Texsox

We could have been front row for an almost Braves like stretch if the Cubs could have kept those guys healthy. Thank God they didn't.

Sat: Moving some stuff to our summer place on South Padre Sun: More packing for South Padre and getting gear ready for a trip to Yellowstone in July and sailing in August. Mon: Work. Three days until summer vacation

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 25, 2012 -> 11:03 AM) Most of those qualities would be taken into consideration among many others. Except for a history with a team, that really means little in predicting a player's future performance. If the player has had frequent run-ins with the manager, key players, or others within the organization, I think that would be a good reason to not sign them. Likewise, if they are happy in the city, have represented the organization well, that could factor in.

One area I see FB leveraging better are business customers. More and more businesses are seeing FB as basic a necessity as the yellow pages were to our grandparents. Also, our grandparents all have FB accounts. Having siad that, I could also see them closed in ten years as something better comes along.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 25, 2012 -> 10:29 AM) If the team is going to avoid losing money and be in contention, then it should not sign players to bad contracts they are unlikely to live up to. Having players signed to bad contracts is why we're rebuilding this year. There are not too many guarantees that players will live up to their contracts. What qualities would you look for in someone that would? Injury history? Consistency of seasons? Age? Conditioning? Attitude? History with a team / town / organization?

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 25, 2012 -> 10:20 AM) Not a single person has said that, but I see it makes you feel better to keep making that point. Really, no one here believes strongly that the team should not have signed MB because they need to turn a profit this season to be contenders? Then I apologize. I thought that was exactly what some people were saying.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 25, 2012 -> 10:22 AM) You also can't buy a Gold Coast penthouse on your salary, which is the point. No I can't. Or a guest house.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 24, 2012 -> 01:43 PM) Wasn't one of the main reasons KW could sign a lot of free agents (Dye, Hermanson, Iguchi, AJ) due to not being handcuffed by Carlos Lee's contract anymore? But they signed someone. They spent the money. They weren't holding it looking to make a profit.

One area that has started to intrugue me about FB is how often I contact people through their FB accounts. I know probably six or seven people in the real world, who I have phone numbers, emails, etc and I will message them through FB first because I know they will see it almost instantly. I'm not certain how that can translate to bigger profits, but it is interesting.

For 2010, according to Forbes, the team showed a $26million profit. In 2011 they again showed a profit according to Forbes. In fact only three teams showed loses in 2011. Tigers (won division), Mets (sucked), and Red Sox (90 wins). I'd rather be the Tiger's fan winning a division than losing the division but knowing the owners made a few million bucks profit. So what's that done for our Sox? Flexibility to land an aging out of position fill-in 3rd baseman while MB is pitching in Florida? That's something the fans will come out to see. I understand looking for something to feel good about this season. If it's performance to the balance sheet that gets you excited, cool. But I'm just not that excited about returns in someone else's portfolio. I haven't seen years of profits directly leading to years of winning.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ May 24, 2012 -> 01:48 PM) 100 percent yes and you know that. Tex for whatever reason refuses to acknowledge that and instead tries to make witty comments that have absolutely nothing to do with the point all of us are making. I would rather the team lose money and win than make money and lose. I "lose" money every month on my mortagage but I am building equity. The value of the franchise continues to rise. It isn't like the investors will lose money on their investment long term. If people are really that interested in the team's finances, send them a check.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 24, 2012 -> 01:13 PM) That has nothing to do with it. It's a good business decision because you don't want you team handicapped by an overpriced contract as a player's skill set diminishes with age. I am with you 100%. Yeah profits! I still would be so crushed if I found out the team lost money in 2005. It would totally ruin that WS for me. Which year(s) payroll made 2005 possible?

QUOTE (fathom @ May 7, 2012 -> 05:55 PM) You're right, when the Sox are starting Molina, Quintana and Castro next year to go along with Floyd, it would have been great to have Buehrle and his 4.00 ERA for 13 million a year to help the team win 75 games instead of 72. It was the right business decision to let him go, and let's just hope Danks can turn it around. And for people who prefer to get their sports news from the middle of the newspaper or the WSJ, instead of the back page, that means a lot. For fans who prefer watching a very good player pitch, who would continue to at least follow the team every five days, a winning bottom line for a privately held corporation, ain't that great of news.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 23, 2012 -> 02:14 PM) And these are all for the most part ineffective. The issue is, many people make the incorrect decision once they begin drinking. You're asking someone to make a responsible decision once they are already impaired. It's just not going to happen a lot of the time. I agree. The biggest issue with alcohol is it takes away your decision making ability. Right when you need to make a good decision you are least likely to make it. If only more people knew that. Why not spend money in education programs and treatment programs funded by DUI fines? Oh wait, that is what most states do. So if people can't help driving drunk, what shoudl we do? Allow it? Ban alcohol? Close bars and restaurants? Making bars and restaurants and their employees more responsible for monitoring their customer's condition is a nice step in the right direction. It should be sober people serving them.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 24, 2012 -> 10:57 AM) Email me about the CDT, I did a lot of research on the whole route when MOS was section-hiking it. Also, depending on which way you are coming from to go "into" Yellowstone, I may have done some sections myself. There was a not-for-profit called the Continental Divide Trail Association that was coordinating the efforts to finish the trail, but they went under a few months ago. I can get you maps and all sorts of other stuff. Thank you. We will be basecamping most of the trip and day hiking with one or two overnighters with BPing gear. I am also interesting in driving some unimproved roads. I have a new to me 4x4 F-150 that needs some work. We are also dropping down through New Mexico on the way home, where is your property?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 24, 2012 -> 11:08 AM) However, you do have the ability to compare with cases that are based in part on physical evidence. Certainly, I'm just saying appeals are not a valid tool to measure if something helps or hurts one side or the other. If something helps the defense 90 times out of a hundred, there could be 10 appeals that shows it helped the prosecution, but no appeals would be filed that showed it helped the defense.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 24, 2012 -> 10:31 AM) There's a reason why the "one or two eyewitness" cases are the ones that give the worst rates of having major convictions overturned. There is no chance that a finding of innocent would be appealed or overturned (double jeopardy and all that) so we would have no objective evidence of how often one or two eyewitness cases result in the accused being found not guilty.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 24, 2012 -> 10:03 AM) However, "Eyewitness testimony is the strongest type of evidence" is generally a flaw that strongly benefits the accuser. Doesn't that depend on what the eyewitness says?

BTW this summer the missus and I will be spending 5 weeks "camping" on South Padre Island inside a house with catered meals at a Boy Scout Sea Base. Then, three weeks following the Continental Divide into Yellowstone. Finally 4 days abourd a sailboat leaving port in Kemah, Texas and cruising the bay and out into the Gulf de Mexico.

As flawed as our legal system is, we generally allow the flaws to benefit the accused moreso than the prosecutor. That is good.

I think you could even have a subcategory of tragic/disappointment to set him apart from the self destruction disappointents like Gooden.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ May 23, 2012 -> 01:39 PM) Any suggestions on some nice camping spots within 4-5 hours of Chicago? I've done a lot of camping in the past, but it's always been overnight fishing and hunting type stuff. I've never actually gone out camping without the intention of fishing/hunting, so I've been looking around for some nice campgrounds and such (West Michigan has a ton of nice ones) that I can take a couple friends out with for a night or two. I always favored the north woods of Wisconsin.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 23, 2012 -> 01:31 PM) Yeah, that is the tough-guy way to say it...unfortunately, it doesn't actually achieve anything. You can't say "Support our local community businesses...which revolve around you leaving your home and drinking alcohol at our establishments, meanwhile not having the infrastructure to support such behavior, and then sticking it to that person to make up for your other s***ty budgetary shortfalls. It is really easy for you to say this, Reddy, because you live in New York, where there are an abundance of cabs and trains to take if you've been out. Trying living in a non-metropolitan area. Don't mistake my position as advocating or tolerating DUI, because I don't. No one is advertising drink to excess and drive yourself. Laws have restricted advertising of alcohol. Bars have had restrictions on happy hour drinks. Why should there be any infrastructure for being drinking too much? Know when to say when. Have a designated driver. Don't order six drinks. And society has offered a ton of warnings and deterents. I believe you would have a better case if DUI was cheap. That would be society saying hey it's no big deal. Instead the penalties are plastered on bill boards and everyone knows.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 23, 2012 -> 01:02 PM) Compare the fines of other misdemeanors and felonies to those imposed by the system in place that they put DUI offenders through...ask a DUI lawyer in Illinois how much money a DUI is going to cost as opposed to other more serious crimes. And look at jail time compared. Too little jail time for DUIs. People are buying their way out of jail.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 23, 2012 -> 12:51 PM) There is nothing stated about the recipients of the information knowing it was MNPI. Could the investors this may have been told to be reasonably expected to be unaware it was MNPI?