Lip Man 1

Wishing him and his family all the best. Mark

Shocked and happy they could win this game. At least they won't get swept. As far as the bullpen? Words fail me. Mark

Chapman is a lot better than Robertson and the Cubs since they have no money issues have a good chance to re-sign him. Mark

Starting pitching is in "great" shape for the Cubs series isn't it? Mark

I'll give Robertson one thing, he admitted he was lousy and when Bruce Levine tried to give him an out (i.e. excuse) saying 'but you pitched three times in 15 hours' Roberston said it didn't matter. So Levine tried again by asking 'have you ever pitched three times in 15 hours' and Robertson immediately cut him off saying it didn't matter he's got a job to do. While I admire guys standing up and taking the blame when they suck, the bottom line is these guys have been sucking a lot, and it doesn't seem to matter who the Sox sign, trade for whatever...there's something about the organization in general that seems to 'promote' for lack of a better word failure. It gets old. All the more reason a purging is desperately needed starting with the baseball side of the front office. Mark

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Jul 24, 2016 -> 08:25 PM) Go away 59: After the s*** we've seen since September 2012 and for six of the previous nine years, I'd be thrilled to finish over .500. At least that would be progress. I'm being serious here as I was in my original comment. As screwed up as this organization is you take whatever success you can get. I mean the Sox have the fourth worst record in baseball since the start of the 2013 season. Mark

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jul 24, 2016 -> 04:39 PM) Shiny, happy, people in the win thread. Well here's a little more for you. The bullpen JUST THIS WEEK blew leads in the 9th Monday at Seattle, Wednesday in the 8th, Friday in the 7th, Saturday in the 8th and Sunday in the 9th. This bullpen has been a disaster since the Texas Two-Step game. Seriously can these guys get ANYBODY out in the late innings? I'm happy for the win, a winning record is still possible but my God this is ludicrous. Mark

Nice...maybe they can finish the year over .500...maybe. Mark

And Nate Jones breathes a sigh of relief. The guy has seven blown save chances already according to the official box score. And some were advocating that he become the closer. Right now he's not even a reliable set up guy. And that bunt move by Robin in the 9th was classic wasn't it? Mark

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/here-are...ris-sale-trade/ Mark

SI: You got those games correct. Mark

July 23, 2009 It had only happened 17 times before. On this date the Sox Mark Buehrle became the 18th pitcher to ever throw a perfect game when he shut down Tampa 5-0. Buehrle was helped in the top of the ninth inning when Dewayne Wise, an otherwise mediocre player, made the catch of his career, leaping above the wall in left center to snare a ball hit by Gabe Kapler. On the way down he started to lose the ball then snatched it out of the air with his other hand. Buehrle completed the task in 2:03, the exact same amount of time as his no hitter in 2007. He became only the fourth pitcher to ever throw a perfect game and a no hitter joining Cy Young, Sandy Koufax and Randy Johnson. We've got the audio AND video of Wise's catch and the final out of the gem. Announcers are Ken "Hawk" Harrelson and Steve Stone. Courtesy: Comcast Sports Chicago. http://www.chicagonow.com/soxnet/2016/07/t...ehrles-perfect/ Mark

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jul 23, 2016 -> 06:03 PM) If we will jever know what really happened why did you respond to a bunch of hypothticals and says if it happened the front office is this. You could just have easily said all of the hypothticals about the front office being in the right and then player being wrong. Why did you choose to pick the group of hypothticals where the front office was made to look bad? Because the front office has made themselves look pretty bad for almost 10 years no? LOL. Or have you not seen the records since 2007? They get NONE, Zero, nada benefit of the doubt in most cases because they haven't earned it have they? Mark

Tommy Stokke ‏@StokkeTommy 3m3 minutes ago Not a joke: Source says Sale blowup was because he didn't want to wear throwbacks, so he cut the jerseys up so no one could wear them. IF this is true then that's really stupid by Sale. In this case I can't blame the Sox since this was a big promotional night. I understand the uniforms look like s*** but it's just for one game. Sounds like the trade talk plus another crappy year by the franchise has gotten to him. Mark

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jul 23, 2016 -> 05:35 PM) There are far too many ifs and could bes in this post to be of any use. Just say you don't like the front office and are on Sale's side . I guess reading is a skill "I don't think anyone will ever really know what happened but IF Sale went off on Robin, Kenny or Hahn and IF it was because he was tired of the BS, tired of the losing in this screwed up organization..." Everyone else is speculating as well. Don't see why you singled mine out unless you simply are on the front office's side. The same front office that has driven this franchise into irrelevancy the past 10 years. Those are the conditions I'd support him. What actually happened may be different as could my support for him. Mark

It's turned into some night eh? LOL. I don't think anyone will ever really know what happened but IF Sale went off on Robin, Kenny or Hahn and IF it was because he was tired of the BS, tired of the losing in this screwed up organization, two things: 1. I'll give the guy a standing ovation 2. I can almost guarantee you he'll be traded. JR will stand by "his guys" over one of the best pitchers in baseball. That's so JR, so White Sox. Remember loyalty is far more important than winning or accountability. Again IF he's had it with losing, I can't blame him. About damn time someone on the field cared about it. Mark

QUOTE (SI1020 @ Jul 23, 2016 -> 11:00 AM) No, I remember that go go era very well. Those 63-65 teams were good and fun to watch but they lacked a Frank Thomas caliber bat. However even if there were extended playoffs back then I don't know that the outcome would have been that much different. The 1949-64 Yanks were a well balanced juggernaut. In fact between 1951-64 the Sox went 118-174 against the Yanks, a .404 winning pct. The 1964 team had one of the best one year pitching staffs of all time but the team still lost to NY the first 12 times they played them. They won the last 6 but it was too little too late. If they go just 7-11 it's the Sox vs Cardinals in the WS. The Sox just could not beat the Yanks when it counted back then, traumatizing my childhood greatly. Let's list the corrections: 1. I went through this in a column a few years ago. If MLB had a two division format say starting in 1951, the Sox would have gone to the playoff six times between 1951 and 1967. 2. Just like now, playoffs would have been a crap shoot. The Sox would have had as good a chance as anybody because of that pitching. You usually don't have a lot of high scoring games in the post-season. Jerry Koosman told me it's actually harder to win in the playoff then the regular season because it's a short series. Koosman said one bad call by an umpire, one fluke injury like a twisted ankle, one fluke play and you could be eliminated. 3. The Sox lost the first 10 that year to New York but as Sox announcer Milo Hamilton told me the reason the Sox lost the pennant that year was because of a key DH loss to the Washington Senators against two pitchers who were terrible that year. The Sox to their credit won the last nine straight to close the 64 season, unfortunately the Yankees won 23 of their last 30 games that year. Pretty tough to stop anybody who does that. Mark

Let him pitch against the Cubs. Fine by me. He's probably not going Sunday either since Robin will be cautious. Mark

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 23, 2016 -> 10:34 AM) I don't agree that the probably is "much greater" either. You are counting on the White Sox to scout and develop a lot of young talent, all to arrive and succeed all within the same narrow window and giving up your best players to do it. The failure rate for teams without large market resources for failing at rebuilds is much higher than is being talked about here. There certainly are no easy answers, easy solutions and all involve some risk (that's baseball friends). But I am curious to hear as exactly as possible how you would get the team out of this mess. Thanks. Mark

And the bullpen urinates away yet another game...LOL 6-21 now vs. Cleveland, Kansas City and Detroit. Mark

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 22, 2016 -> 12:23 PM) The point is not to get prospects. The point is to get more great players on their roster. They cannot do that without taking the risk of getting them while their young and unproven. Or to put it another way the object is to get as much TALENT as humanly possible by ANY and all available means...signing free agents, making trades, signing international free agents, the rule 5 draft, the June draft. Doesn't matter how you do it, you've got to get talent. The Sox have some but nowhere near enough so you do what you have to do. I go back to Roland Hemond and Chuck Tanner when they took over as they both told me that was the objective to get as much talent as possible if that meant trading their better players (Aparicio, Berry) so be it. Like Chuck told me, "Mike Andrews wasn't as good of a player as Aparicio (even though he was ending his career) but together Andrews and Luis Alvarado made the team better, they gave the team better depth." That's why those guys traded or acquired 18 players in a 24 hour period at the winter meetings before the '71 season. History shows the Sox went from 56 wins in 1970 to 79 in 1971. That was also partly because they had an actual manager who knew what he was doing. Let's not forget that aspect. Mark

QUOTE (LVSoxFan @ Jul 22, 2016 -> 09:41 AM) Someone here once said that JR's M.O. is that he won't pay big bucks for management or unproven talent. While the latter might make sense, how's the former workin' out for ya, Jer? That was me based on JR's comments himself, but by 'management' he meant field managers or head coaches. He's never said anything about front office executives one way or the other. Mark

http://m.whitesox.mlb.com/news/article/190...trade-deadline/ Mark

QUOTE (captain54 @ Jul 21, 2016 -> 01:37 PM) The other question is.. who in their right mind would want to come here and deal with this mess? .. not to mention, deal with an 80 yr old owner who probably is not gonna be entirely open to a whole lot of sweeping changes? Legit point plus that person would have to know they'd be working possibly on a short timeline since there is no way to know how long JR will continue to own the franchise. It's not like said person knows he'll be around for 30 years. Like I said, the Sox have no quick and easy solutions. Everything is intertwined and you simply can't solve the issues going from A to B to C in a logical progression. Simply a very bad situation. Mark

He Gone: Very good post. Congrats to you. There is no easy solution I'm afraid to the Sox numerous issues. Maybe the simplest one is that they desperately need new ownership to get out of this rut of mediocrity. A new owner will bring in their own people and hopefully they'll be better at their jobs then the current group (how can they be worse?) Mark