southsider2k5

QUOTE(Hangar18 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 03:47 PM) If the Trib owned the Rush, we might not be making that case. Same with the Wolves. That's it? That's the answer? OK. #1 If their is a big conspiracy to screw the Sox, why is the Tribune giving the Sox more coverage? #2 If their is a big conspiracy to screw the Sox, why would the Tribune Company's biggest media rival be either complicit or even participating in something that would AID their biggest competitor in the Chicago market? Wouldn't it make sense for the Sun Times to try to exploit the Tribune company's lack of thrust into the Sox market by catering to them, well if there were THAT many underserved Sox fans, to prop up their own bottom lines? As I said before, I can accept the Trib trying to bury the Sox because it makes sense to their bottom line. What I don't understand is how you can claim the Sun Times is part of this when ever fiber of business and common sense saids otherwise. The ONLY motive of the Sun Times ownership is to make money, and if their was an opportunity to make money by catering to the White Sox, they would do it in a New York minute. QUOTE(Hangar18 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 03:58 PM) Stop yourself. You keep assuming the Cubs had "more fans" thats why they get "more coverage". No they dont. 1981 Cub attendance 565,637 1982 Cub attendance 1,249,278 And the Chicago White Sox? 1981 Sox attendance 946,651 1982 Sox attendance 1,567,787 Anyone else remember walking around those years? Did you see as much cub nonsense, jerseys, hats available like up til last year? Do you have media numbers for those years? Do we know that media coverage skewed during those years? Do we have numbers for memorablia sales etc? If not, they are not relevant to the discussion, as that makes it all conjecture, especially when you factor in the terrible marketing decesions by White Sox during the past 25 years, when compared to the genius moves by the Cubs over the same time span. QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 05:57 PM) There are other subtle things the Tribune does to plant a seed. When the guy got beat up and killed at Clark and Addison it was buried in the Metro section on page 5 in the back of another story, so it didn't even get a headline. The continuing Ligue stories. Who cares what Ligue is up to these days or whose car he's breaking into except the car's owner and local law enforcement. The Tribune though loves to update Ligue's arrests any chance they get to keep it in the back of people's minds who are on the fence that USCF may be a little too dangerous. Do you ever see updates on the guy who went after Randy Myers? Did they ever even tell you his name? A few years ago they were digging for a body about 3 or 4 blocks from USCF, and the Tribune made sure everyone knew it was within walking distance of USCF, although a body was not found. There's probably a lot of crimes that occur in the 4 block radius of Wrigley that you will never hear mentioned in the Tribune. The Tribune also has 2 names it calls the area around Wrigley. On its positive pieces its Wrigleyville, if its something unpleasant the area reverts back to Lakeview. Hangar gets attacked, but yet I haven't seen a count that would disprove his numbers. To think that the Tribune doesn't have bias would be naive IMO. Sullivan got called into the principal's office. He even stated the Cubs expected the paper to be its "house organ". Sullivan then backtracks a little bit, and what do you know, a fluff piece on the Cubs. As I said, the Tribune company does have a motive to favor the Cubs. What has not been proved is that the Sun Times is involved in anything except maximizing profits.

QUOTE(Hangar18 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 03:37 PM) This was Quietly mentioned very recently. The SOX were blowing away the flubbies in Tv Ratings, the article mentioned cub viewership down like 54% IIRC What were the totals?

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 03:33 PM) I almost expected you to come back with that. I had to...

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 03:27 PM) I've got to say it before anyone else. The chances of this happening are......remote. I hate you

QUOTE(Hangar18 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 03:11 PM) To me, theres not much difference in 40,500 and being a sellout (that team), vs us having 38,000 (and selling out). Theyre both sellouts for all intents and purposes, and the fact that one team in the last 2 years, has seen a dramatic SHIFT in attendance figures, but hasnt really translated into newsstories (when other team had well past 200+ stories beating us) as one would think. Maybe though, this is just the "upward" trend the SOX will start seeing? Next year at this time, the SOX will, if numbers "continue", be that much in front of that other team, and start to see a slide upwards? You just said in a prior post that the numbers have shifted?!?!?! My observation all along as been that attendance is much more of a deteriming factor vs record, and it seems to be holding true. As the Sox attendance has gotten to the point where it is very near the Cubs, their media coverage has jumped up almost identially in terms of number of stories. The Sox big attendance jump didn't occur until late 2005, and into 2006 it has continued, and right their with it, seemingly the media coverage has followed. Like I said, it isn't conspiracy, its good business. Think about it, the Chicago Rush won a national title, does that mean they should have completely owned the sports pages? How about all of the years that the lowly Chicago Wolves were winning Turner Cup titles, while the Blackhawks were in their death spiral down, should the Hawks have been relegated to the back page, while the Wolves knocked the Bulls and Hawks off of the front pages during the winters? Not a chance. You publish what sells, period. The Sox winning and the Cubs losing as nothing to do with it. Cubs fans buying way more Tribunes, Sun-Times, and everything else under the sun is all that matters. You might be able to convince me of evil intent at the Trib, but no way that you can tell me that the Tribs arch enemy, the Sun Times, would aid the TribCo in lining their pockets and propping up the Cubs artificially. The Sun-Times is a multimedia group who only cares about one thing, and that is profits. If the Cubs gets the ST profits, than they will publish stories on the Cubs, and if the Sun-Times thought for one second that they could make more money by selling to Sox fans, they would ditch the Cubs faster than a Scott Borass client offered an extra dollar a year in salary. If the Sox were truely underrepresented at ANY time, the profit motive would have been plenty enough motivation for SOMEONE to step in and OVER represent the White Sox.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 02:31 PM) Ok, Here is June's breakdown which is all that is on this board. June 1st - June 19th, excluding weekends. Chi-town Media Watch June Totals Chicago Tribune: 49 Cubs stories 44 Sox stories Chicago SunTimes: 54 Sox stories 52 Cubs stories Just what I suspected. The Trib is going to put in more Cubs articles because that sells more tickets, which makes them more money. So it is not really a media bias, just a Trib bias, which will never change as long as they own the team. Those totals are pretty close to the totals if you project them out. The Sox hold the edge in the Times, and the Cubs get about 53-54% of the articles in the Trib, which is lower than I expected. What is interesting is that the numbers really outpace attendance at the ballparks, so Sox fans are actually getting relatively more coverage vs the number of people who go to the ballpark. In terms of raw attendance, the Sox are drawing about 20% less fans per game than the Cubs are, yet they are almost dead even in terms of their stories in June. Interesting. Even just isolating June, the Sox are averaging 36,017 per game, and the Cubs are getting 40,486 good for about 10% more fans per game, which to me if the Cubs are getting about 10% more coverage with 10% more fans attending their games, that seems about right to me. Looking at things from a strictly business standpoint, you expect more coverage of things that draw more paying customers. I can't really argue with that. Its the reason the Sox and Cubs get coverage, while the Sky have fallen all of the way back to the back pages of the newspapers.

As I said in an earlier thread, its this reason exactly the Cubs should throw up the white flag on 2006 today if they are smart. They have a bunch of guys who would have huge value on this market, and would go a long way towards reducing payroll, while rearming them into good shape for 2007 and beyond. Think of what a Zambrano, Dempster, Howry, Eyre, Barrett, etc could get you on the open market with NO ONE offering players anywhere close to that calibur? Thankfully the TribCo still has to try to sell the public on the fact that the Cubs are still in it, so they will keep miring themselves in their mess for years to come.

And to top it off, Dirk has done a disappearing act on the road, plus Dallas's repuation as not playing defense really puts them up against the wall. It will be interesting to see if Dallas can break the momentum of Dallas as they go home for games 6 and 7.

So are Mac and Harry back on the air today?

So are there no updates from Saturday's and Sunday's?

If you do it, do it slowly... Ease him into it.

Barrett could be a consideration, mostly because of the lack of catchers.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 11:17 AM) Barrett will begin serving today, hit suspension has been upheld, he'll have to sit out for 10 days and will be back on the 30th just in time to play game 1 Vs the Sox. What a crock of s***. So he sits out as the Cubs play against the AL Central, and comes back to face the team that he offended against. That's just stupid.

Sweet Jesus, that's practially a hurricanes worth of rain

To be honest, I think the turning point for his season will be the 3 run homer he hit against Cleveland when the Sox were down 10-2 on Sunday nite baseball. It might have seemed meaningless when he hit it, but that AB seemed to have awoken his bat. Hopefully he keeps this up, along with Juan at the bottom of the order. Getting the 8-9 guys going would be HUGE.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 11:21 AM) I didn't see the special, but my curiosity is piqued. ^^^ Same here... I didn't see it.

Unless he starts playing LF down in Charlotte on a regular basis, I would say zero.

Snopes is the first place I went

If anyone is stressing, its the Tigers. The Sox have been there before, and they know if they take care of business, they will win this. The Tigers don't have anything to fall back on.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 09:51 AM) All the reds fans could do was half assed chant "used to be cubs fans" I gotta admit, that is pretty funny

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 09:34 AM) I agree, but there was a play this weekend where Pods was calling it, he was under it and set, and Anderson cut in front of him. I understand it's the CF's ball, but he also has to understand that it's a lot easier for a corner OF to catch it if he's set then if he's running. yeah, I remember that play too, and at that point, you are right, BA should have just let it go. BA just wants to get EVERY ball that is hit to the OF, and I think it is awesome.

QUOTE(JimH @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 09:16 AM) BS. I watched all three games in their entirety, every crowd shot they focused in on Sox fans. Saying it was a purposeful effort on their part not to show Sox fans ... please, give it a rest. I didn't get to see all of the games in their entirity, but I saw TONS of Sox fan shots. It seemed like pretty much every crowd shot between pitches had Sox fans in it.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 09:28 AM) Except for occasionally cutting in front of the corner outfielders to make a catch, especially when they are flat-footed, I couldn't agree more. Its the CFs ball if he calls it. Its just like if the SS calls it on the IF its his ball... those two guys are in charge of their areas, so if Anderson calls a ball, Dye/Pods should be the ones backing off of it.

QUOTE(joeynach @ Jun 16, 2006 -> 03:39 PM) Use google earth to get the exact distance i got something around 447. Just zoom into the ballpark and draw a line measued in feet from homeplate to where the ball landed ( from the replay) in the grass area in center and you will get the distance. Its that easy. Very cool. The only thing would be some parks keep actual distance, while some take into account the actual angle of the ball flight, and say it would have gone so far if that seat hadn't gotten in the way.

I got this spam, and I am curious about how much of this is actually true...