Balta1701

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 12:56 PM) Well, that is determined by MLB scorekeepers, isnt it? If they determine the catcher could have done something about it, it is then termed a passed ball and charged to the catcher. As far as I know, the rule is that if it's in the dirt, it's going to be a wild pitch. Or at least that's how they get called. But that doesn't mean a good defensive catcher can't get his body in front of a bunch of those and keep the ball in front of him, thus preventing the wild pitch.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 12:58 PM) They could decide not to build the distribution wharehouse under consideration. That assumes there's an alternate spot that would work as effectively for distribution where WalMart could just easily move it around in order to punish Maryland. There are lots of other issues that decide where you're going to put one of those other than revenge: Labor costs of workers at the facility, availability of workers there, education of workers in the area, land value, access to transportation, quality of transportation, tax rates in that state, distance from stores which will be supplied by that facility, distance between that facility and other distribution centers, etc. It's not that easy to just decide not to build a facility in Maryland to punish MD...it's in fact quite likely that if they did that, they'd wind up spending a lot more on the facility itself.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 12:22 PM) If Lendale runs a sub 4.5 you could see him easily top 10, arguably the best back in the nation really. In a chat today, Kiper suggested he could see him falling all the way to the Patriots.

Still before we even talk about AJ and gold gloves, I think it would behoove us all to go look at which pitchers had the most wild pitches in the league. Even though a WP isn't credited to the catcher, that doesn't mean there's nothing the catcher can do to stop it...that only means it was in the dirt.

Personally, I gotta go with A.J., for a bunch of reasons. First, last year was simply his worst year with the bat. His power numbers masked that some, but he hit 30 points below his career average, and 50 points below what he was usually hitting in Minnesota. He still has all the advantages of hitting in the Cell next year to help push his power numbers back up, but all he really needs to do is get that average back up and his numbers should go through the roof. Furthermore, just watching him last year, I can't think of anyone else on our team who hit more lined shots directly at defensive players on the other team. Every week it'd seem like he'd hit 3-4 rockets right at people that just always seemed to turn into outs. I kept thinking he was going to catch fire all year, but he just never did. I'd love to say Crede here...but my head tells me AJ will go up the most.

Roberts before his confirmation hearings:

Will check the DVD tonight if no one else does first.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 11:39 AM) Because it is unconsititutional? If the Terry Schaivo bill didn't cross that line, this certainly won't either.

November Santorum: "The K Street project is purely to make sure we have qualified applicants for positions that are in town. From my perspective, it's a good government thing." January Santorum: "Well, I don't know what you mean by Senate liaison to the, quote, 'K Street Project.' I'm not aware of any Senate liaison job that I do for the K Street Project."

I don't see it up yet, but last year whitesox.com offered a download which, when run, automatically placed the Sox Schedule into Outlook. I just looked and did not see the same option yet up. My advice is to wait a little while and it will probably show up...and it's a lot easier than creating your own Excel/Word sheets and then adding things to Outlook manually.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 10:13 AM) Because Neyer is a stathead and he argued all last season that the White Sox weren't good enough to win the World Series. Now he looks like an idiot because his stats failed him. The thing I think Neyer is failing to realize right now is that he still doesn't have a large enough package of stats to evaluate teams. For example, we all know that there still aren't real good, perfect metrics through which defensive performance can be evaluated, nor can we tell how defensive performance impacts total game results yet. The White Sox looked like they should be a worse team based on older stats, like OPS. But the places where we excelled last year (pitching and defense) were places where there aren't always good stats to allow for evaluation of every single point.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 10:04 AM) #4 It isn't that any one WMT makes a lot of money, it is the fact that their business model has a ton of stores making a steady solid small profit, which adds up to huge profits at the end of the day. I really don't think adding 8% to their single biggest expense (payroll) is going to be good for many individual stores bottoms lines, and I think WMT with their history of playing tough will resort to store closings in many cases sooner than letting their profits get ate up by this law. I think they will recognize that they can invest their capital into more corporate friendly areas and shutdown stores that aren't profiting as much as other areas could be. Well here's the question though...can Wal-Mart stand up to a serious challenge of this sort? Let's say WM decided that in response they were going to close any store in MD which fell below a certain level of profitability. What happens when another state enacts this law? Then another? What happens when California does? Wal Mart is able to function in large part because of their size. They can go to their manufacturers and tell them that they have to give WalMart a discount because they're so big that manufacturers desperately want their products sold in WM (thus forcing the manufacturers to employ cheap Chinese labor). But if this becomes more than a 1-state phenomenon...Walmart can't exactly just pull out of California, for example, if they hope to be able to maintain that strength over their manufacturers.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 10:08 AM) The courts have been explicit on this point, most recently in In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the court noted that in a previous FISA case (U.S. v. Truong), a federal "court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue [our emphasis], held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information." And further that, "We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power." I don't think United States v. Truong Dinh Hung really applies here since he wasn't a US citizen or permanent resident alien (and, therefore, not a US person). Under existing law, his communications could be monitored without needing to request permission from a FISA court. What we're talking about here is monitoring of US citizens, not foreign citizens who just happen to be inside the US at the time they're being monitored.

QUOTE(BHAMBARONS @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 07:41 AM) 2. I like college players as well and they are the safe bet but really it depends on the front office, are they more risk takers? Or do they like the money ball approach with the safe the pick? I tend to agree with you about the college players but I have also seen some good prospects in high school and there are some players that are certainly worth the risk. I sort of disagree that this is the "Moneyball" approach. To me, the whole "Moneyball" approach was focused on finding value in places other teams were undervaluing. Teams were overvaluing BA against OBP, so Beane put together teams composed of high OBP players, etc. The draft story I got was that Beane felt people were overvaluing high school level performances, and not giving enough value to college performances. So, he went and focused his drafts on guys who had performed to his criteria in college. But now, people have started valuing college performances more highly, so that under-valuation has corrected itself, and voila...the A's were drafting High Schoolers and college players both last year. The Moneyball philosophy is that to compete in the big leagues, you have to find value wherever you can. It's a risk to draft a high-schooler, but if a guy starts to drop in the draft because he's a high-schooler, then at some level it does become worht the risk.

The Indians strengthened their roster this year Rob? Paul Byrd being that huge upgrade from Millwood?

Your happy birthday message is waiting under the My Controls option Hehehehe Happy Birthday!

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 09:58 PM) honestly, I'm still in shock about the whole thing: were they all just eunichs before? Tom Daschle is waving hi.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 18, 2006 -> 08:55 AM) All this does, is give incentive to Wal-Mart to keep payroll lower. Thus, less hiring and lower raises. They can always blame the Maryland legislature for poor raises accross the board. You're making several assumptions there...first, that Wal-mart actually gives significant raises with time (I don't know their pay schedule, and for all I know it differs with stores), and second, that somehow the stores could operate with less staff, which is probably untrue. My father used to run a couple of grocery stores, and he taught me one thing about the retail industry - it's almost always boom/bust, for one simple reason; when stores first open, they can expand rapidly because all of their employees are new hirees, and are getting paid lower wages. Then, as the expansion period stops, several things happen simultaneously - the product can get a little stale because everyone has seen it, so sales go flat, and secondly...their payroll numbers start to rise because their stores have been open longer. Wal-Mart has really been the company that has defied this trend, for a couple reasons. One, they're still expanding, and they keep finding new ways to expand (i.e. the supercenters, etc.). Second, Wal-Mart keeps a very high turnover rate in most of its stores, so that its employees don't hang on for that long. Third, by putting other stores which could pay better out of business, Wal-Mart becomes the only game in town, so that people can't really leave if Wal-Mart doesn't give them large enough raises to support their families.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 06:09 PM) Rushing the floor? Is ILL ranked No.1 or something? I guess that's just what happens when you are no longer an elite program. Something like that would never happen on Izzo's watch. Give em a break...it's been a while.

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 05:29 PM) Just bring in Hicks to foul Killingsworth every time he touches the ball, I'm not kidding. He's not going to miss a shot from the field. Hack-a-marco just doesn't sound as good.

QUOTE(IlliniKrush @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 05:28 PM) Dee's still in...i guess nothing to lose at this point. Makes sense to me, might as well get every minute out of him you can. If he fouls out or sits on the bench he loses time either way.

By the way, while we're all here, what was the last update on D.J.? Is there any chance he'll be back this season? Last stuff I read seemed like people had no idea how long he'd be out.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 04:28 PM) If a fire destroyed Chicago again, I wonder how quickly Daley would be fired if he said... "It's time to rebuild Chicago... a WHITER Chicago!" "Clearly, this fire is revenge for the suckiness of one of our baseball teams. God must consider it an affront. I call upon all Chicagoans to take your cubs merchandise and give it to the firemen. They will light it all on fire and use it as a firebreak to slow down the wrath of the angry Jesus!"

QUOTE(whitesoxfan99 @ Jan 17, 2006 -> 04:48 PM) If the refs let us play I'll let you know. The foul count in the first half was 10-7, Il/IU. Not totally even but it is @ Indiana...and that's not anywhere close to the refs "not letting you play". I was at an OSU/IU game where there was like twice that number. That's not letting them play.

This game is tied and we're shooting 28.6% from the floor.