Middle Buffalo

"I went on this website, Soxtalk.com, and, wow. It gets to the point where you don't want to read what you're reading. Obviously you're going to have to have tough skin not to reply to it. It gets kind of scary sometimes with the stuff people write, death threats and, 'Get out of here you Mexican.' I don't think anyone can read that quote and not attribute it to posts that were made on Soxtalk.com.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Aug 4, 2011 -> 07:50 AM) I should have watched Modern Family reruns last night, but instead I suffered to the end with the Sox. Maybe they will turn it around tonight? That is simply the curse of being an out of town Sox fan. It was 17-7 when I turned it on, and I watched the last couple of innings. And, fun bad can't apply to a veteran team. If it's young guys at least you have hope for the future and can see potential. With this veteran team, it's just a waste of money & time.

QUOTE (kwolf68 @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 09:33 AM) The Rios stance is urban legend. You can hit with that or any number of other funky stances. Sure Sure, you wouldn't really teach a young player to hit like Rios does, but the problem with Rios isn't he lacks talent or has a bad stance, the problem with him is he is a pile of goo. True. However, the problem with an unconventional approach to hitting (or pitching, swinging a golf club, shooting a basketball, etc) isn't that you can't successfully do it. The problem is when things go wrong, a coach can't really teach you how to correct the problem because you don't use a "textbook" approach. The player essentially has to figure things out for himself because the way they perform is more feel than proper mechanics. Dunn is messed up in the head right now. He's guessing. Beckham is trying to pull everything and hit for power. I still have hopes of him being a Paul Molitor type.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 06:24 AM) Dunn is the most dramatic example with an OPS almost 300 points below his career average. Beckham tore up the minors and had a great start with the Sox before regressing horribly. Morel was a decent hitter in the minors but has never done anything with the Sox. Rios has always been inconsistent but never this bad. Teahen was never a superstar but got progressively worse here. Pierre is the one guy who really should be as bad as he is. Going back a few years, guys like Nick Swisher and Wilson Betemit were much more productive before and/or after their Sox tenure. I'm not saying that some of the signings/trades Ken Williams has made weren't poor, but in pretty much every case, it was realistic for him to expect better production than these players have provided. Again, I'm not an expert, so I can't tell you whether it's Ozzie's fault or Greg Walker's fault or some other reason, but I see too much of a pattern here for it to be a concidence. SOMETHING is causing hitters to consistently underperform. Something that Konerko has apparently been immune to all these years. Any ideas? With young guys like Beckham and Morel, patience is the key. I think the crazy stats guys put up in the previous generation (the steroid era) has made people forget that players generally develop kind of slowly into the player they'll be from 26-32, then they decline. Guys putting up power stats late into their 30's was a result of PEDs. Beckham isn't a bust - yet. Morel at this stage makes up for his offensive inefficiency with pretty good defense at 3b. Rios has a terrible stance. I'm not sure if he'd ever change it, or if that's the stance he's had his whole life, but "sitting" like he does is not a recipe for success at the plate. Dunn is the kind of player Ozzie wanted to get away from (see Jim Thome). In a perfect world, Dunn is suited to the Cell, but the all or nothing approach is not what Ozzie wants/likes. The hitting coach is very likely not the problem. I think that's giving him too much "credit." Players are stubborn. I doubt that it's Walker's approach to pull everything and swing and miss. I've heard him interviewed and he said there are guys who take the proper approach in bp, then revert to their old habits in the game. If anything, Ozzie should bench guys who don't take the proper approach at the plate.

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 06:35 AM) A strikeout is a strikeout. It is ignorant, hillbilly logic to prefer that a player "go down swingin' ". That same idiotic logic helped run Nick Swisher out of town. So your preference would be that a player not swing at strikes. That makes sense.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 05:00 AM) The physics of the swing are that the longer the arc of the swing, the longer it takes the bat to travel to and through the hitting zone. The length of the arc is determined in part by the length of the batter’s arms and the length of his bat. The longer his arms and his bat, the longer the arc. A tall player, with long arms, can reduce the length of the arc by choking up. Choking up also provides that added advantage of increasing the hitter’s control of the bat. A big strong guy like Dunn could choke up, reduce the length of the arc, increase his bat control, and still hit the ball a very long way. The greater number of times that a guy that big and strong can make contact, the greater the number of times a ball has a chance to leave the park. Why is this not obvious to baseball people? He should choke up, and then emulate Konerko’s short and quick swing. I've never seen a guy look at more 3rd strikes than Adam Dunn. It's one thing to strike out 3 times per game, but to strike out looking as often as he does is awful. He should not bat again this season against a left handed starter, and it probably wouldn't hurt either guy if Ozzie put Dunn in right field and moved Quentin to DH until (if ever) Dunn starts hitting. Every game this year feels like the Ozzie's "Sunday line-up." Dunn & Rios = Kotsay & Mackowiak.

It shouldn't be a failure to draw 2 million fans to the park per season. That's 25K per game. The first time it was done in Chicago (Sox or Cubs) was 1983 when the Sox won the division, and I remember it being a big deal. Now it's a failure if you only draw 25K per game. If the owners can't find ways to make money drawing 25K per game (um, how about not paying so much money for players?), I don't have sympathy. The tickets are too expensive. It's that simple. Watch a Yankees game. Winning team. Probably more fans than any other team. Yet, the seats behind home plate are empty because they're overpriced. Same thing with the Cubs this season. I'd say that the percentage of Cubs fans vs. Sox fans is close to 75/25 in favor of the Cubs today (and that's probably conservative, especially when you factor in out of town fans - of which the Sox have close to zero). So, with the Cubs average attendance at 35,000, that means that 6,000 fans are choosing to stay home each game (and it's actually more than that if you count the no -shows). That doesn't seem too bad when you consider that the Sox have about 18,000 fans making the same choice to not go to games. However, let's say there are one million individual fans who attend baseball games in Chicago yearly (750K for the Cubs, 250K for the Sox) - and I'm making the one million number up just to illustrate. That means that on a daily basis, it's not 6,000 fans that are choosing to stay home from Cubs games, it's 715,000. That pool of fans who ate up every available ticket in previous years has had enough. Sure, there are a number of fans who only go to one or two games per season, but when they stayed home in the past, it wasn't noticable on the North Side because there were thousands willing to buy the tickets in their place. On the South Side, if these people stay home, there just aren't enough fans to take their place. I've run out of steam. I don't even know if it makes sense. ps The "our Sox" "their Sox" stuff by Hawk in this White Sox/Red Sox series is unbearable. Just call them the White Sox and Red Sox. I actually turned off the volume on yesterday's game (and I only see the games when they're on WGN so I'm not jaded at this point). It just sounds so stupid.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jul 27, 2011 -> 09:50 AM) Is this where we're at? Appreciation for Edwin Jackson? The guy contributed nothing to this team in essence. The best thing he ever did for us was to help us dump Teahen. That makes him one of our better contributors this season.

QUOTE (FlySox87 @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 06:44 PM) I can't believe I miffed that one. That's embarassing. At least it wasn't a long post supported by a decent amount of research.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Jul 12, 2011 -> 09:56 PM) Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz. Sherwood also wrote or co-wrote the theme songs to both series.

Lorenzo Charles from NC State. Part of one of the biggest upsets in NCAA tourney history, and the reason we get the scene every year during the tournament of Jim Valvano running around the court looking for someone to hug . http://joeposnanski.si.com/2011/06/28/lore...ction=si_latest

I still feel like Dunn will hit 40 hrs this year. Nothing he's done supports that idea, but I can't see him not eventually hitting hrs.

QUOTE (StatManDu @ May 28, 2011 -> 08:29 AM) Or how about this wild one ... On this date in 1995, the White Sox and Tigers treated 10,813 at Tiger Stadium to a good old fashioned slugfest....Ray Durham, Ron Karkovice and Craig Grebeck hit consecutive home runs marking just the fourth time in club history that feat has been accomplished. Durham's dong was the first of his career. That name should be assigned to the next person to join this site.

QUOTE (Tex @ May 25, 2011 -> 05:52 AM) Just a side note, once I understood that "legalese" was actually "precise and exact" I understood it much better.... I don't feel that I can read any legal document without being completely confused. Each paragraph seems to contradict the one it follows. That said, the original post looks good to me. Of course, like most legal documents, I read the first three sentences and assumed the rest was fine.

QUOTE (SoxPride56 @ May 13, 2011 -> 08:16 PM) I didn't realize anything until you said something, but it is on my TV as well. I checked 3 in the house, all with that pink tint. I don't have any color problems, but I want to choke my tv. Every time the Sox are on WGN, the crowd mics are louder than the announcers. I don't know if it's a local thing (Cox AZ) or if other peopl;e have the same problem. I didn't mind it so much when DJ was in the booth, but I don't like missing out on Stone or Wimpy.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ May 9, 2011 -> 08:21 PM) If you think Paulie is gonna reach 550, you also love some other stuff (it's white and powdery). J/K Sounds like you're talking about PK's "Gold Bond Medicated Powder!"

Goe'd to the local buffet with the family yesterday. Packed. Line out the door. At least everyone showed up in their best t-shirts. Happy Mother's Day, for sure.

Beatle Paul McCartney getting married again. http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/stopthepr...-nancy-shevell/ I don't understand why celebs keep marrying. I tend to doubt that most are religious (or even have outside forces pressuring them to conform), so why do it?

QUOTE (Art Vandelay @ May 5, 2011 -> 07:46 AM) He was saying this year's White Sox team is better than the '67 Red Sox. Ok, Hawk. I thought the same thing. Looking at the '67 Sawx roster, it's not as outlandish as it sounded. Only Yaz is a great. http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/1967.shtml I do tire of Hawk making statements like this though.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ May 2, 2011 -> 08:50 AM) Maybe he was feeling/looking good because he was the one who actually pulled the trigger. Not that you should care, but I think it's pretty cool that one of the people that I recognize as a conservative on this site posted that pic.

Mission accomplished!

QUOTE (flippedoutpunk @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 11:12 AM) Holy crap this is a baseball forum?? I glanced at your banner (if that's what it's called), and thought that Frank's poor daughter looks just like him.

Skip to 2:58. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=684cTZ_2Pdo...feature=related What can I say, I grew up Brady.

I don't want to overstate my value to the team, but I haven't watched a minute of the Sox yet this season. I'm sure once I start sitting back, relaxing and strapping it down, the Sox will, too. So we've got that going for us - which is good.

OK - I went down the rabbit hole for a little while with the google advanced search. And now I forget what I read about the roids issue (was a pretty hot topic a few years ago), but I didn't make a Manny alegation that I was able to find. Milkman and Steff did have a little fight in regard to ARow. Started slow, ended with Steff calling Milkman a douche. I will have to remember not to use google adv search again as it would lead to hours of unproductivity.