Frankensteiner

I like taking out Buehrle here. He was cruising and only threw 93 pitches, but he'll leave with a ton of confidence and without risk of anything bad happening. Plus the bullpen is rested from yesterday.

QUOTE(JimH @ Aug 1, 2006 -> 08:57 PM) 4 pages each, 1962 or so, big picture of the Amphitheatre on the top of the front page. I am an Amphitheatre collector which is why I have them although I did see a match there featuring the likes of Yukon Moose Cholok, Black Jack Lanza, Big Ernie Ladd, Baron von Raschke, and Mitsu Arakawa and Dr. Moto. Those sound like quite the collector's item. Real nice.

QUOTE(JimH @ Aug 1, 2006 -> 08:52 PM) Fathom I have some old wrestling programs from the early 60's from the Amphitheatre that I picked up a few years ago. Real interesting history. If you want them drop me your address and I'll mail them to you ... wedding present. Are these AWA programs?

QUOTE(hogan873 @ Aug 1, 2006 -> 08:52 PM) Sure? I thought it was Savage. Mega Powers: Hogan & Savage Mega Maniacs: Hogan & Beefcake

QUOTE(Mr. Showtime @ Aug 1, 2006 -> 08:51 PM) Oh yes, any fan who hasn't has missed out on a 'classic' debut. That wasn't even a live segment, they aired it anyway. ...also available on youtube.

QUOTE(hogan873 @ Aug 1, 2006 -> 08:50 PM) Remember the Mega Maniacs? Hogan and Savage? That was Hogan and Beefcake.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Aug 1, 2006 -> 08:29 PM) I say you should slap your gum into the crowd and then toss your towel over your shoulder to your best man. ...or walk in with sunglasses, take them off, and give them to some kid sitting in one of the first few rows.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Jul 31, 2006 -> 09:06 PM) Really? He has 2 pitches. A fastball is 2 pitches?

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Jul 31, 2006 -> 05:25 PM) You're right, having the core of a World Series winning club locked up is a bad thing. Never said it was, but if you look at the 2003 Angels, the 2004 Marlins, and even last year's Red Sox, sometimes that's not enough and you continuously have to keep improving the roster. I never said he won't. I was responding to the quote which suggested this team is good enough to win the World Series this year and next year. I don't think they are. And some of the things you mentioned could have been done now (i.e dump a starter to open a spot for McCarthy) and could have improved the team now.

I don't consider being so locked into these players such a good thing. Our best players are a 36 year old slugger, a "34 year old" Cuban pitcher, and a 32 year old outfielder having by far his best career season. Good luck trying to duplicate that next year. As far as the pitchers, I see Buehrle having the best shot of improving. Hopefully Garland can pitch more like he has in the second half. But after that? Vazquez has sucked for quite some time, at some point he's not underachieving anymore. Garcia sucks because he has no fastball, and how many players lose their stuff at 30, and regain it at 31? Right now I see us as the 4th or 5th best team in the AL, and very lucky that our offense has produced up to this level. Upgrading this roster in the off-season is a must, imo.

This is the only time I can remember being dissappointed with KW. I'm sure someone will say "but there was nothing out there," but it's not like we couldn't have dumped Vazquez for a bag of baseballs to some contending NL team. Yeah, sure, he'd be admitting a horrible mistake, but at the same time Vazquez would be off the team and Ozzie wouldn't be trotting him out there every 5th day for one inning too many. So it's my belief KW put his ego ahead of winning in this case.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 06:59 PM) Realism? There's nobody out there we can realistically get (starting pitching wise) that's better than what we have right now. No, but at the least McCarthy should be in the rotation instead of Garcia/Vazquez. Knowing Ozzie, that will only happen if one of those guys is off the roster. And adding a starting pitcher isn't the only way to improve the team. No, but it seems a little ridiculous to say you're not worried about a team which dominated us in a 3 game sweep, added another good player, and has a better overall record. This is the same crap people said about the Tigers earlier in the year. I mean, how can you not be worried about them? They're our competition and ahead of us after 4 months in the season. QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 07:02 PM) LOL. Man, I never thought I would see the day somebody would question whether Kenny frickin' Williams wanted to really win or not. Kenny is the Michael Jordan of GMs when it comes to will to win. Kenny Williams might want to win, but it seems as if he'd rather not admit a mistake on Vazquez. Ozzie might want to win, but not at the expense of hurting Freddy's feelings. Or breaking up with his golfing pal. We'll see.

If there are no more moves made, it's just a signal KW and Ozzie prioritize something else (pride? ego? golf buddies?) over winning. I'm not sure how anyone could look at this roster, especially the pitching staff where 4 fishing starters have ERAs above 4.80 (which is beyond horrible), and conclude with a straight face that this is the best roster in the AL. QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 06:47 PM) And even then, you don't know how good they'll be once they get back. See Derrek Lee. I'm much more concerned with the Twins than I am the Yankees. Yeah, not like the Yankees kicked our ass without those 2 guys and have a better record on the season than the White Sox.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 05:06 PM) I'm not going to give up a couple top prospects and eat a ton of salary for a 2 month rental because he's the tallest midget. Well, the alternative is to pee away the season while our pitchers try and figure out what's wrong. I don't want to watch that for the rest of the year because Lance Broadway express might hit the Cell 2 years from now with a 4.5 ERA. Also, I can't for the life me imagine why someone who is willing to give up Josh Fields for Scott friggin' Linebrink wouldn't want to give up Fields and Broadway for Zito.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 05:04 PM) Garcia and Ozzie are practically father and son. There wasn't much doubt that we would be able to extend him. His agent wasn't Scott Boras, either. Not a good comparison. The market for pitching has gotten out of control the last 5 years. Somebody is gonna offer him more money at more years than we would. I can almost guarantee you that. I wasn't making a comparison on anything. Just pointing out the fact that JR and Boras could possibly negotiate at this point, whereas they wouldn't have done so in the past.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 04:58 PM) Zito since the start of the 2003 season: 127 GS | 50 W 43 L | 3.82 ERA | 1.27 WHIP | K/9 6.4 | BB/9 3.6 | K/BB 1.81 If you did "since the start of 2003" comparison for all our pitchers, he would statistically be our best starter.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 04:50 PM) Sorry, you just don't trade your best position prospect for two months of a guy who's been slightly above average at best since 2002. It would look even more stupid if we ended up missing the playoffs (a real possibility). Broadway is argubly our best pitching prospect right now (I know Flash is laughing somewhere). You still don't trade him for a 2 month rental. Ummm... it happens plenty of times. See the Garcia trade. Yeah, he's Crede's agent as well. Are you willing to tell me we're not going to re-sign Crede? And besides, there was discussion here that Boras and JR seem cordial to one another.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 04:25 PM) When will people realize that 2002 was 4 years ago? Zito is not THAT good. He's good. He's just not that good anymore. Yes, he would be an upgrade over Javy (not saying much). But you still have Buehrle and to a lesser extent Garcia struggling. And it now looks like the bullpen is starting to struggle some. If we could sign Zito long term, I'd give up anybody outside of McCarthy and Anderson for him. I doubt we'd be able to, though. Zito is 10th in the AL in ERA. That's very good. Zito would instantly be our 2nd best starter. I wouldn't give up Anderson and McCarthy for him either, but anyone else is fair game as far as I'm concerned. With Crede here, Josh Fields can help us the most by serving as a trading chip. Broadway is projected as a 3rd or 4th starter, and I thought part of the rationale for that selection was to develop him quickly and use him to acquire parts for the ML team. As far as Zito's free agent status, I think we would have money to re-sign him if we wanted to do so.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 04:12 PM) You would not be freeing up any money, the Sox would have to pick up most all of either's contract. Plus you're more than likely sending Fields/McCarthy to Oakland, you have to top a package that is centered around Milledge and basically that's the only way you're going to do it. I wouldn't be surprised if they're asking us to also take on some of their bad contracts, something like Kotsay-Zito for Anderson-Fields-Vazquez-Broadway-cash. Kotsay's been real bad this year. QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 04:15 PM) I don't give two spiffs about Vazquez. I do, however, have a problem with giving up a top prospect for a guy that will more than likely have for only two months. I'd feel differently if it was basically a guarantee that we would get into the playoffs. This team has multiple holes right now. One trade is not gonna fix all the spiff wrong with this team. I disagree there. Replace Vazquez with Zito and we're the best wild card contender, on paper anyways.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jul 30, 2006 -> 04:01 PM) You can't do it. Not when Zito is a free agent at the end of the season. So we let the season go down the toilet because we're not willing to part with a couple of prospects? How many chances are we going to get with this team? The only way I see Vazquez heading to Oakland is if we're prepared to pick up a significant chunk of his contract. Small market A's aren't going to want a $12M bust.

Had the Sox actually won today, I would have called it a good win. Difference from yesterday is that my expectations for Vazquez are basically non-existant, and any game won by the Sox with Vazquez on the mound is a good performance. This team was so fun to watch through the end of May. Then you realized the pitching really wasn't that good and now we're just bad in general. Frustrating season so far.

If our 3-4-5 starting rotation combo by tomorrow night is still Buehrle-Garcia-Vazquez, then Ozzie and KW are a joke. At least get us another bat.

OMG!

This actually wouldn't be a bad loss if it gets Vazquez off the team. I have my doubts as to that happening, however.

People can get excite about the last two wins all they want, but as I've said yesterday, this team is still playing like spiff. We're not on the same tier as the Tigers, Twins, or Yankees.