Lip Man 1

For what its worth the Sun-Times spoke with Ozzie about some things, its in Monday's paper. Ozzie talked about how today's players don't seem to value defense and had honest opinions about both Anderson and Moncada. Ozzie didn't pull any punches (but then he usually doesn't)

PTATC: By "changing" do you mean the individual players or the rehab / recovery program?

Tilson was sent back to Charlotte

We'll see how long he can stay off it now.

Add Zangari to the list tonight. And if you look at things, Sox players at the major league level have been dropping like flies for the past three years. I think at one point last year for example they had seven or eight pitchers on the DL. Now the minor league teams are getting gutted. It may be time for the Sox to bring in some outside folks to closely examine every aspect of the training / conditioning areas just to see if something is being missed. The fastest way to torpedo a rebuild is not be able to keep the guys expected to be the main cogs in said rebuild on the field.

Stop me if you've heard this before...but yet another Sox prospect, yet another guy who was named Player of the Week is hurt. Zangari was hit in the hand by a pitch tonight and according to a tweet I saw was carted off. The fun never stops does it? Lambert by the way has an oblique injury. Please just let all the Sox seasons end...right now...major and minor leagues.

I saw where last night he left his start after two hitless innings accompanied by the trainer. Perhaps someone can update?

Green: During the 1959 off season the Sox moved the following players: Norm Cash, Johnny Romano, Johnny Callison, Earl Battey, Don Mincher. They combined to hit I think something like 700+ home runs and make numerous All-Star appearances. With a few of these guys the Sox win pennants in 1964 and 1967. In defense of Bill Veeck he originally wanted to get younger power hitters. He specifically targeted Orlando Cepeda and Bill White. Sherm Lollar was part of the deal he proposed to the Giants for Cepeda. When he was rebuffed he felt the only other thing he could do was get some older powers hitters, guys like Minnie Minoso, Gene Freese and Roy Sievers. Ironically those guys in 1960 combined to hit 65 home runs and drive in 275 RBI's. What let the Sox down in 1960 was the regulars who just didn't have as good of a year as in 1959...Aparicio, Fox, Landis, Lollar and among the pitchers Wynn and Shaw. What he did was a mistake, no question but he felt with the Yankees getting Roger Maris to go along with their other power guys he needed to upgrade that part of the team.

Jimmy Lambert leaves the game in AA with the trainer tonight. 2 IP; 2Ks; 0 BB; 0 H. He was turning into a very good prospect.

Interesting read. All eyes will be on Hansen tonight.

Story today at CBS Sportsline says that basically a Machado deal is done and that the Dodgers are the favorite to land him. Good! Keep him away from the Cubs.

Wasn't sure where to put this because it's media related but I thought it would be OK here. Sports Business Daily came out with RSN ratings for the first half of the season and this should come as no surprise but the Sox are next to last (Both Fan Graphs and ESPN had stories with ratings in previous seasons...) Next to last is actually an improvement as they were dead last the previous two seasons. "On the other end of the coin, the Oakland A’s and Chicago White Sox remain baseball’s lowest-rated teams. A’s ratings on NBC Sports California are up 12% to a 0.67 rating this season, while White Sox ratings are down 1% to a 0.83 on NBC Sports Chicago, possibly representing the absolute low point for that franchise’s ratings."

Pretty much defines the state of Chicago sports right now.

That's really a tough question since so much depends of if the "can't miss kids" actually do make it and produce at the big league level. These would be my guess: Rodon (if he isn't traded in a year and a half because of his agent) Lopez Giolito Fry Anderson Moncada Davidson (maybe... if Burger can no longer play third and the Sox can't sign a free agent for that spot)

Nice dominating performance, granted it was against the putrid Royals but this leaves a great taste in everyone's mouths especially the players heading into the break. Well done! Nice to see Giolito and Moncada perform well. Every little bit helps their confidence.

Just to refresh your memory the Sox 1977 rotation was Steve Stone (15-12), Francisco Barrios (14-7), Chris Knapp (12-7) and Ken Kravec (11-8) and Wilbur Wood (7-8)

Unfortunate timing that on the day they honor the 93' team which was a good one, the Sox lay a corpse-ball egg...against the Royals no less.

For what this may be worth and it is UNCONFIRMED right now, I heard from a good source that Hansen was pulled from last night's game after three innings because he is having "forearm soreness" again. Words fail me right now about all these injuries. Hope my source is wrong, we'll know soon enough. UPDATE: Heard back from the person who said the information they were given was that Hansen will make his next start in Birmingham next week. No specific reason given for why he only lasted three innings last night. Don't know if he was medical checked out or not. Considering everything that's good news.

Just heard the audio clip of the incident called by Yankee broadcaster Mel Allen. Pretty wild. According to Allen the fan (Jesse James) stood there saying something to Esposito, then Espo swung at him and connected. The fan started swinging back, both guys went at it before the Andy Frain ushers got there to break it up and haul the guy off. Allen said it was the first time in years he had seen a player take a swing at a fan (but certainly justified in this case.)

Well the Sox are still looking to get as many young, controllable prospects as possible so it would seem logical to assume they are aggressively looking at all potential options.

If any GM is telling the field manager what to do and how to do it you've got a real problem. I don't think Hahn is telling Ricky "bat him lead off" myself and if by a small chance he is and Ricky is letting him do it, that's on him. No manager should be letting that happen. No GM can really know what's happening down on the field during a game. He's sitting up in his box like any fan in the stands.

From the little I've read Burdi looks to be on target for pitching next year in the minors. Perhaps even as soon as this fall in the AFL.

That was a tremendous performance by Rodon. If he can only stay healthy he could be a dominant pitcher.

Naturally it's when the Sox are supposed to be good again (shades of 81 and 94, both times the labor dispute hurt the Sox very badly on the field and at the gate)

The next day then then had a special "ceremony". Jack told me about it: ML: You also started the first game ever in new Comiskey Park when it opened against the Tigers. We won’t talk very much about what happened that day though! (Author’s Note: The Sox lost 16 - 0!) JM: "That was a strange game. Sammy Sosa fell down going after a ball in right field, we gave up some bad hop hits, the Tigers had a ten run inning. The next day some of the guys were concerned that maybe the baseball "gods" were angry because we left old Comiskey Park. So before the game, before the fans got in, we had a little ceremony out by second base. We took Scott Radinsky’s jersey and burned it. We just wanted to make sure the baseball "gods" knew it wasn’t our fault that we left the old park!"