caulfield12

Deadpool officially jinxed the Cubs when he said my prediction about the Cubs and Indians meeting in the World Series when the Cavaliers won the NBA championship was the worst post of the year...but actually, predicted that way back in June. It was just a gut "confluence of historical forces" feeling at the time. At any rate, let's see what J4L's new Murderer's Row can come up with in response tonight. Hopefully a $184 million player on the bench again...in the ugly first year of that contract.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 25, 2016 -> 11:37 PM) Tonight was amazing. I couldn't believe those Indians pitchers. Cubs did get some men on base but man those guys throw hard. You guys were right about the Indians. They are a formidable foe. Should be an amazing series. If the Cubs win Game 2, that's all they need. Then go home and win 2 of three or all 3. You really would pick Lackey over Kluber that easily? CLE has a couple of huge advantages in this series. They have a lot more team speed, and the ability to manufacture runs (especially in the late innings) as well as any team in the AL that I've seen this year. Like Ozzie's Small Ball, except it's not just a myth papered over by home run reliance. Second, they have that bullpen, especially if you have Salazar down there and Miller isn't overexposed to high pitch counts (they have the added advantage of the long rest from the ALCS). Right now, I'd trust Allen/Miller much more than Chapman (two BS already in the post-season), Edwards Jr., Rondon, Strop, Montgomery, etc.)

Great start. Love the Indians having that chip on their shoulder, starting with Kluber, one of the most "unknown/underappreciated" Cy Young winners in recent history. Hopefully this is a "coming out" party as well for Francisco Lindor, the one superstar CLE has among their position players. Guess I was also too quick to point out the Cubs have the catching advantage with the night Roberto Perez just had. Last time a catcher hit two homers two WS dingers was Gary Carter in the 1986 Series for the Mets against the Red Sox. Miller was tested more than he ever was against Boston or Toronto, but that's probably a good wake-up call to get out of the way in a 3 run game (but still a huge test of nerves) instead of a tie/1-2 run margin. Pressure really shifts to Arrieta and Kendricks. You can bet that the Indians fans are already counting on beating Lackey in Game 4, but that guy has so much post-season experience you can never underestimate him, despite his being a bit of a jerk who makes annoying faces when he throws the ball.

QUOTE (Green Line @ Oct 25, 2016 -> 07:19 PM) Something has to change in the next decade. I don't know how, and I don't know if it can happen under Reinsdorf, but all of a sudden in the past year I've began to doubt the long term future of the White Sox in Chicago. That's horrifying and I want to think I'm just being over dramatic, but it's a different era than it was back when the Sox were always awful. Ownership is not going to stay in that stadium, it's "old" and way less nice than every new field being built. They're going to demand the city/state help fund a new stadium, and with the current state of the Sox and politics in IL, no way in hell is that going to happen. Something has to change, soon. It's made me so freaking pissed this month to think about how Cubs fans never have to even think about this crap. If that's not enough, just read the Dodgers or Tigers message boards, where they get downright irate about four consecutive playoff appearances without a World Series winner. With the Dodgers, it's now 10 in a row where they qualified for the playoffs but haven't won the World Series, dating back to Kirk Gibson's heroics against Dennis Eckersley in 1988. Read the latest Dylan Hernandez column in the LA Times to get a feeling what it's like to have high or elevated expectations as a fanbase. We have all of four playoff appearances in that same time period. And this whole idea about the Cubs "being financially over-committed or cash-strapped," we haven't seen any signs of it yet. They'll probably do the smart thing on passing on a huge deal for Arrieta and use their remaining depth in position players to make some deals to supplement their rotation.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hannity-intervie...-150646880.html Crazy that Hannity is now giving National Enquirer anti-Clinton stories the time of day...but par for the course in this election.

QUOTE (Ezio Auditore @ Oct 25, 2016 -> 10:00 AM) In the 70s, the whole theory of trickle-down/supply side economics was considered crackpot s***, but Reagan made it mainstream. I don't know if that's considered "Austrian economics" or if it's just something that gets rolled into that for convenience's sake. But essentially Stockman and Friedman, yes? And hasn't Stockman backed away from his beliefs about its efficacy? For most Americans, they didn't really start paying attention until Bush Senior of all people called it "voodoo economics."

You can guarantee if Schwarber even makes a tiny impact it will be blown up as the biggest comeback from a devastating injury in the lore of baseball.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/curt-schillin...-165638757.html Curt Schilling, Breitbart team up for radio program with hopes of thwarting "career criminal" HRC...12 attend rally, but 5 are reporters.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...1025-story.html Apocalypse. Cub Hero Kyle Schwarber added to active roster.... Will likely DH tonight. Makes Tomlin even more relevant.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Oct 25, 2016 -> 07:57 AM) Isn't it pretty much a lock that Indians go with a 3-man of Kluber, Tomlin, Bauer? I realize Salazar will be on the roster but I see him being more of a long man if/when they need to pull either Bauer or Tomlin before the 5th inning. Merritt and Salazar are definitely the wild cards. Along with Schwarber.

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2...d_serie.html#15 CLE Plain Dealer gives advantage to Cubs at nearly every position but SS, DH, RF and the bullpen. Adv to Cubs for rotation and bench as well. Catcher should favor the Cubs, realistically. And Zobrist>Guyer/Crisp in the outfield.

Arrieta starting Game 2 against ? Hendricks for 3 at home, Lackey for Game 4. Indians' rotation situation still a big mystery.

$9.5 million in 2015, $8 million in 2016, $9 million in 2017 (mutual option, buyout is $5 million but obviously he will decline the guaranteed $9 million and declare for free agency again) The White Sox would have had to bid at least $20-21 million for two years, which still would have been a much better deal than for Melky or Robertson...but he wouldn't have put last year's team over the top, either. It would have taken Fowler and Desmond and at least one bullpen addition for the Albers spot.

High-level DNC operative Creamer.... http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/politics/pro...lies/index.html Operative, sure, but to think Clinton is going to use someone with his criminal history in anything like a central role after what happened with Manafort is nuts. Of course, Breitbart terms Democracy Partners "the beating heart of the Democratic Party." Whatever, dude.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 24, 2016 -> 03:04 PM) Yeah, and I guess it's not really "true" the Warriors are going to make wet, soggy, dirty diapers out of the nba this year. Afterall, it hasn't happened yet. Please. Bryant, Baez, Russell, Contreras, Rizzo, and Schwarber is as good as it gets - ever. They ain't goin' nowhere. What did Maddux, Smoltz and Glavine guarantee the Braves? Another HOFer in Chipper Jones.

Urias, Moncada/Betts/Benitendi and Gary Sanchez became harder gets than a year ago. There are still deals out there, but hard to imagine any of us being elated compared to some of the projected (and probably overly optimistic ones). When the White Sox have had opportunities to make some Cubs 2012-14 moves, all we got was Duke for Tilson. Of course, now we have a huge lack of depth at LH reliever when those guys like Miller are changing the face of the game, being used in a similar fashion to how the Tigers utilized Zumaya in his prime...putting out fires even from the fifth through seventh innings when the heart of the lineup was due.

The Will To Win...forgot about that marketing debacle. Pretty soon Harrelson will be gone, too.

If we could be optimistic they weren't going to blow the last golden opportunity in JR's lifetime...that new broadcasting rights deal, things would be at least a bit more upbeat. Now it just feels like the Cubs are the shark that's going to swallow what's left of White Sox Nation from 2005 whole and spit it out. Adding to the misery was the temporary feeling of light at the end of the tunnel at 23-10 and even a possible World Series match up with the Cubs. Gone in the span of 2-3 weeks of abysmal play and mediocre managing/leadership. I'd say 50% of the frustration is with the Cubs doing things right with a nearly unlimited budget, Epstein, Maddon...heck, we can't even keep up with the Royals, Indians and Tigers in our own division. Oh, and more James Shields to look forward to as well.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 24, 2016 -> 09:59 AM) Yeah, I agree with Shipps. A lot of it is simply you getting older and wiser about the world. Additionally, part of it is you are interacting on a daily basis with a subset of White Sox fans that are devoted to their team, but also intelligent and fanatical about them. Just listen to sports talk radio and you'll hear how a White Sox fan might sound if he isn't spending time reading and debating the merits of ALMOST EVERYTHING the organization does on Soxtalk. Your opinions about the team are generally going to be the result of things that have been vetted and tested and formed by some of the brightest fans the organization has. You simply don't really allow for yourself to drink the cool-aid, because to be honest, Soxtalk won't let you. More on that later... To piggyback off that, the world as a whole has changed. I am a little older than you, so my fandom started with the '83 team (I'm 39, almost a man!). I followed the team on sportsvision and then sportschannel, and there really wasn't much else in terms of coverage. You read the papers, sure, but that didn't offer much, at least not for a young kid. You could talk to your friends, but they were usually as ignorant as you (even if they were older), and you read the back of baseball cards to keep yourself informed. Now there is sabermetrics, and the internet, and social media, and everyone has more clear lines in the sand and measuring sticks to point to. Debates are much less about opinions you could argue til the cows came home and now all about data, facts, and being "owned." And now back to Soxtalk and the Sox sucking...I won't go through all the nonsense that's happened in the last 10 years, but things haven't been pretty, and that's resulted in a bit of a groupthink pessimism amongst educated Sox fans that seems to persist almost at all costs. We expect failure out of this ownership group. We expect poor decisions out of this FO. And then we all remind one another of it ad nauseum. It's tough to really have a childlike enthusiasm and wonder for an team and an organization when everyone tells you your nuts for thinking that way (just ask El Rockin). Time for a meeting...perhaps more ramblings later on... Yeah, for me it was 1980 Strat O Matic, collecting baseball cards and following the boxscores in the QC Times....although the late scores you had to wait two whole days to update your own personal stats you kept and erased which each game over the course of six months. Reading the Sporting News religiously, and USA Today/Baseball Weekly. Finally, listening to that powerful WMAQ signal at night, almost anywhere in the country.

It was a succession of embarrassments after that 23-10 start. The fact you could just feel it slipping away. Robin Ventura. At one point, even rookies like Fields, Owens and Wasserman were fun in 2007. Honestly, not even Tim Anderson could redeem this season very much because there was pretty much nothing to care about for almost three months other than the draftees. Then you had the deadline inactivity...Chris Getz, offering Ventura the opportunity to stay but not really? The White Sox had their history, too. Shoeless Joe Jackson. Bill Veeck. Southside Hitmen of 1977. The Field of Dreams. They were the team true baseball fans followed in Chicago, and maybe the hollowing out of those blue collar factory workers from the 60s and 70s is representative of the ebbing and fading of the franchise now as well. Heck, I even used to only drink Miller Lite because it was associated with the team and union workers...Budweiser was for the yuppie Cubs fans. And yeah, when you get older...priorities change. It's different for the fans who grew up in the 70s and 80s and remember the Old Comiskey...and how far things fell in the mid to late 80s for the franchise. It feels like with the Cubs winning, the organization has completely lost its identity. We're currently mirrors of the Bulls, except we don't even have any playoff appearances to hold onto as each year passes. Pretty soon, the Padres and Mariners will make the playoffs and the only team with a longer string will be the Jose Fernandez-less Marlins, and at least they have the weather, new stadium and two World Series trophies in a lifetime. Hope that one day the White Sox don't become so irrelevant like the Dolphins that totally giving up the sport becomes an option...but it's 2-3 years away at the rate they're going.

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/23/498878356/se...vitable?ref=yfp Trump that B***H Sexism out in the open in the 2016 campaign that may have been inevitable...of course, this wouldn't have been tolerated by any other GOP presidential candidate.

After the election, we need a "these are the indicators that Hillary is the Antichrist and is destroying the very fabric that holds Amerca together" thread with regular updates.

Because he was originally acquired via trade...and probably would never have fought to come back as a FA had he not already been there first.

This is like arguing Marco Rubio would have won had he never flubbed a debate. In Greg's idea, then...four years ago, we likely would have had Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Rudy Guiliani, Michelle Bachmann or Newt Gingrich as the candidate, and Dr. Ben Carson this year. The process actually has done a pretty good job until this year of weeding out unworthy candidates...

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-steve-bar...-061105324.html Passan argues why Bartman should throw out the first pitch (over Billy Williams) for Game 3