southsider2k5

QUOTE(SoxHawk1980 @ Sep 21, 2006 -> 08:33 AM) With all due respect, that is silly. If you love a team and really care about them winning, then you are also going to really care about them losing. Is it possible for a fan to be really happy when a team wins but not be affected when the team loses? I wouldn't think so. That certainly isn't the case for me. When they win, I am elated. When they lose, I am crestfallen. Obviously, some wins and losses are bigger than others, but they all affect me. Do you think it is realistic for a fan's upset over a loss to stop as soon as he turns the game off? I'm sorry, but I really care about the White Sox. If I didn't, I wouldn't have been overjoyed when the Sox won the World Series. I don't consider being happy or sad about the Sox being "wasted energy". I don't see how anyone could. Frankly, I prefer it when fans really care. We are never going to see eye to eye on this, mostly because I don't think you are to the point in your life where you think in terms of grey yet. Everything is black or white, horrible or awesome, and no real inbetweens, and that's fine. A part of life is discovering the world in the middle. Yes you can care about something without it bothering you if it doesn't turn out your way... its called priorities. Just because you don't kick your cat when Konerko grounds into a double play, doesn't mean you don't care. It means you realize that in the grand scheme of things, so what. For me the White Sox winning the world series was one of the greatest moments of my life, when they lose, even if it is in horrific fashion, oh well. Did I lose my baby, my wife, my job, my house, my friends, my life... no. Well then, what's worth getting mad about? I think if you look closely at who is reacting to things and how they are reacting, you'll see a pretty clear divide that the older the fans are, the less sleep that they are losing over this, and there is a pretty clear reason for that. The older you are, the more you understand perspective, and in the grand scheme of things, exactly how important the Sox not winning the division is. Now if you ask them if they enjoyed last year any less, they will all talk about how incredible it was. One of these days you will get that. I have been here for a while now, and I have seen lots of people on here change right before my eyes. Just about everyone who has come through here and stuck around for any considerable amount of time has undergone the samekind of growth. Even if none of this makes sense to you now, and from the sounds of your posts, it probably won't, one day it will.

Iran's President had an interesting debate last night with leading political analysts. This is no one connected to the current government, but supposedly this is a big step towards maybe having direct talks and dialogue. http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060921/...COUNCIL-DC.html

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Sep 21, 2006 -> 07:54 AM) That's a lame excuse. The Yankee teams that made the World Series almost every year a few years back played an extra month every season. Hmmm, and with a $200 million payroll you also have the ability to go out and buy new players every year too, which they did, repeatedly. (Hi Bobby Abreu!) (FYI, this might be in response to your post BS, but this rant isn't for you) Look if you all want to waste your time looking at this as "alibi's" and "excuses" you all can have fun. Keep wallowing in your miserable outlooks on all this stuff, and stay pissed off about it, that's fine. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter if you all "give the team a pass" or not. If you feel that things have to be justified to you, once again you completely missed the entire point of my original post. Sports isn't supposed to be a negative influence in your life. It isn't supposed to be something that upsets you to the point where it bothers you past when you turn the game off. You are supposed to get something positive out of it, or you are completely wasting your time. You want something really worth getting upset about, there are pleny of social problems/people that could use a person's energy, as you are completely wasting yourself getting this angry at the Chicago White Sox, any player, or any game. Seriously, some of you need to step away from your computers, and maybe even from your lives and get a little perspective on things. The sad thing is that I know I am probably wasting my time, because the people who really need to hear and understand this, either won't care, or won't get it anyway. Oh well. Have fun, because I am done with this stuff. The pity party is back to being all yours.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 21, 2006 -> 07:44 AM) Well, it is in Asia. I guess I always think of the Middle East of its own region.

QUOTE(SoxHawk1980 @ Sep 21, 2006 -> 07:29 AM) Some fans just need to come up with alibis. For them, it's never the talent level, it's never effort, it's injuries or bad breaks or something else out of the team's control. The reality is that EVERY team is dealing with multiple players who are injured. By this time in the season, multiple players on every team have nagging injuries that they are playing through. The Sox get no pass because some of the players are feeling some pain or discomfort. That's what they get paid for. The problem is that this team isn't playing with fire and intensity game in and game out. Way too often they just sleepwalk through games. 100% effort every night is not too much to ask for. It is the least that we fans deserve. You really have no clue what is like to put your body physically everyday for 7-8 months, so you might as well quit acting like it. The funny thing about a nagging injury is that it affects your ability to preform at a 100% level. If you have a hamstring pull, you can't run down to first base at full speed, otherwise you turn your pull, into a tear, and don't play at all for months. As I said before, if this team really had quit, the DL would be full of these guys. If they had truely quit, they wouldn't be on the playing field everyday, and this line up would be loaded with guys like Sweeney, Fields, Anderson, Haegar, Stewart, and company. But guess what, to a man, every single one of these guys has gutted it out and showed up everyday that they could, to the point of risking major injury in the cases of guys like Jim Thome, or putting off surgeries in the cases of guys like Joe Crede, to try and rescue this season, and all for fans who just don't understand the sport of baseball enough to get that there is more to baseball than what you see between the lines. QUOTE(SoxHawk1980 @ Sep 21, 2006 -> 07:41 AM) I've heard similar things about Santana, Silva, Mauer, Cuddyer, Hunter, Bonderman, Rogers, Castillo, Rodriguez and Thames dealing with injuries/pain/discomfort. All teams have multiple players with nagging injuries. That is no alibi. How many of those guys played an extra month of baseball last year?

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Sep 21, 2006 -> 07:21 AM) I'm sorry, but can I get an injury report or is that just an assumption about all those guys? Newsflash, Konerko's been playing with that back for awhile now. It's nothing new. I didn't hear Buehrle having a back problem, maybe he does, but I haven't seen a blurb about it. MacDougal, I'll give you him. McCarthy, again I didn't see a blurb about him playing injured. Contreras is more than likely injured. Dye had a back/hammy injury earlier in the year, but I don't think his hammy is affecting him at all. Thome's hammy injury was earlier in the year too and went away. Maybe his wrist is still off, but not his hammy. Didn't see a blurb about Podsednik. I say it's more of his groin injury from last year than him having a hammy problem. Politte isn't even on the team, therefore shouldn't be discussed. That's like me bringing up Widger. I'll give you Hermy as an injury excuse. If you haven't seen them, you haven't been looking. This stuff has been in the newspapers, on the radio, and in the news if you listen for it. And actually since I typed that Garcia came out and admitted he has been hurting as well for most of the season, and has just lately started to have is arm feel better.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Sep 20, 2006 -> 12:15 PM) Truth is, the frontrunner at this time is a prince of Jordan. The next Secretary General will be from the Asian group of nations, of which Jordan is one. Jordan is considered an Asiatic nation in the UN? Weird.

What a surprise, since Congress is too afraid to actually do what needs to be done to solve illegal immigration, they find the easy way out yet again. There is one easy solution to solving this and it is removing the incentive for illegal labor. Ideally you make it a disincentive for both the workers and the employers to be using illegal labor, but even if you just made it unpalatable for employers to hire illegals, the illegal market would dry up quickly if there were no jobs for them. There also needs to be a smart fluid program originating outside of the US to hire the people who want to come to the US and work BEFORE they get here, instead of after risking their's and their family's lives to do so. Another thing that would go a long way towards helping things is if the Mexician government could get their own house cleaned up, fix the still omnipresent levels of corruption, and make people actually want to stay there, instead of needing to come here.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Sep 20, 2006 -> 04:38 PM) Anybody read Chavez' speech transcript. Can't say I agree with him, but I loves me some oratory! He calls the UN worthless, calls Bush "the devil", complains about the smell of sulphur, cites Noam Chomsky repeatedly!, invites everyone to Venezuela, and talks about how most of his delegation isn't allowed out of the planes that took them to the US. That's some speechifyin! http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2.htm Nah, it was on while I was at work, and it is always more entertaining to watch them, than to go back and get someone else's feel of them. I saw some exerpts and of course the clip of him holding up the Chomsky book in front of everyone, and that was plenty for me. To be honest, the thing that surprises me is that Iran and Venezuela haven't worked together more on their agendas...

The irony is always that if you aren't doing what I want you to be doing, you are doing nothing. The repubs have had their laundry list of stuff they have been trying to pass, but because it doesn't fit the agenda of the dems, they are tying the hands of congress, and on the other side of the aisle the Dems have a whole different list of stuff they want to do, but because it doesn't fit the agenda of the Repubs they are a "do nothing congress" Please. Its just more of the same old politicking for the party bases. I am sure if you look hard enough you can find some long winded speech about the Dems allowing the murder of babies, the undermining of our military, the enabling of terrorists, or anything else you want to find that fits the exact same type of arguement. BTW, thanks for freeing this up from "hiding" Rex.

Ah noooooooooooo not French

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Sep 20, 2006 -> 12:53 PM) Interesting point...but it's only an issue if you believe that Ahmadinejad is either the only problem or is the actual source of power in that country. I don't believe either of those...Iran's government is still run mostly by the Islamic Clerics, who do not come up for a vote. These were the same clerics who expelled quite a few candidates from the Presidential race that elected Ahmadinejad, and they're the ones who have the power over the military. There is some infighting in Iran constantly in terms of the elected leadership wanting more power from the clerics, but the constitution of that country gives these folks a huge amount of power. They can declare war, run the military, appoint the nation's judges, appont members of their parliament, etc. Simply getting rid of Ahmadinejad will not suddenly make Iran's government pro-America. The Clerics are another big part of the problem. Whoa there. I never said Ahmadinejad not getting reelected would lead to a pro-American group getting elected in Iran. In reality that is probably never going to happen. They have been chanting "death to America" after Friday prayers for almost 30 years now, I doubt that who is the President is suddenly going to make the average Irani forget the years of indoctrination that they have been raised with. Heck the vast majority of Iranis aren't even old enough to remember the Shah, let alone anything pro-American ever being said in their country. Where I was going with that point was you felt economic sanctions might not matter... I was sharing that people are already upset with their standing in life by and large in Iran. If the people felt that the government's insistance on taking on the world on certian issue was exsaserbating their suffering, Iran might be more likely to back down, fearing revolt or revolution in a country that has done it before.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Sep 20, 2006 -> 12:19 PM) Wait one second...how exactly does economic sanctions help the people in Iran gain a more free flow of information? What economic sanctions are likely to do is first make the people of Iran more poor, such that it will be more difficult for them to afford the sorts of communications technologies that would allow them greater access to information, second it would make that sort of equipment more expensive because it would be harder to import it into Iran, and third it would likely make the people themselves more dependent on the government for general supplies that they can't get elsewhere, like food, which works against any anti-government instinct that people in that country might have. After watching the Irani President's speech on CNN, they had an excellent analyst on there who talked a lot about the backround of the President, where he came from, and why he was elected. It was interesting because hearing him talk, the situation reminded me a TON of the elder Bush's Presidency. The analyst said that Ahmadinejad was elected pretty exclusively because of his promises to reform the Irani economy and to stop soaring unemployment and inflation. The locals in general didn't really seem to care as much about the foreign policy stuff, and that things haven't changed that much under the current President despite the near record oil prices that Iran has seen over the past year. The foreign policy stuff seems to be aimed more at the Palestinians, the Lebannonese etc, and not really his own people. The interesting conclusion was that already Ahmadinejad would be seemingly vulnerable when up for reelection if there isn't some tangible change in the economic situation of the average Irani. I guess they vote with their pocketbooks as well if you believe this reporters research and interviews off camera with Joe Irani.

Hmmm so you are saying we should nuke their oil fields? Interesting...

Add Freddy to the walking wounded list... just like many suspected. http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...-home-headlines

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Sep 19, 2006 -> 04:21 PM) Oh and check out that list he posts in his article about the top 10 minor league pitchers in 2001. Man did we get unlucky. Its amazing what the washout rate even amoungst the Top 10's is. I guess it goes to show you why Kenny doesn't seem to care about trading off prospects for proven talent.

QUOTE(FlaCWS @ Sep 20, 2006 -> 08:16 AM) Am I the only one who would be rooting very hard for the Twins to beat the Yanks? Not that I'm giving up on the Sox just yet... but I would definitely root for the Twins in a series against the Yankees. Out of all of the AL teams, the Twins would be the one I would root for... easily.

QUOTE(LVSoxFan @ Sep 19, 2006 -> 11:06 AM) How ironic that there's a host of Sox and Cubs castoffs probably heading to the post-season. Dodgers: Maddux and Nomar Tigers: Magglio A's: Frank Thomas Yankees: Farnsworth I agree with Klaus that I'm tired of Minnesota and their awful stadium. If I had to pick somebody to root for it'll be for the Tigers, because they're midwest, they've had a season to deserve it, and I sure ain't pulling for the Yankees. They're everything we were last year. Even had the September swoon! Freaky! Root for Detroit? Kill me first.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Sep 19, 2006 -> 10:21 PM) You have no idea what I'm going through right now watching this team. 3 things have happened thus far in September that have me scared s***less. 1.) Freddy learned a new pitch (after sucking ass for 5 months) 2.) Freddy comes out and says he thinks he'll regain his velocity over the offseason. 3.) Freddy has allowed 4 baserunners over his past 16 IP (if he does this in May it's forgotten by now but since he's doing it in September it will mean something) I'm afraid these 3 factors will earn Freddy Garcia a spot in the rotation next year. Kenny needs to keep a stiff upper lip and kick Freddy out the damn door in November, his trade value is rising and could reach an all-time high (2006-present) this offseason. I said this in another thread but I think it bears repeating and discussion. I would estimate between the regular season, post season, and WBC, that Garcia has thrown about 300 innings in the last year, with next to no rest. I don't think that there is anyone is all of MLB that has done anything approaching that. It doesn't surprise me at all that his velocity has been way down. It also doesn't surprise me that he thinks he can crank it back up for next year.

Why would you not pick up MB's option? Anyways, if I am JR, I am working on a 4 year deal with Mark right now, while his value is potentially at a "low" point. Give Mark a full winter of rest and strengthening of that back, and he will come back next year as good as new.

Threads like this kill me. All this talk about "quitting" and "giving up" is hilarious. Many of the same people slamming the team for quitting are the same people who have been throwing players and this team under the bus for years now, yet are pissed off that the team "quit". Hell how hard is it to be a fan? You know you have to do impossibly hard things like encourage the team through rough times, and cheer when they do well, yet still couldn't handle a team that underachieved. Hell half of the sissies here quit going to games and watching games because the Sox weren't 60 games over .500 or something, and have the nerve to call the players quitters? OMG, the irony could be served up as a part of a seven course meal as delicious as that is. In another language I guess you could call it hypocracy. But hey, you all are pissed off the team quit right? Yeah, I mean they had to quit, right? Its not like a dozen of these guys are playing through injuries that would could have easily put them on the DL right? Because if they had given up, and had an easy excuse out, they totally would have taken it right? How many guys are on the DL for the Sox right now? Jeff Nelson is the ONLY guy on the DL right now for the Sox. Umm yeah, really sounds like these guys have quit to me. Here is your injured player list again since no one cared to acknowledge it yesterday Jenks-hip Buehrle-back Konerko-back MacDougal-shoulder Bmac-shoulder Contreras-back Dye-back/hammy Thome-hammy-wrist Pods-hammy Politte-rotator cuff Hermanson-back Once again, ALL of these guys are playing through this stuff. Not a one of them is on the DL, when it would be the easy way out. Don't give me this bullspiff about quitting, especially when all I hear is about how people aren't going to games or watching games anymore. Nice double standard. And finally as I have said a million times before, many of you all totally miss the point about sports in general. It isn't supposed to be about who can get the maddest when their team loses, or the happiest when their team wins. Sports is supposed to be a release from you daily life. Its entertainment. No matter how much you love it, or hate it, its not supposed to be a life or death thing, its supposed to bring you a sense of relaxation. If it is making you mad enough where you have to go onto a message board and flip out about something you have no control over, you are probably taking this way too seriously. Relax, and get some perspective on life. In reality, if the Chicago White Sox don't win a game the rest of the year, what have you REALLY lost? Does Justin Morneau get to come kill your dog if the Twins win the division? Does Magglio get a night with your mom if the Tigers win? No? Well then why let what happens on the field affect the rest of your life, and turn you into a raving lunatic? I'll never understand that. In reality, if a game is pissing you off that badly, you need to turn it off and find a new hobby. Watching baseball is supposed to be fun, not an exercize in self-torture. Step away and get some perspective on life.

Good catch on the Field neglect going on here! Congrats Josh on becoming only the 3rd guy in the Sox 100 year plus HISTORY to hit an HR in your very first AB, hopefully it is the first of about 500 or so...

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 19, 2006 -> 01:34 PM) Stevens is the king of pork. No surprise he was one of them. None at all. I guess his constituants can't say he hasn't done everything to bring home everything he can for them... And that would be about all that I can say for the guy. Also it was no surprise to me that Robert Byrd is the other scumbag holding up this bill.

I honestly believe if the same team essentially takes the field next year, they will win the AL Central. I truely believe this team is hurt and exhausted right now. Think about the injuries that have come out during the last month, and then factor in the innings that have come out of some of our pitchers. Heck here are the injuries alone off of the top of my head, and I am sure I am missing some... Jenks-hip Buehrle-back Konerko-back MacDougal-shoulder Bmac-shoulder Contreras-back Dye-back/hammy Thome-hammy-wrist Pods-hammy Politte-rotator cuff Hermanson-back Then you look at Garcia who between the season, the playoffs and the WBC probably through something like 300 innings worth of work in the last year, Buehrle was probably close to that as well... both of their velocities were way down. Contreras after logging record innings has had his velocity down. Give these guys a full winter to get healthy and I think we are going to be surprised at what returns.

Unless his contract demands are insane, or his back is in worse shape than we know of, or someone offers us an insane package for Joe... No.