LVSoxFan

No, not generally--he's not a sports writer, period. So the fact that he writes about the Sox at all when he doesn't need to is a testament to his fan status. Geez, the guy writes a book about growing up a Sox fan and that's still not enough? Tough crowd!

Believe it or not, I am far more worried about Minnesota. They are unbelievably hot right now, and they know it. They're slowly climbing back into the race, peaking just at the ASB--which is about as good as it gets. Detroit could falter under the stress of trying to hold on to a one or two game lead most of the season. Or maybe not. Then there's Cleveland--far back right now, but we know what happened last year. Four out of the five in the central could take it (so much for the formerly-called Comedy Central). But Minnesota plays their small ball, they're a team, and their pitching is amazing. Just winning our division is going to be a b****. I'm not even worried about the playoffs at this point--that is the least of our worries.

I love how they're flashing it on the video at the park all game long now too. Who else besides me feels that getting AJ on the team would be like a nice, collected, f-u to all these fans who "hate" him because of all this alleged controversy? It would be sweeeeet to see him on that team.

I punched AJ. 30 times. We can do this. Trust me, nobody even knew who Pods was last year outside Chicago, and he got on. I'll vote more tomorrow.

We can go on the field?!?! I got mine too!

Whoever POSTED THIS THREAD: YOU ARE BANNED. HOW DARE YOU SPEAK NEGATIVELY WHEN WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PLAYOFF RUN. YOU ARE OFFICIALLY YOU ARE BANNED UNTIL WE HAVE SAFELY WON ANOTHER WORLD SERIES. WE DON'T NEED SOX-HATERS LIKE YOU. Oops! Wrong board! //skulks away...

Anyone claiming he's a bandwagon jumper or "recent" fan is absurd. He's always written about the Sox--I know, since I've read him since day one. For you kids, he's the guy who replaced Royko at the Sun-Times when Royko jumped to the Trib. As for why he was writing about them more in 2005 than before... um, maybe because there's something to write about? What was he gonna write about in 2004? Our awesome second-place finish in the Central? After collapsing throughout the final months? How about how we at least collapsed in August in 2003? See what I mean? I've read the excerpts and they've been pretty funny, pretty good. And he is dead-on to point out what we already know: that Harry and his 7th inning sing along... originated here with the Sox. I'll buy it for sure.

I am about to leave for the game, baby! We're in the bleachers, and I'm wearing my #12 AJ PIERZINSKI jersey! Yeah baby! If you see me, give a shout! Go Sox!

QUOTE(AddisonStSox @ Jun 29, 2006 -> 03:19 PM) Being critical of calls from the dugout or play on the field--especially play against a far inferior opponent--and needing to back off the ledge are near polar opposites. Use some baseball acumen here, folks. It's a shame because guys like Anthrax--who between incoherent ramblings had some very appropriate critcisms of a ballclub that went tailspinning before marching on to a title--get run out of here. Intelligent baseball discourse has reached record lows on our belov'ed site. Oh c'mon! Everybody's MORE than welcome to criticize the calls. What I'm reacting to is people obsessed with the Tigers/Sox race this early and treating a should-win game loss like this as a freefall. It's one game. Or that we're always going to beat teams we SHOULD beat. What league have you guys been watching? But as far as second-guessing Ozzie and Politte and everything else that went wrong today? Have at it. Sounds like a lot of the criticism is warranted (I didn't see the game).

Okay, I am the last person to throw around the "doom n' gloom" tag but Jesus, people, relax! I figure these points are best made using bullets. -Yes, I agree about Politte. He's been given a few chances now to "find it" like he did in 2005 and he's blown them. Just like after that Cleveland series with Shingo last year (remember?), this may be the end of him. And as much as I loved Shingo, I knew after that game he was outta here -FORGET the Tigers. Even Ozzie has said this. You have to deal with every game at hand and in the end let the chips fall where they may. Yes, if you keep winning at least every series (which is the damn goal, people), we are sitting pretty. Y'all will go INSANE if you're constantly eyeballing the Tigers when we're not even at the ASB yet and they've not had a slump yet this season. -As for this "guaranteed win" status of Pittsburgh, huh? The thing of baseball is that on any given day any team can beat any team, no matter how good each is or how the game's "supposed" to go. Pittsburgh? Yeah they suck, but so does KC and I've managed to see us lose to them three times, in person, out there. When they were brutal. That is baseball, people. Sometimes the Pirates will beat us, sometimes KC will, Tampa Bay seems to always... sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. In the end what matters is the final tally. Not going apes*** over what should have been an easy win and is one game. IMO there is no such thing as an easy win. Everybody thought St. Louis/Sox would be a hell of a matchup and we crushed them like they were... Pittsburgh. Go figure. This is not news, this idea. SO GET OFF THE DAMN LEDGE ALREADY.

For whatever it's worth I DESPISED Contreras last year 1st half and prayed that we'd dump him at the trade deadline. Oops. So I'm hesitant to pile on Javy just yet and stick my foot in my mouth again. That said, he does have a maddening tendency to just fall apart and when he gave up the homer last night he just seem to come unglued. I've also seen him throw little tantrums in the dugout if he didn't like the way an inning went. Contrast that with Contreras' cool-as-a-cucumber demeanor on the mound; maybe Javy could learn from him. I only make the connection because the knock on Jose last year first half was that he had great stuff (Ozzie said that often), but he wasn't pitching great. I think we all agree that Javy has some pretty nasty stuff, so...

QUOTE(TitoMB345 @ Jun 26, 2006 -> 12:13 PM) Well, I stay at a hotel in Appleton that the opponents of the Packers play, and they always come around and sign autographs and chat with fans. I also stayed at a hotel in a Chicago in '99 that the Packers were at, and I sat down and had a soda with Corey Bradford. I was like 11, and I was with my dad. He is the nicest professional athlete I have ever met. He let me wear his gold, diamond-plated "85" pendant necklace. I love that guy! So anyways, professional athletes are generally nice people (some exceptions) and I bet they would have no problem chatting and signing a few autographs. Just be nice. Remember, they don't have to if they don't want to. I should take some pics of my autograph collection sometime. Oh I hear ya; but I won't be there. But I personally never ask for autographs anyway.

LOL!

Just out of raging curiosity, do you ever encounter players when you stay at their hotels? Obviously you probably walk by them, but do they ever hang out? Or do they keep to themselves as you wave at them from across the room? I've always been curious how this works. What about Hawk and Deejay? See them too? DJ mentioned while in Cincinatti walking back to the hotel and seeing nothing but Sox fans the whole way. Any good stories?

I cannot fault KW at all here and I love Ozzie. What KW's trying to do is a pre-emptive strike before Ozzie's comments create such a media firestorm that KW will have no CHOICE but to let him go. Oh, it could happen. People have been canned for far less (as people above mentioned, Jimmy the Greek). Sure we all want Ozzie to be Ozzie and he says some silly stuff sometimes, but now his mouth is getting him into trouble that could explode beyond the Sox' control, or simple "Ozzie bein' Ozzie" dismissals. What KW is doing is taking it in-house before it gets bigger than the two of them combined, at which point it will be out of their control. Ozzie has to remember that his locker-room humor and dirty talk should stay in the locker room; he has a habit of publicly saying things (and swearing like a sailor) that causes me to even flinch sometimes. At first it was funny, but then we he moved on from Mariotti to saying things about Houston's manager--which apparently weren't true--you wonder if he's getting a little nuts. In the end, you are the face and the manager of the World Series Champions. What you do on the field to win is not in question. But there's another part to the job, the public part, and Ozzie needs to start stepping up in that area. Like I said, I love the guy, but enough is enough. As for Mariotti and that whole thing--I wish they'd just bury the hatchet and get on with it. This is just getting silly.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 26, 2006 -> 09:21 AM) This does one thing for the Sox... It turns this into Us against the World. The Sox thrive off of that. I think this is right. We have been killin the last two weeks like nobody's business. Maybe it's some weird psychological play by Ozzie, who knows? I just hope he tones it down, though. KW does NOT sound like he's effin around about this sort of thing.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 02:30 PM) "we ALL thought they were gonna choke in September, and that was hardly Mariotti alone that was talking that up in the press" Apparently you didn't say that on page 4. Usually we is an inclusive term. Again, I never said that I never complain. However, recently I haven't. You said yourself that you complain when things aren't going well in your last couple of posts. I don't see how that's putting words in your mouth. Honestly, I've only seen you on here when there is something to gripe about, so I guess you could say that you haven't been complaining this year. Really, where are all of these "great" articles? The negative ones out-number the positives ones around 3:1 the blog thing, and it's been a lot worse in the past. Apparently Reinsdorf, Hawk, and Ozzie all have gripes with him for no particular reason. I never even mentioned Ozzie's quotes once, so I don't know where you get that last part. Honestly, I don't give a s*** what Ozzie says unless he's talking about me or my family. Indifference doesn't really count as defending. Mariotti is my problem. I don't see any reason to endorse that guy in any way. He blatantly goes after people whenever he feels like it and whines when people say something about him. I have no respect for Mariotti whatsoever. In that particular case I meant we all collectively as in: the city, fans, the media, etc. I personally, as I explained above, couldn't believe it was really gonna happen. My point was Mariotti was expressing a concern that everybody had. As far as your bulls*** statement about how you only see me on here griping, you're full of s***. It's one thing to disagree with me--fair enough--it's another to be a baldfaced liar, like you're being now. Funny how you could care less about what Ozzie says... but you're obsessed with whatever Mariotti says. Huh? Anyway, nobody's asking you to like Mariotti. And as far as your claim that Mariotti never writes positive columns about the Sox, I can only laugh. Go look them up, then. You guys sure had a blog up fast enough counting all his flip-flopping, but now you can't locate one positive column about the Sox in the past two years. Me smell bulls***. If you want to lock it up, Steff, by all means. I think we've had our fun today.

QUOTE(hammerhead johnson @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 02:25 PM) Did you or did you not get banned/suspended last year for being a douche? Or is Zoom thinking of someone else? Do I know you, HJ? I was never suspended from Soxtalk. For being a "douche" or anything else. To answer your idiotic question--not that you deserve an answer--I was banned from another site during the swoon because I posted about how, if we're going to get through this month, we need to start doing a, b and c or else it ain't gonna happen--and then posted what those things were. This was deemed too "negative" or whatever and off I went. So yes, neither you nor Zoom know what you're talking about. So who's the douche now?

Doesn't everybody think we've wasted enough time on Mariotti? And now we're going to get him fired because we don't like what he says. Gee, that sure sounds like another ballclub I know...

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 01:49 PM) How exactly is that a straw man? You said yourself that you thought that they were going to blow the lead, and you managed to get suspended/banned for expressing it in the past. I'm not conjuring that out of thin air. Maybe my language is a little extreme (I took a page from your buddy Jay), but that is basically what you said. I didn't say that I was happy about the Sox losing during that stretch, but I also wasn't assuming that they were going to blow the lead and go down in history with the 69 Cubs. I like to let things play out when we have a good team. Since when have I "never questioned moves/management?" I've been vocal in the past. I tend to complain a lot less when our team is in first place though (or very close to it this year). There's a difference between expecting a 4th place team to suddenly make a 15-game charge up the standings and expecting a 1st place team to hold the lead. Like I said before, I think they earned a little good faith, instead an awful lot of people were pre-maturely leaving them for dead. I'm sorry you feel that b****ing is part of being a Sox fan, although it's obvious from this board that some of you think this is the case. I've been guilty of it in the past, but not now when they are winning. It's not a requirement that you do it at all times. I didn't have a problem with it in the past when they were underacheiving, but it gets annoying when they've been playing as well as they have. Besides, the we-love-you-no-matter-what thing isn't and shouldn't be exclusive to Cubs' fans. God for bid we enjoy it when the team is doing well and have a little faith. They take it to the extreme, but griping about your team when they're in good shape isn't any better. Forgive me for trying to enjoy the team when they're doing well instead of worrying about what might happen. You built your straw man when you said I was "flipping out" about the Swoon. Your words, not mine. Straw man. Then you said I said I thought they were GOING to blow the lead, which I also did not say. That's two straw men. And for all your huffin' and puffin about what a great fan you are who never complains, you certainly haven't heard me complain about the Sox this year--what's to complain about? In fact, when they had their crappy start I was one of the many who told everybody to relax. You're all over the place on this. Too bad nothing you wrote about me was true. Oh well. And you supposedly hate Mariotti for the same thing. Irony alert! QUOTE(S720 @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 02:05 PM) After all of those negative articles that Moronotti has written about the White Sox, it's just unfathomable to me that there are still White Sox fans out there who are defending the jagbag. You guys the Jagbag apologists make me SICK! Ozzie has the gut to say it like it is. AND I RESPECT THAT! And what's unfathomable to me is you apparently totally ignorant of all the great stuff he's written about the Sox. I'm not defending the "jagbag," I'm stating the facts. And if you think you're being a superfan by standing by Ozzie saying things like "f****ing ***," then whatever dude.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 01:05 PM) Way to put words in my mouth. :headshake There's a difference between knowing what will happen and having some faith in your team. That's not Cub-like because in their case it's almost always un-justified. Over the course of the year the Sox earned my trust, and I'm not going to start flipping out because they're going through a rough patch. Other years I might gripe, but not the last two. You apparently decided to fear the worst. That's your perogative, but that's a crappy attitude to have toward your team when things are going well, and I couldn't do it. It makes watching the team more painful and trying then it has to be. You had doubts, others didn't. I can live with that. But don't support this bloated gas-bag for pontificating about whatever he feels like saying on a given day. You're in no position to question my attitude towards the Sox, pal. I had plenty of faith in the Sox or I wouldn't have been there as many times as I was last year, and the year before, and this year. Nobody said we (ME AND MY FRIENDS) were "flipping out" when they would "go through a rough patch." You said that, as you built your straw man. Like I said, if you are such a super-fan and weren't concerned at all during The Swoon, then I wonder how much of a fan you really are, because anybody with their heart in the Sox was hating that period. Cubs-like faith and never questioning moves/management is why they are destined to lose forever. Sox fans, as we--yes WE--all know, will be the first to question, demand and speak out when they think management is not doing the right thing. My God, son--have you never been to a game? A good chunk of the conversation you'll overhear is fans giving their take on how this should be done, how that should be done... even when we're WINNING. That's what's great about Sox fans; none of this love-goggle, we-love-you-no-matter-what mindless dedication. Make sense?

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 01:05 PM) Way to put words in my mouth. :headshake There's a difference between knowing what will happen and having some faith in your team. That's not Cub-like because in their case it's almost always un-justified. Over the course of the year the Sox earned my trust, and I'm not going to start flipping out because they're going through a rough patch. Other years I might gripe, but not the last two. You apparently decided to fear the worst. That's your perogative, but that's a crappy attitude to have toward your team when things are going well, and I couldn't do it. It makes watching the team more painful and trying then it has to be. You had doubts, others didn't. I can live with that. But don't support this bloated gas-bag for pontificating about whatever he feels like saying on a given day. You're in no position to question my attitude towards the Sox, pal. I had plenty of faith in the Sox or I wouldn't have been there as many times as I was last year, and the year before, and this year. Nobody said we (ME AND MY FRIENDS) were "flipping out" when they would "go through a rough patch." You said that, as you built your straw man. Like I said, if you are such a super-fan and weren't concerned at all during The Swoon, then I wonder how much of a fan you really are, because anybody with their heart in the Sox was hating that period. Cubs-like faith and never questioning moves/management is why they are destined to lose forever. Sox fans, as we--yes WE--all know, will be the first to question, demand and speak out when they think management is not doing the right thing. My God, son--have you never been to a game? A good chunk of the conversation you'll overhear is fans giving their take on how this should be done, how that should be done... even when we're WINNING. That's what's great about Sox fans; none of this love-goggle, we-love-you-no-matter-what mindless dedication. Make sense?

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 12:56 PM) There were plenty of people here who didn't think this team would choke last september. Fair enough, nobody's disputing that. Guess what? Neither did I. But I certainly WORRIED ABOUT IT, and I openly mock anybody who claims that they didn't experience any anxiety during The Swoon. Because if you didn't, how could you be a Sox fan? QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 12:57 PM) Instead of whining about how things aren't going your way and assuming the worst. Nice straw man. Can we move on now?

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 12:50 PM) You're making an awful lot of generalizations about what Sox fans think, and I'd say most of them are inaccurate. Just because you thought that they were going to suck in 2005 and choke away the lead at the end of the year doesn't mean that everyone else does/did. I'd hope that most of us don't suddenly change our opinions on our management, manager, team, and owner every two weeks or so. He also still finds ways to rip the team when things are going well, especially this year. His writing is annoying and useless and has no real substance. I EXPLAINED ABOVE THAT THIS IS WHAT ME AND MY CIRCLE OF SOX FRIENDS THOUGHT, AND THAT IS WHAT "WE" REFERS TO. Just because we worried about choking in September doesn't mean we "gave up" on the team or questioned the approach of 2005, which I was totally behind. Just because we thought, at the time, as most people did, that we needed to acquire a bat in August or whenever it was doesn't make us heretics or "pussy" Sox fans. We thought it, most sportswriters thought it and you know what? It turned out that neither went that way. Most, you would think, would file that under "pleasant surprise"--I'll take it--but instead now all of a sudden if you dare questioned at any point in 2005 what was going on, you're not worthy? Pfft. That's CUB FAN bulls***, going along, not asking questions, being blindly faithful. It had a happy ending and that's all that matters. And that' WHY you don't see me being overly critical of the 2006 Sox because KW and Ozzie PROVED that they know what they're doing. So I'm loathe to question some of their moves. But it is amazing to me how some so-called "real" Sox fans here are frontin like they knew all along that a WS victory was imminent and they never questioned anything during the season at any point and any of us who did are just "pussies." Bulls***.

QUOTE(Contreras @ Jun 22, 2006 -> 12:41 PM) You asked for proof that he constantly flip-flops. I just proved that he's the most wishy-washy worthless f***stain on earth. Again, you lose, and you look 100% ridiculous defending Jay Mariotti in any way...And stop lumping me in with your beinhg a pussy as far as the Sox are concerned. Again and again you post "We all thought this." You're full of s***. You don't represent me or what I thought throughout the course of last season. Who the f*** voted for you to speak for all of us? All the doomsday bulls*** you and your buddy Jay thought had nothing to do with me. Wow, there's a nice, reasoned, adult response from you CC. Thanks for your helpful input. When I say "we," I'm referring to me and my group of die-hard Sox fan buddies who go to the games. I don't pretend to speak for you. Oh and I'm a "pussy" now. LOL! Whatever, dude. I stand by what I said. So Mariotti flip-flopped over the course of a roller-coaster season. And I'm supposed to join into your irrational, over-the-top hatred of some columnist that you're drooling over. And let's be clear: if you weren't worried during the September swoon and you're claiming here that you knew all along that what happened was going to happen then it is you, sir, who is full of s***. You want to sit here and sell us the snake oil that even though the TEAM ITSELF was worrying about it, somehow Carnac the Magnificent knew it all along, and anybody who didn't share your gift of clairvoyance is a "pussy" Sox fan? Have a great day!