Lip Man 1

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Oct 16, 2015 -> 01:43 PM) Actually, and maybe you know this, Dick Allen, but was 1983 "exciting"? Most of us, the very great majority of us, in fact, certainly heard it was, but we wouldn't really know. Because that year, due to one of King Reinsdorf's many franchise-crippling moves from over the years, that particular team was practically hidden away from us on that brilliant brain child of Reinsdorf and Einhorn's known as "Sportsvision". So instead of having 150 games or so on free TV like the Cubs did the next season in '84 during their successful run that year, which made them wildly popular throughout the city and beyond, that '83 team, which was a very good team, was seen on free TV a mere 32 times, with the balance on Sportsvision, which practically no one subscribed to. I, like so many, had to rely on the broadcast stylings of one Joe McConnell on WMAQ radio to paint the mental image of what was happening on the field with that '83 team. So if it was exciting, it's only because McConnell told us so, thanks to that failed get-rich-quick Sportsvision scheme. Well Bob Logan in his book, "Miracle on 35th Street" quoted Harry extensively as saying that was the main reason he left the Sox. What wasn't known at the time but came out in the documentary on Harry by producer Noel Gimble was that the Sox actually offered Harry more money to stay for 1982 than the Cubs offered. He left anyway and a large reason for it was because Harry felt the Sox simply weren't going to be able to be seen as much as the Cubs on WGN Superstation. To me that was a very exciting season but I understand your point. Harry himself that year said that (paraphrasing) 'if the Sox were on WGN Superstation instead of Sports Vision they'd have a national following' because of how well they were playing in the second half. Unfortunately it didn't happen. Another mistake by the Sox made with good intentions I'm sure that simply backfired because the timing wasn't right. Which both EE and JR later admitted. Mark

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2015 -> 02:02 PM) Let me put it this way, should the Trib spend the same amount of time covering the Sky and the Fire, as they do the Bears and the Bulls? Let me put it this way, from a journalistically ethically standpoint ABSOLUTELY. But you and I know that's not how it works not with the way things are. But yes those professional teams should get a fair share of coverage regardless of if anybody cares or not. It's not the newspapers / broadcasters job to decide what coverage to give, the job they have is to cover everything as equally as possible without bias as much as possible. Period. Mark

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Oct 16, 2015 -> 10:35 AM) Of course if that same media owns the team they are writing about they are going to give them more coverage. Leading to a larger fan base over the course of 20 years or so... As I wrote in the piece it's the "which came first, the chicken or the egg debate." Are there more Cub fans because the Tribune Company force fed attention to them since it helped their overall bottom line business-wise or were they simply 'giving the fans what they wanted?' Again you can only go back to the historical record and before the Tribune Company bought the Cubs it was roughly a 50/50 split with the team that was doing better on the field getting a little (notice I said a little) more coverage and about roughly the same attendance wise..the team that played better drew better. After about 1983 (when the Cubs were still closing the upper deck late in the season for lack of fans) that dynamic changed dramatically. Mark

Link to a conversation with the author of a new book on Carlton Fisk: http://www.shermanreport.com/author-qa-of-...-epic-75-homer/ Mark

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 10:14 PM) The Cubs fanbase is at least double the size of the Sox, if not more. And that doesn't count all the more Cubs fans outside of Chicago. Why would you expect the media to spend more time on the Sox? It is now thanks to the marketing genius of the Tribune Company and the fact that for whatever reason the Sox felt they couldn't take the Cubs on when they bought the club in January of 1981 BEFORE the Cubs had that advantage. Historically though that wasn't always the case, during the Golden Age (again as I point out in the stories) it was the Sox who got the lion's share of the coverage. I think Sox fans would be fine with an honest split in coverage but that's not going to happen even though journalistically and ethically it is supposed to be that way. Mark

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 07:25 PM) They tailor the news to those who are buying it. That is what media is these days. Look no further than Fox News and MCNBC. People find the news they want to hear. Sports are no different. It is why you always hear about the Cubs in Chicago, and teams like New York and Boston on the national sports channels. The rules of journalistic integrity have been gone for a generation now. As someone who has been in the business professionally for almost 40 years my only reply is to paraphrase what Walter Cronkite said as the keynote speaker for the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in the mid 70's. He stunned the audience by systematically ripping apart the medium he helped create because he could see what was coming. Basically, 'tell the people what they want to hear instead of telling them what they need to know in an unbiased way..." He must be turning over in his grave at what goes on today. My business today is an embarrassment and that shames me to have to say that. Mark

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 09:19 PM) No one disagrees that Maddon is a better manager, we're just saying it wouldn't move the needle that much if we don't get better players. I think a good team, a good organization has both. A good manager with a good support staff AND good players. At this point in time, in my opinion, the Sox have a poor manager, at best mediocre help for coaches and very, very little talent. The talent they do have in some areas is very good but it's simply not enough. This is a top heavy team in the sense that you have maybe 6-8 pretty good players who could make just about every MLB team...but the rest of the roster is borderline at best. Many (most?) of them wouldn't even be on the bench for a playoff team. This isn't one or the other in my book. You need both areas to win. Mark

QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 06:14 PM) Good read. The Chicago media is basically acts as a free marketing department for the Cubs. I listen to podcasts at work, and I had to stop listening to the local Chicago ESPN ones because it was the summer of Cubs. I looked at one twenty day stretch in July, and Jesse Rodgers or a Cub guest was on C&J 15 out of 20 shows. In the same period, Doug Padilla (their Sox beat guy) was on 5 times. At the time, the records of both teams were pretty close. The media disparity is a huge factor in the difference in fan bases. I know some people don't believe that, but I look at it like any advertising. Have a message and repeat it. The Chicago media is largely pro-Cubs, so they are covered in a positive manner. I recently heard Bruce Levine on WSCR, and they asked him a question about the Sox going forward. He gave a sarcastic reply about the new video boards solving their problems. He could hardly contain his joy when the Cubs added theirs. I'd love to see someone like Mark Cuban own the Sox. Bat the very least, they need a Rocky Wirtz like situation to revitalize the Sox. I appreciate JR, but he's exceedingly arrogant, and that's a problem for the organization. I think it's pretty clear especially now how many pro Cub supporters are in the Chicago media. Gonzales and Cowley both confirmed this in part II of the original story. I don't have a problem with that as long as it doesn't spill over into the way those people cover things but unfortunately it does and that violates every journalistic / broadcasting rule out there. "Back in the Day" newspapers in particular used to either hire people from out of town or they'd rotate the beat writers at the All Star Break. The guy who started the season with the Cubs would be switched to the Sox beat and visa versa. They don't do that anymore. Mark

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 05:04 PM) I'll take Option C, which you didn't offer up but I'm taking it anyway, which is to have that wonderful WS championship experience of '05, AND take advantage of the new playoff system of recent years and maybe have had 2-3 more playoff appearances since '05 as well. Now I'm not greedy, mind you - I'm not saying I expected 2-3 more WS championships. That would, of course, be silly. But just step into that postseason more frequently than we have so we can have some freakin' FUN, for chrissakes. It is NOT fun to have to watch as many meaningless games in our empty ballpark in September and then NONE in October like we've had to do for practically the last decade. So it's not an either/or proposition, the Sox' experience of the past decade vs. that of the Tigers. I'll take the '05 experience, with just a little more white sock waving opportunities in October than we've been provided in the last decade. I don't think that's too much to ask! Well said. Mark

QUOTE (BigFinn @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 12:50 PM) When we think about how the Cardinals "don't rebuild, they just reload," how much of that reload is based on great scouting and player development and how much of it is based on PEDs? In the early 2000's, the Sox played clean while the rest of the league played dirty. Then MLB decided to clean up its act, and, next thing you know, the White Sox are World Series champs. Case in point, Yadier Molina was supposedly out for the NLDS, and yet he started games 1, 2, and 3. I find that fishy. I don't mind if the Sox are losing, if they are losing clean and the other teams are cheating. I would be seriously pissed if our guys are cheating, too, and still losing! It's easy to become cynical and say that everybody cheats, but Herm Schneider rules that clubhouse with an iron fist. I think he would know if a player is cheating, and I think he would "encourage" the club to get rid of him - see Swisher, Nick. Anything is possible but I think it would be very hard to do and get away with (just ask Bartolo Colon to cite one example or Alex Rodriguez). Penalties are becoming much tougher, guys are getting to an extent stigmatized. Honestly I don't think many guys at the big league level are willing to risk it now. The Cardinals are the model major league franchise especially in terms of scouting and developing kids. Mark

QUOTE (MindGame2004 @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 10:10 AM) Again, I said, does keeping Sale or trading him get you closer to winning a Championship? That's for this brilliant brass to decide. Truthfully, if they did trade Sale, they'd be likely to screw it up and get a Greinke type of return. It's Chris Sale. You dangle the carrot and see what you get offered. If it isn't enough, say no. If this were a smart front office, they could probably rob somebody, but they're not so they probably won't. If you do it right, with his age/talent/contract you could get a ton of value back in return and start moving toward being good again. And no, it's ridiculous to suggest I love when the Sox lose. I know I'm a new poster, but have I been out of line so far this morning to warrant that kind of remark? Mind: You simply have to get used to it from certain individuals unfortunately. Mark

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 08:04 AM) If he can't stay healthy, why would anyone else value him? As a throw in as part of a larger deal depending on what the pieces are. Mark

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Oct 14, 2015 -> 10:35 PM) What are we going to do with Micah and Sanchez? Are we going to find another 2B or who is going to take that job? If the offense improves you keep Sanchez at second who appears to be solid defensively and God knows the Sox need someone who can catch the baseball regularly. As far as Johnson, it looks like he can't stay healthy, if he can't stay healthy he doesn't do anybody any good. May have to consider including him in a deal. mark

Folks: Back in 2010 I took a month to research, conduct interviews both by phone and in person and tried to put into context the relationship the White Sox have had with the media in general and specifically to the point in Chicago. It was a lot of work but I'm really proud of the way these stories turned out. Given how it appears the relationship is going to change again (and not for the good of the Sox) I thought some of you may want to read these to get a historical sense of what has happened in the past. Again these were written and published in September 2010. I hope you'll enjoy reading them but keep in mind these are LONG stories. http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/rwas/in...y=2&id=4060 http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/rwas/in...y=2&id=4066 Mark

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 14, 2015 -> 09:37 AM) Sox fans take pride in emptying the stadium when the team sucks because we care more about pure baseball than babes bedecked in bedazzling bikinis blitzing back beers before Bryant bats. Bingo right on the money. Mark

I agree with some of the points being made including regarding the Cubs but...you also have to consider this. In 35 years the Cubs have made the playoffs now, what eight times? That's not good but it's a lot better than the Sox' five times in that same span. If the Cubs are bad historically (and they are) what does that stat say about the Sox franchise? Just wondering. Mark

Well at least Southside is consistent in his beliefs. I have to give him that. I think from a historical perspective he's dead wrong but he's entitled to his opinion of blaming completely White Sox fans for the state of the franchise particularly the past nine years. Mark

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2015 -> 06:07 AM) Royals = 3 decades of not winning Astros = hadn't made the playoffs in longer than the White Sox including 3 straight years of 100+ losses and literally 0 rated broadcasts, and rated one of the absolute worst franchises in sports (117 of 132 in the rankings last year, that we are 85th in this year) Cubs = Fans still showing up, allowing them to not only completely rebuild, but also to still sign top free agents Cub attendance took a big hit the past few years remember which led to the drive to bring in Theo, completely gut the franchise and get to where they are today. Their were a lot, ALOT of empty seats being shown on TV at Wrigley Field. Cub fans were getting fed up and pissed off. Columns were written about it in both the Sun-Times and Tribune. Just trying to be accurate. And just last year the Royals manager called out his fan base for not showing up with the Royals winning. Three decades of losing will do that to a fan base who has to be convinced the season isn't a mirage. Sounds a lot like things on the South Side no? (example is 2000 after four losing seasons in five years time...) Mark

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Oct 13, 2015 -> 10:52 PM) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GZ9...pub?output=html According BP, the Sox have 88.7M committed to 10 players and 1 of those 10 is Alexei and his 1M buyout so its really 88.7M for 9 players + buyout and if the Sox keep Alexei the number jumps to 97.7M for all 10. Those numbers do not include arbitration eligible players in Jones, Putnam, Avi, Jennings and Flowers nor do they include pre-arb player salaries or potential FA signings. Depending on what the Sox do with Alexei they have between 30-40M to fill out 14 or 15 spots on the 25 man roster if they go with the same payroll as '15 (118.6M). Just a guess but I would imagine the arbitration players could easily add up to 10M and then factor in (500k+) for each pre-arb player. Let's say the Sox buyout Alexei for more flexibility. Add these pre-arb players at 500k+ each to the 88.7 committed to 9 players. EJ Sanchez Olt Saladino Micah Petricka Shuck Rodon Thompson Brantly ( replaces Soto ) These players add 5M+ to the 88.7 committed and rounds out close enough to call it 94MM for 19 players. Add in arbitration players in Jones, Putnam, Avi, Jennings and Flowers at an approximate 10M brings the total to 104M for 24 players which leaves room for one FA signing at 15M assuming JR does not raise the payroll, which he certainly could, who knows at this point. All I'm doing here is show where the Sox are at with what they currently have both in players and salaries. It's easy to say trade this player for that player or sign this player but without raising the payroll the Sox only have approximately 15M to play with. Theres a few arbitration players they could cut bait with like Avi and Jennings but it won't make a huge difference although every bit helps when things are this tight. If the Sox were to cut bait on Avi and Jennings, they could have enough left over to sign a few free agents, for instance, like Parra and Zobrist. The payroll would be about the same as it was this past season. I'm not a fan of signing Zobrist, just using him as an example. I'm not trying to stir up the payroll debate, just trying to help put things in perspective. After seeing the contracts of Sale and Q, there's no f***ing way I trade them because their cheap contracts are the reason why the Sox have been able to sign other players. GO WHITE SOX! You put things into perspective and make me even more sure the Sox are going nowhere fast in 2016. The talent simply IS NOT there and they have no real solution to get the many areas solved under the circumstances. They are offering hope for next year, that's all (and sometimes that works although I would say not very often...talent wins out usually.) Mark

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 13, 2015 -> 07:03 PM) There's another way of thinking about it. Here in China, the government has been hyping the "investment" of a home and buying into the stock market for the past 12 months in order to drive economic growth back up. When the people who invested in the stock market lost 20-40% of their money and realized the government couldn't actually control the market and guarantee positive or upward results, they quickly became discouraged and refused to put in any more money, to the point where the government had to create wealth funds to buy down and out companies in order to keep them from cratering further. It's all about "trust." Whether you want to fault the White Sox fans or ownership, the fact of the matter is that the relationship is close to frayed if not broken in many cases. It doesn't matter how many good moves you made on "paper" when the results speak for themselves. As we always say they're no "attendance trophy" with the Cubs, there's also no "best off-season" trophy, either. And, of course, a lot of the moves that the White Sox, Padres and Red Sox made (three of the most active teams) blew up completely in their faces. Is that the fault of the fans, or Robin Ventura, or Buddy Bell, or a series of bad trades/acquisitions....lack of investment in Latin America until the last 2-3 seasons, lack of spending on draft/scouting/player development? Hahn? KW? Dave Wilder? White Flag? Union busting and collusion by JR dating back to the strike? Well, it doesn't really matter at this point. What does matter is that the majority of fans no longer trust the front office to create/develop/implement a winning and/or entertaining product, and that, when you look at opportunity cost or cost/benefit analysis, it's simply not worth it for many fans and their families to attend White Sox games. Luckily for the White Sox, they can survive because of the new media deals as well as the favorable lease agreement, but it's getting pretty close to the point where that's all they will be doing if they don't get to the playoffs or at least compete until the final week of the season in 2017. VERY WELL DONE. Especially the last part. Don't see why this is so hard for some to understand. Mark

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Oct 13, 2015 -> 07:56 PM) I'm predicting a busy offseason because they have to have one. I expect a new 3B, SP, C and an impact bat. Preferably RF. They have a choice, they can stand pat in part because of possible financial concerns. JR still holds the purse strings remember not Kenny nor Rick. Financial concerns really shouldn't be an issue they are making money but maybe not enough to satisfy some people...who knows for sure. Mark

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Oct 13, 2015 -> 07:14 PM) 30 really isn't that old, the top 3 offenses in the MLB this year (Jays, Yankees, Rangers) were littered with position players 30 or older. The Mets led the NL in runs scored in the second half and their offense is similarly old. Seemed to work just fine for those teams. It's not the age that is the problem. Just curious Omar what you think the problem is? Mark

QUOTE (Baron @ Oct 13, 2015 -> 06:00 PM) He's getting his chance. He should(key word) have one more year to show us. It's the last year of his 3 year plan. Time for some results. Well based on Kenny's comments in June 2015 next season (2016)is actually year two of the "three year plan / window..." (since the Sox never explained what exactly the plan is, to have a winning record? to get to the playoffs?? to get to the World Series??? I have no idea who is telling the truth. Mark

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 13, 2015 -> 06:19 PM) Loyal fans mean money when things aren't good. Wouldn't that be nice now. Loyalty is a two way street especially when you are dealing with a public trust. Baseball like business is a results orientated business. The results the last nine years speak for themselves. With MLB a nine billion dollar industry right now that's really the only thing the Sox don't have to worry about. They are making money rest easy on that score. I have this mental image of JR (like Nero) fiddling while the Sox (like Rome) are burning to the ground... Not a pleseant image on many levels. Mark

QUOTE (Lillian @ Oct 13, 2015 -> 02:26 PM) The off season last year clearly seemed to consist of a prioritized check list, which Hahn proceeded to check off. Unfortunately, he made a couple of bad choices. Moreover, unless you intend to meet every objective, with unlimited resources, wouldn't that almost necessitate that you prioritize? They filled some areas but the point I was trying to make was that it wasn't Hahn saying..."OK first thing we get a DH..." until then we don't do anything. "Second thing we get a starting pitcher..." etc. There is fluidity to an off season plan since no team has the power to control everything, get exactly what they want, when they want and in the order that they want. I'm sure this off season Kenny will tell Hahn what he expects and then we'll see if it happens or not. Mark