caulfield12

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 24, 2012 -> 04:49 PM) And look at how many of those guys have bounced back since they got away from Ozzie. Nick Swisher... Jim Thome... Adam Dunn... Alex Rios. I don't know if it's completely fair to say Thome bounced back, since he was always pretty darned good with the Sox. His last year was a bit disappointing by Thome standards, but hardly "bad." But yeah, his 2010 season with the Twins was pretty impressive, while he was healthy and somewhat limited in his plate appearances and exposure to LHP.

Well, I agree that Quintana looked good in his one outing so far, and I guess for that fixed low cost, he's already been a success no matter what he does the rest of his big league career...but let's not forget, he has less experience above High A coming into this season than Nestor Molina. And Molina was the centerpiece of the biggest trade of our offseason, whereas SoxTalk barely even noticed the Quintana acquisition. I guess those are the type of maneuvers that usually have ended up as KW's best, the completely under the radar ones.

Very similar positions to last year. Tribe was 7 games back at this time last year, now 6 this season.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 23, 2012 -> 11:29 PM) All he has to say is Frank Thomas or Paul Konerko and nobody gives a s***. I'm not arguing, I'm just saying, those are two very well recognized names that people will always associate with the White Sox. Oh, and he doesn't have 2 seconds to look at a box score, but he does have time to do 2 nationally televised March Madness brackets. I generally don't care and I do agree with the general principle that any Presidential publicity is good publicity for a professional team, but don't excuse the fact that he doesn't know anybody because he's busy. Just say "he doesn't care that much about baseball but if he had to pick a team, because you do when you are a Chicagoan, he is a Sox fan first." It's much simple and causes me to make fewer posts like this one. http://spectator.org/blog/2010/04/06/re-ob...ite-white-sox-p This same question has come up in the past. In fact, at that time it wasn't answered, either, sparking this column.

QUOTE (flavum @ May 23, 2012 -> 03:58 PM) Has anyone else looked at Gordon Beckham's twitter and put 2 and 2 together and figured out he's dating Scott Fletcher's daughter? Interesting, if nothing else. Georgia boys always stick together. Scooter's daughter, hmm.... The funny thing is that Fletcher is also Greg Walker's assistant hitting coach with the Braves.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 22, 2012 -> 04:33 PM) Did I stutter in my post? Let me answer it for you. No I didn't because that is impossible while typing. I said let him do his job and Ozzie do his. As in neither interferes in the others. That wasn't GM love. That was "GM wanted real DH, manager didn't want real DH. Manager got his way. It failed. So GM gets real DH, manager throws hissy fit. Destroys team." Maybe if Ozzie's f***tard sons weren't given jobs by the team, then constructing teams would have been easier. But Ozzie want a team that couldn't hit home runs. Ozzie wanted a team of 9 Ozzie's on offense (see: s***ty, but grindy. No power.) and nothing but Buehrle's for pitching. The problem was the only soft tossing lefty that can pitch like Buehrle is Buehrle. He's one unique motherf***er. But we got Juan Pierre to provide the Ozzie-esque offense. Ozzie wanted to manufacture runs. You know what manufactures runs? Crossing home. Home runs facilitate that. Ozzie didn't like home runs because he had the HR power of Juan Pierre/Jerry Owens, so therefore, he didn't want them on his team, even though his teams were only good when they hit the f*** out of the ball. Made even more ironic by the presence on his roster of perhaps the best young home run hitter in baseball, Mr. Stanton. Hanley Ramirez isn't a bad hitter, either. Even Infante has emerged as a deep threat, but Logan Morrison has been pretty disappointing. Somehow they've been winning games with Greg Freakin' Dobbs as their clean-up hitter.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ May 23, 2012 -> 08:30 PM) His name is Zach Stewart and he's ok Definitely less expensive. I guess he's "only" making $5.5 million, but that's still very expensive for a long man. And the Twins probably had to cut Kubel/Cuddyer/Nathan from the budget (particularly the first two) because of bad contracts for guys like Slowey, Liriano and Nishioka.

That's kind of their staple/schtick now. DJ with some of his "hipster" talk, trying to bait Farmer into going there with him. That or DJ singing some 70's/80's/90's song really really poorly. Or their pronunciation of JOHN-SON. Or getting on Rosenberg or the official scorers in most cities.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 23, 2012 -> 08:29 PM) Warning track power so far this year the Cuban Stick Spider have been de-fanged

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 23, 2012 -> 08:22 PM) WHERE'S OUR LIRIANO? Santiago/Sale/Thornton...minus the 8+ ERA's. It's crazy how valuable he would have been in trade in 2006 before the elbow gave out, versus 6 years later with a bloated contract for the last man out of the bullpen. Hard to blame Smith and Ryan for that, though.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ May 23, 2012 -> 09:02 PM) Pushing off is difficult with prosthetics. Forrest Gump's Special Effects. or, "Does Gary have legs?" Yes, of course he does... However, a lot of people seem to think otherwise, so maybe this page will ... Does Gary Sinise have fake legswiki.answers.com No, Gary Sinise does not have fake legs. The character he portrayed in 'Forrest Gump' lost his legs in Vietnam. The filming was done using the green screen...

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ May 23, 2012 -> 09:02 PM) Pushing off is difficult with prosthetics. Forrest Gump's Special Effects. or, "Does Gary have legs?" Yes, of course he does... However, a lot of people seem to think otherwise, so maybe this page will ... Does Gary Sinise have fake legswiki.answers.com No, Gary Sinise does not have fake legs. The character he portrayed in 'Forrest Gump' lost his legs in Vietnam. The filming was done using the green screen...

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 23, 2012 -> 08:12 PM) Duh. Maybe he's a cyborg? If not for the receding hairline and greying goatee, one might think so.

QUOTE (kev211 @ May 23, 2012 -> 08:09 PM) Dear lord that baseball was killed. Killt.

This is playing out exactly like last season so far. CLE with a 5 game lead in the division and we're almost to June... Actually, they were 28-15 at this point last year and 7 games up on the Tigers. DET at 21-22, which is our record right now.

"I tell you Stone Pony, Alex Rios has the ability to be one of the best players in the American League. He possesses all five tools and he's starting to figure things out with Jeff Manto."

57 pitches through 4. Not bad for Sale at all. Normally he'd be in the 60's or maybe low 70's.

It's also because of the way history is taught, and yeah, 5000 years of histories and dynasties to memorize, that's mind-numbing. In a way, history is for the adults here...parents and grandparents and those who remember Mao Zedong's time. For everyone born from the 1980's onward, it's all about money and greed, driving a BMW/Mercedes/Audi and how much real estate you own and how many investment properties you can flip for a quick profit, thanks to your "guanxi" (connections) with local government officials. Math and science, math and science....up, up, up, study, study, study, work hard. Rinse and repeat. I always say to friends back home China is more like the US in the 90's after the Japanese miracle ended. The only difference is there's no social "safety" net here for retirement or health care.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 23, 2012 -> 10:54 AM) Go back to post #1 in this thread. HERE I WILL LINK YOU - READ PLEASE. I've had mlb.tv for two straight seasons. I have watch a LOT of out of town baseball. I have been sampling more dishes than any normal human should. I have sampled, thanks to an incredible feature that allows me to pick not on the TV broadcast, but also have the radio announcers, upwards of 8 gentlemen talk about the game during any given game. It's fun, it's awesome. It was stated IN THE LEAD POST. (I only bring up reading comprehension when it's relevant, bud.) I even flipped to Len and Bob this weekend and enjoyed their broadcast better than Hawk. I was taken aback (seriously) when they spoke knowledgeably about White Sox players - because I so rarely get any information on the opposing teams hitters other than "I tell ya what, this [iNSERT PLAYER NAME] is really good." Hawk is a hack. Hawk is the guy who insists the only person with comparable bat speed to Carlos Delgado is Dayan Viciedo - and that these two gentlemen have the quickest bats in the history of baseball. Gary Sheffield says "hi!" And that's the funny thing, that everyone talks about Viciedo's bat speed, and yet we all have such radically different perceptions. When he misses high fastballs, Dayan seems like he has a "slider speed" bat, like Frank Thomas in days of yore, especially the 2nd half of his career. When he gets that massive and violent swing through its entire arc and he makes contact, the ball just jumps off his bat and you're like "whoa! where did that come from?" Harrelson has this way of focusing on one good thing about each of our players (Konerko's ability to field/scoop balls in the dirt and overall soft hands) and then he tunes out all of their negatives. Juan Pierre is the hardest working player on the team, he arrives at the park first and leaves last...everyone loves him...he very rarely makes fundamental mistakes (this is when he played with the Marlins, Dodgers and Rockies), etc. Or he'll remind us about how these players USED to play, like the Roberto Alomars and Ken Griffey, Jr's, when what we're seeing on the field is just a shade of their former selves, Omar Vizquel, same thing. He just has that mental block about anything negative that goes against what he wants to see. He does it with Gordon Beckham all the time...because he's so clearly rooting for him, moreso than the other players.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 23, 2012 -> 10:46 AM) Hawk's been way better this year than previous years, in my opinion. The only complaint I've had about him is that all of his stories has stuff to do about players from his era. If the hardcore baseball fans on this board don't know 75% of the stuff he's referring to, I can't imagine what the general Sox audience thinks about the stories. I loved when Hawk talked about how he won't listed to satellite radio and other games on his drive home if the Sox lose. That's just like many on this board who don't like to watch highlights of the game if the Sox lose, etc. That's just it. He represents the best and worst of our human natures as a fan. The polarity of it. 90% of the time when the Sox win, I'm combing through all the highlights, excited about trying to find any hope for our minor leaguers, reading all the articles at the Trib, Sun-Times, Daily Herald, etc. When we win, it makes me want to listen to all the other games, especially CLE and DET games these days...to try to assess if we realistically can compete with them, to get a feeling for how their seasons are going and how they stack up against us and vice-versa. Then, games like yesterday, I close mlb.com or read a book or watch a movie...anything to get away from baseball for awhile. You think about all the time you wasted in the off-day sort of looking forward to a performance that quickly causes you to tune out mentally after only about 20-30 minutes. Maybe sometimes you even question why you spend so much time following the day-to-day ins and outs of a baseball season, instead of just tuning in at playoff time like most NBA and NHL fans typically do. There's something almost twisted and yet glorious at the same time about dedicating so many days and months (not even including spring training and post-season and Winter Meetings/trade talk) to a game or sport, and yet, to live without Harrelson or the White Sox would feel very strange indeed.

Why does this remind me of the Moneyball scene with Jonah Hill/DePodesta facing off with Grady Fuson and the "old/crusty" scouts in the conference room, lol? The "older generation" is made to look kind of buffoonish and out of touch, the younger generation is Mark Zuckerberg or Billy Beane or whoever is flying in the face of convention, wearing hoodies to "road shows" and symbolizing a rebellion against the old guard that used to be symbolized by IBM "suits" and is now represented for baseball purposes by Hawk Harrelson. Then there are the "old school" guys like Scully or Harwell that EVERYBODY respected...that were maybe so "uncool" (like anything your parents or grandparents relished) that they've kind of become cool again to young people because they represent the way things used to be in the past and hearken back to better times and perhaps more pleasant memories for many adults. Listening to those guys like Harrelson, it's the baseball version of reading the newest Stephen King novel "11/22/63," it really makes you wish you were alive then to see the way the game was played by the '59 White Sox or '67 Red Sox/White Sox. It hearkens back to a "purer" time in our country, the 50's and 60's, when many of the problems were still masked or hidden under the surface and world didn't feel quite so ugly. Of course, those who lived at that time might beg to differ.

I do think that Harrelson represents the "old guard," and, to an extent, that's what has turned SOME young fans off from watching Sox games. From watching my students not being able to understand or really care much about anything which happened before they were born...it's that short-term focus, the immediate now, that gets to me. From having taught history, it's annoying when many schools (especially here in Asia) are making it an elective or not even carrying it as a course. So I get the fact that maybe baseball history and anecdotes from the past, that's not everyone's cup of tea. Some people love his obscure name droppings and comparisons (I am guilty of the same thing)...others, it drives them batty and they want a more "insightful" commentary about what's actually going on within the game. They do want everything to be thrown at them in terms of roto world stats and more quantitative analysis. Which is kind of the opposite of Harrelson...the whole "Moneyball" thing all over again, except this time applied to broadcasting. You really do need both, and I think Stone combines the insight with the storytelling the best. I listen to (rather than watch) a lot more games because the online tv feeds always suck here in China, and I listen to a ton of other teams' radio broadcasters, and to hear the Scully's and Eucker's (some people hate him too) of the world is a rare treat. Rooney's great, I grew up with him in high school and university when they had some abysmal teams and always enjoyed his calls. For every Cardinals fan who loved Jack Buck, there were as many detractors, but there were certain voices that just ARE baseball. Jon Miller, with the Giants, Ernie Harwell, Jerry Coleman with the Padres, the names go on and on. Dave Wills is pretty good, and I like him better than Rongey, but he's far from a "slam dunk/no brainer" type of replacement for Harrelson, overall, he's solid. So I would put them Stone, Harrelson/Farmer (tie) and DJ in that order. And I guess DJ is better at radio than Singleton, but not by much. Singleton's also improved and adapted, resulting in his career taking off more on a national basis. Put me in the camp that for the future of White Sox fandom, he does need to go relatively soon...but I'll really miss his emotional nature and rants, because he's not one of those smooth, professionally-polished cookie cutter broadcasting grads that we're supposedly pining for, that have put in years of training and minor league apprenticeship time of 10-15-20 years (Mario Impemba with the Tigers comes to mind, he started with my hometown Quad City River Bandits) because they never played in the big leagues and really had to earn their way to a promotion.

Jerry Kutzler also disagrees.

Casino Royale was excellent, largely because of Eva Green, or, should I say, the repartee between the two of them throughout the entire movie. The follow-up with the Russian model/actress wasn't so good...trust me, though, just watch some of the old Roger Moore ones, or the George Lazenby outing (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the one where he is briefly married). Those really have not stood up well over time like the Connery classic ones. Heck, the Dalton ones seem more watchable today than most of the Moore ones, and then Brosnan was better than Timothy Dalton.

QUOTE (JoshPR @ May 22, 2012 -> 06:23 PM) Lauren sheratdi on MLB.tv is smoking.... Shehadi... http://mlb.mlb.com/network/personalities/?id=27273676 Notice out of all the "personalities" for MLB Network, Alanna Rizzo, Ms. Shehadi and Sam (wasn't she formerly Samantha?) Ryan are all pretty attractive. 3/32 are women...less than 10%.