Y2HH

I cannot wait for the regular season to begin. Football is great and all, but it's not baseball, nor will it ever be. I cannot wait to see the added green seats and the smell of the grilled onions again... Baseball is coming... Yay!

Announced all over... Marino's records are as good as gone.

Last year, with the even better on paper than the 2005 team, we went no where because all of our pitchers weren't there when needed. Some turned it on when it was already too late. Others never turned it on at all. This year, KW went back to the drawing board as he did in 2005...removed some players we will all miss, and added future depth and that uneasy feeling of...wow, will we contend or tank?! I'm not sure about you, but guys like Erstad, while not the greatest players in the world -- or even past their primes -- add an intangable to the team we sorely lacked last year. The new young pitchers, while uncertain in terms of success, are at least happy to be here... Brian Anderson acts like a superstar. He isn't. Brian Anderson needs to act like a baseball player instead of talking about "the honeys" while batting a buck-fifty for half a year. Regardless of Erstad sucking or not...I'd rather have a guy out there who would tear your heart out to win than a guy who thinks hes a superstar before he's done anything. BA needed a kick in the ass to get going. I think Erstad will give him exactly that. I'm looking forward too it. Hopefully some of the 06 bandwagon hoppers are gone and I can begin enjoying the games again live...rather than having to stay home in order to avoid the former Cubs turned Sox fans hanging around.

This is knee-jerk reaction to the Cubs signing of Soriano and others for absurd contracts. We are 1 season removed from a World Series victory -- we ended up with 90 -- yes, NINETY -- wins on what we ALL know was a down season of bad pitching...and it's only November and people are calling this "sitting on our hands". *sigh*

Considering the year he had in 2000, his playoff performance couldn't be called anything short of a choke job.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 10:54 PM) Jenks looked tired. Last year it was nice to have Hermanson and Jenks. I more ment a great set up man like Spooney, but if the Sox had to take some one elses closer and put him in MR I would not have minded either. Jenks may have looked tired, and probably was due to our starting pitchers only going 5-6 innings for the better part of the year, but more often than not, Jenks got the job done...he had quite a few saves. And the money we spent on Thome didn't prevent us from signing pensmen/closers, the money we wasted on J Vazquez did. All that said, it wasn't a great season even though we ended up with 90 wins -- but Thome vs Thomas wasn't the answer, either. Keeping Thomas around -- at BEST we were still only a 90 win team. I'd even go as far as to say it wasn't our bullpens fault -- they were just overtired due to all the innings...if our starters had done their job (7+ innings) every game, by mid season our pensmens arms wouldn't have all been falling off.

All the past stuff aside, no...don't go deleting your post for calling me a dumbass...maybe I was a bit of a condescending dumbass, but when someone calls me one, expect a reaction. That said, yes, overall we invested more in Thome, for more years -- and in saying that, let's remember what Thome brought to the table. 42 HR, a nice .avg/.obp/.ops and great RBI production, not to mention left handed power protection in the heart of our lineup. Call me a dumbass all you want, but I fail see how the results we got for the investment we made was a bad thing... Thomas not only wanted 10M+ from us for 1 year (after excercising an overprice/inflated option), but would not have produced the same numbers in the AL central (as someone pointed out before). And let's just keep in mind, Thome's stats were still better. And at the risk of further angering many of you, Rowand isn't all that and a bag of chips...he was an average player that offered nothing more than Anderson did defensivly...and if I recall, Rowand's stupid baserunning in the world series almost cost us a game. With all the money the Sox spent this season, Thome aside, they could have signed some better bullpen arms rather than thinking Politte, Hermanson, Cotts, et al would put up the same impossible numbers as they had the year before. They should have foresaw a dropoff...I don't think anyone here DIDN'T see this coming. I liked Frank Thomas more than I hated him during his time here...but it's time to let it go. Thome brought something to the table that was long LONG missing -- left handed power. Our offense was stellar this year, and even in games when they'd only score 2 runs -- last season that would have been enough to win. This same offense with last years pitching would have meant 116+ wins...at least the way I see it. Our offense wasn't an issue, and Thome wasn't an issue...thus Thomas wasn't an issue. It was pitching. Period.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 05:50 PM) Actually, Thomas talked about how the Sox didn't even discuss buying him out and then resigning him to an incentive laden deal. But that's neither here nor there, as it would've been a big risk to go into the season with Frank at DH. The Sox made the right move. But, since you feel the need to be a dumbass, the main backers of Frank in this thread have been backing Frank the whole year, not just in the second half. Yeah -- through his poor first-half, with everybody saying that Frank will never play well again (my oh my have those people mysteriously dissappeared), we backed him. And Frank deserves this opportunity. Glad to see he's making the most of his chance. Mmkay, newb? Um, ok...ASS. First off, buying out Thomas and then discussing a contract would have cost 3+M for the buyout (which was a foregone conclusion), and then he would have requested another 5M+incentives -- at a bare minimum -- if not more. Originally I was going to go off on this post...but I thought better of it, after all, one of us has to step up and be a man rather than casting stones in glass houses. When I made my original post, I did so sarcastically in saying MOST of you have short term memories, and this season prooves a lot of you DO have short term memories, including Thomas. That said, I never singled anybody out, unlike yourself. Nice low blow, by the way. As for you're friend on here posting lame things such as I was owned...grow up. Oh and nice job on the censorship, too, but I was altering my post while you deleted it, so I just decided to repost the altered, more mature post. Wow, this is becoming more like a Cubs board everyday...now you remove posts when you don't like what someone has to say, yet you leave your friends name calling posts alone? Thanks for reminding me why I stopped posting here in the first place, apparantly, unless you're one of the kids in the "Get Along Gang of Soxtalk", you're a second class citizen. And this is coming from someone who actually sent in money to support this website at one time. Good job.

Allow me to remind those with short memories (most of you, it seems), that if Thomas was still with the Sox, his salary would have been upwards of 10M, due to his option. So before you compare salaries, remember that what the A's got him for we never EVER could have had him for, instead, he would have cost about 3M MORE per year than Thome, for less production. But thanks for playing, n00bs. Now shut up about Thomas, talking about how he's back in the playoffs and the Sox arent. If the Sox were in that division we would be, just so happens we were in the strongest division in baseball, thus inferior teams with lesser records made it.

I love that Hawk call, too. Then again, I love most of his calls...as much of a homer as he is, I like having an announcer that is a big fan of the team. He's not there to make calls for the other team or the other teams fans, if they want to listen to their own announcers, turn on their local radio station or mute it... I love it when he makes a call and you can feel/hear the elation in his voice...he truly is the voice of the Sox fan, whether some of you like it or not... It gives me goosebumps to hear his Joe Crede HR call vs the Indians late last year (a game I was at)...it was an amazing moment, and his call lived up to that moment.

I'm not sure if anyone posted this yet...but it's so amusing I'm taking the chance at being the double poster guy everyone hates.

QUOTE(juddling @ May 2, 2006 -> 11:40 AM) Total off point.....if you check out MLB Gameday when Belliard is batting it shows his picture of him with his hat cocked way off to the side. Man..i want to smack that hat back straight. Yea I can't stand teams that let their players get away with that loser type CRAP...have some freaking respect. Wear your had normal, jackasses.

Excellent at bat by Paulie, getting that pitch count up there.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ May 2, 2006 -> 10:47 AM) You would think we would want to make CC work, right?? Billy Koch is no longer on the White Sox.

What exactly is going on, I think gameday broked when whoever controlls it totally messed up the previous call. "Jhonny Peralta grounds into double play, second baseman Tadahito Iguchi to shortstop Juan Uribe. Jason Michaels out at 2nd. Jhonny Peralta to 1st." Yea...only that wouldn't be a double play and makes no sense.

Buehrle is falling behind on most of these hitters...what do you expect? He needs to get his stuff under control and not fall behind every batter he faces...this is unlike him, and blaming Widger isn't the answer.

I'd rather have AJ, and I side with AJ...and if it were Everett still on the Sox, I'd rather have Everett and I'd side with Everett. But...he's not on our team, AJ is...so Everett can go to hell. I'd like to take a raptor and lock him in a room with Everett so they could discuss the existance of dinosaurs in depth. And one other thing, Everett isn't getting the last laugh...so his single scored a winning run, and they beat us. We're in 1st place...they're in last. Last laugh that, dino-boy.

As annoying as it can be at times, the way Ozzie tends to play multiple bench players in a single game (usually to start), it's for the betterment of the team in the long run, and we have to remember this is a marathon.

AJ trying not to laugh about that was what made that so awesome.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Apr 19, 2006 -> 02:42 PM) I fixed that for you. Yes, I noticed thank yee...thank yee.

QUOTE(GoSox05 @ Apr 19, 2006 -> 02:41 PM) Vazquez was dealin some nasty s*** today. If a pitcher was throwing s*** at me, I dont think I'd want to hit it either, so you can't really blame the Royals.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Apr 19, 2006 -> 02:41 PM) Prolly cause he was 3-0 on Mientoilkajsca;shz It's MINT-CAVE-ITCH. Get it right.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Apr 19, 2006 -> 02:39 PM) WTF Bob.... Seriously, if something happens...for those of us who can't get instant updates...please type out more than...WTF. Besides, WTF would you say WTF for...we WON.

QUOTE(rventura23 @ Apr 19, 2006 -> 02:38 PM) nice play by joe That's a contradiction in terms. There are no not nice plays by Joe.

What the hell is yes no?