JTC2784

It's not like I WON'T go there at all anymore or anything... just will end up here more than there in the immediate future... that's all... But enough off-topic stuff... this team sucks.

Your "PK watch" in your signature or whatever has provoked a thought... will GIDPaul Konerko end up with more RBI than GIDP's?

Oh I definitely agree. White has definitely looked better of late, but I'm still unsure of bringing him into a close game. But that's how I feel about pretty much everyone on the team right now with the exception of Marte, Wunsch, and, to a lesser extent, Koch right now, so it really doesn't matter.... The team'll find a way to lose with or without White.

I doubt I'll go back there now anyway....

Damn I can't see it either. Is it a Netscape thing that I can't view it? Or is it the emporer's new clothes and it doesn't really exist? Actually I think it has to do with either the security settings on your browser or if you have a hotmail account your computer is logged into through cookies... judging by the address and the source of the image from your quote, it appears that it's in an email that Josh received.... Could you email it to [email protected] if it's on an email, Josh? Thanks in advance.

"[They] couldn't hit water if they fell out of a f***ing boat" Crash Davis

Hmm... rebirth of the deadball era the same year steroid testing begins being phased into the game....

I can't see the picture... but I assume it's just the logo with "Cork" instead of "Cubs"?

Haven't been able to do that for Manuel's entire 6-year tenure...

Thanks for the history tidbits (in advance), Josh. btw... any news on the WXing site going back up any time soon, and are you even planning on going back there? I've grown to like this place quite a bit more... faster, more reliable....

Now his ERA is a blazing 8.18... about 10 times what it was with St. Louis in the 2nd half of last year.

Biracial also here... 4th generation Japanese-American / Irish.

Well he apparently was talking about his stint on the DL as "honeymoon... sipping champaign with [his] wife...." Hmm... source of the corks? Another 8 days off... good for another 8 corks and some rust in his swing to justify using them... hmmmmmm...

Sad but true.

I've even missed Chris Snopek at times this year....

I'm at the Milwaukee School of Engineering... in the lowest of low D-3 conferences, the MCHA. Went to prep school in Indiana (Culver, if you're heard of it... Suter's alma mater). Nothing worth bragging about at all now ('cept that we tied Lake Forest College and swept Buffalo State, the worst team in SUNY). We'll probably be a respectable D-3 team by the '04-'05 season (my junior year), when our new $32 mil. rink is going up....

Thanks for starting this thread, Mr. Bullock. As an athlete who'll never make it to where you guys are (currently playing D-3 hockey), I admire all that you guys down in the minors go through to get to the big leagues. The fact that you guys on the Barons come over here and care what the fans think of you and care what the fans think of your teammates speaks volumes about you guys. I (on behalf of us athletes who don't have the opportunity you do) wish you all good luck on the rest of the season and on your quest to get to the big leagues.

And is it my imagination, or is Grace considered one of the classier guys in the league?

So did the Sox roster at the beginning of the year....

Pretty close, though.

HAH! I heard you, too, Steff! I was cheering in the car when I heard what you said, and my cubfan girlfriend didn't understand why.

True, but I wouldn't put anything past the MLB's stupidity at this point....

....and here's his latest column in the Mercury News: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/spo...ess/6018790.htm World sees Scammin' Sammy By Skip Bayless Mercury News Finally the cover has been knocked off a beloved slugger known for knocking the cover off the ball. Finally an all-time great con artist has been exposed. As I've written many times, including in the newspaper that owns the Chicago Cubs, Sammy Sosa is the biggest phony I've encountered in any sport. Baseball's most popular player is Madison Avenue's most successful marketing fraud. Finally the world has seen that its cartoon superhero -- sweet, cuddly Sammy -- has feet of cork. If you think that's far too harsh, please understand that nothing poisons my pen like heroic hypocrites. While many fans, through the Great Home Run Race of 1998, were conned into seeing Sammy as this heart-tap-kissing, bunny-hopping buddy and rival of Mark McGwire's, the sly-eyed guy I often heard about or observed off-camera was a profane bully with highly questionable integrity. There's some Martha Stewart in Sosa, and vice versa. Here is a great actor who can be a bad actor. I'll say it again: At least Barry Bonds is always exactly what he is. Yet fans believed the Mark-and-Sammy fairy tale they badly wanted to believe. A mystified McGwire privately told St. Louis reporters he had no idea why Sosa kept telling the media they were close friends. McGwire knew Sosa only from conversations at first base and never played golf or socialized with him. Does anyone remember that Sosa, as a member of the Chicago White Sox, was accused of spousal abuse? No. Does anyone remember that his family-operated Sosa Foundation set up to help rebuild his Dominican Republic after it was ravaged by storms in '98 collapsed under accusations of corruption? No. Now maybe some of the wide-eyed Sosa worshipers will narrow their eyes with skepticism. Now maybe some of the companies whose products he pushes will rethink paying millions to Say It Ain't Sosa. No, he's no worse than a lot of wealthy superstars. But the corked bat he was caught using proves he isn't the baseball-saving role model so many fans were sold. My educated guess: Sosa cheated, got caught and lied about it. Yet fortunately for Sosa, his bat shattered in the bottom of the first inning, revealing the illegal cork and getting him ejected. He had the rest of the game 1) to remove other possible weapons of corked destruction from his clubhouse bat bin before baseball officials confiscated them for inspection; and 2) to rehearse his apology and excuse. Not surprisingly, the league office announced no cork was found in the 76 bats examined. Sosa's no fool, and neither are baseball executives. He remains one of baseball's biggest draws. Answering ``yes, sir'' and ``no, sir'' to TV reporters' questions, Sosa has begged forgiveness while claiming he accidentally picked up the one corked bat he uses only ``to make the fans happy'' by hitting tape-measure home runs in batting practice. That's only slightly less believable than former Alabama Coach Mike Price's story that he awoke in his hotel room bed with a woman he'd never seen before. Some players prefer slightly heavier batting-practice bats so their regular lumber will feel lighter during games. But Sosa has struggled of late after being hit in the head with a pitch and missing some games with a toe problem. When he returned last weekend, he looked as overweight as his bat looked slow. He struck out eight times in two games. So Tuesday night, with runners at second and third, it was probably no accident he reached for the hollowed-out bat he could swing a little faster. It's highly possible Sosa has occasionally tried to put a cork in a home-run slump. Experiments have shown corked bats provide only an approximate 1 percent improvement in distance. That, however, could occasionally mean the difference in a ball hitting high in Wrigley's ivy instead of catching the home-run basket. Now you wonder how many of Sosa's 505 homers were cork-aided. Five? Ten? For sure, a corked bat can provide a psychological edge for a slumping slugger. And Slammin' Sammy has sometimes desperately looked for ways to live up to the image he created in '98. He returned in '99 sporting about 30 more pounds and announced: ``I am a slugger now.'' Is it much of a stretch to believe, if he resorts to corked bats, he might have used testosterone boosters to build his body? He has repeatedly denied using them, but Cubs insiders have long suspected he has. But do most fans really care? No, most just want to be awed by home runs bouncing across streets and splashing in coves no matter what it took to produce them. I'm for outlawing performance-enhancing drugs to protect the players who don't want to risk using them but have no choice if they want to compete. But I'm for stiffer corked-bat penalties because it's time our national pastime stopped glamorizing cheating. My fairy tale would be baseball sending a tape-measure message by suspending Sammy Sosa 20 games, instead of the usual seven or eight for getting caught swinging cork. But we'll sooner see world peace. Nor will this incident damage Sosa's Hall of Fame chances. Spitball specialist Gaylord Perry was enshrined after seasons of being portrayed as colorfully crafty for illegally doctoring baseballs and avoiding detection. Then again, crusty old Gaylord wasn't sweet, cuddly Sammy. Sosa's image has taken a fitting hit. This just in: Sosa no angel.

Skip Bayless wrote a column in ST last year (during the Sosa-Bons feud) about how you CAN'T write anything bad about Sosa if you're a writer in Chicago. He basically went on and on about how Sosa was an egotistical bastard that deserved to get his ass chewed out by Bonds.

I actually think that the Sox will pull this one out in a late-inning rally after Wright puts together 7 strong innings