NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (flavum @ Sep 27, 2012 -> 02:58 PM) If the Sox get eliminated Sunday or Monday, I highly doubt Peavy starts Tuesday. Deunte Heath has a better chance to start that game. Why? What reason do the Sox have to sit him? I see none. Sale or Quintana, sure, that is different.

QUOTE (flavum @ Sep 27, 2012 -> 02:50 PM) Peavy's last game with the Sox tonight? Could be. He will get at least one more start.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 27, 2012 -> 01:10 PM) The aberration in attendance isn't 2012. Is the years immediately following the World Series. I think that is what I said. Even if you take out the 2005-2007 bump, the attendance numbers are still generally up from what they were before.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 27, 2012 -> 12:44 PM) Is it just me, or is signing bonus/draft position the biggest determining factor in that list? I think you are looking at it as symptoms forcing a cause. In the Rookie leagues, the scouting reports have to rely heavily on non-performance stuff - subjective scouting information. Performance in those leagues itself is a factor, but less so than at the higher levels, for all the obvious reasons. SO, you are talking tools and skills - which are also the determining factors of draft position. So naturally, there will be a big correlation. But it isn't everything - Hawkins at 2 in the Appy put him above some guys drafted higher, same with Brennan at GF.

Chris Beck is at 12, Brandon Brennan is at 16. The only other name I thought might get consideration was Micah Johnson, but he was a long shot at best. At least we have two pitchers on the list, and Hawkins from the Appy (and I'm guessing Barnum may have made it had he not been injured). That's a better look in the two Rookie leagues than the Sox system has had in a while, I think.

QUOTE (BigEdWalsh @ Sep 27, 2012 -> 11:48 AM) I'm fully aware and remember when the Sox outdrew the Cubs in the 50's and early 60's. And I remember a few times since then, too. But, in terms of fan base, especially outside of the Chicago city limits, the Cubs have for a very long time had the much larger fan base. Certainly true. But... QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 27, 2012 -> 12:06 PM) Cubs attendance is down 20% this year, and will be down HUGE next year when the ticketbrokers who got boned in the ass on tickets this year, don't renew. Here is the thing. The Sox in the late 90's were drawing mid-teens in thousands per game. It started going up in the 2000's, then of course 2005 happened, but it never went back down to those 90's and early 2000's numbers. Mid-twenties in thousands per game is still more than they were drawing every year from 1995 up through 2004, I believe. The Sox fan base is still of course well below the Cubs fan base, but the gap is narrowing, and has been for a while now.

Sox still drawing better than contenders OAK and TB, and just under BAL. QUOTE (BigEdWalsh @ Sep 27, 2012 -> 11:15 AM) I stopped caring about White Sox attendance woes about 40 years ago. The Sox have had a smaller fan base than the Cubs for all of my life, probably since the Black sox scandal. Certain things over the course of the years have only made this fact even worse. Their fan base grows, ours shrinks. Oh well. Do I wish the Sox had better attendance? Yes, but I'm not going to fret about it. This is historically inaccurate. The Sox and Cubs swung back and forth, but the Sox did better more often, up until basically the time that Reinsdorff et al bought the team. At that point, the new ownership made the incredibly stupid decision to pass on a WGN TV contract and go to Sportsvision (and almost no one had cable then). Add to that the neighborhoods around The Cell had been going downhill and were getting worse, and the final and biggest blow: Wrigleyville, which was a decent but not-that-special neighborhood, suddenly became a huge draw itself beginning in the 80's. From that point (basically for the past 30 years or so), the Sox have only outdrawn the Cubs 2 or 3 seasons. And none since '93 or so. Things change: nieghborhoods, TV contracts, winning and losing... and I think the Sox are doing a lot of things that will help them down the road, particularly building in a lot of great kids stuff and a much better family experience than at Wrigley. Tickets are cheaper than Wrigley, but parking is expensive in either case. As for the people complaining about parking costs, there are a myriad of ways to avoid that if you just look around. CTA Red Line, CTA Green Line, Metra Rock Island (and soon to be other lines as well), buses (they have special expresses from various suburbs, in addition to the CTA options)... you can park somewhere else a lot cheaper, like in the South Loop, and take transit. So for many people, it is really a lame excuse. But, I will say, if you have small kids and are trucking in from the burbs, the mass transit options are a lot harder to do and less appealing - so the Sox could certainly do something better to bring down parking prices for that crowd (for example, discount parking if you buy X number of tickets together of the same game).

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 27, 2012 -> 09:53 AM) there is always need to shout in a gamethread LOUD NOISES!!!!!

Fixed. No need to shout.

There are still games to play. 7 of them. Still not eliminated, still can't be eliminated until at least Sunday, which means this still will come down to the last series of the season, most likely. This... vs This... So let's try this one more time... GO YOU WHITE SOX!!!

QUOTE (Brian @ Sep 27, 2012 -> 05:23 AM) Liked END OF WATCH. Found a couple of parts over the top, even though I have no clue what the LAPD life is like. My buddy is down in Texas for Fantastic Fest and tells me CLOUD ATLAS is amazing and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 was a disappointment but they only screened a work print and could change. Says it totally ignores the mythology, which is lame. End of Watch was done by the same guy who did Training Day, right? so... having some cool parts, and a lot of laughably over the top parts, would be expected. The preview for Cloud Atlas was pretty amazing, I am looking forward to that. I didn't think it was out yet though.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Sep 26, 2012 -> 11:53 AM) Verlander is hurting? You mean in his road performances for much of the 2nd half, because his stuff is fine... QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 26, 2012 -> 12:26 PM) He is actually hurt. Injured his LEFT (non-throwing) shoulder on a weird play on the mound. Says it still hurts, looked in a fair amount of pain at the time, but is pitching through it (or planning to). Who knows if it will actually effect him. Just like there is no telling how Sale and Quintana might do in their remaining appearances, if they have indeed hit a wall of sorts.

With the BA league-specific Top 20 lists starting, and the Appy league already published (see the seperate thread for that, Hawkins is #2), here are the dates that BA will be releasing the other leagues where the Sox have affiliates... Pioneer League Sept. 27 South Atlantic League Oct. 3 Carolina League Oct. 5 Southern League Oct. 10 International League Oct. 12

Everything up until now is irrelevant - this is now a new season. An 8 game season, in a 2 team division. Sox have 5 at home and 3 on the road, DET has 2 and home and 6 on the road. But the Sox have 4 against TB, to go with 4 against CLE. DET gets KC x5 and MIN x3. Sox have Sale and Peavy maybe hitting a wall, but DET has Verlander and Scherzer hurting. TONIGHT... Detroit runs Porcello out there, their weakest link in the rotation, against Guthrie, who has a 1.75 ERA in his last 9 games. Sox run out Santiago, kind of a wild card but CLE struggles vs lefties, against Masterson (4.15 ERA vs Sox this year). ON PAPER, this looks like the best chance the Sox may have for a while to pick up a game. Sox remaining pitchers: Santiago vs CLE // Peavy, Floyd, Sale, ??? (Quintana or Liriano) vs TB // ???, ???, ??? vs CLE (won't be Sale or whomever starts Sunday) Tigers remaining pitchers: Porcello, Fister vs KC // Scherzer, Verlander, Sanchez vs MIN // Porcello, Fister, Scherzer vs KC For a potential Game 163: Verlander vs Sale, in Detroit

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 25, 2012 -> 09:50 AM) I actually have never heard the term "dumb as a fox" before. Sneaky like a fox, yes. Wily as a Coyote, yes. Dumb as a box of rocks, yes. But never dumb as a fox. Mostly because a fox is not percieved as a dumb animal

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Sep 23, 2012 -> 01:31 PM) Hey, There are still tix on sale. They opened up huge blocks in the upper deck, and I just got some CLUB LEVEL for game 1. Game 1 has mostly uppers available Game 2 has uppers Game 3 has all levels Wild Card Game has a lot of tix avail in all levels Club levels? What did those cost you? Game 3 and wild card are at this point almost assuredly not going to happen, so I"m not too surprised there are a lot of seats still open.

QUOTE (IowanSoxFan @ Sep 22, 2012 -> 02:30 PM) Also looks like he had surgery on his knee. I've read 3-4 months for recovery. Yeah, they're saying he'll be ready for ST no problem. Pretty encouraging that he put up the numbers he did this year with the two lingering injuries.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 01:42 PM) Season begins tonight. No more games against KC making the Sox and their fandom think they are pretenders. No more games against Detroit unless there's a 1-game playoff. Time to put up or shut up. Odds are currently stacked against the Sox this weekend. I think most reasonable people expect 2 losses in Anaheim coupled with 3 Detroit wins. So prove people wrong, White Sox. Make the playoffs and prove all the fans who took the summer off and didn't flock to your games wrong. No reasonable person expects any team to sweep another team as a matter of course. It can happen, but come on Eeoyre, let's not get silly. People might expect them to win 2 of 3, knowing a sweep is POSSIBLE.

QUOTE (Paint it Black @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 12:15 PM) Nothing left on ticketbastard for game 1. I could still get 2 OF seats for game 2. That is interesting. I wonder if some people don't know about the changed format for games.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 10:20 AM) Upper Deck and worse are what remains. 2 UD Box, plus fees= $133 I wonder if there will be anything left at all when the public sale starts at noon.

Kind of a big series.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 09:23 AM) http://www.gallup.com/poll/109048/us-smoki...oming-down.aspx even with this dropoff in smokers effecting the situation, the tax increase should have still boosted tax revenue on cigarettes. but the revenue dropped off a cliff. another tobacco tax increase will , very likely, drop cigarette tax related revenue even more. Heh, I like the brief spike around the time the markets collapsed.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 20, 2012 -> 03:28 PM) We went to some Magnet schools (essentially charter schools run by the school system) in our district. The turnover was less than you think. Huge difference. Charter schools are run by a business entity, not the school district - but with district oversight. That difference isn't small, its everything. Anyway, I think I've made my point on this side issue, probably best to let it be now. Making a massive and sudden transfer of all schools to charters for CPS is entirely impractical - it has to be done over time. Which is what they have been doing (though I don't yet know what the new contract says about it going forward).

Ballgame, A's win 12-4.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 20, 2012 -> 03:02 PM) Well I don't know why they would clean house completely, but yes finding 60k relevant people to take over would be quite difficult. If you were one of the managers of the charter administration charged with running these schools, trying to make them different and better and cut costs... would you really just blindly re-hire all the exact same people? No way. You review them all, keep some, hire new for others. Then yet more would simply quit and go elsewhere. It would be a large rate of turnover, even if not complete.