do that when Crede is rolling, he has simply the sweetest swing on our roster. Go back and watch the Rally Crede blast. That is an amazingly short and quick swing. Joe's problem has always been that he'll get his swing working for a time, then after a few weeks (i.e. May) his swing will lengthen itself out on outside pitches, he'll stop driving them the other way, and he'll start popping everything up. With a guy like Timo Perez, I'm happy to say he's just not going to be better than what we saw last year. But with Crede...all he needs to do is keep his swing consistent for an entire season. We haven't seen him do that yet, but it's not a huge step beyond what we've already seen from him. If he can just avoid trying to pull that low and outside pitch and spend a whole season trying to drive it the other way...thereby keeping his swing compact...he still has an all star in him. It's all in his swing.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 10:19 PM) I doubt that will happen that way, but you never know. I expect Ozzie will go out on his own terms. The last World Series winning manager who was fired was Bob Brenley of the Diamondbacks, fired in 2004 after winning in 01. McKeon retired this year. Francona still has the BoSox, Scoscia still has the Angels, Torre still has the Yankees. Leyland led the Marlins in 97, but he resigned after management dismantled the team. Bobby Cox won in 95. Cito Gaston managed the Blue Jays in the pre-strike years, but was fired in 97 and has not managed since. Tom Kelley won in '91 and '87 with the Twinkie bastages, and retired after 2001. Sweet Lou resigned in '92 after winning in 1990 with the Reds. LaRussa resigned in '95 to take over the Redbirds after winning in '89. Lasorda led the Dodgers in '88 and retired in '96. Davey Johnson managed the Mets in '86, and was fired in 1990. So out of the last 20 years, only 3 world series managers have been fired. The rest are either still managing or have retired/resigned, albiet not necessarily on their own terms (i.e. LaRussa). So the Odds certainly seem with the Oz being able to stay on as long as he wants, as long as management doesn't dismantle the team under him (i.e. Gaston in Toronto or Brenley in Arizona).

I just hope that no matter what the Bulls do this offseason, they can find some more size. With Gordon, Hinrich, Deng, and Duhon, they can control outside for a long long time.

QUOTE(sayitaintso @ Feb 3, 2006 -> 07:41 PM) Kalapse is yours moving? You know...you put some alcohol in your bloodstream, and suddenly it doesn't seem to be moving nearly as much as it did earlier.