Y2HH

1984.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 27, 2009 -> 07:48 AM) So let's hear it from all of the Sox-perts here on Soxtalk, how do you see the Sox, the AL Central, the AL, and/or MLB shaping up this year? I'd like to see at very least what you are all predicting for a record and placement for your Chicago White Sox. I think the AL Central will be a tighter race across the board than it has been in previous years. Most of the teams that were good last year will be good this year, but I expect a fall off from the Rays. I see the Sox finishing 1st, with 89 surprising wins, of course, this is dependent on our pitching staying healthy. My final prediction is the person who created this thread will continue to suck throughout 2009.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 25, 2009 -> 11:56 AM) I'd be curious to see how much money Danks could be leaving on the table if he signed this deal, including the team option year. Obviously the free agent year would be the big loss for him, if he was indeed exercized at $9.5 million. Going to the absolute high end, Johan Santana is averaging $22.5 million per year in his deal, and I don't think anyone would say Danks is in, or going to be in, that neighborhood. CC Sabathia ended up in that same range. After that you fall to the Barry Zito contract at $18 million per year. Depending on how much the economy rebounds in the next 4 years, could Danks end up in that range? Maybe. Mark Buehrles deal ends up being worth 5 years and 65 million at most, if he is traded. I think if Danks continues his progress, he should be in the $15 to $18 million range annually by the time he hits free agency. I don't have the records to go over each year of arbitration and compare Danks to who he could be earning against, but I have to imagine, he would be taking a little bit of a risk in those years as well. Realistically, he seems to be leaving about 10-15 million dollars potentially on the table, if everything goes right for him over the next 4 years. Is it worth risking 15 million for sure, to make $25ish million, maybe $30 million in the end? Its a choice I'd like to have to make, that's for sure! Like I said, I'd take the guaranteed 15M now, and do my best to assure that in 4 years I'll get a mega payout, but if all goes wrong in the mean time -- I'm covered. As it stands, it's a complete gamble, because he may not even get injured badly, but fall off a cliff in terms of production and end up with major league minimum for a few years and then get disappear like I've seen so many times before.

These agents often take big risks with young players, and this is a great example. If Danks is truly destined to be a great pitcher, his agent would be wise to accept a GUARANTEED 15M now, and in four years, he can go for the bigger payout. Right now he should lock him in and guarantee he never has to worry about money again -- especially when you see how quickly things can change. As it stands, if Danks sustains a career ending injury now, he's left with a, "I'm sorry, but I gambled with your financial future because I wanted my 10% to be bigger." Bottom line, if this was his only shot at a payout, then yes, waiting may be the better choice, but Danks is so young, he should give himself peace of mind now, lock it in, and worry about the mega payout in 4 years. I think risks like this are ridiculous no matter what way people or agents spin them.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 25, 2009 -> 07:36 AM) I don't know how he has really looked, but he has 18 strikeouts in 10 IP. He's found the strike zone again, how long that will last is the question.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 24, 2009 -> 07:12 AM) I had some of the same concerns. And I don't plan on making it a habit, believe me. Here is the thing, though. I am shocked at the high level of institutional stupidity that creates the market for these bit torrents. Let's take, for example, the track I mean to download. Its a piece of music by a group called Two Steps from Hell, that specialize in music for movie trailers, advertisements and the like. It was made for Paramount, and runs in the background of the latest Star Trek trailer. The trailer is available for free all over the place of course, and I'd assume that Paramount and Two Steps from Hell would love to promote themselves in any way possible. Silly me, I thought that might mean that I could get the music somewhere. My Google searches revealed people all over the place raving about this music. I mean, its a no brainer for these guys - it costs next to nothing to put an mp3 up on a site, they could charge a buck or two for a download, people would gladly pay that, and they'd make a killing, not to mention further promote the musicians AND the movie, AND make the fans happy. And yet... nowhere to be found. How do modern media firms not get modern media? How do they not see the easy money here? I will always happily pay for music. And I think all but a couple or three songs in my entire music collection (thousands of songs across virtually all genres) have been paid for. Just let me pay for it! Here is the brick and mortar analogy. You open a music store, where you sell CD's. You pump music out to the storefront to attract customers. Only, what you play, isn't available for sale. How stupid is that? I'll tell you what I tell my friends about all of this...always err on the side of caution. If you really want to download movies before they're on DVD (or even up at the theater), porn, billions of MP3's whether they are easily available or not, or games/programs, go to a good news site and pay the minimal subscription fee. I recommend thundernews, they give a free news reader (newsrover) that combines/decompresses and decodes anything you search for and double click to download, yes...it's that easy. The best part, it's 256bit encrypted stream, AND they don't log anything, ever. That's erring on the side of caution...and usually, anything that is available on torrents is available via news. And news is off the RIAA/MPAA/public radar because they don't understand it...so they target torrents. The only difference is you have to pay a little, but it's well worth if it you like free stuff while knowing your connection to them is encrypted.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 10:47 PM) Let it be known that I'm not defending Swisher...he was absolutely brutal. Just that he doesn't deserve to be called one of the 10 worst players in baseball. Change your name to swisherdefender.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 03:23 PM) I was just discussing with some people this weekend, how oversold the market is, and how the ratio to book value for a lot of typically blue chip stocks is so banged up. Seems like a good directional move right now (at least before today's jump) to pick about 10 of these companies, C and the like, and buy in. Even of 2 or 3 fail, the rest will go up more than enough to make up for that. Yea, I picked up shares of Bank of America, Citibank, SiriusXM and Etrade weeks ago, I'm up over 50% on every one of them, some upwards of 150%. Of course, that's as of now, they will probably go up and down quite a bit in the short term before stabilizing, but I'm a long term buyer/holder of stocks, so I really don't care what they do for the next 5-10-15 years... And like you said, if a few of them go under, and just one of them emerges from this, in 10 years I won't care about the ones that failed, the single success will make up for any losses, easily.

I don't recommend getting into this "torrent" game unless you can get invited onto some private torrents. Using public torrents for piracy, of any sort, is incredibly stupid. It's much too easy to get caught as everyone you connect too has a trace of when/where/what you did, including the RIAA and federal people who scour those sites to mine data on who's doing what. Private is ok, public is not. And just because you haven't gotten caught for using public torrents doesn't mean you won't, and it doesn't mean it's safe.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Mar 24, 2009 -> 12:04 AM) This is awesome. My DVD collection is going to keep growing. I had to stop buying DVD's years ago, I was running out of space because I like to keep the original boxes, etc...rather than organizing them into books or smaller containers. I have well over 500 DVD's and I haven't bought more than 5 in the last 4 years.

QUOTE (zimne piwo @ Mar 24, 2009 -> 02:57 AM) Gotta go with Pepperoni and Black Olives (and also a nice dusting of Parmesan!). I'm one of those people who feel veggies have no place on pizza, ever, and that includes black olives, which I love.

QUOTE (Stocking @ Mar 24, 2009 -> 04:32 AM) Perfect. I disagree but thank you for humoring me. If we retired all of these numbers from all of these players, we would soon have to move to triple-digit jerseys for the future generation...this is a lot of names in this thread now and the Sox have already retired quite a few numbers. This aside, numbers are not always retired only because of stats, but because of the persons contribution to the franchise as a whole. Lee and Maggs, for example, will not get their numbers retired by the Sox as they were basically marked by this franchise as the leaders of the softball station to station era we jettisoned in order to win the WS -- at least that's how I see it.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 08:12 AM) Where are people hearing this and the Danks thing? I've only seen it from posters here. I think it was said in the article and basically acknowledged as fact by KW.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 08:04 AM) Is that supposed to be animated or something? All I see is a funnychill.com in a pic.. :/ NM, I fixed it, and you sir, may feel free to die in a fire now.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 08:02 AM) Is that supposed to be animated or something? All I see is a funnychill.com in a pic.. :/

QUOTE (Texsox @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 07:41 AM) Baines was still active with another team when his number was retired. I could easily see Buerhle's number being retired, a few more seasons and it will be a no brainer. Are the Cubs still holding Jenkin's cocaine arrest against him? They will retire Thomas and Konerko's if he remains here a few more years, in addition to Buehrle's. But I think that's it from this era.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 07:58 AM) Those are the only places worth going to, otherwise why bother when you are in Chicago? Mafioso?? I don't know what you're talking about. The Mafia doesn't exist. Neither does my email address.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 07:57 AM) Again, the man is spot on. And why not, he was there when Chicago pizza was invented. I'm also not a big fan of sausage pizza so I don't really care about any of this, I mean, it's ok, but my favorite was always pepperoni.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 07:55 AM) Tex is 100% correct. Sliced sausage isn't Chicago-style sausage pizza (not that Italian sausage in and of itself isn't wonderful, it is). It's supposed to be the "turd sausage", with the carraway seeds and all the incredible spices. If that doesn't taste right to you, you are going to the wrong pizza joints. Actually that's not what Tex is talking about, he clarified. The stuff you are eating now is NOT the way it's supposed to be made, at all. It's cheap crap.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 07:53 AM) The real sausage is what I ate in Chicago for 35 years, not the sliced stuff that is available anywhere. The true Chicago sausage blend, with the fennel, is almost unheard of anywhere else. Yes, that's almost impossible to get now unless you go to one of the hole in the wall Italian mafioso type places. They do exist, I'm just not saying where.

Dreams are nothing more than you're nightly hard disk defrag.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Mar 23, 2009 -> 07:48 AM) Wrong. Oh how I miss real sausage on a pizza. How is that wrong? If you want *REAL* sausage pizza, you do what I said, and then you get it. I think your joke went over my head. :/

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 22, 2009 -> 12:23 PM) I'll never understand the lack of love for anchovies on pizza. Especially away from Chicago where the sausage they put on pizza just flat out sucks, a mushroom and anchovy pie is hard to beat. Don't ever order a "sausage pizza" in Chicago, UNLESS you say -- I want sliced Italian sausage. Otherwise they use that crap looking turd sausage. No matter where you order it from, just tell them you want sliced Italian sausage, and they'll do it, and THEN your pizza will taste like it's supposed too. I have to admit, however, I have never tried anchovies on my pizza...I do like ranch dressing with my pizza, though.

I heard if you order it with extra anchovies, Patrick Dempsey will show up as the delivery boy.

QUOTE (santo=dorf @ Mar 22, 2009 -> 02:15 PM) We should take to another level and start wearing blackface. Robert Downey Jr. made it cool again! Hahah, awesome. Honestly, though, I have to agree with those who say overdoing it would water down it's effect. It was one of the most awesome things I've seen the White Sox fan base do, ever, and if it becomes a too often used rally cry, it'll get old. It was bad ass enough to be kept playoffs only, or big game in the playoffs only -- it's intimidating for other teams, and if we use it all the time they'll just be like...meh.