The Mighty Mite

I started following the Sox way back in 1952, I grew up in probably the best era to be a Sox fan. 17 straight winning seasons and won over 90 games 7 times. We had the misfortune of no wild cards and in the same league as the Yankees. And yes it was a Sox town in those days, back then 1,000,000 in home attendance was the holy grail, we drew over a million 15 of those years while the Cubs were drawing 600,000 to 800,000. I was a vendor in 1962 at both parks, I was lucky if I made 5 bucks a game at Wrigley while at Comiskey I would make between 15 and 20 bucks a game, not bad for a 16 year old I went away to the Air Force in 1965 and when I was discharged in 1969, things had changed like over night, the Cubs were the darlings and we were forgotten and only drew 495,000 in 1970. They brought in Hemond and Tanner and by 1972 we were contenders again, in 1973 the Sox drew their largest crowd ever when 55,555 showed up for a DH against the Twins. The attendance battle was about even and after we won the division in 83 the Sox were talk of the town while Lee Elia threw a tantrum against Cub fans. We lost Harry Caray in 82 and the Tribune bought the Cubs, when they won the division in 84, again things changed and this time for good. Except for the new park opening in 91 and the 2005 Championship season the Sox have been an afterthought in the Metro area , this is now 3 decades and I don't see it ever changing. Drastic changes are needed, a new park in a more desirable area, new ownership with deep pockets to invest in a minor league system that produces players who have the potential to become stars and signing premier free agents. Whoever owns the Sox needs to build a team that makes it to the postseason more than once every 10 years, 3 or 4 postseason appearances in a row will hopefully get people talking about the Sox again. If these things don't happen, I hate to say it but when the lease is up, the White Sox will probably move to another city.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Sep 23, 2016 -> 08:28 PM) Any report on Eaton Sox website says his shoulder and head hit the wall hard, I'm thinking possible concussion.

Eaton makes a great catch and crashes into the CF wall, hurt something and is helped off the field. Let's hope it's not serious.

Living in Florida I watch a lot of Rays games, over the off season the front office decided to go for a offense based on the Home Run, they picked up some mediocre boppers like Morrison and Dickerson and a big surprise, Brad Miller who has 30 homers. Evan Longoria has over 30. What has that got them, 23 games under .500 , they have now hit 210 homers but have scored only 3 more runs than the Sox. They are in a tough division but the AL Central this year isn't exactly chopped liver. The big problem as usual for the Sox is low on base pct with way too many Ks. I've never seen a team swing at so many bad pitches as our guys did this year. What makes a good hitter is a good concept of the strike zone and the ability to read pitches, our guys are lacking in those departments.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 20, 2016 -> 07:55 PM) Omar has a poor arm So do a lot of Sox pitchers.

Can someone tell me why Fullmer isn't up here starting games instead of Shields?

Is Melky hurt?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 25, 2016 -> 07:40 PM) Most buy their tickets on line and through secondary sites looking for deals. They also plan in advanced more than in the past. Maybe HDTVs have something to do with it as well. I read a couple years ago the Sox had something like a walk up of 1500 and at that point it was the largest of the season. At the old park IIRC there were days that that had walk ups well over 10,000, you go back to the 70s, half the ball park was General Admission seats and only could be bought when the gates opened. When they drew 55,555 for bat day in 1973 there had to be at least 30,000 walk ups.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 25, 2016 -> 07:00 PM) Paulie even said he always thought Sox fans would come out when they are winning, but 2012 shocked him. People didn't show. It is going on in Cleveland now. For some reason the Walk Up factor has gone by the wayside in recent years, why? I don't know but the Sox especially at old Comiskey if they had a good year they would do really well with the walk ups. I guess it's all about the season ticket and advance sales these days. A lot has been made about the loss of our fan base, if you compare it to the days at old Comiskey it has grown quite substantially but if you compare it to most of the other teams in MLB in this day and age, it stinks. What I find amazing is how attendance has grown in all sports with ticket prices that are astronomical. A lot of teams are selling out all their games in many towns. When I was a kid the benchmark in MLB was 1 million, if you drew that many fans you were doing quite well, now 1 miliion is Tampa Bay bad.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 25, 2016 -> 06:43 PM) Those 2 were 90 win seasons. In 2007, attendances dropped. Mad the playoffs in 2008, attendance down again and continued to drop every year including 2012 when the team was in first place most of the season, until last year. OK, now I get what you are saying, 2007 was a bad year, 72-90, worse than this year. IIRC we had one of the worst weekend massacres ever at the hands of the BoSox.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 25, 2016 -> 02:18 PM) They did win 90 2 years in a row including a World Series the next year, attendance dropped. They made the playoffs the next year, the attendance dropped, 3 years later, spent most of the season in first place, the attendance dropped. There is no rhyme or reason here. We can move the bar for what will make White Sox fans show up to games like Bears, Cubs, Bulls fans do no matter what the state of their team. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Blackhawks once their run ends and they are just a meddling mediocre team for a while. I would imagine they have built up enough good faith that attendance won't change much. But the White Sox are the only major professional sports team in Chicago who wouldn't draw big in first place. That's fine, but there are consequences. The thought of some billionaire coming in on his white horse to buy the team from JR and starting to spend crazily thus setting attendance records is fantasy. Sox fans won't go until they win 90 games 3 years in a row? It will probably be a long time until they win 90 games 3 years in a row. I'm not sure what years you are talking about with the 2 years winning 90 game and dropping in attendance. In 2005 when we won it all we drew 2.4 million , in 2006 it was 2.9 million actually 43,000 short of 3 million.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Aug 23, 2016 -> 10:08 PM) The Sox would most likely not be very much better even with Abreu hitting better. Without a consistent 3,4,5 in the rotation and injuries to the pen the Sox have done OK to hang around .500. With Rodon pitching much better now and Jose hitting better and with Morneau the offense is now better and so is 3/5 of the starters but the bullpen is still a mess. A messy bullpen can undo quality starts and better hitting in a hurry. The Sox have played more 1 run and 2 run games than any team in MLB, the Abreu we saw in 14 and 15 could have made us a WC contender, it might have had a snowball effect on the other hitters in the lineup, as they say "hitting is contagious".

Good to see him coming around but where was he when we needed him?

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 19, 2016 -> 08:39 PM) I have outfield seats for Shields next start vs Seattle. Should be interesting Bring your Goalie gear.

QUOTE (harkness @ Aug 17, 2016 -> 08:16 PM) I love how Jose likes to take the first pitch right down the middle then flail at nearly every other pitch. It's a pretty genius process. It's an epidemic with Sox hitters this year.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Aug 14, 2016 -> 03:29 PM) It's not the call that annoys me, it's the lack of consistency. Either enforce the rule at all times or don't enforce it. Just about every play at home plate this year in the games( Sox, Rays Marlins and ESPN) I have watched have all been called correctly. It's the best thing they ever did was changing that rule. Sanchez was out as the way the rule now reads be but he would have been safe 2 years ago which was a joke.

QUOTE (Scoots @ Aug 14, 2016 -> 01:41 PM) Frazier just loooves swinging at that down and away slider Seems like we've seen it about 1000 times this year.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 14, 2016 -> 01:38 PM) Nice play by Anderson. Abreu is a DH Huge play, Konerko gets it on the short hop.

Slowest man on the team at 3rd and we have the contact play on, what the hell is with Ventura.

I'm on my knees praying right now hoping this is true. Said some Our Fathers and and a few Hail Marys. Going to go to confession also.

Game tied 3-3!

Melky continues to hit the ball, our best everyday player this year.

Where did Chris Sale go? Not the same guy we saw early in the year. This could be a disaster of a road trip.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Aug 7, 2016 -> 02:46 PM) Well, right now he's talking about painting Steve Stone's face. I've had enough of the Benetti Comedy Hours.

Now we have Sox Math, who's idea was this, it's time for it to go away.