upnorthsox

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It mostly had to do with the location of utilities and the reluctance of the city to pay for their move. I believe there was also something about streets and addressing but that may have been an additional excuse for the one mentioned above.

I didn't know he was available, don't recall him on any of the FA or non-tendered lists.

And it's amazing how his salary is exactly what they claim to be over budget by.

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's always been a slightly more Cubs town, just like the nation as a whole outside of Yankee Stadium is slightly more towards the NL but it was always close enough that when one of the teams was going well the balance would tip in that direction. That is until July of '97, since then the Cubs have had a run of incredible dumb luck while the Sox only luck is that they've kept shooting themselves in the foot when they were aiming for the head.

IT'S ALL THE SOX FANS FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, the flip side of course is that when your biggest move of the off season is the signing of Zero, maybe the less coverage the better.

The point though isn't about attendance at Soxfest, it's about media coverage of the event. Here it is 48 hours before Soxfest kicks off and there is How many Sox stories in the papers today vs Super Bowl stories? Sun Times: 5 Super Bowl - 0 Sox Tribune: 4 Super Bowl - 1 Sox Daily Herald: 4 Super Bowl - 0 Sox Southtown: 4 Super Bowl - 0 Sox And sadly the one Sox story is a rip job on the org and couldn't possibly be considered positive, and Monday and Tuesday were basically the same and tommorrow and Friday won't be much better. Sports radio except for the KW interview(and bad publicity from it) have been non-stop football/super bowl talk since the weekend, do you think that'll change with them doing live remotes from Houston? To top it all off, come Sunday night with the Sports wrap shows just how much do you think will be devoted to the SB and how much to the Sox?

Now doesn't that sound familiar, I take it GIDP's will come next.

Right, better the devil you do know than..........

Alfonso is still owed $20 mil over the next 3 yrs, we sure the hell don't want him and I can't see how he'd be the Yankmee's first choice either. Trading Jose would have to entail us getting pitching in return, either directly or thru a third team like Anaheim. Otherwise there's no sense in making the deal.

Umm, Attendance went up almost 700k in 2000 over 1999, this for a surprise team that most were picking 4th in the AL Central at the start of the season and had it all but wrapped up by Sept. 1st.

Scott Merkin is who Teddy plagurized it from.

I'd also like to see a link to anything that quotes Maddux as saying he won't play in the AL or that he even has a preference to the NL.

Just heard he'll be ready to go for ST but may be behind others getting to full strength. I think he'd be worth the wait. He'd be my 2nd choices after Maddux. Me thinks age has finally caught up with Burkett but he'd still be my 3rd choice. El Duque is the only other one that interests me.

Alot of truth to that, he needs to adjust. Also, high hard ones to Harris, he can't seems to lay off them esp away.

I believe the word is plagurism.

Total BS trade mostly because no way does Montreal take Bernie. Joe B and Harris for Livan? You could probably make that trade with the Expos now. You could also probably get Washburn for little more than that or maybe Garcia too. Maggs for Soriano straight up? I wouldn't but I recognize others would.

The Marlins in '03 also went against conventional wisdom and fired their manage during the season, the Sox didn't citing convetional wisdom. The rest is history.

Marlins had the 2nd highest payroll in the NL in '97, they were 8th in '96, it doesn't mean s*** where the Sox were because in the end they chose to dump salary and their chances instead going for it. In '03 the Marlins while having almost no local TV revenue and attendance under a million going into the season came up with "Special" money to sign IRod and then more "Special" money for Urbina during the season, they don't make the playoffs let alone win it all without those two. They also had the good fortune of playing the biggest choke team in baseball to get there. Btw, The Twins had a payroll of $55,505,000 in 2003, the Sox $51,010,000. Who won the AL Central in 2003? One more thing, the Twins this yr have a $56 mil budget while the Sox have a $58 mil budget even though the Twins get $22 mil less in local TV money, a worse stadium deal, and almost the exact same attendance so if JR is only breaking even then the Twins are losing $20 mil or more. I guess we'd be better off with Carl Pohlard as our owner.

Oh yea, Steff really let Frank have it.

The ISA is also in charge of Soldier Field and the surrounding future (not sports)park.

Even if this is the "rawer" data than the ISA puts out volunteerily on it's web site this would still be available thru the FOIA so I wouldn't sweat it.

No!! These are ISA numbers, so revenue is what ISA brings in and expenditures is what ISA pays out. Thus, The Sox payed 1,340,740 to the ISA for park but received 2,641,050 in team expense subsidies so the Sox got back 1,300,310 more than they payed out. Plus the ISA picked up the park maintenance expenses. I'd call that a pretty sweet deal.