Balta1701

Suspensions are out. 15 games for Melo 10 games for JR Smith 10 games for Nate Robinson 6 games for Mardy Collins 4 games for Jared Jeffries 1 game each for Jerome James and Nene for leaving the bench $500,000 fine for each team. No action taken against Isiah.

Ah, the schools, the thing that pro-war folks have cited for years now as the one thing we were always doing well..."at least we're building up more schools" or something like that.

Not sure whether this one belongs here or not, but it's sorta on topic. Long piece from the NYTimes. Much more at the article. Oh, and does anyone realize the absurdity of the Pentagon saying in their defense that the people didn't complain about their treatment when they were locked in Solitary confinement?

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Dec 17, 2006 -> 02:58 PM) oh man, i hope the bar hasn't been lowered to "well, he'll probably have a better foreign policy that GW Bush." Yes, it has been. Anyway, on other Obamamania news, I'm going to steal this from the Economist.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 18, 2006 -> 07:21 AM) Then there was the Iran hostage crisis and 20+% interest rates. I will say this much about Carter. The fact he was a 'bad' president in my opinion could have been do the fact he was considered a Washington outsider when he was elected. He really didn't get much cooperation from either party. The 20% interest rates were at least not directly the fault of Jimmy Carter, they were the fault of 20+ years of Congress and the President trying to spend enough money to avoid having a recession on their watch and thus driving inflation crazy. In other words, deficit spending in order to try to have "Guns and butter" (sound like any other chief executive you know?) The 20% interest rates actually corrected the problem after a time by slowing down the inflation rate. I'd go so far as to actually give Mr. Carter some credit for nominating Paul Volcker to the Federal Reserve, as he was the one who pumped up the interest rates that finally slowed down the decline in the value of the dollar.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Dec 17, 2006 -> 08:24 PM) Most of the Spiderman storylines in the 90's had that problem. Too many storylines running through too many different books (the Amazing Spiderman, the incredible Spiderman, the Scarlett Spider, Spiderman). Same thing with the X-men storylines, they just got way out of whack and the editors had to reign in some of the schizophrenic storylines and bring it to a more basic approach. If I am not mistaken that is the reason that Marvel almost went under, they just had too many different issues and titles for the same characters, and not enough people buying them. Another thing that really hurt that industry in the mid 90's was that in the late 80's and early 90's there was a big boom in buying those sorts of books as "collectible" items, such that they were making a ton of money by just printing a lot of copies of issues, or adding different covers as "collector" items, but then after a few years people started trying to sell all the new "collectibles" they had and discovered that everyone else already had the same issues and the value hadn't gone up as they wanted, which led to a pretty big crash in overall sales.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Dec 18, 2006 -> 08:14 AM) When im thinking of MLB ready arms that they may value, you have to look at Sisco, Haeger, Floyd, as something they may want, but all in all, we may not be a good trade partner. There is absolutely no reason to trade Gavin Floyd right now. The only reason the White Sox got him was that almost all of the value in him had dried up after 2+ years of subpar performances in Philly. If you trade a guy like him now, you are trading him at perhaps the absolute bottom of his trade value. At least try to get a decent season out of him before you trade him if that's your plan, so that maybe you take advantage of that supposedly excellent pitching coach.

John Edwards will do his official announcement of his candidacy from the lower 9th ward in New Orleans, sometime in the normal media vacuum between Christmas and New Years. (I hope it's a media vacuum that is, considering what happened in that spot 2 years ago). I'll give him credit...it's purely symbolic, but that's exactly the place politicians should be focusing their attention (aside from that little disaster in the middle east of course)

Eat it, Saban.

By the way, small note...this signing again fills up the White Sox 40 man roster completely. So if the White Sox did want to make another signing, or trade a pitcher for multiple other young pieces, we need to make the deal for people young enough that they don't need a 40 man slot, or we need to remove an equal number of guys from our 40 man.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Dec 17, 2006 -> 10:22 AM) And now ESPN is reporting that Isaiah Thomas warned Anthony before that something was going to go down cause he and Camby were left on the floor in a blowout like that. The NBA should just suspend the Knicks organization for the rest of the year and save them the embarassment they put on the floor every night. I don't see how, if this was premeditated to the point of Isiah giving out a warning (the game was pretty close until there was about 4 minutes left), the NBA could even consider being lenient. They ought to hammer the Knicks, that's just ridiculous, to tell someone to "stay out of the lane" and then actually have someone do it. Remember what happened last year in college when Cheney sent in that "goon" to start fouling and it wound up ruining the season for some kid? And Melo ought to get a heck of a suspension, just because that shot happened after almost everything else had calmed down. And even though JR Smith had every right to respond to that kind of foul, it would have been much better for his team if he had just taken it, let Robinson get his suspension, and gotten off the court. Now, Melo's probably going to be out for 10 games because he responded, which is really going to hurt the Nuggets. Just makes me a little happier the Bulls let him go.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Dec 16, 2006 -> 08:37 PM) There's strong mail that the Rockies are going to try and trade Taveras for a young pitcher. They'll then trade that young pitcher, with one from their system and Clint Barmes to acquire Baldelli, because remember the asking price is 2 young pitchers and a SS. For us, that's basically the equivalent of trading BA, Uribe and a young pitcher from our system. The Marlins have been rumored as a potential final stop for Tavares for quite some time, even before he was moved to the Rockies.

OK, everyone...NOW SHUT UP ABOUT THE BACKUP CATCHER SPOT!!! Good signing, not going to save the season but it's an upgrade when we face Johan or Lee or Captain Cheeseburger. Vs. lefties: .292 .333 .500 .833 last season, 3 home runs in 72 ab. last 3 years .297 .334 .436 .770 with 9 home runs.

The Associated press has made an effort to track down the people who were released from Gitmo after being held there for sometimes several years, people who the executive branch called "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the Earth". Over 80% were simply set completely free by their home countries.

Former Wisconsin Governor and Secretary of Housing and Human Services Tommy Thompson is going to join the Republican field. QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 16, 2006 -> 12:23 PM) My secret guess is someone told him that he would be their VP if he dropped out, and since Obama is from the next door state, I know who my guess would be. Bayh might make an ideal VP pick for Obama, Bayh's much more of an insider-type, coming from a political family, involved in politics for years, in with the DLC, big with a lot of the insiders, just the sort of thing Obama in many ways isn't.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Dec 16, 2006 -> 01:41 AM) That fastball-curve-change combo is a lot like what B-Mac has now for comparisons sake. And with the change, B-Mac showed how effective he could be as a starter if he could locate that pitch, it was almost a bit like a screwball (from the 1 game I remember that he pitched at Fenway). That's a major challenge for Gio in the upcoming years, to try and get the changeup on that sort of level. Confident he can do so. If you think about a guy like Zito for comparison, the big overhand curve ball tends to be more of a dominating pitch from the left side than from the right side at least based on my eyes, so Gio might well be able to get away without having to use the changeup as a murder pitch like BMac needs to because he comes in from the right side, especially if he can throw a low 90's fastball for strikes along with it.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 16, 2006 -> 11:39 AM) If they are banking on either Clinton or Obama they are making a mistake. She's a b**** and he's a wanna-be at this point. They need to put a serious candidate out there. How much time have you actually spent watching Obama? Let's put it this way...his name is not in this race as an affirmative action candidate. As far as I've seen, he is probably the best candidate the party has had since Bill Clinton, maybe better.

No matter whether he says it or not, that man needs to get out of New York.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Dec 16, 2006 -> 10:26 AM) I feel sorry for Wells, he had to take the contract, but he just sealed his fate of never getting a chance to play in a World Series. Then it's his job to make sure they get there. Seriously though, no matter how many players the Yankees and Red Sox buy, if Toronto is smarter about how they spend their money than either of those 2 teams (which isn't all that hard), then they can still hit wild cards, and maybe even challenge with the division (if Frank, Doc Halladay, and Burnett stay healthy, and they find another starting pitcher, they have a shot this year)

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Dec 16, 2006 -> 09:37 AM) I could see Toronto getting in the mix for Javy/Jon/Mark. Hi Rios.... Does Toronto have any quality hanging around in their minor leagues? QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Dec 14, 2006 -> 06:50 PM) Well if you added Heilman (as has been proposed in the Haren deal), to make it Heilman, Humber and Milledge, that certainly looks better from our end. One thing to potentially consider...the White Sox only have 1 opening on their 40 man roster, and by my count, that's 3 players coming back for 1 going out. Which means that somewhere, we'd need another opening on our 40-man. QUOTE(RME JICO @ Dec 16, 2006 -> 08:22 AM) I would be surprised if the Sox traded anymore starters this offseason. I figure they will go into opening day with Buehrle, Contreras, Garland, Vazquez, and B-Mac, with Floyd competing as well. 3 of those 4 still have their contracts up within 2 years. That's got to be the key thing driving Kenny right now, if he is serious about trying to build a contender every year. He won't make a deal without getting someone who is going to start at AAA this year or better so that they can actually compete for that 5th starter spot (unless he also deals Dye and fills that role), but I certainly can see him going with 3 vets, McCarthy, and then the best of Floyd and whoever else we get. That still would put us 6-7 people deep in our rotation, with extra guys ready to come in after 2007, which is a really good place to be in.

This is a gorgeous move. Booooone gets another year to season in AAA which he seems to need, the White Sox are back in a situation with 3 good lefties in their bullpen in case one struggles, we clear out a spot on the bench for another backup acquisition, and hopefully we see Mack move into the backup 1b role. Moore started off well, but Jesus, over the last week or two, he seems like he's been on something. And Gload's Playing time should go up quite a bit next year, just based on Sweeney's history.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Dec 15, 2006 -> 08:55 PM) He was Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime in the cartoon movie. Man, I loved that movie when I was a kid. Probably ought to see it again just to see if its any good now. "You got the touch, you got the power, yeah! (insert 80's guitar)"

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Dec 15, 2006 -> 08:23 PM) http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2698288 Done deal. Well, if we wanted to move Dye before he hits FA, the supply of 1 year from FA big bat outfielders just shrank by 1/3.

Tank Johnson will not play this Sunday against the Bucs.

Buck O'Neil, the recently deceased former Negro Leagues player, historian, and advocate was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom today. Link.