Texsox

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jun 19, 2009 -> 10:11 AM) Lump Boy Scouts and the American Red Cross into that category as well. Hurricane Dolly? The Red Cross wanted every news organization to show what they were doing with your donations. They couldn't quietly go about their business. Same with the Boy Scouts, they wanted to get those kids pictures in the paper doing something good. And my God, some businesses actually *pay* movie makers to use their products. Next thing TV will allow companies to play one minute features about their products in exchange for money. Yep, a bunch of attention whoring organizations

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jun 19, 2009 -> 09:42 PM) Yeah, like Politicians really care about the people..... NOT. I'm sorry, but I'll trust private insurers over most politicians. Certainly the customer service person the private insurer hires in Malaysia will care much more about you! Basically you are trusting the CEOs, (think Enron) to pay and consult with your Doctor instead of your elected officials who desperately want to get reelected. The same elected officials that keep offering us more and more so we vote for them. The same officials who have added more and more benefits to Social Security. I trust elected officials with my health care coverage, I am more worried that they will over spend and offer a carte blanche program that will become too benefit laden.

A "needless test, ordered to make my Doctor more money" saved my life. Doc "The test came back negative. We can wait and see what happens, (insurance company recommendation) or we can keep looking" Me "What would the next step be?" Doc "We'd send you over to the hospital and run some special tests. The insurance company will balk at paying for them unless you have another problem." Me "See my passport, look at the countries. Kings and billionaires from those countries come here for treatment. I don't want a problem like this while I am in Taiwan or India, their best Doctors are here. LOL" Doc. "Wait until you see the bill" Problem found, a "time bomb" dismantled. Tex rides again. I'm not certain how he made any money on those tests, I paid the Doctors there direct, it was not billed through my primary care Doc. Cubana -- We are better at just about everything than France, Canada, Cuba, etc. We would also do Medical better. But I have faith and trust in America, perhaps we haven't earned your trust yet. The US has the best health care in the world if you are working for a company with medical benefits. We suck if you are unemployed, "working poor", etc. It is a myth that the poor receive these great benefits.

The Cubs have the market cornered on drunk frat boys? At one time Bill Veeck called Sox Park the worlds biggest tavern, and he was the owner. Knowledgeable fans? My guess is both teams have about the same number. Fans of coming to a game as a big party? About the same. Casual fans visiting a ball park regardless of who is playing? Wrigley (see national coverage during the day). Casual fans as business entertainment? Cubs. Suburbanites with "concerns" about visiting the city? Cubs. Casual fans wanting to root for the "right" team because of some identity issues? Cubs. Knowledgeable baseball fans wishing their team had all that income from the fans being made fun of here? Me.

QUOTE (Crash73 @ Jun 13, 2009 -> 06:11 PM) Just remember there was a time when Rowand was considered the same. Good defense, no bat. Some kids take more time to develop. Brian, welcome to soxtalk Something about BA has me pulling for him.

Yep, I am also thinking of a little sun in this summer.

Modern media is connecting people who otherwise would not have gotten together. Take a few thousand wackos, or a few thousands visionaries, spread them out around the country fifty years ago, and they may never have met. Now, they meet, daily, and there is danger, and strength, in numbers.

Some posters have a vision of this place like a neighborhood bar, others as an ivory tower. The reality should be somewhere in between. While we do develop a certain level of friendship with dozens of posters here, there are hundreds more who are also here. Many of the problems occur when "outsiders" enter into friendly bar banter between friends. I believe raising the level of discussion, by force, to some high academic standard would be death to the site, equally troubling is lowering it to a drunken, profanity filled, standard. Restating what has already been said, but perhaps in a different way, can we reach a level of a Thanksgiving dinner with grandma and grandpa and the local Pastor?

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 09:26 AM) apparently the washed IN Cuban players arent desirable Sox management and fans do seem to have a certain fascination with that island paradise and anyone who can fit into a uniform.

QUOTE (3E8 @ Jun 13, 2009 -> 01:09 PM) I was going to say shame on you guys for even debating which national pizza chain is best but I noticed none of you live in IL Yep, Here in Texas, I barely eek out a pizza existence with a local place Armondos that makes a decent thin crust, although it is NY style. Deep dish, I have to either "Lou's to Go" or BJs Brewhouse. There is a tiny place on South Padre Island, Da Pizza Joint, that has the best combination of pizza and surroundings. Also Texas Moon just added a pizza oven and is actively working on his pie. It's the damn sausage that I miss. The usualy stuff is too bland, too processed. I wish I knew the seasonings for the bulk stuff that is on a true Chicago sausage pizza.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 9, 2009 -> 09:27 PM) Certainly he is free to say whatever he wants. QUOTE (bmags @ Jun 10, 2009 -> 02:50 PM) To implicate oreilly in this legally, he would have had to hold a rally, start riling them up about how tiller was killing babies and yell at the crowd to go kill tiller, or to that effect. Just like you can't yell fire in a crowded theater, he is not free to say anything. We do place reasonable limits on speech in this country. We also adjust them to the forum this person has. As I mentioned earlier, intelligent, moral, people have found themselves on both sides of this debate. I believe life should triumph over death. To the best of medical knowledge, every fetus that has been carried to full term becomes a human, not a puppy, amoeba, or a coffee bean. Medically, when the fetus is threatened, it is considered a patient, not a wart, tumor, or fingernail. While it is a hard decision, and I have a great deal of empathy for women in this debate, abortion is wrong in my eyes. When it is used as emergency contraception, it is about the saddest thing I can contemplate.

Very intelligent men and women study abortion, regardless of term, and arrive a vastly different opinions.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 07:46 AM) Almost every speech Obama gives is to a local audience. He rarely gives a "national" speech. It may be to a local audience, but it is followed internationally. The President cannot make a remark that is not immediately translated into 100 languages and studied around the world. How many people are ready to pounce?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jun 7, 2009 -> 01:22 PM) You guys knock Rush Limbaugh - he gave that CPAC speech without one note or telepromter, and it was pretty coherent. Why is this significant? My theory is that if you are speaking what you truely believe, you don't have to rehearse s*** ad naseum and read off of a telepromter to ensure every word is what you need it to be to make it sound like you know what you're talking about. When the POTUS is speaking there is a great deal of interest world wide. Therefore every word, every word, has to be exactly perfect. Countries all over the globe pour over those looking for the exact meaning. I do not want any POTUS speaking off the cuff if possible. And how many times has Rush given that speech? How much time did he have to prepare? I have three or four speeches in my back pocket I can give without notes. How many other speeches, on different topics, has Rush given in that same time frame? I do not think it is a fair comparison. And giving speeches is what Rush does for a living. Certainly Obama gives many, but it isn't something he does 4 hours per day. We have a President that embraces technology to make his life easier, and improves the quality of his work. This seems like such a silly debate. I wonder if someone criticized Cesar for scribbling down notes on papyrus? What's next criticizing him for using a laptop?

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 07:07 AM) This is my mindset. I don't know if things will get worse without Walker, but they might. Works both ways. I wish I had the time today, but I have to get to South Padre Island. Would someone take a few minuites and see where the Sox rank in offensive categories? Perhaps check how bad he has been the past three years. I imagine if the team is ranked beloe the top 33% in most categories, it would be pretty obvious he has to go. Objective evidence is usually what is required to fire someone from a job. This should be easy, look at averages, runs scored, you name it. Show how bad the offense really is.

Stepping back for a moment, I believe coaches should be fired when players under-perform to their potential. Honestly, if we are looking for three or four .300 hitters among these guys, keep looking. I'm, not certain A. Who is really available that could do better and B. If there is much better than could be done with these guys. Fire him if you want, but I do not believe during the season is the right choice in time.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 6, 2009 -> 10:17 PM) Only because we derailed it Kind of like Field's and Getz' careers? /back on the tracks

Happy Birthday!!

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 6, 2009 -> 10:00 AM) It's difficult to argue with that, but the precedent has already been set with Ty Cobb in the HOF. If there was ever a player whose behavior should exclude him from Cooperstown, it's Cobb. Frankly, I'd rather my kids looked up to a 'roider like McGwire than a racist thug with an out-of-control anger problem. And where does the character analysis stop? What about the large fraction of players that cheat on their wives? Should they be banned from Cooperstown as well? What about guys like Mickey Mantle, who routinely treated fans like crap and lead less-than-dignified lives off of the field? I'm all for recognizing really good players who lead positive lifestyles (Baines, Ventura, Moyer, etc.). But, unfortunately, the people who are the best of the best in any profession tend to not be the most honorable people in the world. In contrast to your opinion, I'd rather have guys like McGwire and Sosa get inducted into Coopertown than to automatically blackball anybody who was suspected of using PEDs. And the reason is that the owners and player's union were complicit in this scandal. I would rather that MLB itself be shamed for knowingly allowing this to happen AND FACILITATING IT, than to make McGwire and Sosa the fall guys and to sweep it all under the rug. The PED era isn't just about the 89 rogue players named in the Mitchell Report and the others outed by other means. The problem is deeply entrenched, spanning from the Commissioner's Office to the top of the MLBPA. All of Major League Baseball pissed on the game. I agree there are some characters already in the hall that are not the best people, but there are so many ways to say two wrongs don't make a right. As a society we have stopped wrongs and adjusted our sails. Should character take an average player and place him in the hall? No. But I believe the character of some borderline players should be weighed more, positively and negatively. I like your point that these guys were cheating, it seems most everyone knew it, and everyone, *including players* were quiet. I believe I would also be against an automatic kind of disqualification, but I'd like to see character be more of the equation. Baseball, as America's past time deserves it.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 6, 2009 -> 08:45 PM) What's the point of this thread? I'm coming in late reading this and my first thought was this is a solution looking for a problem. But, there wound up being some good posts in here. Overall, they are separate, but everything is intertwined. I remember hoping Fields would be the next Robin, now I'm wishing he could be a healthy Crede.

Obligatory "he came and went"

I don't have a problem with it. Headlines are written to get you to click or read the article. That one succeeded nicely.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 3, 2009 -> 08:41 AM) Laugh if you like, but the guy starts stammering like Bush when the prompter is gone. Its why he doesn't go anywhere with out it. I always kind of liked Bush speeches during his first term. It seems like sometime during his second term that it broke bad for him. And I do a lot of public speaking and always have note cards with me. If I had the choice to have a prompter, I would. I'd be more upset about a President that didn't embrace technology/

IMHO baseball should celebrate the very best men to have played the game. That should encompass more than just the numbers. Those players that played with class, sportsmanship, and honesty, are a better representation than those that cheated. To value tainted numbers over sportsmanship and honesty are not pillars that greatness can be built on. If baseball, or any sport, was based on cheating, lies, and dishonesty, it would not survive ten years, let alone 100 years. We send the wrong message on what we value in a society when we honor men who cheated. Sammy, Bonds, Mark, and others may have brought great numbers to baseball, but they took away a lot also. They took the all American game, and pissed on it. That stain doesn't go away overnight. Guys like Baines left the game a lot better for them having played. Using Baines as an example, and admittedly he does not have the numbers, how sad is it that a few steroid enhanced years and he would have had the numbers. What are we saying about America's pasttime when cheating pays off? Sportsmanship and class should be a part of the HoF voting, and I sure as hell would prefer thirty years from now kids reading about Baines and Thomas than Sosa, Mark, Bonds, Clemens and the rest. Those guys are not who make baseball a great sport.

IMNSHO Bonds was having a potential HoF career when, again, IMHO, he started the roids. He would not have been a HoF had he stopped at that point, so I am hesitant to call him a HoFer before steroids. I'd prefer to see all the names mentioned not in the hall and guys like Baines in.