Balta1701

QUOTE(mr_genius @ May 11, 2007 -> 04:28 PM) That article was so lame. A weak attempt at a "hit job" on a presidential candidate, it won't effect the campaign at all. John McCain takes a moment to call that lady.

Graphic via the LA Times.

QUOTE(Texsox @ May 11, 2007 -> 04:25 AM) Oh, and BTW, Moore is a dickhead and unless Cuba has some radical medical treatment that was these people's only hope, he deserves what ever punishment we dish out. Nuke, you smoking any Cuban cigars? Well, I can't speak to them having some sort of radical treatment, but they do have a health-care-for-all system which is, honestly, incredibly good compared to the amount of money they spend on it, which is the point Moore is clearly trying to make. From the Wiki Gonzalez entry on Cuba's health care system: Their life expectancy is roughly equal to that of the U.S., infant mortality seems similar, etc. I'm sure there are some categories where the U.S. does win, but the point Moore will make is that the U.S. spends like 12% of it's GDP on health care, Cuba spends about 7% of its GDP on health care, and Cuba gets similar results. And you can also take a second to think about the values of the GDP of each country - for cuba, 7% of it's GDP levels out to spending about $250 per person on health care per year, to get results that at worst are not horrendous compared to the much larger amount spent in the U.S.

These folks are adults. They are and should be responsible for their own actions. It's not like this is a high school team. And another question...so what happens in an alcohol free clubhouse when you win a division? Spray grape juice over your teammates? That said...teams should really be ramping up efforts to make sure people do have options. Teams should be providing taxis to take players home if they so desire. They ought to have a specific person the players can call. Make it as easy as humanly possible for them to get a ride. And there should be punishments for DUI from the teams.

Anderson 1/3, 2 BB, 2 runs scored, 1 strikeout. Fields 2/4 with a home run and 4 RBI. Wikipedia with a home run and 5 RBI. Haeger did not pitch. Babula got the start, Carlos Vasquez appears to have gotten the win, throwing 2 scoreless innings in relief.

QUOTE(watchtower41 @ May 11, 2007 -> 08:20 AM) Terrero should get some playing time.... he hasnt seen an AB in over a week Ryan Sweeney should not see the bench until next Tuesday if he's being sent down. Get him every possible Major League at bat that can be gotten for him. Including against righties and lefties. Kick some ass Jon.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ May 10, 2007 -> 09:52 PM) I was thinking... hypothetically speaking, because this trade wouldn't hapen (at least right now) -- since BJ Ryan is done for at least a year, would you trade Dye + MacDougal/Jenks for Rios? I would, although I'm not sure Toronto would necessarily do that (for one), and after Dye took the lesser contract to come here (keeping his word), I feel like the Sox are in some way 'indebted' to him. When you consider that if the White Sox hold on to Mr. Dye, and he departs as a FA, the White Sox will still receive 2 compensatory top-of-the-draft picks, and if Mr. Dye goes to Toronto those picks would go to the Jays, I think that's a little much to give up for Mr. Rios. But we're on track with a decent line of thought there, and it could well just be a matter of changing a player or two.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2007 @ May 10, 2007 -> 09:11 PM) C'mon, Willie. I know it hurts, but you're better than that. Am I the only one that remembers the Jordan/Pippen Bulls getting smacked around 3 straight years before we got to the top? This current Bulls team was not going to win a championship under any circumstance. It's all about progression. We won 8 more regular season games than we did a year ago. We go to the second round this year. That's progess. Yay, someone I agree with! Hopefully, this teaches these kids another lesson. They've had a big high and a gigantic low within about 3 weeks. Another major summer of work, another couple big guys through the draft and FA, a year of experience, and a year of age on all of these kids.

Dave Roberts has been battling bone spurs in his elbow, and may well have to have them removed, which would cause him to miss about a month.

Bonderman may miss his next start due to blistering in his pitching hand.

Rudy also may have accepted, while he was serving as mayor, a couple of $200,000 or so world series rings from the Yankees without reporting them.

It seems like today is "Bad press for Rudy" day.

And that my friends is why you don't spend $55 million on a pitcher.

If we buy out Mr. Erstad's deal, do we still have the option of offering him arbitration (i.e. to get picks if he walks or to sign him at a lower value?)

QUOTE(RME JICO @ May 10, 2007 -> 03:27 PM) So what do you think? Did the Sox artificially inflate the value of BMac up until the trade? I know you are not going to do anything to lower the value of any of your players, but some of the Sox actions seem to point towards this scenario. I can't see how throwing him out there against Texas and Boston back in late 05, and then a few weeks later lining him up against Santana in the middle of a pennant chase was a scheme to make him look better than he was. Texas and Boston were almost the 2 top offenses in the league at that point, and he held them both scoreless for 15 innings.

Link.

Link. So According to Mr. Stark, before he was hurt, Jim Thome was essentially the best offense generating weapon in baseball thus far on the season, even beating out ARod and Bonds.

Whether or not it is the right situation for the MLB team this year, at least Ozzie is correct on one thing: Anderson and Sweeney need to be playing every single day right now, because the odds are we're going to wind up needing both of them in the OF next season. Good to hear some positive words about BA as well.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ May 10, 2007 -> 08:46 AM) Listen... it amazes me as late as LATE in 2000, Clinton was saying EXACTLY the same thing Bush did on the WMD's. So what happened to them? Balta, I know you've drummed up 1,000's of articles telling us that Saddam had to of destroyed them, but come on... why would you believe that, in reality? My reasoning, and this was back before the war, was fairly simple, I think. The UNSCOM team was able to account for over 95% of the materials Saddam made. They destroyed a huge amount of it, and they were able to track where things were moved to and what happened to most of them (a lot of them were simply dumped after the first war or bombed during that war). The rest...well, the place was a warzone. Now, that was by no means proof that Saddam was disarmed. And had Saddam refused to allow the inspections regime to resume, or had he interfered with the inspections regime when it resumed, that would have been justification for a war. But in 2002, Saddam agreed to allow the UN inspections teams back in under the UNMOVIC team. When they went in, they found the equipment that would have been needed to manufacture additional weapons covered with 3 years of dust. They found the facilities they had sealed off still sealed off. They took some of the intel the U.S. had about where the weapons were supposed to be, went to those places, and wound up calling the U.S. intel "Garbage". Up and down the list, they basically couldn't find a single sign of an active weapons program. Every single thing they saw was consistent with Saddam having shut down the programs and with UNSCOM having dismantled the remaining fragments. If the U.S. had let the inspectors do their jobs to their conclusion, no matter what anyone in the U.S. believed, no matter what Mr. Clinton believed, they would have found Saddam to be disarmed. The evidence was right on the table in early 03 for anyone who cared to look.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ May 10, 2007 -> 08:39 AM) Edit: and Balta just made my point for me... note the word RESUME in his post. Well, you know what they say. Fool me once, shame on, shame on you... .... .... .... .... Fool, you can't get fooled again. Too many of these sorts of flubs and Obama really should take a hit. Mr. Bush deserved to take a much bigger hit for his gaffes than he ever really took, Howard Dean took a gigantic hit for a few of his gaffes and those hits followed him even when he made correct points. Obama's had a bit of a rough month or two, and it's starting to even drag on his poll numbers. He really does need to step up the quality of the campaign he's running here.

Well, I think we can safely say this is the first "Here we go again" moment for Moore's upcoming film "Sicko". Somehow, I bet that there were people fairly high up in the government just salivating over this when they realized they could go after Mr. Moore for violations of the Cuban embargo. Best marketing Moore could possibly get.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ May 10, 2007 -> 08:35 AM) They've been using that excuse since May 2003, though. Yes, but no one either smart or in any sort of official position has been using that dodge. It's been confined to the dark reaches of Hannity and Limbaugh for the most part, even the majority of the Fox News folks don't push it any more because they know there's just no evidence at all for it. But yet, one of the Republican Pres. Candidates just alleged that exact thing with no evidence. I find that noteworthy.

Ok, based on this thread, I'm going to resume making a thread every time Mr. Bush embarasses himself or the country verbally. I think I'll start with the one with the queen a couple days ago.

Kick ass Jose.

Anderson 1/3 with 2 walks, 2 runs scored, and 2 strikeouts. Fields 1/5.