Balta1701

"AP responds...'we don't want our people to get shot'"

QUOTE(tonyho7476 @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 02:48 PM) I'm sick of timo...what the f***?!? Minnesota is missing their regular center fielder, so we've decided to take some pity on them.

QUOTE(longshot7 @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 02:18 PM) Drew only played CF when Bradley was on the DL - now that he's back, Drew was playing RF before getting hurt again. There was actually a bit of a feud between the two in spring training about who was going to get CF.

QUOTE(Chisoxrd5 @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 01:55 PM) Ha...I'll be there (they have only lost 5 in a row with me in attendance) shhhhhhh So our recent skid at home is your fault!!!

Update...they've officially Missed the deadline for the Iraqi Parliament to pass the constitution. The National Assembly has passed by unanimous vote a 1 week extension for continued work on it. What does this mean? As far as I can tell, it means that the Iraqi National Assembly has just voted the Interim constitution into abeyance. Stealing liberally from Prof. Juan Cole:

I will throw this into the mix...one of the best things to happen to the Sox with regards to Konerko this year may very well be the recovery of Jason "the needle holes in my ass are from kinky foreplay" Giambi. Why? Because it may very well remove 1 important team from bidding on Konerko. If Giambi was hitting .220 all year, do you think the Yankees would be in the market for a 1b man in the offseason? I'll guarantee you they would be. Boston may very well be in the mix depending on what they do with Millar and that guy from Japan who homered off Garland (he could help us a lot too!). After that though...the big money teams at least seem set at 1b. Cardinals, Cubs, Angels all have good 1b guys. This means that if we're bidding, we're at least bidding against teams that are roughly on the same level as us... Toronto may be looking to add a bat/add salary San Fran may need someone Who knows what the Dodgers will do The Mets could try to make a run at him The good news though is that I don't see a lot of rich teams that could be looking to add salary and a bat at 1b unless someone makes a trade.

QUOTE(longshot7 @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 12:46 PM) Just listened to Gammons on Dan Patrick Show - he said there are some other teams interested, but still unsure if a deal would get done. Said it would greatly help the Sox while Pods is out (so he can heal) but suggested the Sox move Rowand to LF. I'm not sure I get this - Rowand is younger, faster, and a better CFer at this point. Move Griff to LF until Scotty gets back and then platoon him and Carl. Griffey will never play RF or LF. It's a matter of the throws to the infield. In RF and LF you're throwing at much more of an angle than you are from CF. I honestly don't know how this matters, but I've read repeatedly that it somehow puts more stress on your legs to throw from the corner outfield spots. That's the last thing you want with a guy like Griffey, with a history of leg problems.

QUOTE(Greg Hibbard @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 12:55 PM) When has defense at first base ever been a priority? Every time that the ball is hit on the ground to any infielder. Seriously though...we've managed to deal with below average-average-good fielding first basemen for basically my whole lifetime...Thomas, Konerko, etc. Sometimes, just as a reminder, it's quite informative to flip over and watch the games of teams with truly great defensive 1b guys, like the Giants, Cubs, or Angels. The amazing thing is how much better it makes everyone else on your defense, because they know that if they get the ball in the area of 1b, it'll be sucked up for an out. Suddenly guys make throws that they wouldn't make without that 1b, and they turn into outs/great plays. Throwing errors on routine plays disappear. It makes your whole infield defense better. It's been so long since this team has had a great defensive 1b that I think some of us might not realize how big of an impact that kind of player can make.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 12:02 PM) Excellent move. I want to see the rest of the guys get brought back now. Its definately been a slow moving offseason thus far for Chicago. I can't complain at all about how slow this offseason has moved. When the offseason started, I was genuinely scared that someone would do to the Bulls what was done to the Clippers a few years ago by the Heat...the Clips had like 3 big name guys all hitting the free agent market (Odom, I believe Maggette, and I think someone else) at the same time. What happened? The Clips wanted to keep their guys togehter, but then offers started coming in for all the guys. The Clips matched the offers for Maggette, but then because they had to pay him so much, the price for Odom became too rich for their blood, so they had to let him go. I was worried we'd lose at least 1 of the big guys for the same reason...someone would make offers to Chandler just to drive his price up and then make a run at Curry or vice-versa. I've personally been astonished at the lack of interest in Chandler...even though the Bulls are saying they'll match, usually that's not a reason not to offer.

Chris Duhon will be staying in Chicago next year. The Bulls have matched Toronto's $10 million/3 year offer for the point guard.

Just sit around and pray for Leinart, Bears fans.

Juggs, when you call his numbers for May 05 "Fair", there's simply somehting wrong wiht your analysis. He was absolutely terrible that month.

Another big, likely more important point is how much salary flexibility KW Will have from Reinsdorf after this season. Given even a couple of playoff games, plus the attendance numbers we've had all year, it seems clear to me that KW has to have some decent flexibility. In his chair, my #1 and #2 goals are to keep Buehrle and Garland around for at least the next 5 years. Beyond that, I'd consider keeping Konerko if the price was right, but I wouldn't let his cost interfere with keeping that 1-2 combo.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 11:26 AM) Wow, comparing Pauly to Ramirez? I don't think there is a clean up hitter in all of baseball that is nearly as clutch as Manny. Manny is also making $20 million a year, and not $8.75 million. I don't think there are many you can compare Manny to as a hitter, as there are few in the game even in his ballpark, let alone as a peer.+ I was using Ramirez as the ideal. If you'd like I can go back to Carlos Lee. Or I can even compare this year's Konerko to previous years' Konerko...his hitting with RISP is down even for him, by quite a bit.

QUOTE(Queen Prawn @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 11:10 AM) Small block and big block Fords have a great throaty sound as well. I would like to get a hybrid for my next car (hopefully 4-5 years in the future), but I hope the batteries for these types of cars inprove in reliability and go down in cost (not sure where it is now, but some of those were high priced the last time I looked). Toyota offers a 10 year warranty on all of the battery systems on their hybrids. I believe Honda may as well, although I haven't researched theirs as much. The Prius is roughly the same price as a Camry, has slightly more interior space, and has the hybrid engine. If you're not in the market for a mid-sized sedan I wouldn't say to buy one, but if you are, I think it's a very competitive vehicle.

Paulie has been incredibly important to this team, but he's also been an incredible disappointment to this team for 1 reason; his hitting with Runners in scoring position. Let's do a quick comparison with a real #4 hitter: Manny Ramirez. With Runners in scoring position, Ramirez has had 123 at bats. He is hitting .374 in those situations. With RISP and 2 outs, he has had 58 at bats, and is hitting a respectable .293. Konerko has fewer at bats with RISP, so we can't compare 1 to 1. But with runners in scoring position, Paulie is hitting a paltry .240 in 104 at bats. In other words, when there are runners in scoring position, Manny becomes better, while Paulie becomes worse. On top of that, with RISP and 2 outs, Konerko is hitting a ridiculous .138, also in 58 at bats. Both Konerko and Ramirez have the same # of at bats with RISP and 2 outs. Konerko has 15 RBI, Ramirez has 31. If Paulie were just hitting his average with RISP, he could be upwards of 80-90 RBI's right now, and he could have helped us to a lot more big innings just by keeping things going with 2 outs. He should have 90-95 RBI at this point already this season, but his hitting in the clutch has just been that bad.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Aug 14, 2005 -> 09:44 AM) Which move do you think was not done "right?" Magglio? KW tried to trade Maggs for Nomar. Boston f***ed up. KW tried to trade Maggs for Andruw Jones. Atlanta heated up and won the division. I think there was an added element in the Jones deal...KW wanted Russ Ortiz also, and he was at the time the Braves best starting pitcher. That plus Ordonez was hurt, and the Braves would have been crazy to pull the trigger for a guy who was hurt. I personally wish KW had traded him before last season started, just so we could have gotten something for him. If the Nomar deal wasn't there, then there had to be someone else who was willing to grab a rent-a-bat. Houston, or LA, for example. I think he was holding out hope of Magglio Re-signing, so he didn't push as hard on a trade as say Billy Beane might have done.

QUOTE(Queen Prawn @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 11:07 AM) My sister and I were talking about that Saturday morning while gassing up my dad's car. Neither of us mention gas prices to him or else we hear about the price of gas in Ireland and Europe in general. The other side of that token of course is that while gas prices are high over there...it's due to taxes. So the governments over there have their people pay higher gas prices, but on the other hand, if they have a constant amount of revenue they need to bring in...they get the money back in those gas prices through lower taxes on other items. Would you pay $4 a gallon in gas prices if the extra dollar meant that you'd get a smaller property tax bill by the same amount?

Actually, it really won't take that much more for even a normal hybrid to become cost-effective with current oil prices...if you're a heavy city-based driver right now you'd probably be saving quite a bit with a prius over your average mid-sized sedan.

QUOTE(rangercal @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 10:49 AM) for people who can't sense you're sarcasm.... Didn't they have a 2nd bar at a 90 degree angle to hold the flag? I'm pretty sure they did. They had a wire frame to hold the flag upright, but that's actually not the criticism...the criticism is that supposedly the flag moves back and forth in the wind, and that can't happen because there's no wind on the moon. Trouble is, the folks who think its fake are just wrong in what the video shows.

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 10:39 AM) More importantly, how is it possibly waving? There is no wind or draft in space. It's a Hollywood movie. I know it's in green, but people have said this and meant it, so I'm going to respond. The flag's motion actually proves quite readily that it is on the Moon. The flag waves when it is touched by one of the astronauts, or when they move past it creating motion. But there are other times in the video from Apollo 11 that the flag stays perfectly still. This could not happen on Earth, as the slightest breeze would have moved the thing. But more important is how the flag behaves when it is touched; it sways back and forth for a very long time...tens of seconds to minutes. This is characteristic of only 1 environment; 1 with no atmosphere. If you blow on a flag on Earth, it waves back and forth a few times and then stops. Why? Wind resistance. The energy put into moving the flag is dissipated because it has to move air molecules out of the way to wave. ON the moon however, there is no atmosphere, so when the flag is touched, it continues waving until it loses the energy to another form, such as heat (from internal friction). That video is conclusive; the flag behaves as if it were in a vacuum. You cannot do that on Earth; there is no way to create a closed room with such a low air pressure to generate that video. Anywho, I personally think the fact that we have rocks from the place that don't fit into the puzzle on Earth is a better argument, but there's not a chance in hell that the video was faked.

QUOTE(Brian @ Aug 15, 2005 -> 10:31 AM) My jaw dropped on Sat when a fricking Citgo was up to $2.70. ANy of you people who know about this stuff see any relief in the near future? Are they ever gonna go down or is this just a sign of the times? It's possible that there could be some drop in oil prices in the fall. It's also possible that aliens could attack the earth and conquer it. Right now, there are a number of factors playing into oil prices. First of all, there is probably still a $10-$15 "security" cost being built into oil prices, in the sense that there are enough people out there who feel that a supply disruption somewhere in the Middle East other than Iraq (which is already disrupted) is a real possibility. The only way to get rid of this built-in cost is to find some way to generate real security in the Middle East. Right now, Saudi Arabia's infrastructure is still viewed as at risk. We're threatening Iran. Al Qaeda still has the capability to attack oil infrastructure. And Iraq is a complete disaster area. If some of those threats were to be removed, it might help. But sadly, that is not the real heart of the problem. Remove that, and oil probably still stays in the $50+ range. Why? Because the age of oil has ended. Take a look at this graph from CNN. 1 thing should be totally obvious to anyone who looks at it: demand has finally outstripped supply. Oil is a very inelastic market. In other words, dramatic increases in prices do surprisingly little to stem demand. If the price of some food at the grocery store went up by a factor of 2.5 over 2 years, you'd probably switch to some other food. But with oil, that can't be done. A finite amount of people still need to get to work. People keep buying Hummers, and they're not cheap to replace. Even if gas prices keep going up, very few people will suddenly start biking everywhere. The reality is this; the world cannot produce oil any faster. A few months ago, the Saudis said they'd try to increase production again and release more barrels of oil; and the oil they released was very heavy, poor quality stuff, not the traditional Saudi light sweet crude that we've been guzzling for so long. Saudi Arabia is pumping as fast as they can. They might be able to squeeze a little bit more out at these prices, but the reality is either their production has peaked or it is very close to peaking, and their production cannot grow fast enough to keep up with demand. On top of that, there really are no new sources to tap. People have not made major finds anywhere in the world in years. The growth of oil supply simply cannot keep up with the growth in demand, and therefore the only thing that can happen is there must be pressure placed on the demand side to stop it from growing. The only way this can happen is throguh increased prices. And since prices have to go up a lot to slow down demand in oil, there's no reason to assume oil won't keep going up. $75 a barrel may not be out of the question in the next few weeks. The fall may see some reprieve, because demand in the U.S. does drop somewhat after the summer is over. A very warm winter might help as well if there were to be one. But make no mistake; the age of cheap oil is over.

I think the Umps are still desperately hoping that they can get 1 more inning in.

Once again, it falls to the big man to come through for his team in a big game. Go get em Jon. Why do I feel so happy having him on the mound? Jon...you tear this team apart tomorrow, and there will be only 1 thing I can say:

QUOTE(SoxFan562004 @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 03:06 PM) A good second this year is when DJ said "as long as you don't strap it on" (awkward 10 second pause)... "We got another email here..."