Balta1701

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 8, 2007 -> 01:24 PM) Crede's double in that game was beyond awesome. That whole inning in fact - AJ going to 1st on the K, Ozuna stealing 2nd, and Crede's double - best inning ever. Even with all of the world series stuff...I still don't know if there was a moment I am more a fan of than Joe Crede vs. David Riske. I don't think any of the other moments even happen without that swing.

Hey, they're strippers too.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Mar 8, 2007 -> 12:53 PM) no, but either are the scoreboards on the 3 sites "8 more people just logged into gameday! Oh f***, shut it down, shut it down now, before you kill us all!!!!" -people running Gameday.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Mar 8, 2007 -> 12:39 PM) Johan had a good outing today: 3 IP 1 hit 3k's 1.80 ERA for the spring He always gets off to a rough start and gets really hot after the AS break.

The question is...does Mr. Gore purchase enough carbon offsets to also cover his own flatulence?

CQ.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Mar 8, 2007 -> 08:55 AM) Another piece of trivia. Jim Thome owns the best piece of hunting land on the White Sox. Please tell me he's never met the Vice President...

Most improved: if he get the playing time: Anderson. I'm just not sure he'll get the chance. If not him, then I go with Jark Guahrle. Biggest step backwards: JD. I'm still not sure he'll stay fully healthy on us, and i mean, come on, how damn good was he last year? X factor: Scott Podsednik. With the guys we have 2-5, we need someone to get on base, and some steals would be nice too. If he can get back to healthy form, then we're in good shape. Personally though I can't stand the thought of Erstad leading off.

The only thing that's going to get Ozzie fired before the end of the 08 season is Ozzie's mouth. If we keep getting worse, the locker room falls apart, and the young guys KW trades for don't work with Ozzie, then I could see Ozzie departing then. Certainly not before that.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 8, 2007 -> 08:11 AM) I've actually liked Owens' at bats, and I watched him play some OF (a couple games on TV, and one in person in ST last year). He looked a lot better out there than, say, Ozuna does. Not in the same league as Anderson, though. I'm on the believer side with Owens, I think he can turn into an MLB starting OF. But I'm in the minority. As for this year, if he has a good spring (and thus far, he hasn't), I think he deserves a shot as much as Anderson does. But Owens is still raw, and a year of playing at AAA will help him immensely. He'd be more ready in 2008. With a speed guy, it's surprisingly easy to wind up as a ML quality outfielder, IMO. All you have to do is not strike out. Put the ball in play and you're going to hit for a good average, because you'll beat out enough ground balls to improve your average. And defensively, even if you have no arm and make poor decisions in the OF, your speed can help you make up for the mistakes.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 08:52 PM) Oh heavens no... I don't want him to be the starter, just maybe the 4th OF'er. If Podsednik is not ready to start the season, and Ozzie decides Anderson does not earn the starting job, nor do Owens or Sweeney...then who else is left?

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 08:43 PM) maybe mr_genius and EM will share their bills as well and we'll see how we all stack up against big ol' hypocritical Al. You may take the prize. I'm replacing bulbs with compact fluorescents a room at a time or as the incandescents blow. I'll probably have to get them all in and then compare the same months in consecutive years to see the savings. I also need to replace the cr@ppy old windows with energy efficient ones but they are crazy expensive to redo an entire house. I'll take the prize probably, but I think I have a ton of stuff going for me. No kids, almost no reason to heat the place, the fact that it's an apartment and not a house so I don't use my own electric for things like washing clothes. That said...When I first switched from normal bulbs to the compact fluorescents, I literally cut my electric bill in 1/2 (at the time, it was about a $30 a month cut. Saved more later by switching air filters to an ionic breeze and buying an oscillating fan to use in the summer, but those bulbs paid for themselves in like 3 months as far as I was concerned)

If Podsednik was truly going to be out until May, I could see him having a good shot at making the big league team. But everything, and I mean everything I've read anywhere except from the folks here suggests that Podsednik will be playing baseball in April, maybe even early April. Personally though, I'd still prefer Anderson as the starting CF, even if Terrero has a better preseason. All things considered though, its entirely possible that Terrero could be a better option as a 4th OF than Erstad. Totally serious. Terrero is much less of an injury risk, because of the age/injuries to Erstad Terrero will probably play a better CF, and Terrero had a pretty darn good year at AAA last year despite the fact that he didn't see a lot of big league playing time.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 08:35 PM) But Mike Caruso had a monster rookie season Back to Jerry Owens, he had very impressive AA numbers two years ago but he really struggled in AAA last year. He is pretty bad defensively but, IMO, he is better then Pods in the OF. He is also a LF, not a CF. I think Owens is best suited for 4th OF in the MLB. He has speed, he is a good contact hitter, and he could play all 3 spots if needed. But then again, he can be a decent leadoff hitter if he can work on his stealing and fine toon his hitting. Right now, IMO, if Owens could hit .300 against big league pitching, he's a better option than Podsednik due to age, injury, and cost. I just have seen nothing yet that convinces me that he can hit that well in the real show.

About $15-$20 a month for 900 square feet here, if we're comparing. Those fluorescent bulbs work like freaking gangbusters, I swear. (And about $7 on average for gas, but I have very little heating needs)

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 08:06 PM) I mean, hey, it worked for both Clintons for years! But seriously, why did Scooter go through all the trouble of trying to remember what really happened and then why did he choose to air it all out? As I get older, I mix up stuff all the time, and no, not on purpose. I remember details a lot less clearly then I did 10 years ago. So, "I don't remember" is plausible, and there's no trial. So what the hell REALLY happened here? What really happened is that he concocted an untrue story which he told investigators repeatedly in multiple separate interviews to cover up the inconvenient facts that the VP's office had attempted to use his wife's job at the CIA as a means of smearing her husband. That is why he was convicted. Saying "I don't know" would have been a lot better than the fabricated story he did tell them.

QUOTE(ptatc @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 07:39 PM) Nooooo. Not a guy with speed. Speed is useless. Ozzie will mismanage him. He'll only play because Ozzie loves speed!!!!! If he could hit in the big leagues like he hit in AA 2 years ago, he'd be darn useful playing, but if he hit like he hit in AAA last year.... Leadoff men with excellent speed who steal bases, hit .330, and push .400 with their OBP's can be damn useful. Leadoff men who hit .262 with excellent speed with OBP's pushing .330 tend to wind up being replaced.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 06:51 PM) So would a 5 year deal, which is what teams will be lining up to give him if he has a normal "Buehrle" type year. Well, there are 2 sides to this way of thinking, if your goal is to make as much money as possible. The first option is to get the longest contract for the most money that you can right now. That's the Zito method. The other option is to count on the continuing growth of contracts. It's more of a gamble if you can't stay healthy, but if you can, then it seems to be worth it for players to take the shorter overall contract with more $ per year if it also gets them onto the Free Agent market again. It's actually pretty hard for me to come up with an example of a Free Agent pitcher who's succeeded, but this is the thinking behind Rafael Furcal's deal with the Dodgers. The Cubs offered him more years but less money per year, the Dodgers offered fewer years but more money per year, he took the Dodgers offer, figuring that if he stayed healthy he could get another contract for even more after a few years.

Senator Domenici lawyers up in the ethics/US Attorney firing case. And, here's the fun...one of the US attorneys casually removed last winter was Carol Lam, who ran the Duke Cunningham investigation. The lawyer Domenici hired...Duke Cunningham's attorney. Wheeeee!

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 11:37 AM) But, it always brings up situations like this. I try to be red or blue blind to who it is and find a solution that works for everyone. Perhaps a blind super trust that every national elected member contributes to that buys every stock. The amount would vary, but every stock would be carried. So what happens in the case of someone getting elected like Bill Frist, where his family has owned a hospital company for years that receives federal money. Even if he slaps all of his money into a blind trust, he still benefits from business the Feds do with his family's hospital company. Or for a different case someone like President Bush, who may not have a clue what investments he currently has but who can take actions to benefit the investments of his father and the rest of his family? Do we require all family members to move all of their assets into blind trusts as well?

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 10:10 AM) I know that this is all procedural and parliamentary rules, but I would think that if the Republicans wanted to block this, they could have. It really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, it's just interesting. The cute little thing about that resolution is...all of the procedural and parliamentary rules that allow the minority to put the brakes on legislation in the Senate are actually contained within that organizing resolution. If I understand the system correctly, without it being passed, any rules not written into the Constitution don't really exist. In other words, the filibuster, for example, doesn't actually exist until an organizing resolution is passed specifying the rules for cloture. It is possible to edit these rules afterwards, but it requires either a 2/3 majority vote (according to the rules resolution) or something along the lines of the nuclear option. The only power the Republicans had at the start of the Senate before the Rules resolution was adopted was the fact that they still held the gavels in all of the committees. The one thing they could have done was refuse to hand over the gavels until they got a better deal in the rules resolution. I'm not exactly sure how this works, and my memory is a bit fuzzy over the last time it happened (2003 when the Dems held onto the gavels for an extra day because of something they were unhappy about in the rules resolution). I'm fairly certain that since the last Senate didn't pass any of the required budgetary resolutions last year, and the Dems had to quickly enact legislation extending the 2005 budget resolutions when they took power, taking that step would have shut down the government.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 09:59 AM) I am glad Mark has learned the art of the "no comment". It should serve him well the rest of his career. We've got our replacement VP candidate!

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 09:57 AM) And the Republicans agreed to this? That would be a surprise. The Republicans actually had no choice. The party in power is the one that writes the organizing resolution. In 2007, the Democrats have a majority as long as Lieberman votes with them and Jeffords does not caucus with the Republicans. I would also doubt that the Republicans would have included measures similar to 2000 when they wrote the organizing resolutions in 2004 and 2002, but I can't be certain without knowing where the hell to look for them, and I'm too busy for that anyway. The case of the Jeffords switch actually being able to change things in the Senate is, as far as I can tell, a unique event, precipitated by the dual facts of a 50-50 Senate on January 3 2001 and the fact that Al Gore was still VP on that day, which would have given the Dems the power to enact the organizing resolution if they really wanted to try to.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 09:29 AM) What about Robert Gates? He'd be a good pick. Joe Lieberman is a pick that would seem most likely. Not only would he "appear" to be bi-partisan but it would have the added effect of moving the Senate back in the control of Republicans, since the CT Governor is GOP. This is actually incorrect as I understand it. When the Senate adopted its rules at the start of this session, the way the rules were constructed, even if 1 Senator were to flip parties or were to leave, Harry Reid would still maintain his role as majority leader and the Democrats should still maintain committee chairmanships. It was different in 2000 where the Senate was actually split 50-50, and the Senate started off when Al Gore was still the VP. For about 2 weeks, the Dems had enough power that they could have actually constructed the organizing resolutions for the Senate if they had so chosen. Instead of being difficult, a deal was struck in that case where by the organizing resolution called for an even distribution of the committee chairmanship power between the 2 parties, and an additional clause was included such that the full set of majority leader and committee chair positions would flip fully to the new majority party in the event of a change of 1 seat (which wound up happening with Jeffords). That same sort of language was not included in this year's organizing resolution. It's always possible a deal could be struck or the new majority could just shut down the Senate until the new minority decided to listen, but even if Joe Lieberman switched parties today, as I understand things, the Dems would still control the machinery of the Senate barring a revisiting of the organizing resolution.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 09:26 AM) Well than one of the veterans would be out- I assume you are implying Jose, who, if I'm not mistaken, is signed through 2009. Seems to me he would be worth the least on the trade market considering his age and injury concerns. Jon Garland is only signed through the end of 2008. Jose Contreras is signed through the end of 2009. Both would be potential trade candidates at the end of 2007 if there was an extension struck with Buehrle (assuming good performance by our young guys).