mmmmmbeeer

CR --- 3.2 IP 6ER 7R 2K 4BB 8H Hate to be pessimistic, but if CLE and KC can slap him around, TB will destroy him. I hope I'm wrong.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Jul 20, 2009 -> 04:54 PM) Agreed. In fact $20,000 would be a haul for Dewayne Wise. So with TCQ playing on one foot and no depth in our system, you don't think DET or MIN would drop $20k to leave the Sox without a 4th OF (assuming one of Pods or TCQ go down before the end of the season)? What disappoints me is that we're stuck arguing about Wise or Anderson as our 4th OF, THAT is the real failure on KW's part, not any decision he made today. Anderson sucks and if you really believe that all the leaks we've read about his bad attitude don't carry a grain of salt, well, I can understand why you're upset today. Wise sucks too, but the one thing I gained from that interview where he called out the fans for booing him was that the dude loved the franchise and was giving 110%. Give me a guy who understands he's not a great player over a guy who has no clue how bad he is any day of the week. Welcome back, Carlos.....if he and Pods can stay healthy this could be one helluva fun 2nd half.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jul 19, 2009 -> 11:59 AM) The Morrissey idea is just stupid. We are a worse team trading Danks and Ramirez for Halladay. And if we give up just minor leaguers for Halladay, we kill our system and again have a one-year window to win it all next year with very little flexibility in FA and nothing ready in the minors. I am content to sit and play with what we have. We will be competitive for a division this year clearly, but keeping everybody and adding two pieces in FA + the solid minor league players next year, we have a window of at least 3-5 years of highly competitive teams. Everybody would love Halladay, but the price is just outrageous. There's no way that's the price, no sane GM in baseball would offer up 2 IMPACT MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYERS with ridiculously low salaries for a single pitcher with a year and half on his deal. Absolutely ludicrous to even imagine. The Twins didn't even get CLOSE to that when trading Santana who, IMO, is a better pitcher than Halladay AND agreed to an extension.

QUOTE (chisoxfan09 @ Jul 19, 2009 -> 06:30 AM) Is it me or have KW and Ozzie really disagreed a lot this year on player development from AA/AAA to the bigs and Ozzie has been over ruled on more than one occasion? He seems to have been against Slayer coming up and certainly Poreda. But KW won´t over rule him on his mancrush on Wise which is what I don´t get. Not a very clear cut decision making year IMO. I think you're spot-on here, dude. Compiling may of the little snippets and tidbits of info we get here and there, it becomes glaringly obvious that Ozzie didn't want Beckham OR Poreda up this season. Kenny is the boss and did what he felt was correct. Given Ozzie's demeanor, I doubt he appreciated KW trumping his perceptions of what the team needed, or didn't need, in regards to kids coming up. Unfortunately KW can't sit in the dugout and hold Ozzie's hand, forcing him to insert Poreda in high-leverage situations (although with Beckham there may have been a bit of pressure on Ozzie from above). Poreda could make this debate a moot point if he would work to develop secondary and tertiary pitches. I'll never understand it. I'm just a scrub who played little league but, with most pitches, if someone taught me how to grip and release a particular pitch I was able to get the movement/action on the ball I was supposed to. Obviously it wasn't ML caliber or I wouldn't be on this board, but I don't understand how a guy with arm strength and a feel for the baseball can't learn a new pitch relatively well in a relatively short amount of time. Even if he just picked up a couple of average breaking pitches that he can locate, the element of surprise works to his favor and he will get hitters out. I hate to simplify the job of a professional, it just baffles me every time a kid makes it to this level of ball with only 1 non-fastball pitch in their arsenal.

That manager's corner with Earl Weaver was priceless.....never heard that one before.

I was in the Air Force for 4 years and loved it. The pay was crap but the training, friends, and experiences were priceless. No way I'd join the Army or Marines. They may offer you a bunch of loot up front but it's typically for infantry jobs and I think you know you're overqualified for that. The Navy has very high standards and is a top notch organization but, to me, the chance of being a on a freaking boat out in BFE for 3 months didn't sound very appealing. The Air Force was about as close to a regular job as you could get. I was in satellite and wideband communications, a mobile unit which means we did some field work, but I'm still in a similar field today and doing pretty well for myself. Within many shops, you called superiors within a few levels by their first names, food was excellent compared to other services as was base housing, basic training sucked but it's a very short (compared to other branches) 6 weeks. Hours were 7-4 with a 1 hour lunch...you get all federal holidays and a pretty generous amount of vacation time (I can't remember the specific number of days off the top of my head). Go and take your asvab through an Air Force recruiter, see how you score. If you score well enough you'll find yourself qualified for most any job (not a pilot though). Then, if you so choose, you go to the MEPS station where they conduct a hardcore physical including strength tests and the like. They use this information in conjunction with your asvab scores to let you know what you're qualified for. You'll also get to fill out a sheet listing the bases you'd prefer to be stationed as well as an opportunity to create a wishlist of jobs you qualify for. At this point, if you aren't satisfied with how everything is going, you can still back out. Do you have a degree?

Gotta be a move to set up a move.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 2, 2009 -> 10:06 AM) Tear through them like s*** through a goose mark. Yeah!!!! Whatever that means, do it....it sounds pretty bad ass.

QUOTE (watchtower41 @ Jun 18, 2009 -> 09:45 AM) I've been meaning to get this for my iPhone. How is the quality for radio broadcasts? It's wondeful the iPhone is great for so many things, unfortuanately talking is not one of them. So just so I'm on the same page, this is the 9.99 MLB app which will give you radio feed for any game, MLB at bat and certain video feeds of games? That's a helluva deal if so. I got the CBS NCAA app during March Madness and it's been my favorite app ever thus far, getting to watch live streams of tournament games from anywhere was pure bliss. That's the one. The radio feed has been pretty reliable when I've used it.

QUOTE (103 mph screwball @ Jun 18, 2009 -> 09:17 AM) Yep. Looks like I will be able to stream the game on my iphone. Wow. I'm not even a subscriber to the mlb tv packages. I have a feeling that att will not be able to keep up with the demand. Yeah man, super cheap, albeit on a smaller screen. Isn't the audio package itself, on the computer, like $15 yet the AtBat app with audio and now video is just $10. I'm anxious to see how smooth the stream will be.

If you've got OS 3.0 and have updated your MLB AtBat app, starting today you will get live streams of games on your phone. Looks like they're starting with just select games (today is the first day of the service), but the Sox-Cubs game today will be streaming. I could be reading this all wrong, but I can't think of any other way to take "streaming video with OS 3.0 starts today" including an mlb.tv link on the game page that wasn't ever listed before. confirmed -- http://www.intomobile.com/2009/06/17/at-ba...-on-iphone.html

So should I go kick my wife off of the living room TV or are we facing a delay?

I liked Hawks comments with absolutely no hesitation in between them... "Josh Fields on Deck, Give AJ the green light here on 3-0"

I thought Poreda's velocity was supposed to be 98ish on his fastball... MIL broadcast had him at 92 mostly topping out at 94? Is their gun off?

My question is why was Pods playing so deep with Suppan at bat?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 3, 2009 -> 10:39 PM) The only strange thing was it really was Betemit's inability to field at all that pretty much cost Josh Fields his every day job, although Josh could have done more to keep it, but they aren't going to call up Beckham to ride pine. It's funny you bring that up. I wasn't 100% behind bringing Beckham up until after watching last night's game....a game in which Josh Fields didn't play.

How does Kids Day work? The fam and I are going to be in town to catch the game Sunday and I see it's a "Kids Day". Isn't this the deal where they let the kids go on the field as a group and run around the perimeter? Anyone know how you go about getting your kids involved in this?

Not one mention in that entire article about the $22M elephant in the room. Pretty irresponsible journalism.

QUOTE (shipps @ May 24, 2009 -> 07:48 AM) No that is really bad in my book. Unless he is dominating down there he doesnt come back up. Only 2BB, which is pretty much the only thing I care about with JC's ml lines.

2 quality starts for Richard in a row.....good to see and very important for him to gain some confidence and get in a rhythm.

oddest thing I've seen on gamecenter

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 11, 2009 -> 10:31 AM) The good news is the Sox apparently have no use for a closer at the present time. Ozzie's comments in that ESPN article piss me off. I mean really, what happened to the old Oz?

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ May 8, 2009 -> 05:12 PM) I don't think anyone is advocating a "bean ball war". Let's see what KW actually said: "You can't allow other teams to pitch inside and knock your players down and not reciprocate," Williams said Thursday, mindful that Sox batters have been drilled 14 times, compared to their opponents getting nailed four times. "You can't do it. You have to establish the inside part of the plate and move hitters off the plate to open it up more. If you don't do that and allow the other team to do it to your hitters, then you're losing at both ends." Nowhere does KW advocate throwing a bean ball nor even hitting anyone. He mentions pitching inside. If you don't believe hitters are more comfortable when they know the opposing pitcher will never move them off of the plate with an inside pitch, you must have never played baseball and haven't watched much baseball for too long either. Again, your "bean ball argument" is a red herring. And now you contradict your previous statements by saying "Brushbacks? fine with me." Just a hunch, but I'll bet you get most of your opinions from listening to Boers and Bernstein. Anyway, the point is that you can't let the opposing batters get too comfortable in leaning out over the plate. Keeping them honest with a few pitches off the inside corner every now and then and making them move around a little bit is an effective tactic for any pitcher. And allowing the opposition to continually move your batters off the plate and actually drilling a good number of them while your pitchers fail to even establish the inside of the plate and make their hitters move a little is just bad baseball. The one thing that bothers me about all this is why did it get to the point where the GM had to say it? The White Sox under Ozzie have never handled this well. Ozzie always would talk about retaliation publicly resulting in the league and the umpires scrutinizing the Sox pitchers too closely, putting them at a disadvantage. Sox hitters would get drilled, and then the first time A Sox pitcher would hit an opposing batter, it would be the Sox who would get the warning. The best way to handle this is to say nothing, let your pitcher do what needs to be done, and if questioned afterward say that it was just an unfortunate pitch that got away. Ozzie's demeanor on the field has changed quite a bit since his sensitivity training. I wonder if someone in a position of power sent him a message that if he doesn't cool it he'll be gone. He doesn't argue. He doesn't insist his pitchers protect his hitters. He doesn't talk near as much trash about the opposition or his own players for that matter as he did a couple years ago. I think it's very telling that this had to come from KW.

The last 2 times Ozzie has put out these ridiculously bad lineups, they have scored well and won. We'll see if his luck continues.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 30, 2009 -> 08:00 AM) Can't know without more data. What does your current mortgage look like? How much on it, how much equity (%), rate, period, type... 2 points is potentially a lot of money to put up front - the more front-loaded you go like that, the longer you need to be willing to stay in the mortgage to make it worthwhile. Is the 4.5% locked completely? How likely are you to move or sell the house, and have to re-do the mortgage again, any time soon? Could be other factors too, like, how much cash you have available, what rates might appear at different equity levels, etc. I'm currently a little over 2 years into a 30 year fixed VA loan at 6.5% We plan on staying in this home for several years. The 4.5% isn't locked in yet, but it can be locked in as soon as I give her the go-ahead. We have very little equity in the house, negative equity actually with how short a time we've been there. The market here in the ATL area has taken a hit like most other places. I don't feel that the refi amount, 100% thanks to VA (also will roll in points and closing costs), is well beyond the value of the home (still within the Zillow estimate). I'm stuck going VA because their streamlines don't require appraisals and will finance 100%. Having only been in this house 2 years with dropping values, we'd have to come a TON out of pocket to go with a conventional refi to take advantage of the rates available these days(if only I was a deadbeat mortgage holder, I'd be in better shape). I guess my main question is about the points, if it's worth it. From what I read, points are tax deductible. They'll empty my current escrow account and give me that money directly, as well as a 2 month payment lapse before the new loan kicks in. These 2 things will easily take care of the cost of the 2 points. I'm hesitant because I've heard in the past the same thing, that points are typically a bad thing. Problem is that I'm worried that theory doesn't necessarily hold true when dealing with an opportunity to get a 4.5% fixed rate on a home you plan in staying in for a long time.