LVSoxFan

Ozzie actually bench somebody?

This would never happen. Period. Sure a player could voluntarily give it back, but outside of that, never.

Oh, it gets worse. Today's Sun-Times. Ozzie still "believes." Displaying a Dave Wannestadt-like vision ("All the pieces are in place!"), Ozzie claims that hey: we're still just 4+ games out with 50 games to go, so you know... anything can happen. I'm guessing by "anything" he means Dunn will miraculously start actually hitting the ball and Rios will come out of his season-long slump. Yes, let's all take that action. Speaking of gambling, KW and Ozzie have displayed the classic chronic gambler mentality this year: if we just keep doing what we're doing, that one big score is just around the corner. Despite bust after bust after bust. There's a fine line between faith and delusion, and I think we've crossed it. Back to the OP: you raise an interesting point--why IS Paul Konerko immune to all these hitting woes?

My point is that if his psyche is so fragile he can't handle a simple drop in the lineup, then he's mentally weak. So we're totally screwed. At this point KW's and Ozzie's hesitance to drop him looks more like enabling.

GREAT post. But your point about moving him in the lineup and Ozzie's refusal to do that, for the sake of Dunn's psyche? For f***'s sake, most people have talked about benching him or sending him down (not gonna happen I know) and his psyche can't handle a simple drop in the order? Another reason to question Ozzie.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 12:52 PM) If the viewpoint of the average fan is anything like it is on Soxtalk, there will be big changes this offseason. If not, and I don't think JR is that stupid, next season will see the lowest attendance in probably my entire lifetime. I'm not sure if the average fan is as livid as us, but I think they are thoroughly uninterested in the team. I think it's WORSE actually because if us hardcores don't give a crap, the averages must give even less of one. Not to mention the casuals. Oh, and it's very noticeable not just in the seats, but in the concourses, especially UD, where you see less and less vendor stations or most of them closing down around the 7th inning. Speaking of which, people started leaving the game en masse in the 7th on Sunday. We were only one run down at that point. But they knew.

Maybe I missed it or maybe somebody else said it? Because I manually searched all 50 pages. But yes, I do remember the naysayers and unfortunately, if he never turns it around not only would this be the biggest bust in WS history but probably one of the worst in BASEBALL history.

Yup. I think they both know they're on the Titanic and they're jockeying to see who gets blamed for steering it into the iceberg.

Maybe it was on another thread? I went through all 50 pages and this was all I found. Man, the overpaying part couldn't have been more right-on though.

Found it! Here's his original post: I don't mind Dunn being the DH but I can't believe how much the Sox overpaid for him. s***. When you consider that the Sox could get a much better hitter like Vlad Guerrero on a two or three year deal at $ 6-7 mil per or even Thome on a 1 year deal for $ 4-5 mil. and Thome's better at 41 than Dunn is at 31. There's just no way that Dunn as a DH and not even close to being one of the best hitters in baseball or even a valuable player should command $ 14 mil. per year. Pujols will get $ 25 mil. per and if he was only a DH he would get much less and he's three times the hitter. It's just a huge overpayment. And, now how do the Sox convince Konerko to take less money than Dunn when he is clearly a far better baseball player. It's pretty sad to flip through that thread about the Dunn trade--how excited people were about it, and what it turned out to be.

I'm just about to that point too, BigSqwert. Which is sad, because I live for baseball in the summer. But I don't want my attendance to be interpreted as support for Ozzie or this product on the field.

Does anybody have whitesoxrandy's original post about this? I would love to see that. I do remember some people were saying nooooooo! but the consensus was total excitement about Dunn. I would have to say: well-played, Sir! I can say that my baseball freak co-worker had doubts too, although those were mostly about him being NL.

I've really had it with the Guillen family at this point and his son, who is starting to remind me of Saddam Hussein's evil spawn who also lived off Daddy. Geez, Teahen's wife is not bad-looking at all by any stretch but even if she were when you take a shot at a man's wife--a man that worked for Daddy--you deserve to get your ass kicked. In a functional family, that ass-kicking would come from Ozzie himself but apparently there's no consequences in that household. I thought the Bobby Jenks thing was bad enough--this is even worth. Now the Guillens are embarrassing the White Sox organization. Do you think something like this would be tolerated by any other MLB club? Get rid of them.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 06:29 AM) 24,000 for the Yankees .......................fans are sick of tiered pricing, high parking and s*** product on the field. I salute Sox fans for having balls unlike sheep at Wrigley. Actually the Cubs are eating it this year, finally. Finally, the "Loveable Loser" aura is no longer a draw. Why it took this long I don't know, but at the risk of dating myself, I think the younger generation now around never bought into that, if they even know what it is.

I think we just got a real glimpse into what's going on here, the disconnect from reality. Lillibridge is the ONE GUY ON THE TEAM I KNOW IS TRYING EVERY GAME. That kid hustles his ass of in the OF and he's made some spectacular plays this season because of it. Rios is the anti-Lillibridge, a guy so lazy and uninspired that you've got local columnists using their entire column space to blast him. Rios' sloth during the Red Sox series doesn't even draw a rebuke from Ozzie or even a BENCHING--he's still playing--yet Lilli makes a mental error and Ozzie tosses that kid under the bus publicly? I think I just figured out why we suck.

I've always thought our problem was we wobble between trying to be the Twins and trying to be the Yankees. Our bumbling farm system is nothing new; so what happens is that instead of a healthy farm system we end up with a couple of high-priced big names surrounded by a bunch of "projects" and castoffs from other systems/teams. Somehow this worked in 2005 which probably gave KW false hope that he had stumbled onto some magic formula. And here we are. I will say, though that he has a good eye for pitching for the most part.

I think a few people here have made arguments already. Minnesota and Detroit and Cleveland also operate under conditions different than the Red Sox or Yankees do; in fact, pretty much every club in the U.S. does. But usually when one of those clubs sucks completely, somebody gets fired. That's true in all of sports. Not here apparently. We won't even fire the hitting coach.

I don't get all the woe-is-Kenny stuff.

How about Steve Stone as GM?

Apparently in this thread we're not going to pin anything on KW, the way this is going. Who knew that lack of accountability even extended not just through the organization, but through Soxtalk?

That's very well put: love the Sox, but not THESE Sox. +1

I believe that at this point, the campaign refers to All In, to: -the toilet -the Titanic -The barrel over the falls -The Hindenburg -Bus over the cliff -Cellar of the Comedy Central -Clubhouse, to watch real baseball teams play on TV Take your pick.

Good post. You're right: this team has no identity. It's like two recognizable guys and surrounded by a bunch of people nobody would notice if they were gone tomorrow + a really good pitching staff. We do have recurring themes though, the past few years: -The underachieving rookie would-be phenom -The guy at 3B who Doesn't Make You Forget Crede -The noodle-armed LF with questionable fielding skills -A TOTAL inability to score with RISP This year we have a new twist in that instead of having Thome who can hit homers and not much else we have an even more expensive version who just can't hit, period. Depressing.

I think the column was spot-on and I agree with the poster here who said he is the anti-Rowand. I'll take it a step further and say he's our passive-aggressive Milton Bradley.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 04:13 AM) http://dailyherald.com/article/20110731/sports/707319804/ This pretty well sums it up nicely enough. It certainly does. I was there yesterday and yesterday was the perfect example of why attendance is bad, and going to get even worse. Oh, how many times have I seen this game this season? Numerous times. -Even though it was Frank Thomas day and a Boston series, the place looked to be about 1/3 empty. RF and the bleachers had huge patches of empty seats; the corners of the UD were empty. -I'd venture that 40% to half of the people there were Boston fans anyway. It was quite the sight, to see an endless parade of Boston fans coming up the stairs with their... Frank Thomas bobbleheads? -You know the team is FUBAR when Boston goes up 2-0 and you're thinking: that's the ballgame -They come back, but eventually fall apart because you know if anybody has a three-run lead we are never going to come back. Contrast that with 2005 where you NEVER thought they couldn't come back. That makes a team unexciting to watch. Lifeless. Who wants to pay to see that? -Another day, another Adam Dunn variety of strikeouts, another Rios underachievement. The irony is that those two scored our only runs, for once. -Once you get past those two disasters, who in the lineup inspires, impresses, has that fan appeal? Morel? Pierre? Beckham? Other than Paulie, there's nobody in the lineup who people are excited to see at the plate. Save for maybe AJ, who caused the only stir during yesterday's snoozefest when he pinch hit for Flowers -Yes, Sox fans, you get all this on top of having to pay premium prices for UD seats and of course the always-affordable concessions, where, for instance, two bottles of SODA costs $9 But what really, really kills it for me, and I'm a loyal fan, is the endless, endless inability to score with runners on base. I cannot even count how many times this season: bases loaded, no outs, and nobody gets in. Runners at the corner, nobody gets in. Men on second and third, nobody gets in. Weak grounders and pop ups. Hell the best hit of yesterday was Alexei's bunt. So now that the deadline is past and they've done nothing, KW has made it clear they're going to ride this beast into the ground. I can assure you there won't be many fans there to join them this season. One last thing: this was a HOME game and let's not forget their record at home this year. This is worse than 2007. At least they consistently sucked that season.