Southwest Sider

QUOTE (Yoda @ May 7, 2015 -> 06:49 AM) I’m all about IPA’s. Alpha King, Revolution Anti-Hero, Hercules Double IPA, Sierra Nevada, anything with lots and lots of hops. Sierra Nevada is such an old school, yet extremely solid microbrewery. They disappointed me this year, though, by replacing the Ruthless Rye IPA spring seasonal with that Beer Camp crap. Ruthless is one of my favorite beers of all-time, and the only way to get it this year is in an mixed IPA 12 pack. QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 7, 2015 -> 09:10 AM) It's coming up on Bell's Oberon season, probably my favorite beer. Great beer. It's out now, actually. I remember talking to a vendor who told me that Bells brews Oberon through the baseball season. Spring Training through World Series. Kinda cool, and it seems to hold true every year.

Already so many awesome brews/breweries mentioned. rabbit is on point, Trader Joe's doesn't upcharge you for a make your own 6 pack. It's not the best selection since it's such a small store, but they work hard to bring in solid offerings. Scored a couple 6 packs of Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA from there (YUM). I made the trip into the city on the rainout Saturday. Since there was no game, I figured it would be a good idea to visit Revolution brewpub for the first time. Obviously, a great idea. Their food was awesome. I had fish and chips, and the bacon fat popcorn was awesome. Their fries....godly. Anyways I was with a buddy who had never had a drop of alcohol in his life, and he just turned 21 a few months ago. He agreed to try a few sips of various samplers that I ordered. I was originally drinking a Fist City, he didn't like it so I ordered a Cross of Gold golden ale, Bottom Up wit and Thee Destroyer double IPA. I knew he would hate the IPA, but to my surprise he also didn't care for the other two. Oh well, he's new to this. What was really sweet, is that our server pretended that it was his birthday and brought him a sample size of Absinthe Minded, an imperial porter aged in absinthe barrels. Obviously, he hated it, but found it interesting because of the heavy black licorice flavors. Porters aren't really for me, either, but it was up to me to finish it so I let my predispositions go. An interesting beer, for sure! ZoomSlowik, quick story for you, about a year or so ago a buddy and myself were going to the casino and he said "If I win I'm buying that Dogfish 120" (a 4 pack was $40). While I'm at the poker table, he seats himself a slot within view so he can see if I leave the table. I notice he's playing and then he starts to do a little dance. I'm like "cool, must have won a hundred or so!". The slot machine kept piling credits onto his winnings apparently because he went from doing a dance to a "holy s***" look. I immediately leave the table, wasn't playing well anyway, and go see that he won $1000! Bought that Dogfish 120, each had 1 and agreed to age the other two until further notice.

Minnesota fans were amped up for sure. I really don't mind the goalie taunt anymore. Of course, it really is stupid as all hell to be chanting it just moments after the puck drops, but I think I remember Crawford saying a couple years ago that he loves it and it pumps him up even more. Props to Minny fans for helping their team get shut out. When the disappointment subsides for those fans, they might be left feeling a little foolish for taunting a goalie who shut out their team. I'm glad we don't really do that at the UC. It doesn't work, and energy is better spent cheering on the Hawks.

Hard to believe it can get any worse. The real question is, will it stay as bad as it is right now? There is reason to believe that it won't. Several key players are currently massively underachieving. Massively. I think we can reasonably expect the performance of several players to eventually get better. How long will it take? Hopefully not too long, because you do not want this hole to get any bigger. The players need to look at the rest of May here as a fresh start and just forget April even happened. Baseball can be cyclical. With the luck our organization has had this century aside from 2005, just when our hitting/starting pitching/defense gets better, the bullpen will implode. Me being silly, I also feel like if there are baseball gods (or karma), then the 2005 White Sox used up every last bit of good will that this organization will EVER have, and now need to pay decades of years worth of dues to win again. Obviously, this is a gross overreaction, because it's only been 10 years since 2005. We aren't firmly entrenched in decade after decade of suck.... yet. The Sox have been at their rock bottom for 2+ years now, continuing into this very season which has held such high hopes. Who or what can free these White Sox from the grips of perpetual defeat? Do we need to pray for them? Do we need to make some kind of sacrifice to appease the baseball gods? We have had a brawl which players could have bonded over. We have the promise of several new acquisitions to bolster the team... yet... this is what is happening now. Should we smelt the 2005 trophy? Burn any memorabilia from 2005? Find that guy who made the most recent 2005 documentary and behead him? Protest and no-show the 2005 reunion in July? Hopefully this amuses you as much as it amuses me... In all seriousness, though, it seems as if this organization holds onto 2005 a little too much. We as fans, of course, are expected to hold onto it. It was the best year of baseball most of us have ever witnessed from our favorite team. But the reunion. The documentary. The fanfare. Are the Giants going to hold 10 year anniversaries for all 3 of their recent titles, or are they just going to focus on winning the next one? As an organization, the Sox need to forget 2005. Remember the players. Respect them. Make them ambassadors, if they so wish. But that's it. I still like this 2015 roster. Aside from the overall team defense, and the weak backend of our rotation, I still think this team can do some good things. Abreu has the chance to be the best White Sox hitter since Paul Konerko. He has a chance to be even better then that. But there's always something new to learn playing this game, and even though he hasn't mightily struggled, he can still be better. Eaton is an awesome dude but he is still young as a MLB player. He is learning some tough lessons right now and I believe he has the fortitude for it to pay off. Melky is an established hitter in the MLB, and he should be better. Adam Laroche is a known streaky hitter. I'm not ready to write him off as Adam Dunn 2 yet. Avisail has tons and tons of upside and I believe in him. He will have his struggles, but he has to continue to work to get better and also work hard to improve his defensive game to something tolerable. Conor Gillaspie was able to manage to hit almost .300 last year. The league has made an adjustment to him and it's up to him to make one back. Can he do it? Tyler just needs to try to do his best. Not much has gone right for these guys up to this point. The mental direction that they take in May will tell a lot about if this team can climb into the postseason picture. What they absolutely, positively, cannot do is let April infect them like a disease. They cannot remember April. April needs to erased from their minds, or as close to erased as it can be. April needs to be treated like it was some kind of extended Spring Training. The record is now back to 0-0. They cannot try too hard to reverse this. Just play baseball games one day at a time, focused, without memory. Pitch by pitch, day by day, this needs to be the new mantra of the 2015 White Sox, else we'll write the eulogy of this team sooner then we had hoped. Hopefully, if you made it to the end of this post, you found it a refreshing (albeit still depressing) change of pace from the "fire this guy, fire that guy, sell the team" plague infecting the forum right now. Remembering the offseason, I think a lot of us were saying, "OK, now Robin has a baseball team. This will be his year to show what he can do". Well, friends, it has only been a month! I, like many of you, am not particularly pleased with how unprepared the team seems to look, but I'm resigned to give Robin this year. If he can't help turn this thing around, well, then I am with you that we should be looking for another manager in the offseason, because obviously he was not able to get the most out of his players. But one month is not enough time to know if he can get these guys playing good ball. Give him the year. He deserves that much.

QUOTE (TitoMB @ Apr 29, 2015 -> 01:54 PM) lmao if you thought Shark was an ace, you are sorely mistaken. Well obviously, he's not pitching like one. But I think that he believes that he either is, or can be an ace, which is why he's so excited for free agency. My point is that having games like these inflate his ERA is not going to help his cause in the offseason.

Jeffs gonna have to pitch a lot of good games for that now inflated ERA to come down to something an ace would have.

Time for Rodon. Samardzija you may as well just have served your suspension instead of coming out and pitching like this... WTF

QUOTE (Tony82087 @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 05:02 PM) It was from Elliotte Friedman. https://twitter.com/FriedgeHNIC/status/593163583623561216 Would be a very nice, and creative get for the Hawks, especially with a lot of holes going to be open next season. Thank you! I agree wholeheartedly. I'm glad to see the Hawks aren't shying away from Russian hockey players. If they do sign him, it'll be exciting to see how he translates into the NHL. It could also make the loss of Sharp sting a little less as far as the top 6 is concerned. Unless you think Sharp is done, in which case, you should be even happier.

Meanwhile... some potential big news for the Hawks moving forward "Hearing free-agent F Artem Panarin, who led KHL champion St. Petersburg in scoring, is getting close to joining the Chicago Blackhawks." EDIT: sorry I don't have twitter and couldn't embed exactly who said that, I just copied from hfboards

8:30 local starts are completely asinine. This is BS for everyone who has to be up early for work. I was willing to give the NHL a pass in the first round, but there are now less games. Complete douchebaggery.

I just hope that Timonen and Roszival aren't too much of a defensive liability. It sure would be nice to have a healthy TVR, or another young up and coming defense (ala Hjalmmer in the 2010 playoffs).

Here's hoping Baltimore used up their run quota for the next few days and our pitching can limit them to no more then 3 runs per game. Go get 'em Hector. We know you can do it.

I'm a little annoyed that the game was postponed seeing as I made the trip into the city. Bad on me for not checking the status earlier... but the day ended up not being too bad. Silver lining, got to go to Revolution brewpub for the first time. Loved it. Also, I was going to the Hawks game anyway, so it wasn't like a complete wasted trip into the city.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Apr 26, 2015 -> 02:24 PM) Wtf is this strike zone It's crap, because Danks threw a couple good pitches that weren't called for strikes and Volquez can throw anything and get it called a strike. It better end up being the same for Johnny or there will be some arguing. Also, agreed about Jose. Looks like he's just up there guessing strike.

Ugh, watch Abreu get beaned if Volquez gets the first two outs.

Attaboy Avi

Lets go White.... ahh whats the use.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 23, 2015 -> 11:03 PM) 6969 Thanks, Crap it didnt work. Some "community channel"

is anyone on at&t watching this game and can tell me the channel?

Can I just say that I hate Ryan Raburn? And that when he retires the only thing he will have to hang his hat on (besides the fact that he was a ML baseball player) will be that Sox fans hate him? I don't think fans of teams that had Raburn on their team particularly love him. I mean, he's a nice piece for an AL Central team. But really, Raburn, screw you buddy. Can't wait til you just retire and go away.

That's just bad baseball. I'm fine with Danks outing today anyway. You have to score runs to win, and the 4th is not on him.

Keep them at 3 and get back in this thing.

Adam Eaton (6 pts): Melkman Cabrera (3 pts): Jose Abreu Jose Abreu (1 pts): South Sider Adam LaRoche (2 pts): MHizzle85 Avisail Garcia (3 pts): Condor13, CarlosMartinez Alexei Ramirez (4 pts): lord chas, BigHurt3515 Gillespie (4 pts): Soto (3 pts): Micah Johnson (6 pts): Bench (8 pts): Noone (1,000,000 pts): hi8is

Liking what I'm seeing from Jennings so far. Looking like a great acquisition. Obviously, Duke and Robertson as well. As others in this thread have said, if Montas can come up this year and be a force in our bullpen, then we could have one of the best bullpens in the AL. But DR locking down inning number 9 will be key for everything else to fall in place and others to know their roles.

I got The Show 15 for PS3. If anyone wants to game, add me "theswingingman". Been playing online exclusively so far, and it's fun! So far I am 4-2, but I should be 5-1. I was up 3-0 on a guy in the 6th inning and the game froze. I turned off my console and found out I had been given the loss. Oh well. The other game I lost was kind of dumb, too. It's 2-2 in the bottom of the 9th, I'm the away team and there's a man on 1st with two outs. Guy hits a gapper and get to it and get it to the cut off man while he's going for home. He's out by a mile so starts running back to 3rd. I chase a bit with the catcher, and as soon as I throw it to 3rd he turns around going back to home. I discover no one is covering home (lol), the pitcher had gone behind 3rd base instead. So he scores and wins. XD And I like the quick counts, but I kind of wish that you couldn't start an at bat 3-2. I'm cool with any other count, but starting 3-2 kind of waters it down a little bit. But it makes a little more realistic with pitch counts, which I like.