Lip Man 1

Dunning allowed one run and struck out 11 in seven innings tonight. This kid (along with Hansen) have looked VERY impressive.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 31, 2017 -> 02:51 PM) The Dodgers playoff choke job is gonna be even more epic this season Let's hope not. They can beat the Cubs.

QUOTE (FloydBannister1983 @ Jul 31, 2017 -> 10:14 AM) Awaiting Lipman's reply that attendance doesn't matter ... It does matter. Just not to the extent that it used to say back in 1957 or 1965 or 1977 or 1984.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 30, 2017 -> 04:22 PM) I loved how you glossed over Howry and Foulke contributions and glossed right over the 2000 division title, they contributed mightily.in order to b**** about a division they weren't going to win anyway. Look at Alvarez's performance in SF. He had a bad rest of the season. Also of note, the next season after you wrote this claiming the league had "caught up " to Foulke, he had a great year and led the league in saves. And although you mentioned the Jaime Navarro disaster, you overlooked the trade of Navarro for Eldred and Valentin. I loved how you nit / pick and miss the overall point of the exercise because it apparently doesn't fit with your view of the situation. Who said they weren't going to win that division? How do you know?? Did you have the ability for see into the future? If so why aren't you a millionaire? LOL. They were 3 1/2 game out. Cleveland had lost 10 of 14. ANYTHING was possible. You simply don't know and neither do I. What IS known is they weren't six out, or 10 out or 12 out were they? I didn't "gloss" over Howry or Foulke or their contributions. Gave them full credit for the help they did. They were the only guys who made an impact at all in the deal. As far as Navarro, trading him did nothing to mitigate the impact of the WFT on their attendance (which coming so soon after the labor impasse badly hurt attendance for several years) or on the perception of the organization / franchise locally or nationally. That was a few years after the fact. Had ZERO impact on things at the time. I was looking at the impact of that deal on the franchise five years after the fact and it was significant primarily OFF the field which was the focus of the story. Feel free to take the time to write a historical look back on it yourself if you feel my interpretation was so off base historically. I'd love to read it. Oh and you mention Foulke, in that 2000 ALDS that you say I overlooked (because it had nothing to do with the story as I said of the impact / perception of the trade) he pitched 2.1 innings, allowed three runs, walked two and allowed two home runs.

QUOTE (WBWSF @ Jul 30, 2017 -> 04:37 PM) If JR had done it right when the new stadium was built we wouldn't be complaining about the attendance and stadium. All he had to do was build a nice stadium in a good location, which he didn't do. For what it's worth I think the next White Sox stadium will be built by the United Center when the present lease runs out. Sigh. Same old, same old...rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. I think the next stadium will be exactly in the same location when the lease runs out because they'll still be using THAT stadium. Absolutely nothing wrong with it after the roughly 70 million dollars in improvements over the years.

QUOTE (Quin @ Jul 30, 2017 -> 05:52 PM) They can privately fund it. If the stadium gets the job done (it does) and has ease of access (does it get any easier?) There is no reason to waste tax dollars on a stadium. Agreed. If ownership or new ownership wants to build a new stadium at a different location that's all well and good as long as THEY pay for it (which frankly isn't likely to happen. I can think of only two cases where it did, Joe Robbie paid for and built the Dolphins stadium and Peter McGowan built the Giants baseball park.) If that is not going to happen I have a hard time thinking the city / state will pay for a new one when the old one is still perfectly fine. We're not talking about a 100 year old stadium are we?

Greg: Thank you. It took a lot of time to research, look through old video clips and so on. It was one of those stories that when I got into it, I really wanted to do it well and accurately.

Always nice to get a win anytime especially with this bunch.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 29, 2017 -> 04:50 PM) You know what's funny, when this happened it was outrageous. Now it's accepted and pretty normal True, the Padres actually were the first team to dump everyone back in 1993 but the difference was the Sox were 3 1/2 back and Cleveland had lost 10 of 14 right before the trade with the Giants. I think that is what got everyone's attention.

Gonzales is the only one left now. Give Hahn credit, he worked with any team that would offer a decent return for Sox players. Well done in my opinion.

Five years after the deal I did a long, historical story on that day and the impact at that time on the franchise. Here is the link for any interested: http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/rwas/in...y=2&id=1528

Nice post by Lillian. My own opinion of next year's team is quite simple. Play / acquire anyone who MAY be of some value in two years assuming the team has turned things around. Find out if any of those guys can contribute to a good team at the major league level in various ways. 2018 is about continuing to develop depth and talent, not wins and losses. Oh, and to get another very high draft pick.

I suspect that certain teams are going to spend incredible amounts of money in an effort to win, restrictions, taxes be dammed. That's simply the way they are.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 28, 2017 -> 02:02 PM) The fluctuations in attendance back then are crazy: https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CH...le-scores.shtml May 28 vs. KC, Tuesday day game: 3,647 May 30 vs. CLE Thursday day doubleheader: 38,150 June 1 vs. DET : Saturday afternoon: 9,413 June 8 vs. BAL: Saturday afternoon: 5,642 June 11 vs. Yankees: Tuesday night: 49,114 June 12 vs. Yankees: Wednesday night: 40,033 Nobody went to games on Saturday afternoons back then? Weather may have been a factor with some of those games as well as the opponent.

QUOTE (The Mighty Mite @ Jul 28, 2017 -> 01:58 PM) That was probaby the fight when Walt Dropo beat the crap out of Enos Slaughter. It was...Slaughter walking back to the dugout with his jersey and undershirt ripped to shreds and his hat backwards is one of the most famous sports photo's of the 1950's. Getting back to the business story, the Sox TV numbers though are staggeringly bad even though fans seem excited about the rebuild. Remember they have to negotiate a new TV contract with someone after 2019. If the rebuild is showing promise they could get a good amount of money...if not? That's major trouble considering the deals other teams, including smaller market clubs, like Seattle, Arizona and St. Louis have received. For the Cubs it really doesn't matter since they are starting their own network after 2019 and since they don't figure to fall apart in the next two years they are going to be getting a LOT of money including from advertisers.

QUOTE (The Mighty Mite @ Jul 28, 2017 -> 01:38 PM) I remember a day in the early 60s at Wrigley where 5,000 was a large crowd for weekday game. Anyway that was the first satellite in space able to transmit TV to Europe, it was called Telstar and about 10 minutes before the transmission PA announcer Pat Pieper asked all fans in the park to move down to the lower box seats so It would look like the place was full. Bleacher fans stayed put to go along with the prank. Just last night I was going through some archived material (my summer project has been to organize all the stuff I have in printed form on the Sox in individual folders by season). I came across the front page of the Chicago Tribune sports section from June 14, 1957 it was the day after the huge "base-brawl" between the Yankees and Sox at Comiskey that had racial overtones, went for :30 minutes and saw five players ejected. Anyway on the bottom right side of the front page was a box with this headline: "Sox, Yanks draw 112,548...Giants, Cubs draw 8,518." Both teams had played a three game series.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Jul 27, 2017 -> 02:36 PM) This is the quote, from Fan Graphs' Dave Cameron, that stands out to me: "For these deals to work out as well as the White Sox hope, their player development system is going to have to take some raw materials and turn them into polished big leaguers". With this team's future completely invested in their farm system, if management doesn't make a concerted effort to put in place the right coaching staff, failing would be as much their responsibility, as it would be the failure of the prospects, themselves. I have no idea from where the help would come, or how feasible it is to acquire competent coaches and instructors, but that should be the goal. The front office should certainly have sufficient financial resources to dedicate toward that goal, as the team's payroll projects to be as low it has been, in a long time. Very, very, VERY true. You've got to be able to teach especially the fundamentals.

The better question to ask may be which Sox player WON'T be on the DL this season?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-the-white-...069920?mod=e2fb The biggest thing that caught my eye was this paragraph: "In Hahn’s ideal world, the White Sox might have gotten here sooner. He acknowledged that there have been other moments where he and Williams proposed a total rebuild, as the team heads toward its fifth straight losing season.

QUOTE (SonofaRoache @ Jul 26, 2017 -> 01:32 PM) Advertisers are going to spend their money on the Cubs, heck the score 670 booted the Sox and picked up the Cubs. Wait till you see what happens advertiser wise when the Cubs start their own TV Network. They'll suck all the air out of the room. (As well as $$$$$$$)

What's the over / under on him back on it in a week? LOL.

QUOTE (Special K @ Jul 26, 2017 -> 09:03 AM) While I disagree, I can see where he's coming from. It is conceivable that deals that make a competitor in your market better may not be best for your bottom line as far as losing fans, sales, etc. So why would you want to contribute to that? He's running a business. That's a true statement from a business sense, however it hasn't seem to bother the organization over basically the entire length of their ownership that the Sox are playing second fiddle in their own town. And they certainly had real chances to increase their share of their base in this area...when the bought the team and then started signing good players, when they opened the new park and of course, when they won the World Series. They never aggressively took on the Cubs (save for Brooks Boyer's brilliant ad campaign "Us vs. Them.") So why should that really matter now? I mean remember "we're Chicago's American League team..." repeated time and time again when they bought the franchise through the period when Eddie Einhorn was heavily involved. (As if Sox fans were going to support the Cubs and Cub fans were going to support the Sox.)

If I was Rick I'd try to expand the deal to include Gonzales and Melky to try to get a better prospect.

It's a good question in my opinion. Obviously he's got the stuff but he's inconsistent and can't stay healthy (which may be why he's inconsistent). To me he seems like another rushed Sox prospect who still needs a lot of work learning his trade. The good news is that for the next two years he can learn on the job...the downside long term is his agent. He's going to hit the free agent market and we'll see if the Sox will be willing to match what his agent is going to try to get for him.

So...this is what a win feels like? Especially nice when it comes against the Cubs. Don't stop now boys!