caulfield12

Gosling really makes some offbeat choices, working with his favorite directors. Kristin Scott Thomas hasn't been good since The English Patient. Joking. But she's far from on a career ascendancy, or even the equivalent of say, Diane Kruger. So interesting casting, along with a local star, which will help with that box office (Thailand), obviously. Gives Gosling more chances to show off his six-pack abs, I guess.

Walker, Thompson and Brandon Short with low or dismal averages. Carlos Sanchez at .208. Pretty bleak. And then there's Mitchell and Hawkins. At least some of the pitchers have had more encouraging results...Erik Johnson and Beck.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Apr 19, 2013 -> 12:11 PM) Dollar for dollar, he's a bigger disappoint than Scott Linebrink & Jaime Navarro. Trying to think of other sizable free agents who flopped. Linebrink was at least a key factor in our 2008 pennant...the first half, when he was healthy, he was VERY good until the injuries caught up to him. David Wells...although that was just one year. More the way the injuries ended his season, his lack of strong results, the fight with Frank Thomas/radio comments and the way that year started 14-29 and was a struggle just to get back to .500. Going back, I remember the disappointment over Cory Snyder and Steve Sax, although I would have to look up how we acquired both of them. Tim Raines was pretty good with us, but I expected the game-changing player he was the first 7-8 years in Montreal and he was no longer that type of offensive force.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Apr 19, 2013 -> 12:35 AM) Great if true, but who knows You'd have to think it's pretty accurate if the Boston Globe, the local newspaper which is quite reputable, is reporting it. It's not the NY Post or Daily News...

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Apr 18, 2013 -> 10:15 PM) Sometimes I wish your posts stays on one point. Who's talking about Gillespie's power? Not to be a downer, his contact tool is not plus plus, maybe a plus, if that. He's only put up one .300 season so far. He has some speed, but he's been caught stolen far too many times to be an effective base stealer, see Alexei. I am not sure if it's a result of his technique or lack of top speed, I am hoping it's the former. Last thing, I wouldn't buy the scouting reports of him having a great glove, the organization wouldn't have him split between positions every season and slow down his development if he's elite at one position. The reason I brought up Gillaspie is because there's no set answer for 3B, and nobody in the minors in waiting...Alexei's getting older, and Beckham's a huge question mark. (And this is another reason our players tend to get moved all over the field, because the needs of the major league team keep changing...if you look at the examples of position changes for Viciedo and Beckham, for example). In my opinion, Sanchez only makes sense as a middle infielder, period. It's hard to say really what we have in him, because it's a lot like the Hector Santiago situation, where he just arrived on the scene and "got it" after years laboring in the lower minors. (For that matter, it took Jose Quintana 6 years to get out of A ball, the he essentially jumpe over both AA/AAA in one month). So to judge his past performance as a cumulative whole rather than looking more specifically at last season is a mistake, IMO. The whole idea of playing at one position is overrated...without power hitting tools or PED's, all players need to have more versatility than ever before. Ideally, a born SS with a rocket of an arm stays at that position all the way up through the minors, but we haven't had one of those in ages that we've incubated in our minor league system and brought up to the big leagues after developing them ourselves. And then when he has that kind of season at age 19, it's even more noteworthy...keeping in mind the advanced competition and ages of the players he's competing against.

If it's serious, it's can easily take a year or years to get over...I know Harrelson's documented this before on numerous occasions. Coming back too quickly is the worst thing you can do, because of the fragility of that part of that area of the body, and the impossibility of protecting it. (This injury, a soft tissue heel contusion/bruise and kidney stones, far and away the three worst physical problems you can go through short of cancer/leukemia/life-threatening ones). It is the kind of injury, unless you've experienced it yourself, you can't possibly imagine how sensitive and how easy it is to reinjure with just the slightest twinge or violent movement that comes from swinging a bat/racquet/club, or just a quick movement, like jumping upwards to catch a ball. Hopefully with Dayan is was more of a "twinge" and not a full tear or pull, so to speak.

By withholding their 15 minutes of fame, can you prevent the Hinckleys and James Holmeses and Timothy McVeigh's and David Koreshes? How can you do that in country that believes so strongly in freedom of the press, and where there will always be an overpowering interest in knowing the who and why in these situations? We can get carried away blaming movies and video games for real life violence, but there are links to be made...just like it's pretty clear these types of shootings and terrorist events come in bunches, usually. As a fan of the two NCIS shows, it seems that "real life" is no longer distinguishable from the plot of a t.v. show. It used to be that crime shows inspired copycats...now, they just reflect the reality of the random chaos and violence which has become a party of everyday existence since 9/11. It's the same argument about memorials/monuments, Freedom Tower, etc. There is a very memorable and poignant memorial in Bali to the nightclub bombing victims...some would argue that building these things only glorifies the perpetrators of violence, whereas the opposite argument is that non celebrating and memorializing the victims and stressing what they contributed to the world is giving those who sow violence even more power than ever.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Apr 18, 2013 -> 08:07 PM) That's gotta be the worse k% I've ever seen. Between Mitchell, Walker, Thompson and Hawkins, I think our system is jinxed. Keep in mind Tyler Flowers also went through the same crap a few years ago, where he started striking out a bunch and lost the ability to make any contact at all. As far as Sanchez, I don't see him being a regular at the majors. There is no indicators of power at all. He's never shown any gap power with doubles or triples in his minor league career. A no power, average defense player isn't going to be an everyday starter. The most likely projection for him is a slightly better contact version of Chris Getz. There are lots of conflicting reports about his defense. Some describe him as a "plus" defender or having the ability to be elite. If he can play that type of defense at SS, then he has a chance to be a regular, or 2B (assuming they will replace Beckham, which isn't a sure thing quite yet). He doesn't hit for enough power to play 3B. As far as Gillaspie's power goes, we'll have a better idea two months from now, especially when the weather starts to heat up in Chicago. He has three big assets going in his favor right now. His walk/contact rate, his speed (maybe a 20-25 SB guy at the major league level) and his age.

At least Nate Jones looked better this outing. For only throwing about 90 MPH, Janssen's 27 for his last 30 save opportunities. Brett Myers should take some notes.

If Flowers can hit at least .220 or .230 with the type of XB power we're seeing again recently, we should consider ourselves fortunate.

Did they make an announcement on Viciedo yet? There's a position we have ZERO depth in our minor league system. RH power-hitting outfielders who are major league ready. We don't even have Tekotte anymore, right? FWIW, as long as Sale has his good fastball, he should be fine. There are a lot bigger things to worry about than Chris, at this point. Depth, for one thing...Dunn/Keppinger/DeAza/Flowers slumping, etc.

At least Alexei saved one run defensively, you can't take that away from him tonight.

This hearkens back to the debate a couple of seasons ago to benching Dunn for Lillibridge or possibly Viciedo...back when the Stealth Elf was a dangerous offensive threat for 2+ months. I'll believe it when I see Danks, Gimenez or Wise getting AB's over Dunn.

Tampa Bay needs to improve their offense at nearly every position...with the exception of Longoria and Zobrist. The jury's still out on Desmond Jennings. Joyce seems to be a bit inconsistent. And you're never going to build an infield of the future around Loney, Ryan Roberts, Kelly Johnson and Yunel Escobar. Escobar, in particular, seems to be a bad omen for every team he joins.

Well, nobody could have predicted that result. Courtney Hawkins would have a better chance of running into one than Adam Dunn right now.

11 RBI's on the season now...

I think Keppinger's now 1/15 in this series. Yikes. If this series finale follows the statistical trend, it should be 7-0 Toronto. Let's hope not. 3-4, 4-3, 7-0....

On the plus side, Sale has his 92-96 MPH velocity back again. On the other side of the coin, Dickey's going to be almost impossible to beat when he's on. With these games against knuckleballers, you just have to hope the entire offense isn't messed up. Then again, with the majority of our hitters, outside of Rios/Gillaspie/Ramirez/Konerko, it's hard to imagine things getting much worse than they have been. PS: Don't study tapes of Jose Contreras, Bobby Jenks and Freddy Garcia on stopping the opposing team's running game, Mr. Sale.

Great game by Endy Chavez. Robbed a Cabrera homer early, had a key hit and made another web gem catch late in the game... M's pitching really held down the Tigers in this series. They deserved at least one win after the way last night's game ended with Smoak thrown out to end the game trying to score to tie it in the bottom of the 14th off Benoit. That Japanese hurler for the M's has been a downright bulldog. And Wilhelmsen was throwing 100 MPH heat. Really held down Fielder until today....yesterday, he was 0/6 with 5 K's.

Mitchell continuing to struggle mightily. The epidemic continues, 2 more K's in 3 AB's. Carlos Sanchez only at .227, but it's early.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 18, 2013 -> 12:19 PM) Omogrosso did not pitch important innings last year. Every game he pitched in september, except 2, were losing efforts. He was a roster expansion callup, and he pitched mopup late in games that the Sox were losing. And in the games he pitched in July for his short time up, he gave up 3 runs in 6.1 innings. Septimo was also used as mopup in september, although he was given even less rope and was only allowed to see 1 batter at a time after he blew up at Boston, and even then he was suspect. These guys were not the reason the Sox bullpen was considered good and deep, they were roster filler at the end of the season. And for the record, I dont hate Ommogrosso. That's because the team lost MOST of its games in SEPT. There were a number of games that were close or that were tied or we were only down no more than a couple that he was appearing in at key times...to the point that you were surprised Ventura was using him then, instead of some of our other relievers.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-...0,6591527.story Ricketts trying to get Wrigley on National Register of Historic Places....eligible for roughly $40-100 million in tax breaks by the end of the process if status is granted.

LOS ANGELES -- Zack Greinke was back in the Dodgers clubhouse Wednesday, his left arm in a sling three days after he underwent surgery on his left collarbone. Greinke was injured when San Diego outfielder Carlos Quentin charged the mound after being hit by a pitch. Greinke, expected to miss two months, didn't want to comment further on the reason for the confrontation with Quentin. "I made a mistake one time talking about [Chris] Carpenter and I felt bad about that afterwards," Greinke said. "It's just not anyone else's business, really." Heading into the 2011 playoffs, Greinke criticized Carpenter for yelling at Milwaukee Brewers hitters and said some Brewers thought the St. Louis Cardinals pitcher had a "phony attitude." Greinke said he regrets not telling his catcher, A.J. Ellis, about a history of bad blood with Quentin before Thursday's game in San Diego. He had hit Quentin with pitches twice before and Quentin previously had been restrained from charging the mound on one occasion, in 2009 when Quentin played for the Chicago White Sox and Greinke was in Kansas City. After he hit Quentin in San Diego, Ellis did not move to restrain Quentin. "I should have told him. I knew anyone with the White Sox has always labeled me as someone that does stuff," Greinke said. "I didn't think it would happen, but looking back at it I should have warned him. I know he would feel a lot better about it." www.espn.com

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/22001242...former-governor More detailed version of the story. In her 32-page federal complaint filed Monday in Chicago, Perri Irmer allege s that after her 2004 arrival at the Illinoi s S port s Facilitie s Authority, s ome of her effort s at rai s ing new revenue and reforming the agency were rebuffed by Rein s dorf and Thomp s on, two longtime friend s , and that they wielded their influence to get her fired in April 2011. S he allege s that s he s ucce s s fully pu s hed for the S ox to begin paying rent in 2008 to I S FA, and that afterward, Rein s dorf began lobbying then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich — now in pri s on — to have her fired. "Under former Gov. Thomp s on' s leader s hip, the I S FA Board had become ineffective to protect taxpayer intere s t s , and wa s acting a s nothing more than a ca s h cow puppet for Jerry Rein s dorf," the complaint s tate s . S he i s s ee k ing un s pecified damage s for " s ub s tantial economic lo s s e s ," according to the law s uit. A s k ed to comment on the s uit Tue s day, Thomp s on s aid: "The allegation s of the complaint are fal s e." . . . Thomp s on ha s long been tied to the S ox. In 1987, with Rein s dorf threatening to move hi s team to Florida — where a s tadium wa s built to lure a team — then-Gov. Thomp s on wor k ed the floor s of the General A s s embly to pa s s the law creating the authority and allowing a new par k to be built for the S ox. The cloc k on the Hou s e floor wa s turned off in order to meet a midnight deadline. The authority over s aw con s truction of the s tadium and the financing for it. The S ox began paying $1.2 million in rent in 2008, a change Irmer allege s s he pu s hed for. That s ame year s he hired con s ultant s to s tudy developing s tate-owned land around the Cell, and the analy s i s s howed building s tore s and re s taurant s would lead to profit s for taxpayer s , the s uit s ay s . S he allege s that in December 2008, Rein s dorf lobbied Blagojevich not to renew her contract and that Blagojevich' s former chief of s taff, John Harri s , called board member s — five day s before Blagojevich' s arre s t. A board meeting ended without a deci s ion regarding her contract. Two day s later s he wa s told by "a private citizen" enli s ted by Harri s that there were s till plan s to remove her at the reque s t of Rein s dorf, who wa s up s et over paying rent, according to the s uit. "Thi s private citizen informed Perri Irmer of the s e s tatement s by Rein s dorf and al s o that if s he left I S FA quietly, s he would be offered a job in the private s ector," the law s uit s tate s . Blagojevich wa s arre s ted, however, "before any threat to her employment ... wa s carried out," the law s uit note s . Irmer allege s that s he prote s ted the board' s deci s ion to build Bacardi at the Par k , an up s cale re s taurant acro s s from the Cell, on s tate-owned land while allowing the S ox to k eep all the profit s . The authority inve s ted nearly $7 million, the Tribune and WGN-TV found in a 2011 inve s tigation. In February 2011, a month after the board extended Irmer' s contract on a month-to-month ba s i s , Irmer reduced a funding reque s t of about $10 million for "enhancement s " to the Cell from the S ox by about $7 million, according to the law s uit. Around the s ame time, s he al s o un s ucce s s fully tried meeting with Gov. Pat Quinn, but s he did meet with Mayor Rahm Emanuel' s s taff and other political player s who could "impo s e reform," the s uit s ay s . But Rein s dorf and Thomp s on "were determined to s top her," the s uit claim s . S he allege s that on April 25, 2011, s he wa s loc k ed out of her office, and Thomp s on told her that if s he refu s ed to re s ign two day s later at a s pecial board meeting, "they 'had to' fire her, that her reputation would be ruined," the law s uit s ay s . After s he wa s fired, $7 million reque s ted by the S ox wa s re s tored, according to the law s uit. http://advanceindiana.blog s pot.com/2013/04...-authority.html I was tempted to include the last two paragraphs of personal comments from a blog writer, but that would definitely put this into the Filibuster....

http://news.yahoo.com/lawsuit-names-white-...36874--mlb.html CHICAGO (AP) — The former head of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority filed a lawsuit Monday against White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf and former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson, claiming they conspired to fire her two years ago to stop her reforms at the public agency. Perri Irmer, the agency's former executive director, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Chicago. It claims Reinsdorf and Thompson "sought to silence Perri Irmer and to stifle her efforts to protect Illinois taxpayers from Reinsdorf's greed." Reinsdorf pressured Thompson to remove her when the former governor was chairman of the agency, according to the complaint, which alleges Reinsdorf opposed Irmer because she succeeded in getting the White Sox to pay the agency $1.2 million in yearly rent for the use of U.S. Cellular Field. Thompson and a Reinsdorf spokesman denied the lawsuit's claims, with Thompson calling the suit a "self-serving tirade." Irmer's lawsuit, which seeks unspecified financial damages to cover her losses, includes biting language to describe Reinsdorf's alleged clout. Reinsdorf exercised "undue influence over former Governor Thompson and apparently over all the members of the ISFA Board of Directors who became complicit in allowing Reinsdorf to treat Cellular Field and the surrounding publicly owned lands as his personal fiefdom," the lawsuit states. The lawsuit alleges that the public agency has used taxpayer money to build and renovate U.S. Cellular Field and to build the Bacardi at the Park restaurant next door, but the White Sox organization has kept most of the revenue. "The highly favorable terms granted to the White Sox in 1988 and intended to last until at least 2029 served to create a sense of entitlement on the part of White Sox Chairman Reinsdorf, who has repeatedly acted as though Cellular Field was a gift by the Illinois taxpayers to Reinsdorf and his team," Irmer's lawsuit contends.