caulfield12

http://screenrant.com/avengers-age-of-ultr...ding-explained/

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 13, 2015 -> 07:59 PM) I've decided that I think it needs another 20-30 minutes, I think it was just too heavily edited. Make that a 2 hour 50 minute movie and they can suddenly delve more into the Stark/Ultron relationship, they can actually tell something about Thor's vision (My word that was underdone), etc. I'd really like to see a "Director's cut". That whole thing with Thor and the cave was seriously just a blip on the radar....Whedon fought for and forced it into the story, they wanted to cut it and it turned out being yet another plot-line that didn't go anywhere because of costs/corporate editing. It almost seemed like Thor wasn't even in the movie, except for some one-liners. (Actually, my wife remarked that the sense of humor was missing from this one as well...all things considered, it's a highly profitable missfire that will be looked at historically as simply setting up the Civil War movie, mostly pleasant looking and mildly amusing filler). The whole "Hawkeye domestic bliss" and "Hulk/Widow" thing didn't really work, either. The first five to ten minute sequence, I thought I was in a virtual reality 3D movie with 360 degree perspective...which was COOL, but it just felt like an excuse to show off new tech rather than an integral plot point.

When will Wright be back? I noticed that Neuwenheis or whatever his name is was hitting more insects with his beard than putting balls in play.

Except it's pretty hard to argue that letting Ramirez go and/or trading him is going to lead to a better team next year. We'll forget about Semien for the moment. Anderson, Carlos Sanchez, Saladino and Leury...none of them are equipped to be an everyday SS next year for a playoff-competitive team. They'd have to get extremely fortunate to spend less than $10 million on the problem, IMO.

Peralta breaks up no hitter. 15 k's through 6 2/3.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 13, 2015 -> 06:11 PM) Hopefully he'll get it, the no hitter jinx takes effect and he'll be bad the rest of the season. Well, he was pretty bad (compared to last year, ERA around 4 and no wins/run support) for the first 6 starts this season, so I wouldn't count on that happening.

Furious 7, I'm sad to say...was actually more entertaining than Avengers 2. Just too many storylines, too much CGI, no Coulson...it was just lacking something in the chemistry department. Too disjointed? You don't go Marvel movies these days for cohesive/logical plots, but I would watch Furious 7 five times before I'd want to watch Avengers again. Was a bit too reminiscent of IM 3. The self-created villain was just too convenient, too, although Spader's voice work was great.

QUOTE (LDF @ May 13, 2015 -> 05:39 PM) Beane did it with a stricter budget than what was given to the sox and did well. Balti has done well with an owner who only see the budget worst than Oak Alt been doing good without the idea of how much money they have, where they are going to play. basic 3-4 yrs of an uncertain know entity, the backside of Alt baseball. look at the big picture, not what the final line is saying, but the whole story. Baltimore has spent a ton of money under PETER Angelos, just not wisely until the last 2-3 years (part of it goes to Showalter).

QUOTE (Brian @ May 13, 2015 -> 05:43 PM) You can't walk off in the top of the 9th! Newwwwwb Fine...you might want to watch what's going on in CLE right now anyway.

Addison Reed just gave up a walk-off Grand Slam to the Nationals' stellar young CF, Michael Taylor.

QUOTE (LDF @ May 13, 2015 -> 05:26 PM) i was talking to my family and was mentioning that the sox, instead of raising the prices, they should have lowered it a little across the board, and fixed the bad PR they got with the ozzie and son thing. no matter what, part of the major problem is the money and the so called not having it..... the biggest problem i thought the sox had was / IS the mismanagement of the FO!!!!! they need someone like Beane, the pres of Balti, someone... even look into the success Atl has done. Beane went through almost a decade of rebuilding, Baltimore 25 years....Atlanta will be rebuilding for 3-4 years while waiting on the benefits of their new suburban stadium.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 13, 2015 -> 05:18 PM) Didn't arrive in Detroit until 2008, was a Marlin. I just remember Verlander's impact, more than anything. I-Rod and Ordonez were the two best "name" hitters, looking back. Thames, Granderson, Monroe, Inge (27!) and Carlos Guillen (monster OPS) all had 19 homers or more. And Chris Shelton was hot for two weeks, lol.

QUOTE (LDF @ May 13, 2015 -> 05:12 PM) i don't know if it is me, but one of the other reasons i got to dislike the owners of the sox is the backhanded insult they have made regarding the fans. like you mention and the other time of the sox are not fans if they do not support the team. i may be paraphrasing this last one, but the point is, we, or i have been a die hard fan and i will support it, when they put the product on the field. i have done that for many yr as a season ticket holder with 4 tickets. so did he ever come out and thank us. not in promo's but thank us for being there? if they do not put the product on the field, i will watch them on tv..... that was my feeling when i was in chicago. even this yr, i mention that if i was back in chi, i would have brought tickets. inspite of not getting another pitcher and catcher. They've made MUCH more of a concerted effort in recent years to show appreciation for the fans, but it feels like "too little, too late." It's only when they were starting to get desperate, dropped dynamic pricing, realized they couldn't get shut out on Sundays and started dropping prices around the board, but by then the product on the field wasn't an easy sell no matter what the ticket price. The funny thing to me is that over all these years, I've always felt the only truly successful marketing (other than the giveaways) has been the weekend fireworks games. All of those other promotions, like Dog Day and Elvis Night, were just window dressing and copies of what numerous minor league teams had already invented and been doing successfully on a small-scale basis for years. It's also little things. They never had a toll-free number for tickets, since I was in middle school. Most MLB teams treated their fans with more respect than forcing them to pay money to call to buy tickets. Maybe they can't do Thirsty Thursdays and Two for Tuesdays (because of the fear of ruining the family atmosphere), but going back to some of the discount (Mon-Thur) day/night promotions (Pepsi) and dollar dogs/Buck Nights or even "bundling" really good food offers with the tickets (like the A's do) couldn't do anything but help.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 13, 2015 -> 05:07 PM) I don't think anyone would argue that an owner who doesn't care about losing alot of money to win would help any team win. However, these are few and far between. even ilitch who you set as an exmple had 13 losing seasons in a row before a winning season and has had 14 losing season in 24 years as ownership. The JR group has done better than that just not in the last 4 which are the tigers only 1st place finishes under this ownership. So an owner willing to go into the negative to win isn't really the answer. Right, but it's also not fair to say the Tigers have "better fans" either, because of the unique circumstances surrounding "super fan/hands on" owners like Illitch, Mark Cuban or George Steinbrenner. And they did make it to the World Series in 2006 (largely due to Verlander and Cabrera, two huge superstars), which was enough to sustain interest (2009 they were in the race up until the final day, similar to the 2008/10/12 seasons for the White Sox) until 2011.

Melky Cabrera has a lower SLG than OBP. Ooops. Along with Melky, we've got Flowers, Ramirez, Micah, Alexei (moving up) and Eaton all in the bottom quartile of everyday hitters OPS-wise. Gillaspie (despite the horrid defense) looks practically good compared to the rest of the bottom-dwellers statistically. Then you've got Avi's BABIP thing and LaRoche's can't hit lefties thing and Jose's impossible bar or standard to live up to (he needs to be a Top 10 hitter in MLB for the White Sox to compete, not 40-50ish).

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 13, 2015 -> 04:33 PM) It's a huge red flag no matter what his other tools are. If you can't command the strike zone MLB pitchers aren't going to throw you many strikes. I'm high on Anderson overall but he needs to start taking more walks. Not a ton, just a few more. I'd be happy with 30-40 a year in MLB. Just enough to keep pitchers honest. I will add that I have zero faith in the Sox to develop any sort of strikezone command in their prospects. It's not something they do well, at all. It's also interesting that Bob Uecker and the Brewers' radio people had ZERO idea what Harold Baines did for the White Sox now. They had to look it up. Assistant hitting coach. They said, "boy, was he a great hitter, near HofF caliber except for the injuries and time spent as a DH" but had zero clue that he was even a coach still or what it was he was supposedly doing for the organization. I find that a bit telling.

QUOTE (Buehrlesque @ May 13, 2015 -> 01:02 PM) I think the bolded is true of everyone's postulates in this thread. No one's technically "right" or "wrong" because it can't fully be proven. And it doesn't have to be 100% "Sox fans are excuse-making, fickle jerks" OR 100% "Sox team doesn't win enough or try to" anyway. It's probably a combination of things. I think both camps are right to an extent. Sox fans are fickle (and skeptical) — it's not enough for the team to be good (2012) or for management to put an "all in" effort to make the team good (2011, 2015). The front office has to generate a lot of buzz in the offseason AND the team has to play really well in the ensuing season. Unfortunately, this has NEVER happened in recent White Sox memory. Either the team has been unexpectedly good with lower expectations (2008, 2012) or they've been built up with acquisitions and expectations and then thoroughly disappointed (2011, 2015 among others). Sox fans don't buy in in either scenario. The stuff about the Sox being a small market team because of city market share and unresponsive fans, while based in fact and somewhat true, is overblown. The Sox can spend, and have spent. The frustrating part there is that management has put the effort into winning to attract fans, and the team always disappoints in those circumstances, which turns off the fans! At the same time, there are tons of other facts limiting attendance (location, aesthetics, etc.) If the Sox had a beautiful, super new or super retro-new, downtown stadium, they would draw more easily. Unfortunately, they don't. I like the Cell, but objectively it's a generic-looking stadium, without an "aura," located substantially out of the way of the heart of the city. To me, it's an inertia thing. More fans being at the park begets more fans coming to the park. When there's no one there (often the result of a bad team), the park looks empty, lifeless and uninspiring. Truth is, perception (fair or not) is reality. It doesn't inspire someone watching at home to come out. Even if that random fan watching at home did want to go to a game, they know there's no reason to buy a ticket in advance when they could get it day of game and wait to see their home/work schedule, weather, pitching match ups, etc. And so by the time that game rolls around, they find a weather problem or a work problem or whatever other excuse to prevent them from going to the game. Basically, I think it takes commitment and execution from both sides — the team and the fans. The team has to build a winner AND they have to win to get the ball rolling. The fans have to come out and support it. I don't think Sox fans will ever just blindly come out to the Cell, it's just not going to happen. Once the ball is rolling, the rest will begin to take care of itself: more winning means more fans, which means more need to buy tickets in advance, which means more fans committing to coming out in advance regardless of match ups, weather, etc. The opposite — lots of walk up sales for a surprisingly serious late season contender — can happen as well: I remember the insane walk-up crowds late summer 2003 . But that is far less reliable. So I do think the onus is on the Sox to start it out, and it is a little more difficult than it is for other major league team, but that's just the way it is. Good news is, if they ever get it right, the effects could be longer-lasting than we've seen. Remember, the Sox were awful in 2007, yet still drew 2.6 million. They'd kill for that kind of number today. Why did they draw so well? Previous seasons' success raised fan interest and forced/inspired them to buy in advance! So the tickets were already sold before the team tanked. These are among the best posts in the thread because they're well-thought out, logical and reasonable. Everyone is right, and nobody is right. There's no way to be 100% right, so we take extreme positions and speak in hyperbolic terms in order to get the point across. There's no "proving" a point, because you have an entrenched, nearly unchangeable viewpoint. (I'd argue one of the best marketing strengths of the front office has actually been inculcating the feeling in the fanbase that they're somehow lesser, not loyal, should feel guilty...not supporting the team as much as they should, thus the "can't spend $1.00 if you only have 50 cents" type of comments). I posted an article from early 2011 that the number of local Chicago/Illinois fans attending games for the White Sox and Cubs was almost exactly identical...with the 25% split or difference being out-of-state/tourism related fans, or Wrigleyville "social experience" yuppier partygoers. If the White Sox have LOST fans from that point on, it's their own fault...because the Cubs were going into a prolonged rebuilding period. They had huge opportunities in 2006-07 and then again 2011-2014 (specifically 2011) and they blew both by a wide margin.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 13, 2015 -> 04:36 PM) They also have a different situation where they own the team and answer to no one. Reinsdorf is a minority owner of the team. He is the Chairman of the Board but that's it. He cannot just spend into negative revenues. It's not his money. And that's what it would take, IMO, to truly change the culture. A completely new ownership group with deeper pockets or a stadium located in a different area of the city. Everything else is just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship unless they show the ability to put a consistently playoff-contending team on the field. (That means 75% of the time, not every other season...and not completely whiffing on "all in" or close to it years like 2011 and 2015 at the very beginning of the season).

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 13, 2015 -> 04:30 PM) Look at the Angels. Consistently 2nd fiddle in the LA / OC market until they won the world series...they followed that up with multiple division titles and have been consistent contenders for the past decade. Payroll went through the roof and attendance was extremely strong. Sox could have been similar but they couldn't consistently make the playoffs (they consistently contended but fell short too often vs. building some serious momentum). Right, and there you have an owner who basically challenged the Dodgers and said "we're coming after you!" Of course, the irony is they won the World Series under passive Disney corporate ownership but haven't gotten close to that with Moreno, despite all the free spending, Mike Trout, one of the best managers in the game in Scioscia, etc. Angels tickets (at least when I went over a decade ago) aren't/weren't expensive....same with the Dodgers. It's a volume business out there with the population base being what it is. I still don't think we've met the bar of finding a single team whose fans CONSISTENTLY support their team (no matter what) after going through 7-8 non-playoff seasons (with one playoff team without a chance to advance because of the Quentin injury), and only competitive in roughly half of those seasons (2006-08-10-12)....versus 07/09/11/13/15. The Cubs... The Tigers...50% due to Mike Illitch personally (under Monaghan, not so much in the attendance department after 1987) If you look at all the Midwestern teams (once you get back the Cubs and Cards), you have a LOT of similar teams in terms of fanbase, demographics and economic impact/s from 2007-2008. Cleveland Pittsburgh Cincy Minnesota KC The team that has done consistently well without being a great team...probably the closest example is the Brewers. How much of that is the new stadium, the move to the NL, the fact that the Commissioner's office helped leveraged support directly and indirectly...being a one-market city, etc. If you want to argue Brewers fans are less fickle and more loyal, then I'll bite on that one. Otherwise, White Sox fans are VERY similar to fans in the five other markets mentioned above. They all support winners and tend to be skeptical by nature...even Twins' fans never believed in their team 100%, that they had the ability to advance in the playoffs (despite winning 6 of 9 AL Central championships).

QUOTE (LDF @ May 13, 2015 -> 02:41 PM) i don't understand, why is Balta fickle??? what is the reason that makes him so?? just wondering. Because he is being realistic/pragmatic instead of blindly optimistic.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 13, 2015 -> 12:59 PM) What the A's did, while perhaps suggestive of rebuilding for others, is their standard operating procedure at this point. And Josh Donaldson is still one of the best players in the game. That was all Beane's ego. As an Oakland fan that move would make me furious.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 13, 2015 -> 12:40 PM) And if anyone ever wants to make the neighborhood argument, go to a game in Detroit, and get back to me. Old stadium, yes. Now the area surrounding the park is similar, if not better, than USCF. And how many times did Illitch have negative revenues? He's like Cuban....fans perceive he cares more about winning the World Series than his bottom line. That is something his (Reinsdorf's) supporters won't or can't argue. Illitch is an anomaly (a la Steinbrenner), just like the Cubs with their unique situation.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 13, 2015 -> 08:52 AM) The Twins have averaged 95.5 losses the last 4 years, their attendance has blown the White Sox away. Of course in 2005, when the team was never not in first place and won the WS, a 3 game home series vs. KC in September drew a total of 50k. New stadium.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 13, 2015 -> 08:51 AM) And yet the team continues to grow its revenues every year, just like every other baseball team, because no matter how many times we have this conversation, everyone keeps pretending like it's 1980 and the internet and regional sports cable networks don't exist. Everyone is just going to HAVE to accept the fact that going to the game is no longer the most attractive option for following a baseball team. The ballpark experience is unique and valuable, but if you're a "die-hard" fan and want to follow the action, there's a better and cheaper option in your living room. Fortunately, the teams ARE being compensated handsomely for these channels, too. Amen. And hence the cost/benefit choice this offseason to attempt to push the window up a season. Plus, watching the Cubs completely dominate Chicago baseball media/public discussion probably didnt sit too well...hence the acquisition of Samardzija.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 13, 2015 -> 08:37 AM) White Sox tickets are by far the cheapest tickets in town. Cubs/Bulls/Bears/Blackhawks are all WAY more expensive. Hawks fans spend $100 for SRO against a no name team. White Sox fans can get into the upper Deck for $5 on a Sunday. That was FAR from true 3-4 seasons ago. They finally lowered prices from higher levels when it was already too late...the team had missed the playoffs for too long and the 2011 disaster happened. Fans actually perceive cheap tickets to be a lesser value than much higher prices for an exciting/interesting/entertaining product.