StrangeSox

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 12:17 PM) You know, this is kind of a remarkable window in to how badly weakened the regulatory environment in this country got over the last few years. The Fed is, starting October 1, going to slap some new "Regulations" on the mortgage market. The amazing thing to me is...how in the world were these things not already required? So, we're operating in an environment where the Fed rules say that mortgage lenders can compare different loans without actually comparing them, where they could get around disclosure rules by running ads in Spanish, and where there were no rules requiring any verification of income for a sub-prime loan...and we wonder how in the world people were able to take advantage of this system? I thought This American Life's show on the subprime crisis explained the whole situation in a humorous way. Well, as humorous as wide-spread economic downturn and financial industry collapse can be, anyway. http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242 Basically, they ran out of people with good credit and good income who wanted to borrow money. So they turned to people with lower credit but still had some income and assets. But they still had to sell more, so they turned to people with bad credit and questionable income. Eventually it just got to the point where you could go in and ask to borrow tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars without providing any documentation of income or assets.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 07:57 AM) Joe Crede is best the best 3B this team has seen since Robin Ventura. Good 3B's don't grow on trees. If we can keep him, we need to ... even with the uncharacteristic defensive lapses he'd had this year. How many 3B have the Sox even had between Ventura leaving in 1999 and Crede becoming the starter in 2003? It's not like we're talking about the best 3B this team has seen in decades.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 11:55 AM) and so also chuck schumer is the only one to blame for our banking collapse, now, right? Before in here it was the consumers fault for taking on loans they'd never be able to pay back, but now, that a democratic senator can be blamed, it is his fault then, oi? Chucky retro-actively made Bear Sterns fail with these comments.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Jul 16, 2008 -> 10:17 AM) Since you say they would have failed anyway, what does your crystal ball tell you about the closing price of the Dow today? Recognizing bad fundamentals and a failing business = predicting outcome of the Dow?

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 14, 2008 -> 07:25 PM) Rick Reilly's comment about everyone being white in this might have been one of the most awkward comments ever. He managed to top that with his "this is a bad night to be an atheist" comment imo. What the hell are they paying this guy so much money for? He is awful. Hamilton's performance was awesome. I was thinking about his situation when they were glorifying him and calling him a role model, though -- as a society, we seem to celebrate people who fall and pick themselves back up and reach great heights more than people who just perform from the get-go without the whole redemption storyline. Seems sort of odd to me.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jul 11, 2008 -> 04:53 PM) It definitely does. and now they want to add more debt with a massive corporate bailout with money the government doesn't have? This is going to do more damage than good. For some reason, it seems the majority of people in this country really don't care about a massive deficit. The dollar is going to get weaker and weaker the more the country goes into debt. The weaker dollar topped with raising prices due to increased global = expensive gasoline for Americans. It seems that a majority of people in this country don't understand basic personal finances, let alone micro/ macro economics.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Jul 11, 2008 -> 10:26 AM) Yep, but tie goes to the runner. And don't bobble it. And hits to RF are outs if you only have a handful of people to play (I wonder if that's what the Sox offense thinks the rules in MLB are sometimes!). I worked at a summer camp for a couple of summers in college a few years ago . The kids knew a lot of these games (or some variant) or we taught them. Imagine 40+ kids playing running bases in three "lanes" side-by-side-by-side at the same time.

I love the idea of paying for a bunch of other people's horrible decisions. Nothing like tax-payer bailouts for everyone! And I think you're kidding yourself if you think senior management is going to walk away with nothing.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Jul 10, 2008 -> 10:26 PM) My fav capture the flag moment. The kids in my troop were playing against another group. A couple of our guys found their hiding spot and saw the one kid who was guarding the flag. One of the kids starting running down the trail screaming bees! bees!. Their guy took off running, we grabbed the flag, and won. The playing field was a large Scout camp and finding the flag took almost two hours. Camp-wide capture the flag was always a blast.

f***ing awesome.

And Paulie's drop leads to the tying run.

Damn it Paulie. Could have used Swisher's athleticism there.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 9, 2008 -> 01:56 PM) Maybe kyle, but the odds are so slim of us both even making the playoffs. Sox, Tigers and Twins will be in a war all season. Cubs will probably win that division going away. What? http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/ps_odds.php The Sox are at an 83% chance of making the playoffs. The Cubs are at a almost-guaranteed 93%. Together, that's a 77% chance of them both making it; that's not very slim.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 8, 2008 -> 10:54 AM) Like I said, how many doctors out there do you know of that are underutilized? Between recently having a vacesectomy, sick kids, routine doctor visits, and the wifes follow ups after pregnancy, I have yet to see a doctor that had a bunch of open slots to just accept a bunch of new people. Every doc I have talked to had weeks worth of wait for anything that wasn't an emergency. This is especially true for family/ general practice doctors. There are fewer and fewer because more and more medical students are getting into the high-paying specialties. When you're looking at upwards of $500k in student loans for some schools and a $50-$300k difference in salary, its no wonder why they are making these choices. Now, on the other hand, if less people were being treated in the ER for non-ER situations or for situations that could have been corrected much, much earlier, ER's will start to be under-utilized and those doctors could switch over to general practice.

QUOTE (PorkChopExpress @ Jul 7, 2008 -> 04:43 PM) Exactly. I don't know why everyone assumes they can't continue to win. They may not continue to win at the .857 clip they are at now, but they are a well-balanced team with a great manager and special desire to beat the White Sox. Expect to fight them until the end, literally with the second to last series of the year being in Minnesota. People are looking at their numbers (mostly at runs scored-runs against, I think) and they're showing that the Twins are getting "lucky" lately. It's like a pitcher who usually sucks but has a 1.5 ERA this year; looks good, but then you see his BABIP (batting average-balls in play) is only .100 and you know that there's no way it can hold up. They're hitting .310 with RISP. Teams just cannot keep that up over the course of a season.

QUOTE (santo=dorf @ Jul 7, 2008 -> 07:21 PM) Probably what every union contract states regarding outsourcing work. It has to be offered to them first before sending it to someone else. The union is correct in this case. Technically, sure. But you'd have to be a huge jackass to sue because some volunteers sandbagged to help out the community. IMO, anyway.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jul 7, 2008 -> 01:18 PM) Fukudome and Soriano starting for the NL is laughable. The all star game is for the casual fan, fine with me. If if were an exhibition game still, whatever. As it is, it counts for something, so I'd like the best AL roster out there when the Sox are in contention.

QUOTE (LVSoxFan @ Jul 7, 2008 -> 11:30 AM) I am hardly what anybody here would call a Sox optimist (see sig) but I will tell you this: yes, it's a pain to have Minny right on our ass right now... BUT.... If anybody had told me that at the ASB we would be at or just out of first place I would not have believed you. Let's be honest: it's a wonder we're still hanging in considering that the small-ball days of 2005 are nowhere to be found. We're old, we're slow and we're more than HR-dependent. Heading into this season I thought: 3rd place at best. And with Detroit looking like a monster, Cleveland fresh off a playoffs and the always-annoying Twins... how can it be we're in first? So I'll take it. As they say, you can't win a season in the first half, but you can lose it. And we haven't done that (unless we get swept in KC and Texas this week). So there IS cause for optimism. As long as we get hot 2nd half and not tired, with the pitching breaking down (and then we're screwed). We've also got two suprise, out-of-nowhere players: Ramirez and Quentin. I didn't even factor them in before the start of the season because I'd never heard of them. Not only that, but the Indians just traded away Sox-killer C.C. Sabathia. I'd be still very surprised if we win the division, but hey: I'll be the first to admit I'm surprised we've made it this far. What does that tell you besides giving up outs via sacrifice bunts and getting caught stealing to "manufacture" runs isn't really the best way to score? Good OBP + doubles/ HR's = great offense.

Jermaine Dye has the 6th highest OPS in the AL and plays a decent RF. There is no logical reasoning behind him not being in the All Star game.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 3, 2008 -> 09:03 AM) I'm sorry but I don't think so. Those Stangs may be in the 4's somewhere 0-60, but not 3 seconds. I know of only 2 production cars to ever break 3 seconds - that's two production cars, EVER. IN any case, I agree, I think hes full of it. This is going off-topic, but there are plenty of late-80's stangs that run 8 second 1/4 miles (They'll hit about 160MPH in the 1/4). For comparison, the very fastest production cars run 10's. We're talking about 1000HP+, huge CC's, nitrous, supercharger, etc. etc., not your standard Mustang drivetrain. Which means that 5 MPG is optimistic. Either way, yeah, we agree that his claims seem like BS.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 3, 2008 -> 08:35 AM) Well, I was pretty excited, until I noted a couple things. One, as you say, no one has verified these numbers. Two, so far, he isn't making himself very believable. He says is '87 Stang can go 0-60 in 3 seconds. No freakin' way that's the case. He's already exaggerating. I hope he really has achieved something great, but, until someone else tests it, I'm highly skeptical. There's a lot of late-80's Mustangs that can do 0-60 in 3 seconds (or better). They're making a hell of a lot more power than 400HP and getting closer to 5 MPG, though. This guy sounds like he's FOS.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 3, 2008 -> 01:33 AM) 2008 .362/.441/.610/1.051 at Coors Fields .309/.401/.472/.873 on the road. Career .363/.427/.656/1.083 at Coors Field .277/.340/.450/.790 on the road Yeah, just try and convince me he's not overrated. 200 point difference in OPS this season, 300 point difference in his career. So, just wondering - if he does, in fact, get traded to St. Louis - can he still play half of his games at Coors Field? It's not like .873 OPS is bad, though. That's still a pretty damn good line.

QUOTE (Nokona @ Jul 2, 2008 -> 11:31 PM) Carlos Marmol continues his rapid spiral to mediocrity giving up 2 base hits after 2 K's and then Ray Ray 2K snuck one over the RF wall. Tied 5-5. Mark Silverman would tell you that he's the second best relief pitcher in baseball and he wouldn't do a straight Marmol for Sabathia trade.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Jul 2, 2008 -> 10:17 AM) Anyone remember what Howard Stern's deal involved when he went to Sirius? I know $500,000,000 was thrown around, but if I remember correctly, I think a lot of that was tied into stock options so I wonder how they compare. I've heard $500M + $200M in stock options.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Jul 1, 2008 -> 09:07 PM) That all depends on whether you gave up smoking pot. Hey man, I was only 12 ten years ago!