southsideirish71

QUOTE(Middle Buffalo @ Dec 29, 2006 -> 11:04 PM) 1. Growing up, my parents didn't let us drink soda (all of which were called Coke - whether they were Coke or not). We could only have "Coke" as a treat on the weekends. One glass each, poured from the bottle. During the week we drank milk or Kool Aid, which we called "red juice." 2. My cousin is arguably the most famous Irish-American violin player in the world, and another cousin danced in the original version of "Riverdance." I have no talent in either area. My sister, however, took dance lessons with Michael Flatley. She is marginally more talented at Irish dance than I. 3. In high school, my dad was diagnosed with high cholesterol. The doctor said he needed to cut down on red meat and include more fish in his diet. My mom bought a deep fryer to cook the fish in. No lie. 4. In third grade, I lost the part of Paul Bunyan in a school play to a girl. I later took that girl to senior prom. My wife was also at that prom (though I didn't know at the time). I met my wife a few months later on my first day at U of I. Still together 16 years later with three kids. 5. I once shot at the wrong basket in a high school basketball game. I came off the bench at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and I hadn't been paying attention. A teammate inbounded the ball to me as I broke toward the basket. I went in for the layup. And missed. No wonder I never played. My wife was in Flatley's school on the northside when she was a little girl. Your sister probably ran into the same thing, they were a lot better at the dance but got hit at some feis's with not keeping their hands locked at the side, which is counted as part of the style.

Here is an update: So far the babies are doing a good job fighting. One of them had some complications this morning with the lung collapsing, the little girl. However she has recovered from that is back getting a good oxygen mix. My father was able to see them this morning, and he says that they are very small, but the nurses told him that they doing a good job fighting, and are getting stronger. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers.

I dont know if this will help, but I have been driving myself nuts tonight with this and just hope that if anything helps, its worth it. I ask that you could keep my sister-in-law, my brother and my 2 new nephews and my niece in your prayers. My sister-in-law was rushed to the hospital today due to some complications in a high risk pregnancy. She was pregnant with triplets. She had all three tonight not much over 2 pounds, and they are in the NICU unit tonight and will be there for the next 2 months. The little girl is the highest risk out of all of them, being that she was the smallest of the three. Little girls are a rarity in my family, we waited 40 years for my first niece and we seem to be blessed with 2 more. One that was born tonight and My wife is pregnant with a little girl and she is 2 weeks behind my sister-in-law. We were just thinking at christmas on how great this will be to have our little girl and a set of cousins the exact same age, almost sharing a birthday. A week later and everything has changed. Our thoughts are now on making sure that all three of them come home in a few months.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 29, 2006 -> 02:54 PM) ESPN. This is called gamesmanship from the agent. I dont really want to go to Cleveland, St Louis, please give me a little more money and I will stay. His best chance at a huge contract in 2 years, is to get healthy and pitching against NL opponents.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Dec 29, 2006 -> 01:58 PM) Some time in the New Year I'm going to put together a little essay for everyone on 'Player Value' just so I don't have to read such things anymore. Kalapse you need to get to the source of this. You need to contact Bill Gates and give him the idea of allowing Baseball America or some other source to rank a value system to the players on Xbox baseball games and keep the realistic trade option only on. That is the only way to get reality in peoples minds. Because remember, Johan Santana is only worth a Boone Logan because you can make that trade on the xbox. Speaking of player value: My favorite piece of radio insanity is when Matt Abatacolla and Jason Goff were upset because KW said Bmac was untradeable and that they can never trust KW again on his value of their system because they liked Danks more. Well Matt and Jason, prospects are for 2 things, either player development for a future roster member, or for trades for future roster members. If you tell everyone I soured on X player because of this, then how can you get value for that player.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Dec 29, 2006 -> 01:59 PM) I should add, I wouldn't be shocked if the deal turned out to be something like: Pelfrey, Perez, Milledge. Kenny gets another very good arm that hasn't had success lately in the majors (Perez) and than two very toolsy highly touted guys. Thats if we are even interested in making another deal and I really have no idea if Kenny is (unless of course someone knocks his Sox off). As such if we made any deal I think we'd have to sign one of these pitchers on teh market to an expensive 1 year deal just to have them in there to eat innings (the Weaver type) or of course find a way to acquire Earvin Santana to plug into our rotation (obviously that means Crede goes and would open up a void in our lineup). It would be crazy to imagine us making that many changes in one year, but given Kenny's history I wouldn't be shocked. As unpopular as these types of moves are with some of our fans, imagine how unpopular we would be getting old, and letting our rotation ferret off one by one and then having nothing but our original farm guys in the rotation. People say, as I have said to myself, if we could only win this year, I would give up next year and then next few years for this one chance. That however is BS. Because after 2005, I wanted to win it again, and this year I want to win it again. We could set ourselves up with one of the most talented young rotations in baseball for a long time. Thats how you win for a long time and build a dynasty. For adding Pelfrey to this mix, I am willing to take a chance this year on being so so with the pitching. Because our pitching should be damn good for the long haul.

QUOTE(beautox @ Dec 29, 2006 -> 08:34 AM) Hes back, along with his beautiful wife. He has herpes, so probably she has herpes. Whats the difference between love and herpes? Herpes is forever

QUOTE(greg775 @ Dec 29, 2006 -> 01:29 AM) Baseball is back on the big big salary kick. Amazing how the owners can't control themselves. Amazing. Look for ticket prices to continue to skyrocket. Jerry needs to be willing to keep up or see us fall in the standings. Gotta spend some money. If the Giants can pay Zito that kind of money ... wow. You can't win pennants with pitchers who are prospects. Gotta have some Buehrles, Jose's, Freddies to go with the Charlies. Pay up, Jerry, or sell the team. Are you for real. We have one of the top payrolls in the AL, and you are claiming JR is cheap. The giants are morons for giving Zito that type of money and years. It will hurt them in the long run when they have an albatross of a contract on a decent but not great pitcher.

QUOTE(striker62704 @ Dec 29, 2006 -> 09:12 AM) I wouldn't mind seeing one of Contreras, Garland, Buerhle or Vazquez traded for some top prospects from the Mets. Like everyone else said though we would have to walk away with at least 2 top prospects. I'm not worried about having 2 rookies in our rotation in '07 and I don't think we would be throwing away the division. Our starting pitching SUCKED last year and we won 90 games. If the rookies end the season with an ERA from 4.50-5.00 then they are just as good as any of our starters last year. I have a feeling they can do better than that. I would really like to see Vazquez traded and Buerhle's contract extended with the money freed up. I would also rather not trade Anderson (give him one more year) then get Rocco. Rocco is good but he is injury prone. I really want to see what Anderson can make out of a second chance. If the Whitesox trade another starter (Garland, Contreras or Vazquez) and extend Buehrle's contract, they walk away heroes and everyone forgets about the other trades. I also wonder if Kenny traded low for Garcia to the Phillies to put pressure on the Mets and drive up his other pitchers price. From the average fans perspective, not necessarily the best perspective, the one to move out of the remaining starters least likely to create backlash would be Vazquez. Omar has had a rager for him for a while, and fits the bill. It would also balance out the trade where we sent a pretty good looking prospect to Arizona. If we could get back a Pelfrey for Vaz. Then go for it. Our rotation would be sick and setup for the next 5 years.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Dec 27, 2006 -> 11:57 AM) Are you comparing Garcia or McCarthy to Liriano? Who is the Twins Liriano by the way? The twinks dont have a Liriano also for 07. They have are courting the like of Sir Sidney Ponson to add to their rotation that already has Silva in it.

QUOTE(Jimbo @ Dec 27, 2006 -> 11:09 AM) I know it makes me disgruntled knowing we just ruined our chances of a world series. We have no Liriano to step in and take over. I jsut wish this all never happenend. I was as big of a bmac fan on the site, but trading him ruined our world series chances. Come on now.

5.) Wrote my first computer program (tic-tac-toe game) at Apple Camp on an Apple II when I was in the 3rd grade. 4.) Went from 5'7 my senior year of high school to 6'2 in my Freshman year of college. 3.) Was accepted to the University of Chicago Law School and turned it down to go into computers. 2.) I have been to every continent in the world, except for Antarctica. 1.) My daughter due in April, will be only the 2nd girl in our family in over 40 years.

I never get this. Our fans understand right, that pitching and pitching alone pretty much rode us to our first world series title in a long long time. Yet every single time, we are trying to make a trade with pitching to get more offense. Does everyone remember our offense from 2001-2004. It pretty much put a ton of runs across the board year in and year out. Our crappy pitching and terrible bullpen kept us out of the playoffs year in and year out. To make this team a perennial winner, we need to stockpile arm and make sure our team trys to hit the ball and not try to hit home runs. If we do that we will be fine. We have the makings of one of the hardest to hit bullpens in the game. We will have electric power arms from the 6th on. Why f*** with this. You want to fix the LF situation. Play a platoon of Mack and Ozuna. We have enough offense. What we need is our offense to hit the same way in the 2nd half when the park gets hot, and the pressure gets hot that they do in the first half when the pressure is off, and they forget that the ball flies out of the park like crazy.

Phil Arivia joins the hate crew Now as mad as I am about bmac going, I understand what Massett and Danks are. Top of the line prospects. Maybe some of the morons out in the media should actually learn a thing or two about not to rely on certain numbers like ERA and ERA only. Like how many of the media realize that Danks has 2 variations on his curve. One that bites more that the Rangers havent really let him let loose with yet. QUOTE(joejoedairy @ Dec 24, 2006 -> 11:51 PM) so can we get freddy back now? Sure on your xbox, go to options, trades, and then go to the Phillies icon, move the cursor on the Garcia player, and then trade him for whomever. Remember if you are attached to other sox players, you might want to create a player so you dont get upset when he gets traded.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Dec 24, 2006 -> 12:56 AM) You got 360? If so, BOOO. HopeHop on Rainbow 6: Las Vegas and then we're talkin'... Thats all I have been playing lately. I just got Staff Sergeant rank last night. I am warming up to the idea of having Danks and all. But still upset they had to burn bmac to get it. One thing though, after loading up on all of this pitching talent. I cant wait to see how our minor league system ranks this year.

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 07:42 PM) Man with that crystal ball seeing into the future, can you tell me the address of where I should look for my new apartment? Well my only question is who now is our 5th starter.

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 06:54 PM) You can suck and still win games. I care a hell of a lot more about the quality of their innings pitched than how many games they won. I completely understand what you're getting at Balta, it's just frustrating as hell to read these chicken littles compare some of the best prospects in baseball to Felix Diaz, Dan Wright, Arnie Munoz, Jason Grilli, etc. thanks for the insult Merry Christmas to you too. You should read the comments. I was not comparing Danks to Diaz/Wright et al. Danks is a good prospect. We just traded our best prospect for theirs. Ours is ready for this year, theirs not so much. We just gave ourself a hit for the 07 season. My comment on the Horror show of the 5th starter was in the comment that you made about how it really doesnt matter about that spot because of some ERA+ numbers from El Duque. QUOTE(Jimbo @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 07:10 PM) Give me Eric Bedard or Carl Crawford and im happy.. Eric Bedard is fantasy island time. If we could of turned any of our prospects into Bedard. I would be thrilled.

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 06:40 PM) Fifth starter woes? Anyone remember 2005? El Duque gave us 130 downright bad innings. ERA+ of 87. McCarthy was slightly better, but it's not like we had five guys light the world on fire. Granted, the other four peaked considerably that year, we only had 3 guys in the entire lineup that were above average offensively (using OPS+, I'll check their eqa later). Run the numbers on the Danny Wright/Felix Diaz/Arnie Munz/Jason Grilli hall of horrors. I bet their ERA+ would break your calculator.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 06:33 PM) Come on, are you sure Brandon would make it? He had as mixed a bag as any of the others. Yes, he showed some good stuff, but he also sucked sometimes too. Bmac could be a big bust. Or, he could not. Well to turn the comment back on you. Are you sure that Danks and et al are going to be as good as Bmac. Bmac has shown some flashes of brilliance at the major league level, dominating Boston in Fenway, and dominating Texas at the launchpad. That so far is more that Danks/Floyd et al have shown at all.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 06:29 PM) But we have like seven people that could take that spot. Or there could be another trade. Or a FA? 7 people that you are sure that give the whitesox a good chance and still competing in the best division in baseball over Bmac. What FAs are still out there, that arent either silly money or just bad.

QUOTE(Wealz @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 06:22 PM) Why not? It's probable that the "window of opportunity" for that staff to win it all was the 2005 season and the 2005 season alone. You dont trade for Thome if you believe that 2005 was a one shot in the dark. You trade for a Thome because you think you can win it all again. QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 06:28 PM) As it stands now, aren't we only down one starter vs. last year? Why is this such a big deal (short term)? In 2004 we were also down one starter also. That cost us the division, mind you in a bad AL Central.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 06:20 PM) So, given that at least to my eyes, this is the first deal that we've done that does not have any hope of making us better in 2007, but instead is almost certain to weaken the White Sox in 2007, does anyone think Kenny may now be slightly more willing to weaken the Sox in 07 by dealing some of the other guys who hit FA next offseason? You bring up a very good point. We have Dye who if he has a similar season will get paid well, especially in the AL. So what praytell are they doing there. Buerhle is going to make good bank for a long time.

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 06:12 PM) Last season, we had mediocre pitching and some horrible hitters in the lineup(Pods, Uribe, Anderson, AJ for half the year) and still could have won the division. If this is your reaction now, I can't wait until we trade/let walk the rest of the starters in the next few years. I dont mind getting rid of our guys who will be expensive and hard to nut up for a contract. Send them away, and get us good guys. I was very much for the Garland for Hirsch and et al prospects a few weeks back. I am however, against trading our young cheap guys who are ready to plug into the rotation. This goes against everything that we are supposedly doing. And the horrible hitters last year, dont get me started on that. This is not the first year, nor probably the last year of the softball offense. This is more of an approach by our team as a whole, and due to the falling in love with the dong and the homer park factor. Homers happen at our park, you dont need to change your approach to make them happen. I dont care whatever guy you bring here, they will try and hit dongs. Its just the way we do things here. If our guys last year tried to hit a single with a man on 2nd and 1 out instead of trying to hit the dramatic dong we would of probably plated a few more runs in the 2nd half.

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Dec 23, 2006 -> 06:01 PM) Yeah, as opposed to this year when our entire staff was complete garbage. Settle down people, I like the depth of the pitching a hell of a lot more than when we had five veterans with unimpressive stuff. We have plenty of "stuff" and innings guys in the system now, and we can either deal the veterans for more young players or flip the prospects in the package for a hitter. Yeah, we really need to deal for a hitter and run out medicore pitching. Because the 01-04 Whitesox won many a division crown. Stuff guys, outside of Danks and Gio now. Who are these stuff guys.