Milkman delivers

QUOTE (Tex @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 12:39 PM) With the kind of disappointing season the team had, plus the usual solid season Merk had, I can't see the team not signing him. I must admit he is, at best, borderline HoF based on the numbers. I am hoping the sport wakes up and notices that the players who they have been honoring the past decade have not brought much honor to the game. Guys like Mark and Baines not only played well for a long time, but are solid citizens and great ambassadors to the sport. I believe that has value and should be considered in the voting. It's their entire contribution to baseball, not just stats. Neither one of them belongs in the Hall Of Fame. I can't believe people are still pushing for Baines to be in there.

He'll be re-signed. I'm not buying into this being his last game at all.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 06:18 AM) I sort of agree here, Greg. I'm not against teams playing teams within their division more often than the rest of the league. If your battling to win a division you should be able to beat the teams within your division. I don't think this was done just for the Yankees/Red Sox, also known as ESPN baseball. Where I agree is that teams within the Sox's division are likely more alert (as you said) when they play the Sox. But that's probably true in any division. A team has to play hungry when they're playing a team that they are battling for a division title. The problem has been that the Sox do not play hungry. Until this year, the Sox wet their pants and curled up in a ball when they played the Twins. This year it was Detroit (although Detroit has a very good team). Hell, the Sox have a hard time beating the perennial spoiler Kansas City Royals! I'm as frustrated as you seeing the Sox play so poorly within the division. But we can't go changing the schedules because of that. The Sox need to man up when they play the Twins, Tigers, Indians, and Royals. The Sox could play awesome baseball against every other division, but if they can't beat AL Central teams they don't have a great chance of making the playoffs. This whole argument is a joke (sorry, I know you didn't make it up). If the teams in our division play so much harder against us and none of their other opponents for the ridiculous reasons that greg brings up, then the opponents in the AL East would be doing the exact same thing to the Yankees and Red Sox. The issue here is that the AL East teams are far superior down the line. 4 out of 5 AL East teams are better than all but one AL Central team. Once again, this guy shows that he uses no logic whatsoever. He tries to claim that the Sox are at some sort of disadvantage when, in reality, they should be one of the best locks in baseball most years to win their division.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 22, 2011 -> 07:57 AM) Congrats!!! This is the greatest day of your life. Technically, two days ago was the greatest day of his life. But either way,

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 11:05 PM) I really think baseball sucks in one way: teams play divisional teams way too many times. This was done for ONE reason only: Yankees-Red Sox. Really really is awful. And as a White Sox fan it really bothers me because as much as you guys disagree with me on this, I truly feel the other teams in our division really get "alert" when we play them. I'd say extra fired up when they play the Sox, but it's not like it's a rah-rah sport. I just think our divisional foes are on top of their games WAY MORE when they play us than when they play the others in our division. Why?? Chicago is by far the best and biggest city in our division. We are the most recent to win a WS in our division. I HATE playing the teams in our division so many times. Absolutely f***ing absurd.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 08:50 PM) For anyone that still cares, that link that Mike posted totally shut Oney up. I don't believe that even for a second.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 07:05 PM) Playoffs are fine as is, IMO. Don't touch them. I'm all for realignment. Making the playoffs in baseball is an 'accomplishment.' As where making it in other sports is more like, 'Well, somebody had to occupy these spots.' I agree, but the Wild Card play-in wouldn't really be adding another team to the playoffs. It'd make two teams work a little harder to get there, and put them at a disadvantage that they deserve for having to get in via the Wild Card.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 06:58 PM) Sucks that it looks like they're going to come up short. But can you really deem them "chokers?" Weren't they like 9 GB a few weeks ago? They lost Crawford, Pena, Garza and the bulk of their '10 bullpen - and the fact that we're even talking about them and the playoffs in the same sentence at this juncture is astounding. And Longoria missed about 30 games or so earlier in the season. They are officially the model for how to field a competitive team without a mega payroll. Their run is much more impressive than the A's steroid-induced one of the early 2000's. In the last week, yes. Boston has been doing just about everything to hand it to them, and they can't take it.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 04:56 PM) I'd like to see a 1 or 3 game "wild card playoff" I don't know how you could argue that a 1/3 game series between Boston and TB at the end of the regular season would be a bad thing. Then the wild card team actually has a disadvantage going into the playoffs like they should. I can get down with that.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 04:35 PM) Put it this way...even if there was some reason to doubt on both of those...both of those teams had the goal of being back where they were last year, or better. Texas has basically achieved that goal. Cinci has failed. Agreed for the most part. But if people stood back and expected a regression from the pitching staff, they might have expected not to make the playoffs. I'm not sure what they thought, but they've about matched my expectations for them in 2011.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 04:25 PM) How about teams that had blatantly unsuccessful seasons? - White Sox - Cubs - Twins - Orioles - Rockies - Padres - A's - Mariners - Mets - Astros - Reds Of this list, I'd say the two Chicago teams, Reds and Twins had the worst seasons with regards to big picture Eh, weren't people expecting a down year from Cincinnati?

The newest song I've kind of discovered for myself and have grown sort of obsessed with: Till It Shines by Bob Seger.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 04:07 PM) Milkman, based on your easy to understand criteria, how many teams in the majors had successful seasons in 2011? here's my count: successful: philly and NYY only if they win the series. boston or tampa if either makes the playoffs, the other is unsuccessful. detroit, cleveland, texas, milwaukee, arizona, atlanta. unsuccessful: the other 20 some teams seems like 2/3rds of the time we should count on going six months to be disappointed, angry or both, huh I'm not going to go through each team individually, because I simply don't care that much about them or their expectations. But around 10 in the entire league having a relatively "successful" season seems about right to me, yeah.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 03:52 PM) Well to be fair, the last time they drafted one of Ozzie's kids he didnt exactly leave on the best of circumstances. They drafted Carrie Schueler for the love of god, nepotism doesnt really matter here. Carrie however didnt get a twitter account and start making comments about front office personnel's dinner companions. I can somewhat "understand" Ozzie being upset about the Sox not drafting his son higher when they had already done that with KW's son. But, didn't the Sox already overdraft on another one of Ozzie's children before they did the same with KW's kid?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 03:36 PM) I don't know. I'd be very iffy on that. I didn't think they were going to be in a position to challenge for the WC given all that they've lost, but they still have a lot of pieces with skill and have put together a much better run than I expected. You know who this season is an utter failure for? Boston. Even if they win the WC. Unless they snap together next week and somehow take care of the playoffs. And even if they did that, I think a lot of people would still be disappointed. Well, if they snap together in the playoffs and win it all or even just get to the World Series, I'd have to say that it was not a disappointing season no matter how the regular season went. I agree otherwise, though.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 03:34 PM) Maybe they're just a 90 win team and not a 93 win team? Is this season a failure for them? That's the real question.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 03:28 PM) http://espn.go.com/olympics/cycling/story/...a-front-company check and mate I can't wait until he really goes down.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 03:23 PM) Shields did blow the lead, but this chokefest is on the offense. The Yankees pitchers in the first 8 innings were: Hector Noesi, Raul Valdes, George Kontos, Aaron Laffey, Corey Wade, Boone Logan, & Luis Ayala. WTF? I'm just saying over the last week. They've had their opportunities, but seem to be dropping them left and right.

Minus the personal stuff, I think he made a valid point.

QUOTE (shlammajamma @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 01:31 PM) Guys.... It is so obvious that Victory is a troll. He joined right as greg's insanity regarding ozzie was starting to reach new levels. He based his routine off greg, this is what trolls do. He is basically a more trollish version of greg. I think I called him a troll the very first day he started posting.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 01:34 PM) Unless you have some inside information, I think that statement is highly debatable. Everything I know suggests Walker is extremely well liked and respected by the White Sox front office. He may not return, but its not close to a done deal. It really isn't. It's common sense at this point. But I don't have inside information, so you'll argue it until the very end.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 02:37 PM) Again, it depends on where you're coming from. When you've missed the playoffs 2 years in a row and 3 of the last 4, and you expand your salary significantly, missing the playoffs but winning 91 games would still, IMO, be a failure. IF you're coming off a 99 win season and a world series...90 wins is a failure. All of this, exactly. And it's still not hard to understand.

Surprising.

The Rays are choking worse than Boston could ever have dreamed (nightmare-d?).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 21, 2011 -> 01:09 PM) Eventually the show had to go that way. I really can't wait to see who the mother is, then to go back and watch it again to pick up on the hints. I don't watch this show, but from everything I've ever heard about it, they're just making s*** up as they go and they haven't had a mother picked out the entire time (let alone dropping hints throughout the run).