caulfield12

Sounds like it was written by a 20-30 year old TRYING to become a scout or just a very addicted SALLY League fan, but definitely not the report of someone involved with MLB.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 29, 2012 -> 01:15 AM) Wow, Rowand, that was pretty brutal. Maybe he cleared his head and he'll try harder this year. Greg, are you considering adding RIOS to your "protected" list because they get picked on so much? That would go against the prevailing anti-Dunn/Peavy/Rios/KW narrative, however.

Albert Belle and Jaime Navarro come to mind. Cory Snyder, but it's just because he sucked so bad with us. Steve Sax, never liked that dude at all.

LOL. I dislike Rios as much as many or most around here, but you can't fault him for trying to do something to take his mind off the past season. Dunn chose to lose tons of weight, but will anyone care 2-3 months from now if Rios is having another 2010 first half and Dunn's still striking out at record-setting pace? Konerko and Buehrle never worked out at all, and they weren't criticized nearly as much. Then again, many fans grew up with them as franchise/cornerstone Sox players, and they have 2005, so the forgiveness factor is much stronger than with imported "guns for hire" like Rios and Dunn. Golf is one of the hardest sports in the world. It's not easy at all, I can understand his frustration...maybe baseball will actually seem easier in comparison and he'll fall back into it, just like riding a bicycle. I've played against some of the better Chinese badminton players, where the racquet/contact speed reaches 180 MPH before the birdie hits terminal velocity...and honestly, golf, even though the ball is sitting there waiting to be hit, is still 10X more difficult than ping pong, racquetball, tennis, basketball, baseball, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, every sport I've ever played. Maybe snowboarding and surfing (kite surfing or traditional) are harder, but I think with those sports, it's just a matter of gaining the confidence to stay up on the board and deal with the conditions. Same thing with water or snow skiing. Once you get it, it clicks in and doesn't leave you. But golf...well, just look at how much Tiger Woods has struggled in the last two years. Like baseball, golf is 75% mental/psychological. Whether struggling at golf will help his baseball game, I have no idea. It's easy to say that Rios should be a great golfer because of his athleticism, but look how difficult it was for Micahel Jordan to play baseball. Not everyone can be Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders or Jeff Conine (former US racquetball champion). We have our version in Trayce Thompson, who is always going to struggle to translate a basketball frame and body into baseball success.

Great story. I remember a similar situation, former Indiana/Iowa star Luke Recker was in a devastating crash and he ended up leaving his fiance who who by then was permanently confined to a wheelchair.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Feb 28, 2012 -> 09:46 PM) I think you are getting Gary Thorne and John Rooney mixed up here. Thorne only spent one year with the Sox, and that was as the TV play-by-play man in the very forgettable 1989 season (paired up with Tom Paciorek that year). Rooney and Hagin worked the radio side of things from '89-91. I thought it was just an ok pairing, but only because it was two play-by-play guys with no playing experience between them handling all the broadcasting chores. I think each is obviously much better off when paired with an ex-player to provide the color analysis. Yeah, you're right. 1990 was Scott Radinsky's rookie season (I met him the previous year when he was pitching for South Bend), and my favorite overall as a White Sox fan, except for 2005. For some reason, I remember Rodney McCray as our designated pinch-runner (he later ran through an outfield fence while playing in the minors) and an amazing comeback against the KC Royals and Bo Jackson at Old Comiskey that I had the pleasure to attend.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Feb 28, 2012 -> 08:50 PM) Petricka is further away than Molina. Otherwise I agree. Petricka has about 258 innings pitched as a starter over the last 3 years (including his 2nd year at Indiana State) and 332 overall. My feeling is that they would be more likely to "sacrifice" Petricka at the major league level (if they needed spot starts down the stretch in August and September) rather than Molina. In terms of development, they're in pretty similar areas, although if you include 2 years of university and a four year (total) history of starting, Petricka might be a tick or two ahead overall. But I agree in general that along with Rienzo to a lesser extent, there's no need to rush any of those 3 guys (Molina/Petricka/Rienzo). With Humber, Stewart, Castro, Santiago and Axelrod, we've got at least 5 guys for the final spot in the rotation. Then you've got other guys like Heath, Bruney, Leesman, (Harrell/Torres). etc., that can be thrown out there once or twice, in a DJ Carrasco or Tony Pena emergency mode.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Feb 28, 2012 -> 09:02 PM) If as I suspect the Tigers are less than what many think they will be, and the Sox are more than what most think they will be, then why wouldn't you turn to someone who's arguably the #1 starting pitching prospect in the organization if he could make a contribution? These sort of blanket declarations baffle me. The point is there's UNLIKELY to be any reason to rush Molina this year, other than in overreaction by KW to justify the trade for Santos as quickly as possible. There SHOULDN'T be any connection, but KW will look like a jackass if Santos is on the AL All-Star team and Molina is struggling in the transition to AA ball. In the end, rushing Santos isn't go to help at all...we have Santiago, Leesman (maybe), Axelrod, Castro, Petricka and not to mention Josh Stewart who should be provided opportunities to show what they can do before we're "forced" to go to Molina. Really, there should be no scenario where we absolutely HAVE to use Molina in 2012. Didn't KW learn from the Hudson/Holmberg disaster? I hope so.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Feb 28, 2012 -> 06:30 PM) Not. Serious. Made me think of the scene from MALCOLM X was confronting the Catholic priest in prison about Jesus having "Middle Eastern descent, hair of wool, feet of clay..." Someone forgot to throw out Maya Angelou, Sojourner Truth, Toni Morrison, Bull Conner and J. Edgar Hoover (for the backlash against their campaigns against African-Americans), Abraham Lincoln, Dusty Baker, John L. Lewis, Medgar Evers, The Black Panthers and H. Rap Brown.

Even if the Sox win total is in the 60's, there will be a long list of excuses and rationalizations. Maybe they won't save Williams, but Ventura should get at least 2-3 seasons to figure things out. Personally, I expect them to perform better than last year without the distraction of Ozzie...and I expect the Marlins to implode at some point, either 2012 or 2013.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Feb 28, 2012 -> 07:05 PM) You seem like an unhappy person. It's back to the tipping issue...everyone chooses their way in life, and the consequences that go with it. There's obviously more downside for actors than for teachers, and yet I could list 100 complaints that teachers have and there would be just as many counterarguments (anyone can teach! or those who can't teach, you get such long vacations, it really can't be THAT hard to teach in an inner city school with no support from administration or parents, you guys only are actually teaching only 20-25 hours per week, and you have meetings and planning time and get to go home at 300 or 330 or 400 pm). I've done non-profit/volunteer work for five years (one of them at the exact poverty line "wage/stipend" set by AmeriCorps of $8,740 in 1998)...I've worked in professional sports and seen the 100+ hour work weeks when your team has a homestand...unless you walk in someone else's shoes, you can't really understand it. And honestly, even though that was the lowest salary I ever made in one year, it was the greatest experience in terms of learning about the "real world" for me. Even here in China, I feel like teachers are all expected to be babysitters, pseudo-parents, counselors, entertainers/clowns...that all the problems of society are dumped in our laps. In the end, we all should be careful about judging someone, because the odds are that are understanding of their situation isn't very realistic, it's based on our own frame of reference or lens.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 28, 2012 -> 04:18 PM) The book was also the same way (apparently, I didn't read it). You can read this long review that details a lot of the problems with the story, if you want! Essentially, the dialect is seriously overdone, the black characters are "Magic Negroes" that are used as plot devices to help white people, the black men are barely portrayed and then only in negative stereotypes. Some excerpts: Legend of Bagger Vance comes to mind, right away. The "over-embracing" of the girl from PRECIOUS also is right up there. Of course, you have all these other subtexts in that movie, her weight, her color, her being a female...ironically, the best performance was from her mother (in the movie), but that woman is almost despised in the industry for being difficult to work with so she went more unnoticed. Viola Davis has been celebrated ever since her cinematic showdown with Meryl Street (Catholic nun) in the powerful movie DOUBT...the two leading Oscar contenders a couple of years later. It was like "wow, she can really act!" but nobody had paid any attention to her before that moment in her career. Taraji Henson in Benjamin Button, the Iranian actress in House of Sand and Fog...I'm not so sure it's being black as much as a minority, same thing with everyone going crazy over Frieda Pinto and Slumdog, or the young Colombian actress (she played a drug mule) in MARIA FULL OF GRACE. But YET, I will definitely agree that the applause was more pronounced...it's a "feel good" story, Hollywood is telling us what our emotions should be. Personally, I thought THE HELP was GOOD, but certainly not great. Jessica Chastain (who's been in about 10 movies the last 2 years) was the actress I thought turned in the most exceptional performance. But, because of the theme of the movie, it was an automatic that the focus would be on Davis and Spencer and not Chastain, Emma Stone or Bryce Dallas Howard. As for Holocaust movies, you've also got on include LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL and THE READER. Although I'm sure some will say making movies about dying/wounded animals is just as popular: Marley & Me, Seabiscuit, Secretariat, War Horse, etc.

http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/news/artic...ws&c_id=cws Glad he seems to be very confident, but there's just no way he's making this team out of Spring Training (in the bullpen) unless Humber's and Stewart's arms fall off...and even then they have Castro, Santiago, Axelrod and a couple of other options like Petricka or Rienzo.

Forgot that Gary Thorne and Wayne Hagen worked together as the White Sox radio team...that was a great pairing, while it lasted.

They even stuck Brian Daubach in the outfield, if memory serves me correctly.

The Pianist and Life Is Beautiful being two examples...Saving Private Ryan actually got screwed a bit, although that wasn't a "Holocaust flick" per se. As for milkman's comment, one month ago, Clooney was the clear favorite. Then the tides shifted suddenly (one of the reasons was the relatively weak box office for Descendants) and the Weinstein Brother's marketing and PR blitz ended up carrying the day for THE ARTIST. Then again, Descendants nearly doubled the box office for THE ARTIST...so the "compromise" was probably giving them the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.

We've actually been blessed with some pretty talented guys over the years. John Rooney, Wayne Hagin and Dave Wills all went on to bigger and better things around MLB.

I'll give an example of "customer service" in the Philippines. The outsourced call center agents are fired on the spot the 2nd time they get any kind of negative customer feedback or a client/customer they have on the phone asks to speak to a supervisor. Zero tolerance, even though in the majority of the situations, the fault lies more with the caller's impatience and frustration dealing with someone from the Phils or India who doesn't speak quite clearly enough to be well understood.

Need more of those four guys being the guys on the back of their baseball cards through 2009 and not them being "themselves," whatever that was, in 2011 (Rios/Peavy/Dunn/Beckham).

I could buy the argument the first Sherlock Holmes, with McAdams more of a presence and a less convoluted/labyrinthine plot...that was perhaps better than Moneyball. Maybe being too familiar with the material and knowing all the factual inaccuracies beforehand made the Pitt movie a bit annoying, or maybe it was my anti-Beane bias that colored my viewing experience negatively.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Feb 27, 2012 -> 12:39 AM) I enjoyed Moneyball, but it was a good, not great movie. I wonder how much of that is being familiar with the book and Beane/The A's. My sister saw it, and texted me today that she thought it would walk away with some hardware. Honestly thought Sherlock was way better. *ducks* The second Shelock Holmes movie? REALLY? Two more shoutouts...UNDEFEATED (not the one about Sarah Palin) and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, a very whimsical but entertaining picture I would have enjoyed more when studying Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Salvador Dali and Gertrude Stein in university lit classes.

It goes back to Roberto Benini/Spielberg, the Avatar/Hurt Locker showdown...I was actually surprised that Clooney didn't win because he's such a media/charity/Hollywood darling these days, but I can't say that I can truthfully compare the two performances because I have't been able to watch THE ARTIST yet. "Popular or mainstream" opinion (MTV/People's Choice/Golden Globes, etc.) will always give the big stars and the movies that at least 25% of the people have seen a big advantage. Actually, as an avid movie watcher, I enjoy discovering movies that have great performances that I might not have otherwise watched, like Michael Shannon in Take Shelter, A Better Life, A Separation, etc. I'm sure I'll also watch THE IRON LADY now just to see Streep's performance. HURT LOCKER Domestic: $17,017,811 34.6% + Foreign: $32,212,961 65.4% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- = Worldwide: $49,230,772 THE ARTIST Total Lifetime Grosses Domestic: $31,874,000 41.6% + Foreign: $44,672,305 58.4% (mostly from France) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- = Worldwide: $76,546,305 We Need To Talk About Kevin is a movie that was TOO dark for the Academy to recognize, too disturbing, but Tilda Swinton totally deserved a nomination for that performance, and I'm not even a fan of hers.

No Moneyball wins, unsurprisingly. HUGO once again surfacing as the most highly-underrated/underviewed and poorly marketed movie in the entire mix of movies this year. Definitely worth your time. A SEPARATION and A BETTER LIFE, two great films that virtually nobody has seen...

Wed, two short squad games, Dodgers on THUR and the Royals on FRI. Funny question from my SAT review book I'm using with students here in CHINA. Although the Chicago White Sox win more often than the Chicago Cubs, Chicago residents, who are historically avid baseball fans, prefer the Cubs. A. Although the Chicago White Sox win more often than the Chicago Cubs, Chicago residents, who are historically avid baseball fans, prefer the Cubs. (NO CHANGE)

First semi-surprise, Clooney loses to the French dude from THE ARTIST. Wonder if we'll still remember: the Actor in a Leading Role, Jean Dujardin Director, Michel Hazanavicius five years from now?