35thstreetswarm

Making fun of posters for their negativity (or positivity) about the play of the Chicago White Sox is not really a “personal attack” at all, though. Certainly not in the way that commenting on how someone’s family views them is. Maybe there are other actual personal attacks I’m not aware of, in which case I’d condemn them too.

Following up a bad first half with a really good second half and making a deep playoff run is…not really all that weird. Sure, nothing about their play for the first half has indicated that they will go on a run…but that’s true of every underachieving first half team. I predicted a shitty first half and big second and I’m sticking to it.

You’ve used this “your family must love” bit before. I agree with the target in this instance that it’s weird and inappropriate. Stick to baseball and leave “families” out of it.

Replace “frustrating” with “encouraging” or “exciting” and I totally agree

Yes, you shut your filthy mouth! All my Soxtalk friends and I have agreed that a .500 record in July is a totally unprecedented outrage. Right guys? (Looks around for high-fives).

Win tomorrow and get the series. Then get the next one. As awful as so many things have gone for this team we’re still a few series wins — or one hot week — away from first place.

Very impressed with the time and energy a lot of you put into explaining and posting about how little you care. Bye. No, really—bye now. You can go

“Wellllll stuff me like a sausage and shoot me with a gun, Trudy, cuz THAT ding dong is a Loooong Dong Silver! (Vigorous cowbell). A-OOOO-ga!”

Posters on this board do a lot more "explaining away" good Sox wins than they do excusing bad Sox losses, actually. Series wins against Tampa don't really count. Dominating the Yankees in a doubleheader sweep in Yankee stadium doesn't really count. Sweeping the Red Sox in Fenway doesn't really count because they weren't winning at the time, and so on. Losing to a bad team proves we're bad. Beating a good team proves that even good teams can have bad series, don't get too excited. So at a minimum, it all evens out.

You should be very proud. That’s a great accomplishment.

The team played pretty well. Sad to see Graveman blow it singlehandedly like that. He got screwed on a couple calls but it seemed like that got to him. Gotta be able to pitch around that, and pitch to contact when necessary instead of nibbling. Oh well, I know everybody here likes to tantrum after each loss but I predicted a split in CO. On to the next one, need at least 2 of 3 from Oakland.

The latter (airport bottle). Unfortunately

Et tu bmags? Boooo

You planning on aggressively "not-watching" this game too?

No Soto?

Seriously. Every bit of the language is a comical level of front-office self-service. "Premium players"; "all-in"; "returning" to the playoffs. It might as well say "the White Sox are doing all they possibly can to bring about the exact thing you want, Mr. Fan. No reason to be upset in this best of all possible worlds."

Imagine the damage he could do in our china-cabinet dugout. We really dodged a bullet letting him go

The one silver lining offsetting this is the puzzling, but welcome, allowance of like 200 vendors outside the stadium selling beers and shots 3 for 10. The walk to the stadium along 35th street is like a mini-Maxwell street. I love it, but am awaiting the crackdown.

From your mouth to god's ears. Then Soxtalk could safely revive the complaint that the Sox "can only beat the bad teams"

We haven't really hit one of these stretches this year, though. Sure, we've had a series here and there against mediocre to bad teams (and have underperformed in several of them), but we always turn around and immediately get the Yankees or Dodgers or some such. Our first half schedule was uncommonly tough. This is the first long "break" from good teams we've had. That said, I'm on record as saying this year's Sox have no discernible pattern based on team quality (or if they do, it's that they play *better* against good teams) so I have no idea if this easy stretch will help them. I'm inclined to guess that the combination of injury returns, unmotivated opponents, and positive regression combine to help them though. I'll go 13-6.

I saw that and assumed the 9th inning put it over the even dozen page count that usually matches up with easy wins.

yeah I’m not seeing much of a correlation between opponent quality and Sox play. The Sox have played really well on the road against the likes of NYY, Tampa and Boston and shit the bed at home against Baltimore. It seems the Sox win when they are playing well and lose when they’re not. Hope they play well.

I missed the game—can someone explain the “classless” reference?

Joe Maddon is pretty widely believed to be a poor in-game manager—bad example. Terry Francona, Dusty Baker, Bruce Bochy. That was not hard.