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QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 27, 2012 -> 05:45 PM) Sox went 8-1 vs. Seattle while Detroit went 1-5. They are also 5-7 against the Indians this year.

I can't watch a game with my friends without a few of these quotes coming up: This guy here is dead! Cross him off then. Lemme think it over, will ya, Charlie? I got a guy on the other line about some white walls. I'll talk to ya later. Forget about he curveball Ricky, give em the heater. Strike this mother f***er out! I say f*** you Jobu, I do it myself! But if you ever, ever tank another play like you did today, I'm gonna cut your nuts off and stuff em down your f***in' throat! And for the Indians, that's one run on, let's see...one hit? That's all we got?, one goddamn hit? [Monty: You can't say "goddamn" on the air!] Don't worry; nobody's listening anyway. Juuust a bit outside.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Aug 24, 2012 -> 09:52 AM) Damn. That makes me feel pretty lucky. The mini fridge I used was the same one my sister used in college - and she's 8 years older than me! And it still works. It's now 14 years old. We have a mini-fridge that we bought when we got our first pop-up camper back in 2002. We didn't use it everyday but it still works. Now it sits in a shed behind our 32-foot camper and keeps our pop and bottles of water cold.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 06:30 PM) Ball hit the dirt, ump called it incorrectly. He called it a strike?

He must be an Angels fan. It hit the dirt.

Kinda seems like he's throwing the whole team under the bus here. Sounds like he's saying the guy has no protection because the rest of the team sucks.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 02:47 PM) No, Jerry should be embarrassed for not giving the hometown media the good stuff. He probably would never have said that to Chicago writers. You can't blame them for not wanting to play up something he said to the New York media. Who cares who he said it to. The NYT isn't a small paper. You can't tell me the Chicago media didn't know he said. They just ignored it.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 02:44 PM) So what you are saying is there's a chance. So what you are saying is there's a chance. I've said over and over IF ROBIN WANTS TO, he'll be our manager the next couple decades. I concede he may not want to. Yes, there is a small chance, but it's not entirely up to Robin either. It's mostly up to the ownership. Whoever that may be in the next couple decades. I'm sure back in 2005 a lot of people didn't envision Ozzie leaving the way he did either. Things change.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 12:04 PM) Has anyone ever taken a paycut for a better shift? I pretty much have until 12:30 to answer. The paycut is about $55 on paycheck every two weeks, it's not a lot but it's not like a make bank... Scenario: My current shift involves working 12 hour NIGHT shifts, 3 times a week but sometimes 6 times out of 7 nights. I would be moving on to four 10 hour days starting Sunday, ending Wednesday. At night I work mostly by myself, no one to talk to, the shifts are easy (but extremely boring at the same time) because not much happens at night but I have to be there just in case, I kind of set up the work for the following day. The new shift, I would be working with others, have a lot more work (I feel the days would go by faster and I would be doing more important things). Bottom line a position opened up and its the only way I can escape working nights however it comes with a bit of a pay cut. I can only speak from second-hand experience but I would think the change from working nights to working days would make up for it. My wife has worked nights for years and absolutely hates it.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 12:09 PM) Is it just me, or do those two statements seem to be contradictory? Oops. Leyland has been around for 21 years. Fixed it.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 10:40 PM) Tell me why Robin won't be manager the next 25 years. There have been 674 managers in MLB history. At the end of this year Dusty Baker will become the 23rd manager to have managed 20 or more years. Only 10 have managed 25 or more. Only 5 have manged the same team for 20 or more. Only 3 have managed the same team for 25 or more. Of the currently active managers the one with the most years as a manager is Jim Leyland with 21. Of the currently active managers the one with the most years with the same team is Mike Scioscia with 12. Simply put, history is not on your side.

One thing you can count on with Greg. He never lets facts get in the way of his strong opinion. However odd it may be.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 11, 2012 -> 08:40 AM) White Sox have never won on my birthday either. For a long time I just hoped for them to play on my birthday. Just because it would've meant they had gone deep into the post-season.

Every year I hope to see a White Sox winner on my birthday, but it has yet to happen. It would be really nice to see it this year.

QUOTE (MuckFinnesota @ Aug 9, 2012 -> 06:03 PM) I hated Cleveland in the late 90s and early 00's. I couldnt stand the Twins when they were vying for first place and I now hate the Tigers the most. I don't hate the Cubs but I do hate their uneducated fans. Their educated baseball fans (>10% of them) I respect. But the rest of those clowns can go f*** themselves. I also hate ESPN and their lack of Midwest coverage. Yankees and Red Sox speculation is not news but Konerko's concussion is. ^^^This. I couldn't have said it any better.

I use FB for same reason as many others. To keep up with friends, family and ex-coworkers that I rarely get a chance to talk to otherwise. I actually connected with one friend that I hadn't seen since grade school. He's now my financial advisor and is helping me take care of my retirement fund. I've actually learned things about a few of my family members based on their posts. The ones that I only see once or twice a year for holidays and family gatherings. One of my cousins has become very religious. Never would have guessed that when we were kids. I also found out that my aunt's live-in boyfriend who has been with her my entire life is bat-s*** crazy. My wife made a comment on one of his rants about animal cruelty and he started going off on her and my daughter.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 10, 2012 -> 10:08 AM) I think it depends on the age level of the children. If these are 8-9-10 year old girls, I think expanding the strike zone like that just to get the game over with is a bad idea because these girls are still learning what a strike zone is and how to decide whether or not to swing. That's the exact age group. QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Aug 10, 2012 -> 10:15 AM) I'll give you an umpire's take...in literally a 20 run game, the zone is getting bigger for both teams (and once it's at 10, you're enough in to do that). HOWEVER, something that bounces on the plate...that's not a strike anywhere. You're expanding it on all sides, everything is still hittable, and if the coach gets it (yours seemed in the same book but not on the same exact page) you're having your team swing at anything "hittable." You instruct them to treat it like a hit and run, etc, learn on hitting bad balls. Taking some swings at pitches you know aren't strikes isn't going to mess you up later, you know you are just swinging to swing if it's hittable. That's the way to speed up what had to be a painful as hell game to watch, and isn't fun for anyone. That game just needs to end quicker than usual. If you call a normal strike zone at that point, you're clueless. But again, you're not calling something that's on the plate, or neck high, etc. You're expanding it enough to get it moving. For example in a HS game you're calling another ball or so on the outside, and you're going further above the belt. But again, in HS, both teams (and most importantly the coaches) get it, and want it, so you never hear a word unless it's like you said, bouncing in or something silly. I agree with everything here. Exactly what I was thinking.

My daughter's softball team played in their annual end-of-the-year tournament last weekend. On Friday a friend of ours gave her a different bat to try out. His daughter had been using it but her league was done for the season. She usually uses a regular aluminum bat that we picked up for $30 at Wal-Mart. This was a $250 composite bat. On Saturday she managed to hit her very first homerun with it and she was ecstatic. She's not very tall and the pitchers aren't very accurate so even getting a hit rather than a walk is exciting for her. On Sunday they had an umpire that seemed to hold a grudge when the coach complained about a called strike on a bunt attempt where the batter very clearly brought the bat back. There seemed to be 2 different strike zones for each team after that call. In the last inning I loudly mentioned something about an inconsistent strike zone when a pitch right down the middle of the plate was called a ball. The coach turned around and told me “It’s ok, settle down. We’ll get our calls too.” On Monday they played for the championship. The team they faced, to put bluntly, was horrible. In the last inning we were up by about 20 runs. In my daughter’s last AB, she watched a pitch literally bounce on the plate and it was called a strike. The second pitch was in the same spot but she swung at it. The third pitch also bounced on the plate and was called a strike. I again loudly mentioned the strike zone starting at their knees rather than the bottom of their feet. It was literally the worst 3 strike calls I had seen all season long. I heard the coach talking to my daughter in the dugout but all I caught was “I know they weren’t strikes and you know they weren’t strikes…” Afterward he came over and told me that he told the ump to “expand the strike zone”. I hate to be “that guy” at my kids little league game but that seems like a pretty BS move to me. Never in my life have I heard a coach tell the umpire to call strikes on pitches that the kids have been taught all season long not to swing at. He basically took her bat right out of her hands. If anything, he should have told her to go up and swing at anything no matter what. At least she would’ve had a chance then and not been frustrated at the umpire making horrible calls. Or am I wrong?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 7, 2012 -> 03:29 PM) Cause I didn't know how to put it in Slam. Go to the forum and click "new topic" just like you did to create this thread?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 6, 2012 -> 08:26 PM) I know I'm late here. But I just can't help myself. Look, when Jason created this board, you know, SOXTALK (a baseball team), I feel confident when I say he believed that the majority of the conversation would be centered around, I don't know, the WHITE SOX. wow. oooh. damn. whatever. And then we went into other teams, mainly chicago teams, that was fine. Sports should dominate, you know, a sports board. The last three years have been an atrocity. I feel like this board should be on par with that of nyyfans or sonsofsamhorn where they, **gulp**, talk about sports. But for some reason, old, crusty and flat out angry people have taken over. And it's sad. Would you old and angry people please get a life (I'm not talking about all of you, but you know who you are), and stop acting like you know everything. Total posts in the sports forums (PHT, Future Sox, Diamond Club, A&J's OTSB) = 1,381,373 Total posts in the off-topic forums (SLAM and buster) = 504,594

So I went to the auto parts store and put 5 quarts of oil on the counter and the following conversation ensued. employee: "Is that all you need?" me: "No, I need a filter too." employee: "What kind of filter? Air filter? Cabin filter? Fuel filter?" me (pointing at the oil on the counter): "oil filter" He goes to the back to get one and I look at my friend who's standing next to me and just shake my head and say "Really?" No genius, I'm buying 5 quarts of oil and decided I need a furnace filter while I'm here.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 3, 2012 -> 09:19 AM) I would write a long paragraph about how my job confirms that statement, but I'm just not motivated enough to do it right now.

I find it hard to believe that this guy lives in the same reality that the rest of us do.

I got a letter in the mail the other day telling me that the elementary school that my youngest daughter goes to has failed to meet the state standards for 2 years in a row. We could transfer her to another school but every single elementary school in the district failed to meet the standards. Schools in the surrounding districts don't have room to take on extra students, so we are pretty much stuck. Registration starts tomorrow. I remember when I was in school our district was considered to be one of the better ones in the area. I guess that was only compared to Rockford schools.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 26, 2012 -> 11:07 PM) If I was a baseball manager I'd fail just like Ozzie, cause I'd go with the guy (for a long long time) that the GM and owner acquired for me in the offseason. I mean ultimately I think what Ozzie told Bell in that meeting is true: "We are not gonna win without you as closer." I find it pretty wild that the owner and GM wanted Bell demoted since they and their scouts wanted Bell in the first place. But I'd stick with the hi paid acquisition a long time and deal with the fallout in the offseason if the rotten closer didn't get me fired first. That's one of the big reasons most people are glad Ozzie is gone. We'd much rather have a manager that plays the guys that give him the best chance to win. Not just blindly go with the guy that has highest salary while continually losing game after game.