From Chicagosports.com:

 

1. A humorless bunch, the White Sox could end up as happy to have Shingo Takatsu for his personality as for his pitching.

 

 

 

 

Japan's all-time saves leader is known for a big smile, which is something that nobody ever has said about Hideo Nomo, believe me.

 

A teammate, Tetsuya Iida, was hurt and unable to play in the Japan Series once, so the other Yakult Swallows wrote the center fielder's number on their caps. Takatsu went them one better. Iida's face had two small moles, so Takatsu drew two white dots on his cap and pitched that way.

 

I hope he and fun-loving new manager Ozzie Guillen can have some in 2004.

 

By the way, "Gee-yen" kind of sounds Japanese.

 

2. Would the Sox please excuse me if I pitch a trade? Frank Thomas to the Dodgers for pitcher Odalis Perez and infielder Alex Cora.

 

L.A. desperately needs a right-handed bat. Perez is every bit as good a lefty as Mark Buehrle, maybe better. Cora is an underrated hitter and a great glove man who can start at second and fill in for error-prone Jose Valentin at short. His brother Joey Cora is now a Sox coach.

 

I know Thomas still has a following here, but I honestly believe Chicago would get the best of such a swap. And he can play first base a lot better for L.A., better than Shawn Green can, if you ask me, which you didn't.

 

 

Yeah, ooookay Mike. Perez is better than Buerhle. Of course your'e right. After all, Buerhle's only won 53 games in 4 years. But by all means, let's start the shrine to Odalis Perez and his 38 wins in 4 years.

 

The Cubune at its finest.

perez is a solid pitcher but i dont see the logic in saying he is better than buehrle...he might have betterstuff than buehrle but practically every pitcher in baseball does...thats why buehrle was like a 38 rounder...but as mark has proved..there is more to pitching than just stuff...

 

id love to have perez but that trade seems like it favors the dodgers too much

Frank for Odalis and Cora.

This could be a pretty good trade because the Sox get rid of a bad contract, pick up starting pitching and while they lose offense, if Konerko jumps back, this offense is essnetially what it was last year (when it really underachived).

I don't see Frank's contract as being bad for the Sox. He gets paid around $6M- and had agreed to a lower contract to stay with the Sox- and he hits 40 plus homers and drives in over a 100 runs.

 

Downey is just showing how biased he is against the Sox. The comment that Perez is better than Buerhle really sticks in my craw too.

Hmmm I'm definitely open to movin Frank, but I think we can get a betta deal than that for him.

I'll ignore the trade rumor.

But I have to say the more i hear about shingo, the more I get excited.

Yeah, ooookay Mike.  Perez is better than Buerhle.  Of course your'e right.  After all, Buerhle's only won 53 games in 4 years.  But by all means, let's start the shrine to Odalis Perez and his 38 wins in 4 years.

And Buehrle has thrown only 3 full seasons. His rookie season he was called up in July and therefore I really wouldn't count that.

 

There are only a few lefites in the bigs who are better than Buehrle at this point: Zito, Mulder, Pettitte and I guess a few could argue for Washburn, Sabathia, Moyer or Randy Wolf (although none of them are better than Mark).

I like what he says about Mr Zero. I hate seeing/hearing people pissing all over this signing. It's cheap, and could turn out to be good.

 

As for the trade rumor, I don't think so...

Once again, Mike Downey proves that he has the baseball intelligence of belly-button lint. And once again he proves that even a person with the IQ of a flea's asscrack can actually write for someone - anyone - anywhere.

 

Dumbass.