Balta1701

QUOTE (flavum @ Apr 6, 2017 -> 03:53 PM) I still think the Tigers are decent. Ausmus has never impressed me though. And look here, the Twins swept the Royals. It would suck if the Indians get the 1-seed just because of a crappy division, but that's the system. Maybe Zimmerman and Fulmer will give them more juice, they still have some bats, but I haven't felt them in it at all today.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Apr 6, 2017 -> 03:50 PM) Indeed. At least the Sox realize where they are on the win curve. They have really looked old and slow today.

I'm also somewhat getting the opinion this Tigers team...may not be very good.

QUOTE (Sox-35th @ Apr 6, 2017 -> 03:12 PM) I like Matt Davidson That was off a righty too.

Have a Day(vidson)

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Apr 6, 2017 -> 02:25 PM) Something's very wrong - shields is somehow resembling a professional MLB caliber pitcher here He did that plenty of games last year also, but then 2 weeks later he'd give up 7 in an inning.

Well, the first game of the year I can watch and the broadcast has turned to discussing rabbit-squirrel hybrids.

So was that the contact play on with the catcher at 3b?

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Apr 6, 2017 -> 02:01 PM) Great swing by Davidson. Beautiful job of staying closed and down on the ball.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 6, 2017 -> 02:00 PM) But that play is never overturned it seems THat play seemed too close to overturn, but I'm not watching this in HD. Nice swing Davidson.

Hi everyone! Yay for MLB.tv free game of the day.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 25, 2017 -> 10:21 AM) Joakim Noah suspended 20 games for taking a banned over the counter supplement. I guess it isn't banned under the new CBA. With where his career has gone I'm also not surprised he's pushing the limits. Getting old doesn't seem like it will sit well with him.

QUOTE (Soha @ Mar 25, 2017 -> 03:58 PM) The Sox got Giolito in part because word was all around baseball that the Nats were down on Giolito. That his stock is down from it's peak was part of the trade - not a sudden tough break for the White Sox. To me Lopez is the biggest piece of the deal, but I still feel really good about Giolito and his future. It might take a few years. Maybe he won't be a #1. Heck maybe he'll end up in the pen. That doesn't mean he won't be darn good someday. I still feel like we had this thread in 2007 about Gavin Floyd.

QUOTE (Boogua @ Mar 25, 2017 -> 11:47 AM) I'm really surprised Alford didn't want the job. This seems much better for IU though. I can't speak for the whole alumni base but there's a pretty substantial "no to Alford" movement out there that has popped up in a lot of places for me. I don't think it would have gone over that well. But yeah I'm rather content with this hire.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 16, 2017 -> 11:34 AM) Bizarre timing. Sucks for Illinois but may not matter if they have guy. But hope would be IU didn't hear some coach was receptive to leaving that they liked, decided to grab instead. Wasn't there some rule with Crean that his buyout dropped every year but not immediately at the end of a season?

Anyone suggested Hoiberg for these jobs yet? Maybe solve two franchise problems?

QUOTE (zenryan @ Mar 8, 2017 -> 11:15 PM) So the Bears are spending $15M a season and will without a doubt have the 4th best QB in their division and the ceiling will be 3rd best in the division as long nothing changes in GB and Detroit. What sense does that make? I get that QBs make a lot of money but is he really double the worth of Hoyer? Maybe all Glennon needs is a chance as a starter but is anyone really thinking he is face of the franchise material? I guess the simple question in reply is...what FA move does this signing prevent the Bears from making that would have made this team substantially better long term? They've got what, $60 million in cap space before this? They needed someone to be a warm body there, this is low money for a starting QB, the cap has gone up by 50% over the last few seasons so this is comparable to what a $10 million QB would have gotten in 2012-2013, if you want to develop WR and RB and O-line you still need someone to throw passes to them, and if none of this year's QBs are ready to step in right away this at least does buy them time to draft and develop. If you can point to me and say "they absolutely should have signed player X, Y, and Z because it will make them better in 2 years if they can put their signing bonus on the books right now and this QB is in the way", then ok you've got a strong case, but that doesn't strike me as very common in NFL free agency, especially considering how often guys get hurt.

Visiting Scholar at Texas A&M "Mistakenly detained" at IAH, after 12 hours was on the verge of being deported before the University's Law School was able to step in to rescue him. States that the officer that arrested him was "inexperienced". Regularly visits A&M, is a Visting Scholar here, works on memory and traumatic events, for extra irony has repeatedly given talks about the Vichy government in France and their role in the Holocaust. French citizen, Senior Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, targeted because he was born in Egypt.

I read this bulls*** and had to fight back tears. The 1996 Olympics wouldn't get out of my head.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Feb 20, 2017 -> 05:08 PM) If your life gets ruined by someone's words that on you. The type of feeble minded people who get their lives ruined by words were never going to amount to anything anyways. I am assuming we're talking about adults at least. I am pretty sure Yiannopolous is the one getting death threats that the FBI is investigating. I am pretty sure the people that are against Yiannopolous are the ones tearing up communities. But to your point, I am sure this scant, gay, jewish man from England who is clad in jewelry and hair dye is going to lead an army murdering transgender people, minorities and a female game designer. This is the stuff we need to be outraged about! Not the crippling debt, not the perpetual war, not the fact that that the land of the free incarcerates more people than any country in the world, not the fact that our government is compromised and has no regard for the American people's wishes, we need to direct our attention at a little mischievous gay man who talks s*** about trangsgenders, awful actors and a female game designer. Sheep. The bolded is complete and utter bulls***. Let's take the specific example in this case. First and foremost, I'm going to ignore the fact that you seem to think he's unimportant when the President of the United States has tweeted about him personally and when he's editor of the "news source" that the President's closest advisor runs, which makes him newsworthy anyway, but let's just focus on the specific sequence. In December, this person stood up on stage, published personal information about a transgendered person at the University of Wisconsin. After that, although we don't have all the details, some combination of identity theft and threats happened to that person. That person was forced to leave the University of Wisconsin. He has found a creative way around the law. It's illegal to yell fire in a crowded room, but he's realized that if he yells the "Fi" and has 10,000 people trained to yell the "RE" part, then he will not be prosecuted for encouraging a riot and when there are 10,000 people who each commit a small portion of the crime, law enforcement agencies will be overwhelmed and unable to prosecute. He is actually hurting people and this is his schtick. It isn't just this case, that's one example, go all the way back to GamerGate and that was his thing - outing people who he believes deserves to be hurt. Hell, that's his literal defense against being labeled a pedophile today, "I'm not a pedophile, I outed people who were pedophiles!" In this thread you have stated "The guy's notoriety has blown up because of young liberal's inability to allow people with differing opinions freedom of speech because the guy is, by their account, a Nazi." In other words, you believe it is a problem when people actually stand up against someone DOING ACTUAL HARM to the lives of people. The problem you choose to call out is not that he is actually hurting people, it's that people stand up and say they don't want harm done to people. A few posts later you then state "Never understood the American ideal of supporting one party and compromising my beliefs on certain issues because of my affiliation to a party and social club." Ok, great. So why exactly did he get your attention other than him being a part of a social club that you felt compelled to defend? Either you had to wait until the person in your social club was hurt or you do not consider the people he hurt before that to be worth your defense. You had nothing to say when he was going around actually hurting people, but the moment his right to paid speaking engagements at a university where he has demonstrated he will actually hurt people in that community was violated, you stepped in to say how inappropriate it was. You were ok with him hurting people as long as the groups he was hurting were not powerful enough for you to be forced to pay attention to it. You criticize a guy for going on Maher's show when Maher said other things and then getting outraged here. Your point is arguably correct. But then you criticize sheep on the left for actually stepping in to defend people who don't have the power to defend themselves. So why is this person worthy of your defense when a person outed for being transgender is not? Why is it such an outrage to you that a community like UC Berkeley would actually step forwards and defend the rights of their underprivileged students to not be harmed, but it isn't an outrage to you when he actually does harm to them in a way that cannot currently be prosecuted?

QUOTE (raBBit @ Feb 20, 2017 -> 02:45 PM) Thankfully public opinion considers more than your own. You brought up him being on Maher legitimizing him. I brought up the fact that he was only on Maher because his notoriety was emboldened by all the socialist millenials. And emboldening him means standing up to him actively ruining people's lives for no other reason than them being transgender, a minority, or a female game designer. Well I guess those groups don't count as people so they don't deserve to be defended against actual threats.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 13, 2017 -> 08:01 PM) The fact that we'd be willing to dangle Lopez is a good sign, imo. If we move him, that tells me we are looking at shaking things up a bit more then I expected. I'd also presume Taj is on the block. Well, no one noted this today so I will - the main team so far rumored as possibly targeting Taj, the Torotno Raptors, got their big guy today by trading for Ibaka. Also worth noting today, somehow the Bulls got their 11th straight win over the Torotno Raptors. Without Wade or Mirotic this time. Butler was 2-10 from the field and still put up 19 points. Your guess about this is as good as anyone's.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 13, 2017 -> 04:53 PM) I said: Well, he was loved in Minnesota and I've watched long interviews with him and I like his style. I guess some of his positions are very radical but I feel like he genuinely cares about people. I could be wrong but this is a world of style over substance and I like his style. He's convinced me he's good, not evil. Maybe it's too strong to say Trump and Hillary are evil, but I feel like they are not good for the average American. This is, of course, wrong also. He took office in 1999 and was fairly popular for the first couple years, but that was also at the peak of an economic expansion where tax revenues were rising. However, in 2000, the U.S. Economy began a multi year period of recession, slow growth, and repeated financial industry fraud implosions. At that point, Minnesota's tax revenues turned around and many of the things he promised he couldn't find money to pay for. He had been sending tax rebates to people and the money dried up. At that time, he suddenly ran into a budget crisis - he wasn't a negotiator and as a consequence, when the budget had to be constrained, he became incredibly ineffective. His approval ratings in 1999 started over 70%, but by 2002, when he declared that he wasn't running for reelection, his approval ratings had dropped to 40%, and although I haven't found a good reference for the actual poll right before he left, some articles say his approval ratings had dropped into Bush-territory by then. And his celebrity bullcrap wound up taking him away from the state, hurting his ability to have an agenda, and hurting the state. Specifically, here's a Forbes article: Add in a s***ton of racism and some holocaust denial, and that sounds disturbingly familiar.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 13, 2017 -> 03:56 PM) I feel I have to remind people because I get lumped in with Trump lovers. I'm just giving him a chance unlike many on the board. We couldn't even have a nice thread wishing him the best after the election. There's no reason for me to want Trump to fail. So you look at hundreds of people detained at airports and tens of thousands of people with their Visas canceled because they worship the wrong way and you think "we need to give this a chance". There are no positive words for that.

QUOTE (fathom @ Feb 13, 2017 -> 08:33 PM) It was the worst kept secret in Chicago that many members of the organization wanted Sale traded after the jersey situation. Until someone else gets traded that wasn't considered a clubhouse issue, it's hard to completely rule out why just Sale and Eaton were traded. One thing I'm not sure I've seen anyone point out is that back in September or early October, Hahn had a line saying "You'll know our direction after the second trade" - something very close to that, specifically stating 2 trades. I have to admit, I find that line more interesting as of now, waiting for any movement other than the 2 trades he basically said would happen.