southsider2k5

Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 39m39 minutes ago Sources: #Dodgers talking to #Braves about trade that would send Uribe to ATL for Callaspo. Lesser names also involved.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ May 26, 2015 -> 09:35 AM) Aiken has no incentive to sign for any less than full slot and really not much incentive to sign anywhere if drafted this season. He could go to college for a couple years rehab and have a much better shot at getting back to the top of the draft. I like the concept of drafting a high end talent for less as the Nats did with Giolito, but I don't think it is a fit with where the Sox are picking. I also would not mind seeing the Sox draft someone that they cannot sign as will give the team a lot of flexibility to make an impact in next years draft which is thought to be a lot better. This incentive for Aiken is to not fall down even further and not even be able to get the reduced number the White Sox could offer. Sox have a draft slot of $3.74 million. If the Sox were to offer say $2.5 million and save about a million dollars for later picks, If Aiken were to fall further than #16, his slot number would fall under $2.5 million. If you offer $3 million, the top team with a $3 million slot is #12. The latest BA mock draft has Aiken falling to #24 to the Dodgers who have a slot of just under $2.1 million.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ May 26, 2015 -> 09:20 AM) I usually head up to the McHenry Drive in a couple times a year. Late in the summer and early fall they do some cool horror movie stuff. Last year they did all three Back to the Future movies. I would go more often if it wasn't so far away, but we always have a good time. Nothing replaces the Drive In experience. Sure you get better technical stuff from 3D and Dolby sound etc, but the experience can't be replicated.

I'd really love to know what is going on this year with first inning pitching. We have some damned good pitchers who are just awful this year to start games, and I don't remember this being an issue in years past. I wouldn't think it would be warm up routine, because why would that have changed? Would the bullpen mound have changed? Grasping at straws here.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ May 26, 2015 -> 01:01 AM) We score zero runs. Doesn't matter how great we do in the field. Let's start worry about actually hitting the ball. Feels like everyone is mentioning the defense when the offense has been just as bad if not worst. You can't win games when you consistently score 0-3 runs every game. Ventura very clearly mentioned the offense.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 26, 2015 -> 09:08 AM) Some of you just THRIVE on negativity. What the f*** does Buddy Bell have to do with Melky Cabrera's 54 wRC+ or John Danks' 5.11 ERA? This team has played like s*** this year and they deserve to lose, but giving up your fandom over a s***ty season is just so dramatic. Fine, blame the manager if you want to pretend you have any idea why they're hitting so badly, but the bottom line is they're losing because they're playing like s***. The players have not performed anywhere close to the level they could have been expected to perform. It happens to 10+ teams every year. I don't know why it's so satisfying to find a political reason to hate your team. When you are holding 35 year old grudges on the topic, this is the absolute truest post in the entire thread.

QUOTE (Andy the Clown @ May 25, 2015 -> 11:44 PM) ? That makes absolutely no sense. Chicago could support two teams easily, and has when the stars align to the liking of the bandwagon. Sox fans choose to withhold their support for pretty much any reason under the sun, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. The market is very much there. Trust me, if the White Sox were to leave for some reason, there would be at least a franchise or two which would kill for the market, Oakland and Tampa Bay come to mind right away. The frustrating part is if Sox fans had half of the loyalty of the rest of the top notch franchises in baseball, they would have the resources and ability to do what other franchises can do. They wouldn't have to choose between major league and minor league spending.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 26, 2015 -> 12:02 AM) So why not let it replenish as quickly as possible? Let's let the bandwagon open far and wide! That's good for both you and me. That means the team we love and support is actually doing something of interest, which the 2015 brand, much like four of its most previous brands, has not. It also means we can pack our already-diminished ballpark to its diminished capacity. Why would you have a problem with that? Right. Because winning is something you just snap your fingers and do. It isn't like the White Sox went out and spent $100 million+ dollars this off season to try to compete this year or anything. Can we at least pretend to exist in the land of reality?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 25, 2015 -> 06:32 PM) That sounds like the logical follow up to every point he's made in this thread but when I've pointed that out that's the one detail he hasn't responded to. They could, but they choose not to do so. They'd rather stomp and pout like a petulant child about what they should have like a jealous child.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 25, 2015 -> 06:47 PM) The "very best of times" of which you speak have been very few and far between throughout those 115 years, which is the point I keep trying to make. When you cannot point to one instance during those 115 years where the team even once went to the post season in consecutive years, what does that tell you? It means achievement has been less than desirable, to say the least. You want attendance? Well you have to get it the 'ol fashioned way: you have to earn it. It tells me the bandwagon empties very quickly, just like we saw after 2005.

This has just been a nightmare of a start. They can't generate any offense at all.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 25, 2015 -> 03:25 PM) LOL - there are more posters agreeing with me than you, if you haven't noticed. As for substance, I've provided fact after fact after fact that, of course, there is a correlation between winning and attendance, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. You, on the other hand, have provided absolutely nothing to this discussion, except unnecessary sarcasm and a poorly formed opinion of the fan base based on, what? Conjecture? Certainly nothing verifiable, whatever it is. I have provided the obvious answers that you feel hurt feelings to acknowledge. I have 115 years of attendance and White Sox history to back me up, but you know, what is that really worth. Fans abandon the White Sox during all but the very best times. I don't see why that is such a painful thing for people to admit. All of the reasons you keep giving at why fans don't go to games do nothing but back that fact up. That is the very definition of a bandwagon fan base. If that isn't a bandwagon fanbase, I would love to hear what your definition of that actually is, and why the Sox fan base doesn't fit that criteria, because nothing you have said in all of your posts has said anything that doesn't reinforce every single thing I have been saying all along.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 25, 2015 -> 03:09 PM) Absolute throw away comments. I am glad you admitted you have said nothing of substance then, because it was a rephrasing of your post.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 25, 2015 -> 03:08 PM) What I have said repeatedly, in relation to why the organization continually has attendance problems, is that we don't win enough. What I've also said repeatedly is that winning is defined as making it to the postseason more often than we do, and then when we get there playing exciting and competitive baseball. I have never once said anything as absurd as we need to win the "trophy" every year, or that we should be in the playoffs every single year. That's ridiculous. But outside of 2005 which, of course, was off-the-charts amazing, in Reinsdorf's 34 other years as owner, there are but four measly playoff appearances and a combined four wins amongst them. So you tell me with that record over three and a half decades now, or even in particular the decade since '05, why anyone should be surprised that attendance is what it is. These attendance issues are a cumulative effect of the lack of achievement by this franchise. As I've said a million times now, we have a dormant fan base that will respond enthusiastically to a team that engages in exciting postseason play. They got a taste of what's that's like in '05, and you couldn't ask for better attendance the following season. But outside of '05, they have not been given that experience at all during our lifetimes. Most of the other franchises have delivered more exciting results to their fans, and the facts support that. For that, I think Mr. Reinsdorf and his management team deserve legitimate criticism. I also think, and this is just my opinion, but I also think the fortunes of this franchise will not change for the better until there is a new owner. It's been 35 years now. I am not surprised at all by our attendance. This is the type of fan base we have.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 25, 2015 -> 02:41 PM) I don't get your point. We should love baseball because it's baseball? The greatest sport on earth? Well I'd argue that the umpires and players have tried to ruin that (pace of play is appalling and strike zone squeezing abominable). However back to my point. Baseball is big business and fans deserve a good product. The product the White Sox have been throwing out there for some time now is not the worst in the industry but very bad. Reading your response, you have no idea what my point actually is.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 25, 2015 -> 11:06 AM) Since Jerry Reinsdorf took over the club in 1981, of the other 25 non-expansion teams in existence since then, only four of those teams (Royals, Mariners, Brewers, & Nationals) have been to the postseason fewer times than the Sox. And of those four, one team, the Royals, have made a World Series appearance more often than the Sox. If this record of futility doesn't bother you, if you are fine buying a ticket and getting the kind of quality we just saw during this last home stand, and in 2014, 2013, 2011, all the way through most of Reinsdorf's 35 years at the helm, well then fine - have at it. Buy a full season ticket package and get out there to the park and cheer on the mediocrity. But please don't be so crass and condescending with your completely unnecessary "cyber pat" comments when some of us legitimately look at the record of achievement of the ball club and, on a fan message board, suggest it should be better. Funny how your stance keeps softening the further along this goes. The opposite pf your post holds true as well. If this team and game has made you so incredibly miserable, move along. Why do you let it consume you? Apparently you are just fine being miserable, if you are still here, according to the standards you guys laid out for my side of things. Again, we'll see you when the bandwagon fills up again... until then, move along to the team that fills the empty spot you have.

QUOTE (flavum @ May 25, 2015 -> 10:42 AM) It seems like you have being a fan down to - this is the team I like, this is the park I go to and enjoy, and I hope the Sox win, but if they don't, oh well, there's always tomorrow or next year. And that's fine. But if that's the way you consume White Sox baseball, without opinions or thoughts on how they could improve, why even post here? What's here for you that gives you joy other than telling other people what to think? Because I am sick of the group that tells everyone they have to be miserable because they didn't get their trophy. It is one thing to talk about the game, or even the bad that goes with it. It is quite another to act like the game owes you something it doesn't.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 24, 2015 -> 04:45 PM) I look forward to the day when the bandwagon fills up again! Are you kidding me? That means we are WINNING once again. That is the goal, in case you've forgotten. Every team has it's bandwagon fans. Who the F cares as long as the team is winning. Geez, why is that so hard for you to understand! QUOTE (kitekrazy @ May 24, 2015 -> 07:55 PM) Some people have this fantasy that there are trophies for certain types of fans. When you go buy a ticket they don't care what type of fan you are. I think the bigger problem is that some people think a baseball ticket entitles them to way more then it actually does. Baseball is a sport. It is entertainment. It is a game. It isn't some sort of place for people to get an ego fulfillment because their team owes it to them, or some weird 21st century entitlement idea. The ideas about stomping and pouting and demanding the team do this and that because they owe it to you, the fans, is just silly. I don't know when that idea came into sports, but people need to get over it. These aren't gladiators. This isn't life and death on the line. The whole idea that staying away and quitting somehow makes you better than people who don't, because the team isn't delivering something it apparently owes to you to get you to show up is just mindblowing to me. Even worse is taking to the internet in an effort to get some sort of cyber pat on the back because you are all sad because the team hasn't won enough for you. Baseball is not an entitlement program. It doesn't owe you a regular championship as if you get a trophy just for signing up as a fan. If you need that to feel good about yourself, sign up for another team.

Tracey Myers ‏@TramyersCSN 2h2 hours ago Lineup changes "not likely" for Game 5. #Blackhawks

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 24, 2015 -> 11:59 AM) Yes, thank you! You are exactly right - where does anyone get those silly words! What we are talking about here is performance and how a fan base responds to that performance. Only three playoff appearances since '95 from the only big market team in a generally weak division? Not much for a fan base to get excited about, now is there. And that's precisely the point by several rather astute posters on this thread who are merely suggesting we do a little more of THAT - getting into the playoffs more often and creating some excitement to energize the base. The fans sure seemed to like that in '05, as evidenced by the waiting list for season tickets and the nearly three million fans through the turnstiles the following season. The way forward is more winning by the team and less unnecessary disparaging of the fan base. The way forward is quitting, at least according this thread. We'll see you all when the bandwagon fills up again.

Jon Morosi ‏@jonmorosi 2h2 hours ago Tigers place Kyle Lobstein on DL with sore left shoulder. Shortstop Dixon Machado called up.

Garcia back in the line up today.

Yeah reading the posts in this thread, I don't know where anyone would get the words "fickle" and "bandwagon" from when talking about the White Sox fan base. I hope you all enjoy your next team.

I swear some nights if you wanted to completely change the game of hockey, all you would need to do is make the goal like one inch bigger.

QUOTE (buhbuhburrrrlz @ May 23, 2015 -> 06:50 PM) Scott Skiles is the frontrunner for the Magic job, and Jeff Van Gundy wants to coach the Pelicans So much for the theory that Van Gundy was helping Thibs.