Gregory Pratt

My favorite Sox site is SoxMachine (SoxMachine.com) and one of Jim's latest posts is about this series: Is he off about the boringness, or right?

I was rooting for Edmonton, but congratulations Carolina.

In the rush to sexism and accusations of Losery, I think you've all missed the most important news found in this thread: our centerfield problem is OVA! Garland for Centerfield: He homered once. How can we lose?!

QUOTE(rangercal @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 04:07 PM) Some people hate cleveland more than the cubs. I still dislike cleveland for all those painful seasons in the 90's watching them pwn us. Are rivalry was at it's peak in 94, 97 ,2000 and just recently in 2005. Plus , I still am not counting them out. Not after last year. Who will you guys be pulling to win in this series? Wait, you wouldn't root for the Cubs over Detroit, which is a team that has better pitching and a similarly strong offense as the Indians, but you'll root for the Indians, whose pitching blows something awful, over the Cubs, even though you "have reasons" to hate the Cubs and never want to root for them?

I guess I'm the only one who enjoys having Pods on the team. I know he's no gold glover, and I understand he's in a bit of a slump, but when he's hot our team is golden, and even when he's a little iffy with the bat he's still more than acceptable, IMO. I only like him 'cause he's cute, though.

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 12:09 PM) But...but...government would never abuse its authority! /if they had nothing to hide a little torture shouldn't matter At least they weren't torturing white people.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/burgereport/ Disgusting, disgusting.

Where's the prediction in your preview that Buehrle throws a game because he doesn't have the heart to break the Cards?!

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jun 17, 2006 -> 04:32 PM) Does it seem to anyone else that DJ is just flat out smarter than Hawk? I just get that feeling. Hawk seems like a backward idiot to me. And I ain't just whistlin' dixie or flying around in circles, either.

QUOTE(VAfan @ Jun 18, 2006 -> 11:53 PM) At 6 games under .500 and with no pitching, Cleveland is done this year. They may hit their way back to .500, but they aren't going on any huge tear to get back into contention. But, at .500, and with Santana and Liriano in the rotation, Minnesota is likely to put on a run and keep the pressure on. I'm not afraid that they'll catch us in the division, but I think they have a chance to win 90+ games. They might end up as the best team not to make the playoffs. I've never feared Cleveland. If ever there was a team that got worse from year to year, it's them. I didn't, however, anticipate Detroit, but we'll handle them.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Jun 18, 2006 -> 10:41 PM) I am surprised about how quickly some folks forget that Thome played first base a lot. He ain't a virgin there. Haha! Oh, I know, and I'm sure most people here do. Most people, however, would rather he never play the field for fear of him being injured, and I've never really shared that concern since Jim's a) a big boy and B) an experienced one.

Great article: There comes a time when a man has to show what he's made of, and that time has come for White Sox pitchers. With the team playing three games in Cincinnati beginning tonight, the pitchers once again will be asked to grab a bat. Judging from their previous plate efforts, the results won't be pretty. But they've been practicing. They just might surprise us. Take Bobby Jenks, for instance. Jenks digs the long ball. Just lay it in there nice and easy and watch him muscle the ball into the stands. "It's batting practice,'' the closer said. "I'm not going to try and hit line drives. It's a piece of cake -- home runs.'' Every pitcher fantasizes about hitting a ball out of the park, and Javier Vazquez experienced the joy last season with the Arizona Diamondbacks. ONE HITTER Having played seven seasons in the National League with Montreal and Arizona, Javier Vazquez is by far the most experienced and accomplished batter of the White Sox' five starting pitchers. Pitcher AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI AVG Javier Vazquez 426 31 91 10 2 1 24 .214 Freddy Garcia 36 0 7 1 0 0 2 .194 Jon Garland 12 0 2 0 0 0 1 .167 Mark Buehrle 21 1 2 0 0 0 1 .095 Jose Contreras 14 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Most home runs by a pitcher (season): Wes Ferrell, 9, 1931 Indians. Most home runs by a pitcher (career): Ferrell, 37. "Hitting a home run as a pitcher is better than throwing a shutout,'' he said. "You feel so good when you hit it.'' Vazquez is the most experienced hitter on the Sox' staff with 426 at-bats. Including the homer, he has 91 hits, which translates to a .214 batting average. A couple of position players in this town would kill for that average. "I was a pretty good hitter when I was young,'' Vazquez said. "I used to play shortstop and second base, and I hit a lot. But since I was [a teenager], I started concentrating more on pitching.'' Pitchers have been getting a free pass at the plate for years, particularly in the American League, where they have been supplanted by the designated hitter. As Jon Garland pointed out, a few trips to the batting cage can do only so much for their swings. "You have to take it with a grain of salt,'' said Garland, who has three sacrifice bunts and two singles in his career. "They give us a couple of days of batting practice. It's kind of hard. "[Jenks] can hit one out in batting practice, but if you put him in the box against a pitcher, he might look like a T-baller out there. National League pitchers probably take batting practice three or four days a week, which makes a real difference.'' Don't be stupid If hitting coach Greg Walker were to list his goals for the pitchers during the nine games they'll have to bat -- the Sox also visit the Pittsburgh Pirates on June 27-29 and the Cubs on June 30-July 2 -- he might scribble these words: Don't hurt yourself. Please. "The last thing you want them to do is go out there and get a blister on their hand,'' Walker said. "Don't put a finger out there when you're bunting and break a finger or something stupid like that. And don't overswing and pull a rib-cage muscle.'' Brandon McCarthy, who has all of two career at-bats (and no hits), both in a game last season against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, likes taking his cuts. But bunting is another story. "I hate bunting,'' McCarthy said. "I don't like sticking my hands and face out there. And I certainly could get a lot better at it.'' The worst hitter on the pitching staff? According to McCarthy, that has to be Jenks. Sure, he sent a few balls into the stands during batting practice. But more often than not, he whiffed. "[Jenks] is awful,'' McCarthy said. "It's pretty tough to strike out when someone is throwing batting practice, but he swung and missed three or four times. He stinks. He said at one point that he could hit a home run off me, and I told him if he had 1,000 at-bats, he still probably wasn't hitting the ball out of the infield against me.'' Jenks, a .000 lifetime hitter (he was hitless in two World Series at-bats), took issue with McCarthy's assessment: "He can't hit his way out of a paper bag, and he's talking [bleep] about me?'' Yet Jenks is content to confine his homers -- or whiffs, as the case might be -- to batting practice. "They don't want me hitting in a game,'' he said. "The only chance of that is in an eighth-inning or ninth-inning stint, and I'm sure they'll try to avoid it, if possible. If I'm hitting, it probably means I screwed up in the ninth and have to go back out there in the 10th, so that's not a good thing.'' Neal Cotts hasn't forgotten his only big-league hit. "It was a double, and it came in Montreal,'' Cotts recalled. "But more times than not, if we're in there, we're going to be bunting. So that's more important than the hitting.'' Athletes and non-athletes Good thing, too. First-base coach Tim Raines has watched the pitchers take their cuts and is not overly impressed. "We have some athletes and we have some non-athletes, but I'm not going to name names,'' Raines said. "Garland is a good athlete. A guy like [Vazquez] is able to hold his own. Buehrle? He's not very good. He's not going to make the other team worry when he's at the plate. But bunting-wise, he'll be OK. That's all we're concerned about.'' In 2003, Buehrle helped his own cause with an RBI single in a 7-6 victory against the Cubs at Wrigley. Although he hasn't had a hit since then, that still puts Buehrle one up on Freddy Garcia, who is 0-for-7 in his Sox career. Yet Garcia's teammates say he is one of the Sox' better-hitting pitchers. "They lie,'' said Garcia, who did manage two sacrifices last season. "I have good power in batting practice, but it's different hitting in batting practice and games.'' They were all great all-around athletes once. As kids, they were the best hitters on their teams. Or so they say. "I'm not good [now],'' said Jose Contreras, who is hitless in 14 career at-bats. "But when I was 15 and I played third base, I hit a lot of home runs.'' Matt Thornton was once a .300 hitter. As a member of the Sox, he has inspired the Thornton Shift. "I used to hit home runs to left-center,'' the lefty reliever said. "But now [my teammates] make fun of me because I pull everything. So what they do is have the left fielder playing center field and the third baseman playing on second base. [Third-base coach] Joey Cora said to me the other day, 'Go the other way one time. Can you?' And I said no and just kept pulling the ball. "I'm just bad at hitting. But I can bunt.'' Last season in Colorado, Cliff Politte faked a bunt and then swung away for a single. He eventually scored as part of a six-run eighth inning that helped the Sox put away the Rockies 15-5. Politte, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list June 5 with a sore shoulder, could be activated by the time the Sox play the Pirates and Cubs. Let's hope so. You never know when an extra bat will be needed. "The pitchers have gotten some results,'' Walker said. "But realistically, the majority of them are overmatched -- and rightfully so.''

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jun 16, 2006 -> 08:55 PM) I'm hoping for a Prior return on Sunday. Well, f*** me!

I'm a bit late, but I wanted to mention that I considered the Italy-US game to have been excellent. Anyone think Italy will beat the Czechs?

QUOTE(illinilaw08 @ Jun 18, 2006 -> 09:38 PM) Ok, adding my .02 to this discussion. After attempting to drink away all I learned in Con Law I, I hope I can still be helpful. There is no way the SC could rule an amendment unconstituional. First of all, consider what an amendment is, it is a change to the constitution which can only be accomplished under very strict criteria (2/3 of both houses, 3/4 of the states). Since this is how the constitution dictates amendments are passed, the Court would have to rule that that portion of the constitution is unconstitutional in order to overturn an amendment. From a textual standpoint, Article III Section II of the Constitution says that the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction “in all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party.” Suit involving an amendment would not fall under that category. Article III goes on to say “in all other Cases before mentioned the S.C. shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” This is the portion of the Constitution that Marshall used when he created "judicial review" which is not even in the Constitution, but is rather a judicially created standard of review. Judicial review holds that the Supreme Court has the power to interpret federal laws and determine if they are in conflict with the Constitution. However, checks and balances dictate that judicial review is not the end of the road, much like the legislature can override an executive veto, the legislature can override a judicial veto by amending the Constitution. Thus, the ability of the legislature to amend is the only realistic check available to the legislature (historically the only other check was when FDR threatened to add justices to the SC if they continued to strike down his New Deal policies as unconstitutional). Now, the Supreme Court has the power to interpret amendments, one needs look no further than the evolution of the 4th Amendment to see that, but they would not be able to blatantly rule an amendment to the constitution as against the constitution because once, ratified, an amendment IS the constitution. The thing to remember in all of this is that the Constitution is not incredibly specific. The world has changed a lot since the Constitution was created and as such, you will not find a specific section that explicitly says "court challenges of amendments are not allowed." Instead, you need to interpret the Constitution as a whole, and like I mentioned earlier, the fact that the Constitution makes amending the Constitution to be a task that involves 2/3 of both houses and 3/4 of the states, a rather difficult task, makes a constitutional amendment beyond the scope of judicial review. My apologies for the length of the post, and congratulations to all that are still reading at this point. As an added disclaimer, I only got a B+ in constitutional law, so take that as it is. That's a very good job done, mate.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jun 18, 2006 -> 09:48 PM) Ha, whenever Gload comes into a game, I always think of that character Gil from the Simpsons. Apu's wife's water breaks, he comes in and says, "This is Gil's time to shine!" I can just picture Gload adjusting his cap in a 10-2 game, saying to himself, "This is Gload's time to shine!" Of course he refers to himself as Gload. That's great.

I don't want to see him. Send him to Detroit. For the love of God!

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Jun 18, 2006 -> 08:35 PM) I was listening in the car and two seconds before Jon hit it, Farmer was talking about how good a hitter Jon was in H.S and said that he is very capable of going yard. How s***ty do you feel when an AL pitcher goes yard on you?? DJ cracked a joke about the pitcher. He said, "They brought him over because they needed bullpen help, but it doesn't look like you're getting any when you give up homers to AL Pitchers."

QUOTE(That funky motion @ Jun 18, 2006 -> 08:14 PM) He should quit trying to take Gloads job.

As to Badger's responses to me, I think Jackie and Nuke did an excellent job responding, and I think this was the nail in the coffin: Thanks, Nuke. It's nice that we agree on this AND the Electoral College. And baseball. And beanballs. And I'd like to say that I think it's ridiculous to assert that not all amendments are created equal. To be sure, they all serve different purposes, but no Court -- nobody with an intellectual mind -- would, in the event that this Amendment is passed, accept the argument that, "Hey, the First Amendment weighs heavier than this Amendment because I think it's my right to expression to burn flags." You know what the answer would be? An indignant David Souter saying, "My dear man, haven't you a clue? This Amendment gives the government the power to ban flag burning. What the hell do you mean it's UnConstitutional, then, for them to do what the Amendment says they can?"

QUOTE(Felix @ Jun 18, 2006 -> 07:36 PM) As far as I know, he's always been a good defensive 1B. He's only at DH because of the injury concerns that come with playing the field. Yes, you're right -- and he played a solid third base, too. I was, to rephrase, wondering if anyone's injury fears were soothed by this.

QUOTE(Felix @ Jun 18, 2006 -> 04:14 PM) Obviously he's wrong about the k-rate, but he's probably right in the fact that Contreras won't finish with an ERA below 3, and he's also right that he's let up a fair amount of runs since coming back from the DL (by my math, he's got a 4.71 ERA since then). There've been quite a few situations (Cubs game, for one) where Count was charged with Earned Runs that he probably shouldn't have been, for what it's worth.

I was impressed with how limber he was, and how well he handled his base. I've been a big proponent of letting him play there a good amount of times during Interleague play, and I felt more confident in him with today's game, personally. (I know it's unlikely that he'll make more than one start per series in IL play, I'm just saying.)

I was there -- I left town early yesterday for Indiana, and today for Cincinnati, and it was marvelous.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jun 16, 2006 -> 11:18 PM) GP, I follow your logic - but help out an 'unconstitutional scholar' here... don't just state your opinion, tell us why it couldn't happen from a legal standpoint, if you can. And for the record, I don't agree or disagree with SB's stance, yet. I just want to see more proof before I agree with a side here. Do try to follow along, as this is going to be a tad convoluted and could be confusing. Nothing about Law is simple! (And I'm not patronizing you; I'm warning you, as I've had to edit this a couple times to try and make it fit well.) First, let's use the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution as a practical example of How to Determine Constitutionality. Equal Protection says that the government must protect the rights of everyone and everyone is entitled to due process under the Law. Let's say a state passes a law that says the police don't have to protect Asian people who are attacked at sporting events. Someone would certainly challenge that law, and it would be ruled unconstitutional for sure because it goes directly against the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. But someone would, of course, have to sue the state that passed the Law, or the Federal Government, and have it go through the Courts. A Court can't just up and say, "Well, I want to rule on the Constitutionality of this law!" It's a basic tenet of American Law: the Courts can't reach out and take, it must be brought to them. Now, how is Constitutionality is determined? Clearly, if you look at what Nuke writes, what SoxBadger writes, and what I write, you'll find varying views. I am a Liberal: SoxBadger is an ultraliberal; Nuke is a Paleo-Conservative. () The Constitutionality of something is often decided by interpretation. This goes especially so with the first ten Amendments. Read the Fifth Amendment, for one, and the Fourth. Sometimes it's hard to tell what the hell they mean, and where their protections stop. The first, the third, the sixth -- all of them aside from the second are pretty confusing, and even the Second has its moments. Very few of the Amendments are very explicit. Prohibition was explicit. Repealing prohibition was. Giving 18-year olds, women and minorities the right to vote? Explicit. But most of the rest? Subject to interpretation. You know what I'm saying? Okay, now that we've had a basic rundown of the Amendments, there IS more to the Constitution than Amendments. There's the articles that begin the Constitution. You know, there's an Article each that enumerates the powers and duties of the States, of the Federal Government, and of the Courts. These articles give the Courts the power to do things, but there's nothing specific in the Constitution that says the Courts have the power to review laws passed by Congress and states. Here, I'll let Wikipedia explain that: You see, it's been precedent since 1803 that the Court can overturn laws it deems Unconstitutional. No one disputes that anymore -- or no one who isn't on the fringe, and that's not a shot at anyone here, by the way. I'm just saying. Now, I take the position that SoxBadger's saying that an Amendment could be overturned by the Supreme Court to be laughably ridiculous. Okay, look to the future. This flag-burning amendment is passed. It is now a part of the Constitution. The ACLU wants to sue, saying it's unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment. How the hell can it be UnConstitutional if it's a part of hte Constitution? Let me remind you: if the Amendment process works, and by that I mean that an Amendment is introduced and passes throughout the Country and reaches enough ratifications in the states to be Ratified federally (here's the process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Constitution#Amendments) and once it has passed, it is passed and it is a part of the Constitution. Currently, it's unConstitutional to ban flag burning because of a Supreme Court ruling that ruled that this action violated the First Amendment. If this current amendment passes, giving states and the feds the power to criminalize flag burning, it's Constitutional because now it's a power given to them in the Constitution! It's simple logic as to why the Court can't rule a Constitutional Amendment constitutional. And it's absolutely ridiculous to suggest otherwise. ---------- There are practical reasons, too, why this wouldn't work, in addition to the fact that it can't work because something is Constitutional if it's Constitutional! What Supreme Court would be crazy enough to say, "Let's overturn a Constitutional Amendment?" Certainly not today's Court, which is Conservative and Cautious. Now, Kap, I don't quite care if you support the Flag Burning Amendment or not. I don't -- it's absurd. It's not needed, and that's that, IMO. It doesn't make me explode if someone burns a flag, personally, although I think it's tasteless, and I do think it's a valid, if misguided, way to vent your political opinions. But I do hope you come around and agree with me that the Supreme Court can't, and won't, ever be striking down Constitutional Amendments as UnConstitutional. UnConstitutional means having no basis in the Constitution. Something written in it, or added to it, clearly has basis in it. Viola!