wallyburger

I like the concept of name dropping one or two at a time. This gives the liars and the cheaters a better chance of burying themselves. With the absence of a union backed test for HGH, if the names were all dumped in one fell swoop, the non named cheaters would just start right back up or continue. The union is protecting cheaters and if all of the names were made public, they might make a case for the violation of secrecy and immunity pact they thought they had with MLB. No wonder Donald Fehr retired.

Does anyone have a Branch Rickey day to honor him? I have absolutely no idea what these repetitive honor days accomplish. I suspect it has become one of those events that someone is afraid to discontinue because it will be construed as disrespectful. Hogwash to that. Just like the pre game patriotic songs and such. When they were initiated, they had a specific purpose and were honorable. Now they have become trite and ritualistic while losing the impact of the original concept Just another one of those PC issues. Does anyone actually believe that civil rights will be abolished if Jackie Robinson tributes are toned down?

Elijah Dukes charged the Great Falls Little League $500.00 for his "charity" appearance. So much for charity. Some want to claim he was giving back to the community. I call B S. He was taking from the community. Who charges a LL and a bunch of kids $500.00 to show up for 10 minutes and calls it giving back to the community. What I can't believe is that this L L organization paid him $500.00 and now has ponied up $501.00 to pay his fine. This guy is nothing more than a negative role model. He has threatened to kill one of his baby mamas and their love child, impregnated a 17 year old foster child living with his uncle and fathered 4 more out of wedlock love children. This guy will soon have his own little league team, all before the age of 24. Maybe the GFLL ought to be fined for stupidity.

It's nice and feel good, but I can't figure out how a guy who will never be a HOF'er gets a statue. Did he save kittens from a burning building? I want to see a Walt Dropo statue.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Jul 6, 2008 -> 09:51 PM) Sorry. We have a political forum called the filibuster, therefore the 'buster is sort of a nickname for it. Plenty of political chatter going on in that forum. Feel free to jump into the fray over there. Okay, but I don't care to do that. Just wondering why this thread was allowed to go 5 pages deep and my anti political question got "flagged"? Maybe I am on the wrong side of the ledger.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Jul 6, 2008 -> 01:52 PM) Can we limit the politics to the 'Buster please? Have no idea what that means.

Is there a sense of irony in the celebration of July 4th, Independence Day, while the military is engaged in an occupation as the culmination of an invasion? Independence Day is in recognition of a colonial land establishing self rule via the last resort, a revolution against the Colonial system. Maybe the camo uniforms have nothing to do with this circumstance, but it would seem to be a legitimate question. Is the 4th distorted for politics?

QUOTE (Pants Rowland @ Jul 4, 2008 -> 01:58 PM) Not to mention the fact that the 4th of July is not memorial day or veterans day. For some reason this country equates patriotism and the military for every national holiday. Do not get me wrong. While I personally do not want to serve in the armed forces, I have a high level of respect for anyone who put their lives at risk for something they believe in. However, July 4th is about so much more that military success. The revolution was an inspiration of ideals that had been trounced in the west by feudalism and colonization since the end of the byzantine empire. The fact that a handful of men were able to create a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal is what makes July 4th so special. It helped inspire the French revolution and, although the results were not good, the end of czarist Russia, among others. People standing up for their rights as human beings to rule and be ruled as they decide is the primary reason the 4th ever happened. I fully understand that without military victory in the revolutionary war, this holiday would not be possible. However, the constant cheerleading for our military forces every time we have a national holiday gets tiresome. I wish they would just wear the special hats with the American Flag. Great response. I had no idea this " promotion " was coming. When I turned the game on, I had the same reaction as you. There is a veteran's day/Memorial day, which would be appropriate. This seems so misplaced and political.

I believe this makes Roger a pedophile. Hard to believe the NY Daily News would put their butt on the line if this wasn't true.

That is one truly demented thread title.

Jenks actually stressed working harder in the off season. Guess that means he will drop about 35 pounds, right??? Hot dogs and soda. Nice menu.

Greg Anderson, Bond's trainer and supplier, who has been sitting in jail, covering Bonds butt, was just released from federal prison. Too coincidental to be a coincidence?

I can't imagine any team doing anything before George Mitchell drops his Big Bertha HGH users bomb on the Lords of Baseball. Imagine signing A Rod to a mega contract and then watching his name pop up on that list. He would morph into Jason Giambi Jr.

Keny trades away Ozzie's nephew. Ozzie is pissed off. Kenny trades away the pitcher Ozzie hates. Ozzie feels better now.

Reasons for keeping Dye. 1. Relatively cheap salary. 2. Had a career year. 3. Good guy. 4. ChiSox fans like him. Reasons for trading Dye. 1. Relatively cheap salary will be atractive to buying team. 2. Had a career year, which would make him attractive if another team thinks he can repeat. 3. Yankees need a RF/DH 4. Sox finished in 3rd place. No one is safe. 5. Sox need youth. 6. Dye is going into his walk year. 7. Next contract will be his last big one and he will be 34 when that happens. 8. He is not a top shelf defensive RF and will soon be DH material. Do it KenBoy.

The article from the Chicago Mag was a good read, in my opinion. I enjoy reading Jay's opinions and look forward to a daily reading. To say I agree with whatever he writes would be absurd. I disagree with enough of it, to not get starry eyed about him. I do enjoy the style, since it does tend to take down the sacred cows in the sports world, most of whom are pampered and have an inflated sense of self worth and importance. Jay writes opinion and is not strictyly bound by fact. It is the subject matter I find intriguing. He seems to latch onto the current event of the day rather than write historically. That is no easy task. He lays himself open to critique and judgement by taking on the event while it is current. Beat writers bore me as they act as P R reps for the team/player whose careers depend on their blind loyalty. Hero worshipping is for the adloescent fan. I'll take the hard stuff on an adult level. I trust my own judgement to seperate fact from fiction when it comes to Jay. P.S. .... and he is a free read online.

KW needs to petition MLB to move the Sox to another division. Next years AL Central will be stacked. Detroit may drop off a bit, but Cleveland and Minnesota are young and getting better. KC is still a fraud , but even they are improving. Sox need to get younger to stay out of 3rd/4th place finish. My suggestion for trade bait, besides 2 of the starters, is Dye. Don't hang me yet, but he had a career year and his value will never be greater. Dye is not that far away from DHing.

QUOTE(Whitewashed in @ Sep 8, 2006 -> 03:57 PM) Hawk is going no where. Its been said a lot of times already that even though he can be annoying and is senile, he's a sox fan and we appreciate his obsession for the team. I fixed it for you.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Sep 8, 2006 -> 01:27 PM) Bad season my a**. Whether we end up at 102-60 or at 80-82, there is one thing that we can say all year that no one else can say...one thing that we should remember... WE ARE WORLD CHAMPS!!! Playoffs or not, repeat or not, I enjoyed this year for the fact that we are the World Champions of Major League Baseball... This thread has been officially hijacked.

Last night , ESPN flipped over for the last 2 innings of Sox - Indians game as bonus coverage. Hawk was his typically embarassing self for the national audience. He got into one of his Jay Mariotti Hineybird tirades, which made absolutely no sense for the National broadcast. Maybe ESPN forgot to tell his producer they were National live. Typically the Sox were en route to a loss and he did his mummy act. Good thing DJ was there to fill in. But he did get his "can of corn" line in.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Aug 6, 2006 -> 10:14 AM) No Wally, it isnt necassary for a columnist to be in the clubhouse(although I dont know why you would think it would be inappropriate for a columnist to show up in the clubhouse, when every other columnist in CHicago aside from Mariotti shows up). But is it appropriate to write columns as if you interviewed someone or as if you were in the clubhouse experiencing the atmosphere if you werent there? Think about how many times Mariotti uses the phrase "The mood in the clubhouse is.....". The guy is never there. It is one thing to speculate on happenings in the clubhouse, it is a completely different animal to get your report from someone else or from the television and make your own conclusions about it. Because it is his opinion, not yours or someone else's. Sun Times pays him for his opinion. He doesn't have to be balls on accurate or coddle the local sports product, to be an op/ed columnist. What he seems to do is ask questions that others might ask from an outside view, and then supplies his take. Beat writers do interviews or report on what a player said. They can have opinions, but rarely express them in their journals. They are reporters. Jay is not a reporter. Beat writers would not be exactly welcome in clubhouses or on chatered planes if they wrote the stuff Jay does. They are where they are by the grace of the players and management. If you want puff pieces, go to a beat writer. Ask a beat writer if he would rather be a columnist who does not have to stay on the good side of players and management to do his job. As a reader, you can ignore his articles. Box scores and beat writers will supply all the recap info you need. Jay , supposedly, got a raise and contract extension by the Sun Times. Someone at that paper made a decision that his articles were worth their while., at least to their revenue stream. It seems they don't care wheteher he is liked or despised, as long as he is read. Look, the guy ripped my esteemed U of Miami football team the other day. I thought he was way off base and was using stale outdated perception, but I really didn't expect him to go to the Huricane off season workouts to adjust his perception. Perception is what it is. Just Jay being Jay. Ozzie and Jay are trwins seperated at birth.

QUOTE(greg775 @ Aug 6, 2006 -> 04:15 AM) I will say in his absence, the columns were rather boring. They probably should have let Couch write a lot more columns to see if he could have become the popular columnist with Moronotti on break. I think his columns are OK since they seem to fire up our Sox, but they are way too long. That in itself shows his ego. He oughta shorten the columns and go to the clubhouse and write a few off that. He really does look like a puss not going to the clubhouse and it puts the other columnists at a disadvantage. It's pretty fishing easy for Moronotti to blast away and blast away when he won't show his face. The other columnists show up and get the other side of the story and tend to be more fair, yet duller as a result. Off my dull soapbox. GO SOX I am under the impression that beat writers need to follow the team on the road and show up in the clubhouse. I don't think that is appropriate or necessary for a columnist/op ed writer.

Ouch, 4 posts in and the thread was hijacked. If I may go back to Mariotti, what contract extension and raise? I am an out of towner and out of the mainstream loop. P.S. I am glad he is back, if only for the controversial articles he is guaranteed to write. Love him or hate him, he will get your attention. The beat writers crap is boring. I really thought the Williams article about inactivity was with some merit, but I am really not bent out of shape by Williams non decisions. One Championship in my lifetime beats all Hell out of none. I saw the AL Championship in '59 and the World Series Championship in 2005. When you wait that long, contentment creeps into the equation.

I didn't say they would be " good " articles, I said interesting, in the sense of fun to read and a helluva lot less bland than what the beat writers are putting up.

With the Sox tanking, his articles would be interesting, if nothing else.