Tony

This is how you answer.

Right here, actually. 9 hours ago.

Again Jack...nuance. No one has said the players hold just as much blame as the front office. There are systems in place so "leadership" does act, and it doesn't just fall on the players. The Front Office absolutely failed. However, you're right that sports and the locker room are different than normal workplaces. In most workplaces, someone doesn't walk around with a giant C on their chest to tell everyone they are the captain of the team, they lead the room. It's your choice if you want to believe the players knew what happened or not. I tend to believe guys like Sopel, Boyton and the rest of the guys that have spoke up over the lines we've heard from Toews and Kane. One group has no reason to lie. The other side.....does. I'm not even that upset Toews and others didn't do more in the moment. As a 21-22 year old, even as the captain, I think it would be tough for him to go to the President of the team and say "Hey did you handle this?" I would have liked if that took place, but I'm trying to be fair and that would be tough. What is totally not acceptable is 11 years later, as a 33 year old veteran, Toews making it a point to go out of his way to defend Bowman and Al, to speak about their character and how much they did for him. Toews can go fuck himself for that. He totally lost me there.

In the same paragraph you say “there is no excuse” and in the next sentence you’re literally making an excuse for Toews. Think about the road you’re going down.

1. Not lie to the media and fans by saying they had no idea when numerous reports contradict that 2. Not make quotes like this and defend the upper management you want me to go after (which I’m not taking any blame off of management by the way): “To me, Stan and Al, make any argument you want, they’re not directly complicit in the activities that happened,” Toews said. “Regardless of mistakes that may have been made, for someone like Stan, who has done so much for the Blackhawks — and Al, as well — to lose everything they care about and their livelihoods as well ... I don’t understand how that makes it go away, to just delete them from existence and [say], ‘That’s it, we’ll never hear from them again.’” This is one of the many reasons I kept you on ignore for so long. I’m sorry, but you simply can’t grasp nuance and understand even remotely complex arguments.

My dad had season tickets for 23 years, gave them up when I was born. I've probably been to 200 Hawks games in my life. I was at the WCF in Anaheim for the Shaw header goal and the longest playoff game in franchise history. I've got pictures of me wearing Hawks gear when I was 3 years old. I used to sit in class and come up with line combos (that included the likes of Igor Korolev, Pavel Vorobiev, Travis Moen and others). I have other connections to the franchise as well that I won't share here. It's really hard to "quit cold turkey" on a franchise that has been a big part of my life....but as I look at the franchise as it currently stands, there is nothing for me to root for. Fuck the players, fuck the coaching staff, fuck the ownership. It's rotten to the core.

I'm stealing this from Reddit: So stop it, Jack. Don't tell me who I should and shouldn't be mad at.

I’m being selfish right now but I’m so pissed at how the Hawks decided to handle this. It’s hard to fathom how they continue to get this wrong step after step after step. It makes it incredibly difficult to even try and be a fan. I’ve been on the fence for a few days now, but they are making it incredibly hard to root for any part of the organization.

Q is out in Florida.

As Ace mentioned, I wonder if he is doing this because the report basically doxxed him.

I don't disagree here. It's why I believed Bowman was safe. If you believe the Wirtz side, they let this private firm handle everything and didn't get involved. Fine, but there was enough information made public to know it was very possible things were going to get ugly. Not only did they let him sign a player like Jones to a massive deal, but they promoted him this summer....

You can throw all the "research and data" you want at it, and convince yourself you know better than everyone else. But if we're having an argument and I say "Erik Neander is a very smart baseball man that has made incredibly good decisions that have led his TB Rays to 3 straight playoff appearances, one of which resulted in a World Series appearance, all on a shoe-string budget in a brutal AL East." and you say "It's all just luck, he isn't smarter than anyone else or deserve any credit, eventually his luck will run out and then he'll be considered a bad GM..." I'll take my side any day of the week, as would about 98% of other people. You being in the other 2% doesn't make you smarter than everyone, it just makes you wrong.

And the Astros going to 5 straight ALCS are what? What does that do for your variance argument? You're the same Jack as always. You feel like life didn't go your way but you worked just as hard as everyone else....so anyone with success must just be lucky, has nothing to do with being skilled. Because if skill = success, in your mind you'd be much more successful than you currently are. But as we've gone round and round before, just because you haven't been successful doesn't mean others with skill aren't talented and impactful. It's an argument devoid of any logic or substance, but here we are. So happy to have you back on the site.

But....it did happen. I mean what a bizarre argument. He gets credit because it did happen. Why did it happen? Because he built a team and core that performed consistently in the playoffs, which gave them the opportunity to compete for a World Series Championship. Stop buying into this "the playoffs are a total crapshot, anyone can win, it's all equal" bullshit narrative. Not all playoff teams are created equal. Additionally, you used the 2005 Sox as an example. So now having well over a decade to examine that, it's clear that team was in fact lucky. They didn't make the playoffs in 2004 or 2006. That was proven to be a great run in one season. The Cubs went to the NLCS consistently during their run. There is a large difference.

Let’s say this is true. Then he still deserves a ton of credit for turning those franchises around. It wasn’t just luck. He’s very good at his job and got results..in two unique locations. That’s the point.

I feel like you’re trying to once again to be smarter than everyone else and “look at things differently” but it’s another instance where it just makes you look silly. Mike Smith was a bad GM overall. Made a lot of bad moves. He absolutely deserves credit for drafting Seabrook, Keith, Crawford and Byfuglien. The same can basically be said about Tallon, but he was responsible for really putting together and developing the core of the Stanley Cup run. Again, deserves a bunch of credit. I know you’re “theory” has a lot to do with your own life, and I’m sorry for whatever issues you’ve dealt with or are still currently dealing with, but just being real…Just because you feel like you’ve put in work and “life” hasn’t worked out the way you wanted, doesn’t mean Theo Epstein doesn’t deserve credit for winning championships with two separate franchises. He didn’t just get lucky.

So then I’ll ask you again. Does anyone in sports deserve any credit?

We absolutely haven’t had this discussion. And even if we had..you’re the one that “re-hashed” this position/take. But we haven’t, and all I asked is more clarification on a stance that clearly I don’t understand in the slightest.

There is like a 1000 things wrong with this post, so not totally sure where to start. But using this logic…when does anyone in sports (or really anything in life) deserve credit? The Penguins and Kings clearly don’t deserve any credit for their runs, it was just luck. Patriots? No good, just a hot streak. Am I understanding your logic here?

What does this mean?

Two things can be true at once. The Braves have gotten incredibly hot at the right time. We've seen that happen before, and it will happen again. That's great for the Braves, it's made a great story. The team they are playing in the World Series has been the absolute class of the AL for the last 5-6 years and it's not luck or coincidence that has gotten them to 5 straight ALCS appearances (cheating however, has played a role lol) Yes, getting hot and "luck" can and do play a role in the playoffs. But the idea of just building a playoff team and hoping for the right breaks to happen to your team once you make the dance is short-sighted and lacks an understanding of the game. The Sox have shown us in back to back seasons that at this point, they have not reached the "elite" level of teams of which there are only a select few. Does that mean they couldn't still win a World Series with his collection of players? No...they absolutely could. But there are absolutely improvements they can make that will help their chances in October.

I know, it's really hard to figure out why so many here would like a player who bats LH, plays solid OF defense and slashed .292/.401/.437 in 2021 and is still cost controlled. Bunch of weirdos.