Middle Buffalo

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 11, 2013 -> 12:49 PM) Whether or not I disagree, I don't hold any anger towards people who believe Hawk's time for retirement has come or even came a long time ago. All I really would like is a little bit of respect for a guy that I have spent my entire life listening to on the tele. You can say "he should have retired". Fine. Let him get the Frick award and head off into the sunset at some point. Actually, I'll back off the retirement comment because he's still better than 90 percent of the guys out there. I would like someone in the organization to tell him to engage his partner more, stop the silly silences, etc. Hawk is at that dangerous point (eg. Chris Berman) of being a self parody. That's not good.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jul 11, 2013 -> 12:17 PM) People who hate Hawk are idiots. Yes, I am resorting to name calling. Hawk lost his fastball a few seasons ago. I don't "hate" him, but I think it's time for him to retire. If that makes me an idiot, so be it.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 24, 2013 -> 08:19 AM) Jaws is perhaps the most respected game-tape watcher in pro sports, so his opinion is notable. I wouldn't dispute this, but a few years ago Jaws analyzed each of Cutler's 26 INTs in the previous season and came to the conclusion that all but one (I'm pretty sure it was all but one) was Jay's fault. I know that when I watched the games, the announcers said on several occasions that the receiver fell or didn't run a good route, but Jaws concluded somehow that each INT was Jay's fault. I'm not a Cutler apologist, and I get totally frustrated watching him force balls into coverage, but the idea that 25 of 26 INTs were his fault was laughable when you consider the offensive line and weak bunch of receivers he had prior to Marshall arriving. http://beargoggleson.com/2010/02/12/breaki...-interceptions/

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 30, 2013 -> 02:08 PM) You listen to Harrelson when the team actually has a good overall game and buy into the kool aid for a couple of days before everything falls apart again. Never recommended.

I like reading, but I never liked trying to figure out symbolism, etc. I just like reading a book for enjoyment. I sometimes wonder if teachers assign meaning to things that the author never intended.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ May 6, 2013 -> 10:49 AM) You can not like Bernstein all you want, but he nailed it here: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/05/05/ber...ire-bobby-hull/ Bernstein's totally correct here. Ultimately, I don't think Carmen will last because he has a fake persona that he puts out there. He seems like he has melded McNeil & mike north into his radio persona. He does mcneil's food and entertainment "takes" and has North's phony "Italian" thing going - right down to the wise guy accent that he uses from time to time.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ May 1, 2013 -> 02:24 PM) He just owned a guy while talking about how wearing clothing from two different threads is a sin according to the Bible, but no one acknowledges that. Ask any gay guy, and I bet they agree.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Apr 8, 2013 -> 08:03 AM) In case people missed the post in the basketball forum: http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?s=...t&p=2779876 Interesting. I take back anything I said in defense of Alford. I really didn't know much about the case other than a few articles that I skimmed after reading through the thread, but I was wrong.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Apr 4, 2013 -> 08:48 PM) Um, he knew he wasn't innocent and even if he believed he was, he wouldn't have tried to shut her up I doubt Alford KNEW anything for sure in this case. He took the side of the player he coached. He went too far. His involvement in the case is being overstated to stroke Bernstein's ego. False accusations of sexual crimes do occasionally occur. http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/exone...topstories.html http://today.duke.edu/showcase/lacrosseincident/

I'm willing to accept that Hawk isn't going anywhere, but I could do without the silence when the Sox are doing bad. If I want to watch a tantrum, I have three kids who can take care of that for me. I just wish there was a strong voice who had the guts to tell Hawk to cut out the nonsense that doesn't work. He forces catchphrases too much, and I just wish someone would say, "Hawk, (fill in the blank) sounds really dumb and we don't want you to do it anymore." Be careful what you wish for when it comes to announcers. I always thought Mark Grace would be good because he has a good personality and I've been entertained when I heard him in interviews, but he is really boring and cookie cutter as announcer. Hawk is unique, and even though I suspect he's not a great guy (based on the way he's treated Wimpy, DJ and Stone), at least he tries to be entertaining. Now, let's all pitch in and buy him some polident, because he's reached the point where it sounds like his teeth are going to fall out when he opens his mouth.

Count me among the anti-Bernstein crowd because I believe that he is a huge phony. However, my defense of Alford's actions that will follow aren't colored by my dislike of DB. From what I've read, Alford basically supported his player and discredited the accuser. It doesn't appear that he went way over the line and participated in a cover-up of any sort. The AIA thing is pretty bad, I agree, but who knows exactly what his level of involvement was in the situation. Obviously, he backed a bad guy, so he probably should have just stayed out of it entirely and let the university handle the situation. What if he really believed Pierce, though? What if the accusation turned out to be made up? Remember the Duke Lacrosse team? Three members of the team were accused of a sexual assault and tried and convicted in the media. People still associate Duke Lacrosse with out of control behavior even though they were found to be doing little more than underaged drinking and shenanigans. It's a tough situation for a coach. I think it's human nature for people to protect and believe people they know versus believing the accusations of someone they don't. Again, I'm really not defending Alford, but I can see where stuff like this gets really confusing for people who are asked to answer for the actions of those around them. To drag it up 11 years after the fact when Alford really didn't do much wrong reaks of desperation for attention on Bernstein's part.

I was at the Sunday game, too. Best part was that my wife found tix through groupon for $6 each - 30 rows back behind Sox dugout. Free parking is a plus. It's really annoying that the guys whose signature fans might actually want walk in and out of the stadium about 30 feet from the rail. You can fill up a ball with guys with jersey numbers in the 70s and 80s, though. DeAza signed for all my kids, so I'd rank him as the coolest regular. Oh well, I'm not an autograph hound anyway. One of my first posts on this board was regarding a ST game at Oakland's Muni Stadium. It was and away game for the Sox (obviously), so the bus was outside the stadium. There couldn't have been more than 40 Sox fans there. One of the first guys out and on the bus - in full uniform - was Konerko. He stayed on the bus at least 30 minutes waiting for the rest of the team to come out and didn't sign one autograph. It was a little disappointing, but I was able to forgive him in the fall. World Series HRs will do that.

It doesn't help the Sox much that most of the local media act as a de-facto marketing department for the Cubs. I still hear/read things that refer to the location of the Cell as dangerous. I always park west of the park and walk through the neighborhood and never had a problem, nor have I seen anyone else being hassled in any way. Also, there's a huge police presence around the park before and after games. I still hear/read about how bad the upper deck is at the Cell. It's rarely mentioned that a good number of seats at Wrigley are useless because of pillar locations, etc. I still hear/read about how Cubs fans have always been more loyal to their team. I'm old enough (40) to remember all of the games early in the season and late in the season having the upper deck closed because nobody was at the games. Heck, Lee Elia's rant took place in 1983. The crux of it was that there were a handful of fans who showed up, and they were bad fans. That said, I'm tired of the excuses about Sox attendance. Attendance is becoming a problem throughout sports as prices increase and the comfort of home viewing is weighed versus the cost. Unfortunately, the Sox are accross town from one of the very few sports franchises that seems to be somewhat immune. However, like SS2K, I think their fans are finally demanding some results before they go out to the park.

I thought "Silver Linings Playbook" was very average. Good performances by Cooper and Katniss, but the rest was pretty lame. There was nothing convincing about the DeNiro character or storyline at all. "Django" was very entertaining - minus the Tarantino over-the-top shootout. Waltz and Foxx were a good team, and Dicaprio was fantastic. "Argo" was great. Best thing I saw all year - in a year where I didn't get out to many movies. The opening scene at the embassy is so realistic (as far as I know). Edge of my seat for the whole sequence. Affleck should have been nominated for best director. Hollywood ending was the only flaw. DDL was great as Lincoln, but he's pretty much great in anything. The movie is worth seeing, but it's pretty slow. Love the Oscars. Not really sure why actors can't have a prepared speech that says "something" though. Thank your list of people on your time. Say something significant about why you got into acting or your film's significance, or anything. Just prepare. You're an actor. Act. You have a 20% chance of winning. 50/50 really - because you either win or you don't. Stop acting like you have no idea you would win. If you weren't nominated, and they announce you as the winner, then it's acceptable to stammer and do the Sarah Jessica Parker act.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 20, 2013 -> 07:00 AM) The situation stood in stark contrast to their North Side neighbors, as the Cubs regularly were at near-capacity despite carrying one of the worst records throughout the season. One look at their games on tv would prove this statement untrue. Games may have been sold-out, but there were plenty of empty seats and give-away prices on StubHub and the like.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 31, 2012 -> 06:43 PM) Also Oklahoma City by Andrew Gumbel on the bombing of the Murrah Building. It really outlines the whole plot and trials, as well as a lot of what the federal government potentially left on the table in order to bury McVeigh and Nichols. **bump** Driving cross country from AZ to Chicago last summer, we side-tracked to the OKC Memorial. I remember exactly where I was when the bombing happened, but I never really followed the story afterward. Not sure why. I wasn't expecting much, but the Memorial is very well done, and worth the trip if it's not too far out of your way. The letters that were taped up to the walls around the Memorial were heartbreaking. Back to books - I'm listening to 11/22/63 now (kills time while at work), and I'm near the end. Do we count listening to books as reading? So far, it has elements of what King does best, and some of what he does worst. I find his longer books a little slow to get going (100 pages) while he introduces characters, then they hit their stride hard and are great until just before the end. For whatever reason, I'm usually not too impressed with his endings on the long stuff. Hope this is different. Read "Gone, Girl" recently and liked it quite a bit. Easy read with some twists that I didn't expect.

My 2cents: 1. I am not sure how I feel about Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, etc as HOF players. I don't mind them being on the ballot and waiting while the case is argued. 2. Baseball writers are as guilty as anyone for the "epidemic" of steroids. There's no way PEDs were as prevalent as some players have suggested, and everyday beat writers weren't aware of it. They chose to ignore it. There's always a player or two who leaks info to the media, and it happened in this case also. Writers could have written the story, but they weren't brave enough to do it. It could have been done without naming names, also. They could have just used statistical evidence and let the public decide. Instead, they were busy writing stories about shrinking ballparks, tighter winding of the baseball, etc. 3. Whenever we compare guys like Raines and Lofton, someone will say "different eras." Wouldn't it actually be harder to have success if you were playing clean in the PED era? 4. Mark McGwire - skinny kid. Mark McGwire, skinny kid hit 49 HRs as a rookie. I still believe he 'roided. I also believe he intentionally left andro (legal supplement at the time) in his locker so he could use that as and excuse for size/power increase. 5. I always hated the argument that steroids don't make you able to hit the ball. That's usually the jock rebuttal. PEDs helped them hit the ball farther. Warning track flyouts became 5th row homeruns. Goes hand in hand with the stories of how hard guys like Clemens and Bonds worked out. Isn't recovery one of the benefits of PEDs - making longer/harder workouts possible? Bonds, by the way, is listed as 6'1"/185 lbs in baseball reference. 6. Whenever someone says that they don't know if they would have voted for Sammy or Palmeiro (and I've heard that this week) even if there wasn't a cloud of suspicion, I think that writer should have their vote taken away. Sammy and Palmeiro's lifetime numbers are pretty good historically. One guy hit 600+ HRs, and the other had 550+ and more than 3000 hits. If Palmeiro put up his numbers in NY, we'd never stop hearing about him. http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/sco...almera01:Rafael Palmeiro&st=career&compage=&age= Hell, he was so good that he won a Gold Glove as a DH. 7. The argument is always made that Clemens and Bonds were HOF before they started taking PEDs. Depends when they started. If you believe the reports, Bonds started after the 1998 season. How do we know he didn't start in 1993 (or sooner) when he moved to SF? Isn't that the home of BALCO? Who knows for sure? But, if you go by the 1998 start date, sure he was a HOF player. He still cheated for about a third of his career. Clemens is a little more tricky. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/clemero02.shtml He was falling apart physically when he left Boston. By most accounts, he started using around the time he went to Toronto. Look at his stats. As soon as he arrived in Toronto, he got healthy and became a great pitcher again. He left Boston at 33 with a 192-111 record, and he was fading fast. Those are not HOF numbers. How many wins would he have ended up with? 240? Is 240-150 a HOF record? It wouldn't have been based on the 300 W/500 HR markers that were guarantees before the steroid era. From age 34 on (when he reported to Toronto), Clemens went 162-73. 8. Eye test - Piazza juiced. He had improbable power to all fields, and if you work backwards you could easily put him on the list of guys who cheated. If he or any other player wasn't a cheater but stayed silent, too bad for them. Their silence contributed to the inability to statistically compare players numbers through the history of MLB. 9. Ultimately, PED abuse led to higher salaries because agents negotiated tainted statistics vs. the historic numbers. So, if a player is negotiating a contract and he has numbers that compare with guys in the HOF, they were awarded higher salaries. Higher salaries = higher ticket prices = Avg. Joe fan being priced out of the game. I don't feel sorry that they won't be able to sign HOF on a autograph that they sell in the future. These guys got rich while they were pricing me out of the game. 10. I used to think Pete Rose should be in the HOF because he bet after he played. Now I don't think so. He knew he was breaking the rules, and he thought he was above the law. If he serves as a cautionary tale, all the better. 11. This year is kind of the perfect storm of PED abusers being eligible at the same time. Next year Maddux, Glavine, and Thomas are eligible. Randy Johnson, Smoltz, and Pedro are the season after. Griffey the following season. Those guys and players like Raines, etc who are close will make for some decent classes. It will get interesting again in 2017 when Pudge Rodriguez, Manny, and Vlad Guerrero are 1st time eligibles. 12. Finally, I don't know what it says about me that I love both MLB and NFL, and I'm sure that PED use in football is equal to, and probably greater than, what it is in baseball, and I don't really care that football players cheat. To me, it's all about loving the numbers of baseball historically and being able to say that Ken Griffey, Jr. is doing something that hasn't been done since Willie Mays, or Randy Johnson compares favorably to Bob Feller. It put players in context for me historically. I guess, in a way, Barry Bonds cheating to surpass Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron's power numbers just goes to show haow great they were, but it bothers me to see his name next to, actually above, their names.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 07:21 AM) On certain issues, I lean to the conservative side, and on certain issues I lean to the liberal side, to a varying degree on both accounts. It would be a much better country if more people thought and acted in this way instead of treating politics with blind loyalty like they're rooting for their favorite team.

No love for Mr. Food? The ABC 4:00 news wasn't complete without Joel Daly introducing him with a hearty, "Misterrrrrr Foooood!" http://tv.yahoo.com/news/tv-chef-art-ginsb...-155816058.html RIP Mr. Food. "Oooh, it's so good!"

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 30, 2012 -> 04:16 PM) Probably was a make-good from being injured, shows a lot of character on Peavy's part. Whether this works out or not, I have total respect for Peavy for this reason. He was treated well by the Sox and showed his appreciation by re-signing.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 18, 2012 -> 05:46 AM) Hit this one already. When a thread hits 18 pages, "hit this one already" is almost surely the case.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 04:50 PM) Me too. Kind of ironic that you use the cost a valid reason for not going to Soxfest, but you don't seem to accept it as a reason for Sox attendance woes.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 10:20 AM) That has been pretty well blown out of the water too. Outside of a couple of series, there were pretty much always cheap tickets available somewhere. Buying cheap tickets on stubhub or any other site doesn't help the Sox attendance figures, does it? Aren't all of those tickets resales? As for the Sox having a weak walk-up, they averaged a walk-up of around 14,000 per game. I base that on the season ticket base that is around 10,000 (guessing - I don't see season ticket figures anywhere online - and the guess is based on the end of the year day game that drew 13,000 fans). I don't think 14,000 walkup to a game is that bad. The Sox problem is that they don't have enough season ticket holders. If you watched the Cubs during the week at the end of the season, the announced attendance would be 35,000, but seeing highlights on tv it was pretty clear that there were about 10,000 fewer actually at the games. How do you get more season ticket holders? Lower the prices.

I honestly think Cubs fans in the metro-Chicago area outnumber Sox fans 4 to 1. I think the Sox need to seriously lower prices and market themselves as the cheaper alternative. I'd guess the Sox had about 9-10,000 season ticket holders this season. I base this number on the Tuesday afternoon game at the end of the season that drew 13,000 fans - that's tickets sold, not actual butts in the seats. So, when the Sox draw 30,000 for a big game, the media take is that the fans don't care and aren't loyal, but I'd say a walk-up of 20,000 to any game is pretty impressive. Attendance is pretty poor throughout the league. All you have to do is watch MLB or ESPN highlights and look at all the empty seats throughout baseball. Then compare them with the reported attendance. Where the Sox really lag behind other big market teams is season ticket sales. I really get tired of the attendance argument/discussion, but it's a valid one to have. Unfortunately, it usually devolves into Cubs fans are just there for the ballpark, or to get drunk, or .... Whatever the reason, they have a large, loyal fanbase. It's supply and demand. Their demand allows them to raise prices. The Sox lack of demand should result in lower prices, and considerably lower at that. However, we go into the season with basically the same prices as the Cubs and expect to compete with them for fans. I went to one game this year when I was in town. Wednesday afternoon game. For myself, wife and three kids, it was around $200 for five bleacher tickets. Another $20 for parking. Another $50 or so for food and drinks. $270 for a baseball game is a bit much. The neighborhood doesn't keep me away. Neither does the lack of bars/restaurants in the area. Neither does a bad experience with a player not signing my hat or Jerry Reinsdorf or Kenny Williams being arrogant. None of that stuff matters. The cost of a baseball game keeps the fans at home watching on tv. It's happening all over baseball and sports in general, fans are staying away because, for the price, it makes more sense to watch from the comfort of home. A few places are somewhat immune, but even the Cubs had more empty seats than I can remember seeing in 15-20 years (despite what they announce for attendance).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 20, 2012 -> 11:12 AM) You have to have the $13 million to pay him... Considering the crowds haven't matched the 1st place for 100+ days of the season, it could be difficult. Cross your fingers and pray for a deep playoff run. Can't argue with the attendance being poor, but the Sox overhead can't be that bad. The Reinsdorf group bought the team in the early 80's, so they don't have a big payment (if any) to make. They also don't have a stadium payment to make because they didn't build the stadium. So, what are their costs? The way I see it, they get tv money, merchandising, tickets, parking, etc., and they only have to worry about making enough to pay the team, costs to operated the team, and team employees.