Dick Allen

When are people going to admit Beckham is looking good.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 20, 2014 -> 08:27 PM) Which toolsy picks are you referring to that he professed this love for? Mitchell? Borchard? I don't remember him particularly going crazy talking about either of them, but I could be wrong. Hawk has been on the draft a baseball player kick for a while now. I think watching all these football players strikeout all the time got to him.

When Hawk was the GM he damn near traded for Andre Dawson. It was so close to happening Dawson took BP with a Sox cap on.

Dunn always hustles down the line.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 20, 2014 -> 07:52 PM) Shields or Masterson seems more likely. Why would anyone want to pay Masterson what you have to pay him? In seasons he has stsrted at least 10 games he has had an ERA under 4.50 only 2 times.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ May 20, 2014 -> 05:25 PM) This timetable seems very bizarre. He was sore after his rehab start which Stone said is very normal when you haven't pitched in a while. They probably want to see how he feels after this before committing .

QUOTE (raBBit @ May 20, 2014 -> 11:01 AM) Good bit there, Dick. I wonder how much the FO and certain players sweat this throughout baseball. I think if it's close, most teams try to help the players out. I know the Sox activated Jerry Hairston in 1990 even though he didn't play for the sole purpose of him hitting the full benefit service time.

I was reading that to qualify for a major league pension, you only need 43 days service time for the minimum $34,000 a year once you hit 55. Scott Carroll needs only about 3 more weeks.

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ May 20, 2014 -> 09:24 AM) How is it that the Cubs have "home and home" series with the Yankees this year? I don't ever recalling seeing that in interleague play, apart from the so-called geographic rivalries (CHW v. CHC; NYY v. NYM; STL v. KC). Did this start when Houston moved to the AL and they started scheduling Interleague series every day? Do other teams do this? That was new last year. I think the Sox have one with SF.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 20, 2014 -> 09:10 AM) Yeah, well they signed Brian Scalabrine And Ron Mercer, and Ben Wallace and Cornell David.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 20, 2014 -> 03:19 AM) Jason Vargas, Salvador Perez and a changeup that wasn’t working May 20 BY LEE JUDGE The Kansas City Star According to Fangraphs, Jason Vargas throws a fastball, a slider, a cutter, a curve and a changeup. So if one of his pitches isn’t working, it seems like Jason’s got some alternatives. Monday night it looked like Jason Vargas’ changeup wasn’t working. Alexei Ramirez hit a third-inning home run on a changeup, Dayan Viciedo hit a fourth-inning home run on a changeup and Paul Konerko hit a fifth-inning home run on a changeup. That’s over a thousand feet of home runs on changeups. After I noticed all the home runs had been hit on changeups, I checked the other hits Vargas gave up; four of them were on changeups. When six of the eight hits you give up come on changeups, maybe you need to throw something else. After the game both Ned Yost and Jason Vargas said the changeups were up in the zone. Some nights that happens—you just don’t have command of a pitch. But when a pitcher doesn’t have a pitch, you’ve got to figure out a way around it. Throw something else, or throw it in a spot where it won’t hurt you. Salvador Perez and Jason Vargas didn’t do that; they continued to throw changeups and paid the price—and so did their team. A slider-speed bat I wrote this way back on Opening Day when the Royals got beat by an Alex Gonzalez walk-off single. Gonzalez is 37-years-old and the pitch he hit that day was a slider. I’ve been waiting for another older hitter to beat the Royals on an off-speed pitch and the 38-year-old Paul Konerko did that on Monday night. "He’s got a slider-speed bat." That’s that they say about a guy who can’t get around on a good fastball anymore. Ask if there are any hitters in their late thirties who still have good bat speed and the list is short—heck, there may not be enough old hitters with good bat speed to make anything resembling a list. That being the case, if a guy is getting older you probably don’t want to give him anything off-speed in the strike zone. You can show it to him, that might keep him from cheating on a fastball, but keep it out of the zone—beat the older hitter with fastballs. Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/05/20/50340...l#storylink=cpy If Konerko has a slider speed bat, and that is still debatable, the problem is Vargas has a slider speed fastball. 86.8 average fastball. Change ups are good pitches, but if they are up, they are bad pitches.

Triple play would be nice.

You know your roster is short when Ada enters for defensive purposes.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ May 19, 2014 -> 09:35 PM) Need more runs. Bad luck that half inning.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ May 19, 2014 -> 09:32 PM) Dang! He didn't fool anyone that inning.

Sierra needs to roid it up.. He reminds me of an unroided Sammy Sosa. A lot of talent. Mediocre results.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 19, 2014 -> 09:02 PM) Stone pretty much has the same view as we do, no? Those guys are looking on the big screen at center field, and have to make a decision wether they challenge or not. It wasn't so easy to see after one quick replay from the first base dugout angle because you couldn't tell if his hand touched the bag. And this is the key, Alexei should have fessed up Hawk said Robin gets a signal from Parent who gets it from someone named Johnson presumably in the clubhouse.

The mascot playing the part of the 3rd Cuban tonight.

The Sox don't have enough Cubans in the line up.

I don't think it was Eaton. I looked at it on the DVR and there was nothing at the plate. In the dugout De Aza did back him off but Nieto was laughing so who knows what it was.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2014 -> 01:05 PM) Just to note, for the last week prior to going on the DL, Abreu was 4/27 (.154 average), 2 HR, 12 k's and a .570 OPS. He absolutely contributed a key HR that won a game I will grant you that, but getting him in the lineup for an additional handful of games when he could only put up those numbers isn't a big positive. And it was bothering him, although not as noticeably when he went 1 for 25 earlier in the year. But then he got hot again.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 19, 2014 -> 12:41 PM) I get that this was inevitable, and the injury is of course not Ventura's fault. But I still contend, having him out there for that extra week or two hobbling around like Kirk Gibson was not a smart path to take. If this was coming, then get it done earlier, just to decrease the risk of making it worse. I think they handled this poorly. And before anyone jumps on me for this, my track record here will indicate I'm more patient with managers than most people. This isn't just screaming from the rafters. They, Ventura and his crew, could have handled this better. The thing is, this isn't probably going away. They actually probably maximized his playing time doing it this way, and he did help win a couple games banged up. If they rested him a few games, every amatuer doctor would have been happy, but while it might have felt a little better and he might not have limped around as severely, maybe comes right back in a couple of games anyway. Assuming the injury is what the Sox say it is and he's out 15 days, I really don't think playing him ultimately made it worse overall. Maybe it caused him more pain, but in terms of numbers of games missed, at worst, it cost them a game or two, but might have got them 5 or 6 or more with him in the line up. It will be interesting to see how this is handled going forward. It has obviously been a problem before he was even here. He's never played more than 89 games in a year. Hopefully they figure out something that keeps it in check.

I have flat feet. It didn't matter what I weighed. My feet, ankles or knees usually hurt until I got orthotics. I still get some pain and swelling, but not nearly to the degree I had it before. Maybe losing 15 lbs. will make the pain management easier, but if he has something that is naturally going to cause some pain, it probably isn't going away simply by dropping several pounds. The fact is, he lost the weight, and he's on the DL.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 19, 2014 -> 08:39 AM) The Sox/Cubs/Bulls/Hawks are also primarily on a CSN station, but apparently the Chicago market isn't having the same issues. I know the teams hold 80% equity in CSN Chicago, is that not the case in Philly and Houston? In any case it was dumb for the teams in those markets to sign deals that gave the network so much leverage in restricting carriage. I would like to see MLB move to a model where all TV rights, both national and local, are controlled directly by MLB. Instead of having local cable sports channels owning each team's rights, you would have locally-produced games and daily/weekly team specific shows running on MLBN in each team's market in place of national programming during certain times, while allowing local broadcast stations (WGN/WCIU) to bid for up to 25% of each team's games. I was thinking the fact the teams own most of the station should eliminate the problems they are having in other cities. Now when the Cubs jump ship to their own station, there probably will be a lot of people who won't be able to see their games. I , for one, won't care.

Conditioning coach Allen Thomas said Abreu might deal with soreness the rest of his career because his natural gait puts stress on the inner parts of his legs. From the Sun Times. This is what Thomas was talking about. Supposedly Abreu is about 255 pounds now. Was 270 in spring training. He still looks like a little kid next to Dunn.