caulfield12

The scariest thing of all is the 50/50 possibility that we just watched our Opening Day starter in 2012 get violated. Other than one inning last night, the White Sox and "crooked numbers" don't go together. We bench Beckham (fine) but we weaken our defense with Teahen and don't think about trying someone over Pierre or Dunn.

Where's the heart with this White Sox team in 2011? We could have stepped all over the Cubs and we let them back into the game. Jesus.

QUOTE (Flash Tizzle @ Jun 20, 2011 -> 07:41 PM) And I know Konerko has a HR, but jesus, he has had about four hangers from Zambrano alone in his ABs that he has just stared at. If we actually had a DH, that might also be helpful. That hanger to Konerko was high to take a legit hack at...not a normal Paulie swing path. Now Gavin's doing his best Edwin Jackson impersonation. Lovely. We should be leading this game by 2-3 runs.

The one guy you don't let beat you and we can't even figure that out. It's not like Cubs' games aren't available for anyone in the Sox organization to watch.

Wow...Carmona just got ripped to shreds. Indians now down 7-4 after leading 4-1.

At other message boards, the answer to that question probably would be yes. That's why SoxTalk is the best site, to me...because there's more tolerance for freedom of expression. If we live in a society where common phrases that were used in the 1970's suddenly became the grounds for firing from a job (or being banned from a message board)....there HAVE to be more important things to worry about in the country and the world, aren't there? I'm sure if you went through lots of 80's and even 90's movies, you would see the phrase "stop acting retarded" or "that's retarded" used numerous times. I suppose, when it's aimed at one specific person, it could be perceived as being more hurtful than just a "generalized" usage, but if you start parsing words, meaning, intention...it's a VERY slippery slope. Freedom of speech has always been one of the most important values.

Tiger Woods and President Obama have both got caught up in this very same debate. I think it was Tiger saying something about acting/playing like a "spaz" after a round at the Masters. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog...ves/003020.html Then there was the bowling/Special Olympics controversy with Obama, if you remember. If you're African-American, the "n" word will always be the most charged word any non-black person except for Eminem can say. If you have someone in your family afflicted with a physical or mental disability, that's certainly going to be #1 sensitive issue. Gays and lesbians, etc. I remember when I was younger, my mom used the phrase "acting Jewish" and then I heard someone refer to the owner of the White Sox in that manner (because of the "low payroll") and it never really dawned on me until I grew older how hurtful that could be. Then there are movies like Borat or There's Something About Mary that make fun of "political correctness" and are deliberately over-the-top in order to provoke. Can Sascha Baron Cohen be racist or prejudiced if he's making fun of his own religion, for example? We've seen it ourselves with Ozzie, Mariotti and the whole "fa-" debate. If Ozzie was a white manager, would he have still kept his job?

"Your Highness" might be the worst movie ever made with such a strong cast. Don't think Mr. McBride will be writing any more screenplays for a while.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 20, 2011 -> 07:04 AM) I know I say this EVERY year. But if Ramirez or Escobar don't win the AL GG I will do something tragic. I'll do something that will make this board famous. On the plus side, his not winning might mean far less "Lowe's" commercials that we'd have to be pounded over the head with. The one with Farmer and Alexei has to be the worst one I've ever heard in my life!!! I think I would rather listen to Rongey extol the virtues of Pierre, Ohman and Teahen in the clubhouse than hear it again

Saw in the paper this morning that Ozzie was second in a poll to Jeff Conine The Barbarian for who fans in South Florida wanted as their next manager. 38% tracking/Q number for Ozzerroo.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 19, 2011 -> 08:07 AM) Never knew Soderberg left MONEYBALL. Aaron Sorkin's certainly a great pick-up for the project as one of the screenwriters. Usually, everything he touches is gold.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 19, 2011 -> 06:38 PM) Cause Ozzie is old news. He's been here a long time and people are tired of him. They don't like the fact he calls for the bunt once in a while as all managers do. And they are mad he plays Pierre this year and Kotsay before that. His credentials, however, guarantee he'll have a managing job somewhere until he decides to take up golf everyday. Greg, your "once in a while" comment is going to get you lambasted by the real statistics and our abysmal success percentage in those situations. This is like the two camps fighting over Greg Walker for years now. Well, the first place Cleveland Indians fired their hitting coach after a stretch where they hit as well as we did against the same dominant starting pitching from mid-April through the beginning of May. I guess that will be something of a case study for mid-season changes in the coaching staff. Although a managerial change like Geren or Gonzalez is more significant...but I read where six different hitting or pitching coaches have been fired/resigned in the last couple of weeks. Do you honestly believe Ozzie Guillen is still the best possible manager to maximize the potential of this White Sox team? Let's put it this way....would you wager your house that Ozzie would win the division against my house if I could have anyone not currently managing a major league team as Ozzie's replacement? Of course, there's no way to "prove" (besides computer simulation programs) what would happen if we did have a new manager. And, just to make you happy, I'll remove Torre from my list.

54.6 IP, 36 hits This guy is no joke....and he gave up something like 10 hits and 5 runs in his last start.....the rest of his season, only 6 ER TOTAL All with a FB that tops out at 88.

QUOTE (JoshPR @ Jun 19, 2011 -> 02:51 PM) Yeah once and a while.... A long while Teahen and Ohman, not so much.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Jun 19, 2011 -> 02:32 PM) Rongey was on Whitesox weekly going into a with what they pay Pierre giving him away for nothing would be wasteful. It's better to keep him around in the hopes that he can provide some value. Looks like bagdad bob got him marching orders and is filling the airwaves with this wisdom. Who's our "Chemical Ali" ?? So how does Rongey explain giving up on MacDougal and Linebrink? Weren't those deals wasteful? Manny Ramirez? Will Ohman? Mark Teahen? That was the worst National Anthem I've ever heard....unless the little girl's father died fighting in war, I'm not sure what the DBacks were thinking.

Here you go Greg...I'm sure there are many other possibilities Joey Cora Joe McEwing Bobby Valentine Buddy Bell Sandy Alomar Jr. Dave Martinez Red Sox bench coach DeMarlo Hale Giants bench coach Ron Wotus Don Cooper Robin Ventura Ryne Sandberg Omar Vizquel Scott Ullger (Twins' 3B coach) Ron Kittle Steve Stone

Greg, would you really be happy with Guillen coming back if the White Sox finish 3rd, 4th or last? Why? If you consider the "All In" strategy a failure, you prefer to fire KW instead? Because there are thousands who would want to be White Sox G.M. (starting with Rick Hahn) but not very many managers desiring the job? Hmmmm....I guess that explains 80 year old Jack McKeon possibly returning to the Marlins.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 01:38 PM) Are you kidding? It's a union job. I'm sure those health care plans cover implants. Unions are destroying the world to get teachers boob jobs. Maybe the MLBPA can get Juan Pierre a boob job so we can transition him to another line of work.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 11:30 PM) I guess so man. For a team with the "best system in baseball" that is not competing, I don't know why you would waste $2.5 million on a guy that nobody else wants, who has proven to automatically decline after he spends a few months with a team. That's cool if you are happy with him, but there is no way that it can be considered a "good move" for Moore. We can debate the Gil Meche signing, but that was very important symbolically. Of course, the problem has always been these "filler" contracts like Bloomquist, Pods, Ankiel, Callaspo/Betemit, Farnsworth, Juan Cruz, etc. The argument was that they had to put "legitimate" major league players out there on the field in order to bridge that time period from 60 win teams to competitive ones instead of rushing ALL their minor leaguers up prematurely. And the Royals have really struggled to develop outfielders internally since Damon, DeJesus, Beltran and Dye (via trade from ATL). So you have to be credit with their seeming patience. Hosmer was actually brought up earlier than most projected because of that future Super 2/arbitration years concern. At the time, the Royals were in a much better position than the White Sox, Twins and Tigers. But they've done a pretty good job transitioning from the Sweeney/DeJesus/Greinke era fwiw. At least to the fans, there's now a clear identity and direction for the first time since the early 90's.

QUOTE (knightni @ Jun 19, 2011 -> 04:48 AM) Baines and Burns were drafted. Hoyt was acquired by giving up Bucky Dent. Dotson by giving up Brian Downing. Kittle was a minor league free agent Walker was a Rule 5 pickup R. Law came from Espy who Veeck drafted V. Law came from Baumgarten who Veeck drafted Compare: Beckham, Morel and Sale were drafted. Quentin was acquired for Chris Carter. Humber was a minor league free agent A.J. was a waiver pickup Santos was given to the Sox by SF Ramirez was a cheap free agent Thornton came from Borchard who KW drafted Danks came from McCarthy who KW drafted Talking 2005: Jenks as a waiver pickup, Dye as a cheap-ish free agent, Crede, Buehrle, Garland and Rowand developed. Iguchi as a cheap free agent, Pods acquired for a free agent-to be C. Lee, and Contreras acquired for a fading Loaiza. Seems like KW hasn't done the worst job in the world. Record 1976-1984 (1981-84 Veeck's "legacy"): One division Title, .487 winning % Record 2000-2008 (An equal 9 years of KW): Three division Titles, One Championship, .534 winning % Except KW wasn't the GM in 2000, Schueler was...his record looks a heckuva lot better if you cherrypick that 2000 season and add it into the mix. That 1983 team also featured Fisk, Luzinski, Julio Cruz (who became an instant bust when JR then gave him a long-term deal), Floyd Bannister, Jerry Koosman with Lamp, Tidrow and the late Salome Barojas as the three key components of the bullpen. EDIT: Okay, I get it....wasn't reading thoroughly enough, all the players I listed were brought into the fold by JR and company after 1981. If you want to start doing this, you could argue the 1990-1995 White Sox were more successful if you remember how good that 90 team was (Oakland was just an exceptional team at that time, nothing like them back at that time), 1993 and the cancelled 1994 team that was leading the division at the time of the strike...you could argue Himes was certainly better at drafting and developing players.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 10:01 PM) Especially when these same people are absent when we put a little winning streak together. Well, the anti-Ozzie crowd already will have been given a gift on a silver platter if Ozzie seriously sits Konerko for Dunn tomorrow. Paulie's basically our ONLY offensive threat these days, along with Alexei. We can't just HOPE Dunn flares to life in a Sunday line-up when we have the hottest hitter in the AL. And we lose a lot there defensively as well. Honestly, I'd rather risk Dunn in LF for one game than sitting Konerko.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:56 PM) Or the 15 multi-million dollar homes the McCourts bought. Which is why he was backed into a corner and was planning to undersell their local tv rights package for many years into the future to get the cash into his pockets ASAP. Cue Bud Selig and the "not in the best interests of the game" clause which is very open to interpretation.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:07 PM) I know people hate hearing this and it's a cliche around here, but based on the combination of number of posts, tone of said posts, and the timing of said posts, I really have to wonder if some people are happier about being "right" when the Sox are terrible so they can post over and over about the reasons why than they are when the Sox are winning, maybe because there's not as much to hyperanalyze. I don't know, but oftentimes PHT is a pretty depressing place because of this. And I'm someone who's spent more time feeling pessimistic than optimistic since '07 and a pretty big critic of Ozzie and some moves by KW that I thought were boneheaded. For me, it's just frustration with muddling along as an "average" (this year, below average) team going on three years now. That, and the mystifying inability to beat AL Central opponents, especially the Twins and the Tigers (since the end of last year). And the knowledge that continuing on this path has no future...yet not particularly believing we have the front office and managerial/coaching staff in place to completely start over from scratch with a new philosophy/direction and stick with that plan...I just want SOMETHING to be excited about for the future, SOME reason for hope. For me, it has been Viciedo, ever since we signed him. But I'm not sure if that's enough for the casual White Sox fan.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:43 PM) This is a private ownership group so it's impossible for us to know how much each owner put in the bank from a year like that. But it's safe to say that the teams owners aren't hurting. the franchises that actually get in trouble have major issues. The Mets might owe the Madoff prosecutor a billion dollars. McCourt had to lose a couple hundred million to his wife to get in hot water. Texas had to owe arod $250 million. Don't forget the atrocious deals for Juan Pierre, Andruw Jones and Manny Ramirez...they've impacted the Dodgers as much as anything else.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:40 PM) What did they do with the profit Forbes said they made previous seasons? It will be interesting to see what happens after the owners get all the cash from the new television deal flowing into their coffers. Slowly but surely, attendance/parking/concessions revenue is shrinking in importance, becoming a smaller and smaller piece of the pie. Which is why the White Sox will always be "okay" as long as they're drawing at least 20,000 per game. It will be especially hard for the owners to cry poor in the face of all the economic evidence to the contrary.