Lip Man 1

41st time in 87 games played this year the Sox have scored three runs or less. That's 56.3% of their games. Incredible. Another fan asked "when will this team start hitting?" Given that over half a season is in the books the probable answer is "not this year." As Kenny would say, "it is what it is..."

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 17, 2015 -> 10:15 AM) Interesting article and great to have someone like Lip a part of the new SoxNet. Quite a few interesting stories. Would be interesting in revisionist history if the Sox began that dominant. Would it changed who we became in the future (building off of success like that gives a huge advantage). That said, the Bears were once the best and when you look at the past 30 years, we aren't in the top half of franchises, imo. The thing that stands out to me is how important it is to have good ownership who supports good executive talent. It is why I've long said the smart investments are on your executive management team. Don't be cheap. Put the best president / GM out their and get the best scouts around. Invest in scouting and player development and be patient but also utilize free agency and potential payroll advantages to your advantage. Patience can be dangerous but you have to be diligent and strong minded. Understand who you are building around and put a proverbial fence around those people as it seems like some of the best teams understand the guys that "can" afford to deal vs. the guys they don't want to. I have total envy over what the Cubs and Dodgers are doing. Yes, some of it has to do with significant payroll resources and I even think some of it has to do with a sense of job security where they know they will be granted the time to do what it takes to do things right, etc. And some of you may call me crazy for throwing Dodgers and their looney tune payroll out their, but if you look at what they are doing (/have done) on the player development side, it is absurd. I also think if I were the Sox and wanted to do something aggressive, the first guy I would call would be Ned Coletti. He was replaced this off-season but really did an exceptional job bridging the gap between McCourt and others and also had plenty of success in San Francisco as well (his previous destination). Hahn does do a lot of things I like, but I also know that Kenny is still heavily involved and while I like Kenny for what he did and his aggression was nice, I want to see a sustained run of greatness and he's had a pretty large sample size of experience to prove that while he is better then most, he isn't going to drive a sustained run of greatness. Hard to say what Hahn can / can't do. He's clearly reinvested in the front office and we've seen more hits in our draft recently (of course how does it really grade out, hard to say) but I think the idea of going to an outside guy who has a history of doing things right and truly changing the culture of the organization would be huge. We've seen what has happened under Reinsdorf and while we have largely been relevant (plenty of .500 or above season's), we have failed to have any sustained post-season runs (i.e., making playoffs in 5 of 7 years type of runs) and we have largely had significant continuity in the organization (Schueler to Kenny to Hahn) were all pretty smooth hand offs (other then pissing off Dan Evans when KW got the job). When you compare the Bulls and the Sox, it is kind of amazing the difference in terms of overall success. Yes, one franchise did have Michael Jordan, but the Bulls have continuously made moves that winning and proud organizations do. They go after the biggest and the best (have failed more often then not, but they do it) and they don't settle with mediocrity (see removing Thibs). Kenny clearly was never afraid and I always commended him for that but I think after the runs we've had, we either need to give Rick more power or bring in a hired gun to help turn this thing around (by the way, I still think the ship is pointed in the right direction, but I want to see better long-term vision). My own personal opinion is that overall the organization has become stale, set in their ways. They need individuals from outside the organization, from consistently winning franchises that can look at the problems and issues with a fresh set of eyes and a fresh set of ideas. That's not to say Rick has done a bad job, he hasn't... but it's clear Kenny is still really running the show and over the past decade his "go for broke" / football attitude has done long term damage to the operation. Mark

QUOTE (WBWSF @ Jul 17, 2015 -> 09:14 AM) I have a What If that rarely gets mentioned. Charley Finley wanted to buy the White Sox after the 1958 season. The Comiskey family sold the team to Veeck instead. If Finley would of bought the team just think how the White Sox franchise would of been. Finley started building his Oakland A's championship teams in the mid 1960's. He signed Rudi, Jackson, Hunter and a number of other players. Those World Champion teams from 72-74 could of been on the Southside of Chicago instead of Oakland. Finley was a White Sox fan who loved Chicago. I don't see how the franchise was better off under Veeck than what it would of been under Finley. With the teams Finley had during the late 60's and 70's the White Sox would of had a dynasty here on the great Southside of Chicago. I had no use of Veeck. He traded off our young talent after the 59 season and when he bought the White Sox in 1976, he had 4 of the worse teams here in the history of the franchise. If Finley would of bought the White Sox in 1959 the franchise would of been better off. Finley is an interesting case. He's from LaPorte, Indiana and for many years his insurance business was headquartered in Chicago. In 1959 he offered Grace Comiskey 500,000 for the Sox which was MAJOR money in those days and that made her think twice about what she wanted to do. The problem though was that Bill Veeck had paid for a "first option" right to purchase the Sox. Grace because of that legally couldn't sell to Finley since Veeck had the right of basically first refusal. It wound up going to court where Judge Robert Dunne ruled in favor of Veeck. That's how he got 54% of the team and controlling interest from Grace who refused to sell her shares to Chuck (which would have put the Sox under single ownership since he had the other shares. That would have realized tax breaks for the club). Finley again almost got the Sox in 1975. Had John Allyn sold to Seattle and the team moved there, numerous reports at the time said MLB would have relocated the A's to Chicago. MLB actually wanted the Sox to move since if Seattle got a team back the city and King County would have dropped their lawsuits over the Pilots being moved after one season. Personally I think the bigger "what if?" was what would have happened to the Sox had Edward DeBartolo been allowed to buy the team from Veeck. That's who Bill had a deal with until MLB refused to approve it. Reinsdorf and Einhorn weren't Bill's first choice and he always felt they were forced on him. DeBartolo wound up buying the 49'ers where they won four Super Bowls. Mark

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 17, 2015 -> 11:37 AM) Welcome aboard the message board ship, Lip! Thank you!

Just want to thank everyone for the kind words. Hope you enjoy the article and the ones I'll be doing in the future. Thanks again!