Balta1701

QUOTE(TheBigHurt @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 04:31 PM) Well as I said, it would be a bit sad to see them lose teh best win record, especially seeing as teh game yesterday was called. Again, even if the Cards had won yesterday, we'd still have 1 game up on them.

If it turns out that the game would affect neither the playoff seedings, home field advantage, or anything else, then is it possible to just not play it? I think there's a good chance that if that's an option, the league will hold its cards and not schedule it until they know that a 1/2 game change in standings could change things. On the other hand, what happens if the Red Sox wind up with the Wild Card due to some sort of Yankee surge or something like that? The 2 Sox play each other in a wrapup game of the season, and then immediately start a 7 game playoff series? Anyone up for an 8 game series with a practice opener?

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 03:57 PM) Even if they did win, we still would of had the better record. They're tied with us in wins, but 3 games behind in the loss column. In other words...they do have a shot to be the first team to 80 wins, but you're correct we'd still have the better record.

Also worth noting is that just because a school has been "Renovated" doesn't mean it's in decent shape at all... Especially in the first year of the occupation, whenever someone did visit one of those "renovated" schools, they found that the contractors hired to renovate them went in, replaced a few things, painted over the crumbling paint already there, charged the US a few million dollars and left...within a few months the paint crumbled back off and the school was in basically the same condition that it was before the contractors had visited.

"AP responds...'we don't want our people to get shot'"

QUOTE(tonyho7476 @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 02:48 PM) I'm sick of timo...what the f***?!? Minnesota is missing their regular center fielder, so we've decided to take some pity on them.

QUOTE(longshot7 @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 02:18 PM) Drew only played CF when Bradley was on the DL - now that he's back, Drew was playing RF before getting hurt again. There was actually a bit of a feud between the two in spring training about who was going to get CF.

QUOTE(Chisoxrd5 @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 01:55 PM) Ha...I'll be there (they have only lost 5 in a row with me in attendance) shhhhhhh So our recent skid at home is your fault!!!

Update...they've officially Missed the deadline for the Iraqi Parliament to pass the constitution. The National Assembly has passed by unanimous vote a 1 week extension for continued work on it. What does this mean? As far as I can tell, it means that the Iraqi National Assembly has just voted the Interim constitution into abeyance. Stealing liberally from Prof. Juan Cole:

I will throw this into the mix...one of the best things to happen to the Sox with regards to Konerko this year may very well be the recovery of Jason "the needle holes in my ass are from kinky foreplay" Giambi. Why? Because it may very well remove 1 important team from bidding on Konerko. If Giambi was hitting .220 all year, do you think the Yankees would be in the market for a 1b man in the offseason? I'll guarantee you they would be. Boston may very well be in the mix depending on what they do with Millar and that guy from Japan who homered off Garland (he could help us a lot too!). After that though...the big money teams at least seem set at 1b. Cardinals, Cubs, Angels all have good 1b guys. This means that if we're bidding, we're at least bidding against teams that are roughly on the same level as us... Toronto may be looking to add a bat/add salary San Fran may need someone Who knows what the Dodgers will do The Mets could try to make a run at him The good news though is that I don't see a lot of rich teams that could be looking to add salary and a bat at 1b unless someone makes a trade.

QUOTE(longshot7 @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 12:46 PM) Just listened to Gammons on Dan Patrick Show - he said there are some other teams interested, but still unsure if a deal would get done. Said it would greatly help the Sox while Pods is out (so he can heal) but suggested the Sox move Rowand to LF. I'm not sure I get this - Rowand is younger, faster, and a better CFer at this point. Move Griff to LF until Scotty gets back and then platoon him and Carl. Griffey will never play RF or LF. It's a matter of the throws to the infield. In RF and LF you're throwing at much more of an angle than you are from CF. I honestly don't know how this matters, but I've read repeatedly that it somehow puts more stress on your legs to throw from the corner outfield spots. That's the last thing you want with a guy like Griffey, with a history of leg problems.

QUOTE(Greg Hibbard @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 12:55 PM) When has defense at first base ever been a priority? Every time that the ball is hit on the ground to any infielder. Seriously though...we've managed to deal with below average-average-good fielding first basemen for basically my whole lifetime...Thomas, Konerko, etc. Sometimes, just as a reminder, it's quite informative to flip over and watch the games of teams with truly great defensive 1b guys, like the Giants, Cubs, or Angels. The amazing thing is how much better it makes everyone else on your defense, because they know that if they get the ball in the area of 1b, it'll be sucked up for an out. Suddenly guys make throws that they wouldn't make without that 1b, and they turn into outs/great plays. Throwing errors on routine plays disappear. It makes your whole infield defense better. It's been so long since this team has had a great defensive 1b that I think some of us might not realize how big of an impact that kind of player can make.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 12:02 PM) Excellent move. I want to see the rest of the guys get brought back now. Its definately been a slow moving offseason thus far for Chicago. I can't complain at all about how slow this offseason has moved. When the offseason started, I was genuinely scared that someone would do to the Bulls what was done to the Clippers a few years ago by the Heat...the Clips had like 3 big name guys all hitting the free agent market (Odom, I believe Maggette, and I think someone else) at the same time. What happened? The Clips wanted to keep their guys togehter, but then offers started coming in for all the guys. The Clips matched the offers for Maggette, but then because they had to pay him so much, the price for Odom became too rich for their blood, so they had to let him go. I was worried we'd lose at least 1 of the big guys for the same reason...someone would make offers to Chandler just to drive his price up and then make a run at Curry or vice-versa. I've personally been astonished at the lack of interest in Chandler...even though the Bulls are saying they'll match, usually that's not a reason not to offer.

Chris Duhon will be staying in Chicago next year. The Bulls have matched Toronto's $10 million/3 year offer for the point guard.

Just sit around and pray for Leinart, Bears fans.

Juggs, when you call his numbers for May 05 "Fair", there's simply somehting wrong wiht your analysis. He was absolutely terrible that month.

Another big, likely more important point is how much salary flexibility KW Will have from Reinsdorf after this season. Given even a couple of playoff games, plus the attendance numbers we've had all year, it seems clear to me that KW has to have some decent flexibility. In his chair, my #1 and #2 goals are to keep Buehrle and Garland around for at least the next 5 years. Beyond that, I'd consider keeping Konerko if the price was right, but I wouldn't let his cost interfere with keeping that 1-2 combo.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 11:26 AM) Wow, comparing Pauly to Ramirez? I don't think there is a clean up hitter in all of baseball that is nearly as clutch as Manny. Manny is also making $20 million a year, and not $8.75 million. I don't think there are many you can compare Manny to as a hitter, as there are few in the game even in his ballpark, let alone as a peer.+ I was using Ramirez as the ideal. If you'd like I can go back to Carlos Lee. Or I can even compare this year's Konerko to previous years' Konerko...his hitting with RISP is down even for him, by quite a bit.

QUOTE(Queen Prawn @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 11:10 AM) Small block and big block Fords have a great throaty sound as well. I would like to get a hybrid for my next car (hopefully 4-5 years in the future), but I hope the batteries for these types of cars inprove in reliability and go down in cost (not sure where it is now, but some of those were high priced the last time I looked). Toyota offers a 10 year warranty on all of the battery systems on their hybrids. I believe Honda may as well, although I haven't researched theirs as much. The Prius is roughly the same price as a Camry, has slightly more interior space, and has the hybrid engine. If you're not in the market for a mid-sized sedan I wouldn't say to buy one, but if you are, I think it's a very competitive vehicle.

Paulie has been incredibly important to this team, but he's also been an incredible disappointment to this team for 1 reason; his hitting with Runners in scoring position. Let's do a quick comparison with a real #4 hitter: Manny Ramirez. With Runners in scoring position, Ramirez has had 123 at bats. He is hitting .374 in those situations. With RISP and 2 outs, he has had 58 at bats, and is hitting a respectable .293. Konerko has fewer at bats with RISP, so we can't compare 1 to 1. But with runners in scoring position, Paulie is hitting a paltry .240 in 104 at bats. In other words, when there are runners in scoring position, Manny becomes better, while Paulie becomes worse. On top of that, with RISP and 2 outs, Konerko is hitting a ridiculous .138, also in 58 at bats. Both Konerko and Ramirez have the same # of at bats with RISP and 2 outs. Konerko has 15 RBI, Ramirez has 31. If Paulie were just hitting his average with RISP, he could be upwards of 80-90 RBI's right now, and he could have helped us to a lot more big innings just by keeping things going with 2 outs. He should have 90-95 RBI at this point already this season, but his hitting in the clutch has just been that bad.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Aug 14, 2005 -> 09:44 AM) Which move do you think was not done "right?" Magglio? KW tried to trade Maggs for Nomar. Boston f***ed up. KW tried to trade Maggs for Andruw Jones. Atlanta heated up and won the division. I think there was an added element in the Jones deal...KW wanted Russ Ortiz also, and he was at the time the Braves best starting pitcher. That plus Ordonez was hurt, and the Braves would have been crazy to pull the trigger for a guy who was hurt. I personally wish KW had traded him before last season started, just so we could have gotten something for him. If the Nomar deal wasn't there, then there had to be someone else who was willing to grab a rent-a-bat. Houston, or LA, for example. I think he was holding out hope of Magglio Re-signing, so he didn't push as hard on a trade as say Billy Beane might have done.

QUOTE(Queen Prawn @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 11:07 AM) My sister and I were talking about that Saturday morning while gassing up my dad's car. Neither of us mention gas prices to him or else we hear about the price of gas in Ireland and Europe in general. The other side of that token of course is that while gas prices are high over there...it's due to taxes. So the governments over there have their people pay higher gas prices, but on the other hand, if they have a constant amount of revenue they need to bring in...they get the money back in those gas prices through lower taxes on other items. Would you pay $4 a gallon in gas prices if the extra dollar meant that you'd get a smaller property tax bill by the same amount?

Actually, it really won't take that much more for even a normal hybrid to become cost-effective with current oil prices...if you're a heavy city-based driver right now you'd probably be saving quite a bit with a prius over your average mid-sized sedan.

QUOTE(rangercal @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 10:49 AM) for people who can't sense you're sarcasm.... Didn't they have a 2nd bar at a 90 degree angle to hold the flag? I'm pretty sure they did. They had a wire frame to hold the flag upright, but that's actually not the criticism...the criticism is that supposedly the flag moves back and forth in the wind, and that can't happen because there's no wind on the moon. Trouble is, the folks who think its fake are just wrong in what the video shows.

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 10:39 AM) More importantly, how is it possibly waving? There is no wind or draft in space. It's a Hollywood movie. I know it's in green, but people have said this and meant it, so I'm going to respond. The flag's motion actually proves quite readily that it is on the Moon. The flag waves when it is touched by one of the astronauts, or when they move past it creating motion. But there are other times in the video from Apollo 11 that the flag stays perfectly still. This could not happen on Earth, as the slightest breeze would have moved the thing. But more important is how the flag behaves when it is touched; it sways back and forth for a very long time...tens of seconds to minutes. This is characteristic of only 1 environment; 1 with no atmosphere. If you blow on a flag on Earth, it waves back and forth a few times and then stops. Why? Wind resistance. The energy put into moving the flag is dissipated because it has to move air molecules out of the way to wave. ON the moon however, there is no atmosphere, so when the flag is touched, it continues waving until it loses the energy to another form, such as heat (from internal friction). That video is conclusive; the flag behaves as if it were in a vacuum. You cannot do that on Earth; there is no way to create a closed room with such a low air pressure to generate that video. Anywho, I personally think the fact that we have rocks from the place that don't fit into the puzzle on Earth is a better argument, but there's not a chance in hell that the video was faked.