bigruss

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 01:44 PM) The whole point is to try to win something. If they were holding out to win in the future, and lost then too, then they failed. Teams that don't get many chances to win owe their fans that chance for paying to see years of a bad team. Hell in the case of KC and Pittsburgh, decades. Never said they didn't fail, I just said that their moves after that season were more of a failure than not "going for it" that season.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 03:59 PM) Congrats, Russ! I know it's a heck of a feeling to get that out of the way. Yea man, it's great knowing that you don't have to go out and interview elsewhere, and I can just enjoy life and focus on classes.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 03:55 PM) Congrats, Russ! I'm sure your manager will get totally f***ed for putting himself on the line for you! Hah, I kid...again, congrats, and well-deserved. Hahaha he keeps me around for entertainment purposes only, Im sure of that

Thanks guys! It just feels great to see that after 25 weeks of interning here (with a few more before school) that I still love working here, especially for the management above me, and that they liked me enough to give me such an offer.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 03:54 PM) I admit booing, in my opinion, does not help things, which is why I never boo our own players. But I don't believe it to be a significant factor in our s***ty home record. Pretty much my thoughts on it.

I sayeth no.

Fulltime offer finally! And blown away by it, my manager even got them to include a pretty good signing bonus!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 02:32 PM) Or at least finish better than 4th. AA has done some amazing things, many of his moves are more for the longer term (I know, you're an all in guy). That said, if after another 3 years and he hasn't progressed in the standings then of course he didn't keep up his track record.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 02:27 PM) Unless your name is Alex Anthopoulos. He can't spell mistake. Hahaha, he has done a phenomenal job thus far. He now needs to figure out how to win a title in that division. If he can do that, then AA will forever be regarded as a god.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 02:09 PM) like the bobby jenks signing Pretty much, every GM will make a mistake, probably atleast once per season/offseason. It's the moves that they do to limit the amount of hurt that mistake does to the team that makes the GM great. It's like a hitter, they will slump at some point in the season, their success level tends to be how well they limit those slumps.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 01:45 PM) Well that's fine. A GM should be judged by his entire body of work (barring some clear pattern from very good decisions to very poor decisions) and not one trade. It's how guys like Wren, Epstein, etc build their reputation. They may make a move that doesn't work out, but they know how to use the resources they have to recover from such moves.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 01:40 PM) Is it really necessary to shoot down & insult fans who want to try and enjoy the last two months of the season? It's obvious this team's chances are minimal. But if someone wants to play the "what if" game, you don't just have to come out and call him an idiot. Everyone treats their fandom differently and if someone wants to hold out hope until the last possible moment, you don't have to jump on them for it. Thing is, I never insulted anybody. I put out my thoughts (that weren't even that bad) and I've gotten slammed. If anything, Sox fans have been the worst during these times, I can't even talk to my coworkers nowadays.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 01:17 PM) lol@2k5. That Royals team sucked. I'm sure their fans don't sit around thinking, "Oh my, what if. That '03 team could've been special." I think KW has infected your baseball brain. "Win now or forever be bad! But don't think about how going all in to win now is the root cause for being bad in the future!"

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 12:52 PM) My answer would be that it honestly doesn't matter. When you have been out of contention for as long as a team like KC in 03 or the Pirates of this year, you don't get many chances to win. When you do, you owe it to your fans to try to win. Waiting for three or four years down the road is a terrible idea, because odds are that it won't be working then either. Winning today is the one chance that a franchise like Pittsburgh has of putting themselves back on the road to respectability. Not winning in 2015. Just because they didn't see success afterwards doesn't mean it was a bad choice. It's not hindsight that they should have went all in, it's hindsight that the moves and organizational philosophy after that year were bad.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 01:01 PM) Wow, it's amazing how negative & depressing some people are. What's wrong with some people trying to find some fun & positivity out of the last two months of the season?? They know there is no baseball to be played from October til April, so might as well try to enjoy what's left, even if it probably will suck. Just because you don't look at that way, doesn't mean you just have to shoot down all other fans. Is there really a need to shoot down fans who just don't think this team has enough in them to make it happen? Because I've gotten hammered for that recently by all the kool aid drinkers after the twins sweep.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 12:55 PM) So at the end of the day you get all of the torture, and none of the optimism or enjoyment. I don't think you should be making fun of the optimists anymore. Some people hate who their family is, doesn't mean they don't love them or want them to make a change.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 11:47 AM) "soldiers"!!! This whole discussion just reminds me of the terrible reporting job on that Oney quote. I'm sure some reporters at the time did a terrible job rehashing quotes from soldiers. "I've talked to hundreds of soldiers that have come back and they've told me horror stories like being spit on while on a plane home." A statement like that would portray that hundreds of soldiers said that story, but in reality only one soldier could have said it, but since the reporter said they talked to hundreds it's implied that those hundreds said it.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 11:42 AM) What's funny is that this thread was started by someone talking s*** about Hudson and his awful start to the season. Perfect example of someone being swayed by sample size ( *cough* Kenny and his staff *cough*).

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 11:32 AM) I don't like the constant bellyaching about it, but I do enjoy keeping up with Hudson's exploits in Arizona. Let me ask this question though...how would we all feel about this deal and the series of deals that have recently occurred if Stewart ends up being similar in effectiveness to Hudson? I would give major props to KW for finding a way to salvage the initial trade. Now, you could take into accounts the amount of money we spent on EJax during his time here compared to what Hudson would have cost, but atleast he got rid of Teahen's contract too to help balance that out.

QUOTE (T R U @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 01:56 AM) cool story bro.. wanna edit your post so it makes sense? QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 07:42 AM) You came in the Dan Hudson thread, what the hell were you expecting? This. And yes, my post made really no grammatical sense, but you guys have no logic to come in a thread like this and complain. I'm not going to go into the UFC thread and say that I hate watching UFC.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 11:12 AM) If you are going with even 5% of soldiers (using your million number) getting abuse upon return, that means 50,000 of them got it. Is 50,000 a large number? 1% would still be 10,000. Is that a large number? Hell in my opinion even one is too many. But that doesn't seem to be the point here at all. Apparently there is a comfort level for abuse of our veterans that people here are comfortable with so that it isn't an effective political statement. Where has anybody said it was okay for this to have happened? People are just wondering what the actual scale of it was, since it seems both sides exaggerated their statements about these events.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 10:53 AM) People are calling soldiers liars. I'd call that trying the victim about as clearly as can be done. I wouldn't say liars, because I bet it did happen at some point (very unfortunately). But that doesn't mean it wasn't likely exaggerated. The analogy doesn't work because people are blanketing an event that most likely happened to a select few soldiers and said that all soldiers went through this specific situation. It's like saying that all girls that had bad boyfriends were also hit and abused by the bad boyfriend, and that's just something we don't know.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 10:47 AM) I see your point, but who could they have traded for to keep them in the hunt? Ubaldo could have made sense because of his friendly contract, but he alone wouldn't keep them in the race. Should they really have gutted their system for rentals that may or may not have been available? I think the talent gap is too big this year to really go after it with only two months left. Yup, and even if they did manage to acquire enough rentals to make the playoffs, would that really be considered saving the franchise? Nope, saving/resurrecting the franchise and interest in the team will require a few years of division title competive teams. They need to get to a point where they are bringing in more cash while having a small payroll, and once thsoe guys start to play well you invest more money to keep them around.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 10:40 AM) Mikel LeShoure out for the season with a torn Achilles. Sucks for the ex-Illini guy, and for the Lions who are hoping to compete this season. Sad to see a guy that I really wanted to succeed get injured like that before the season even started. That said, this is the exact case I was building against all my friends that are Loins fans. There is so much more than just what the team on paper tells you.

QUOTE (SouthSidePride05 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 10:03 AM) It would be nice... but I don't see it happening. I'll watch the team regardless if they're 10 games out or in first place by Labor Day. It cracks me up when I hear from "fans" who say they only follow the team if they're contending. When people say, 'I wish they'd stop teasing us so I could move on to something else', it just makes me cringe. Where's the loyal fans who stick with the team through thick and thin? If you only follow the team when they're contending, you're a truly pathetic fan. Where's the f***ing loyalty?!? Ugh, I f***ing hate people who say this s***. "OMG you don't think the Sox can win!? HATERZ NON BELIEVERZZZ!!!" Of course I want to see the Sox win, but at the same time I'm a realist and when I look at this team, how theyve played up to this point, and their tendencies to s*** their pants when they reach .500, yea I'm going to say that I don't think this team will win the division, or even get in first place at some point.