tray

1. Steve Stone, during the broadcast on 7/29, lambasted the WSox organization for not being able to field a consistently winning team over the past 40-50 years. Oh sure, he said, they won in 2005 but that has been it. He mentioned the '77 team (which he was on) but ignored some teams dating back to the Go-Go Sox and the Al Lopez managed teams in the late 1960's that came very close to winning. And no mention of the play-offs in '83 with his beloved Orioles or the strike shortened season. A little luck and the Sox may have won a few more championships. But OK, I have to cede the point to Stone - the Sox suck and have almost always sucked. 2. I do not entirely agree with most negative opinions expressed here about the location of GRF. OK, the location is inconvenient for some people. Any location might be. But, if you ever go to a game again...drive South toward Halsted on 37th, 34th, 33rd, etc and look how the area has gentrified. Drive North on Halsted toward UIC and Greektown and see how that area has been developing. There are several beautiful condos West of GRF and many opportunities for future development. The reasons that you don't see too many restaurant/bars near the park was and is by design - the design of Einhorn, Reinsdorf, Savarice and the ISFA. They planned making GRF an island separated from bars and restaurants from the time they bulldozed McCuddys and paved paradise. They like trying to keep alcohol profits in house, such as at the stadium connected Chi Sox Bar and Grill. They leave us with few choices for eating drinking outside the park ...and they like that. There is plenty of real estate around the park to change that, but not when it is owned by JR and/or the ISFA. They want all your money. That is one reason why a lot of Sox fans love to tailgate. Their food, their drinks.

Drafting ANY pitcher with the team's 1st round Draft pick when the team and our fans are desperate for hitting confounded me. When KC picked the hitter I wanted on the very next pick, I threw my shoe at the TV monitor. For those old enough, recall that the WSox acquired Fisk, Luzinski and LeFlore in the 1981 off-season. Veeck signed Kittle on the advice of White Sox legend Billy Pierce. Those were among the moves that turned the franchise around in '83. The only mistake was that they didn't continue spending money for star players or make careful Draft choices and wise trades. The owner and management have to continue to get after it every year in order to maintain excellence. JR has been asleep at the wheel, and Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams were just waiting to retire on their lucrative pensions and earnings.

Rumored interest in Vaughn. https://www.si.com/mlb/yankees/news/white-sox-slugger-linked-to-yankees-as-potential-trade-candidate-grant9

I digress....Back in 1990, Einhorn and Reinsdorf deployed a young inexperienced Terry Savarise (a nepotite) to visit all other MLB ballparks and report back with his ideas. Savarise journeywas a fool's mission. His confused input was actually taken seriously by Einhorn and Reinsdorf. That process resulted in the design of the metal fascade on the inside elevation of the roof (taken from Yankee stadium) and the baby blue and white colors from Chavez Ravine. The odd looking white tube trusses in the outfield never tied in with any other design element. Cheap stucco exterior instead of traditional brick, and the failure to orient the park toward downtown were some of the other mistakes. Keep that history in mind as we fast forward to the subject of this thread - a proposed 10 year plan to improve the area surrounding the UC. I cringed as I saw Michael Reinsdorf and yes, Terry Savarice as proponents of this enormous development plan. I wondered where these two have been (especially since Savarice is an exec with the ISFA) regarding renewing the lease at Comiskey, improving that ballpark, developing surrounding areas, or discussing a possible new ballpark in the future. Maybe one reason is that none of those things are in their plans.

No question about that.

Sox fan base is largely located in the Southern regions of Chicago and primarily in the S/SW suburbs. Any new stadium in the future will cater to that fan base. Thing is, that won't happen for at least a decade.

Wonderful memories from the Mite. My favorite memories come from the 70's and 80's going to games at Comiskey. Always loved Opening Day starting usually at Shinnick's meeting friends for a beer then heading down Lowe past sis' Daley's house to 35th and then down to MCuddy's for another. In those days you could park throughout the Bridgeport neighborhoods or pay to park at pop-up lots for cash. We loved walking around the park including on the cat walk behind the scoreboard where we could smoke.... the 77 SSide Hitmen was one of the best summers as a Sox fan. That season left us feeling that Sox fans would always respond to teams that could smash home runs. The next time we saw anything like that was Fisk, Luzinski and Kittle, the latter two hitting roof shots, which left us in awe. The new Stadium was horrible initially because of the color combination and the upper deck. After those items were addressed (for hundreds of thousands of dollars) we came back for a lot of games again. The great thing abut GR is the way you can walk around the entire park and of course, meet friends in the outfield concourse areas where there are great concessions, etc. Of course tailgating has been a great enjoyment on Opening Day and other occasions were I fire up my Weber Q for my Italian sausage and peppers. Winning and losing never mattered much to us. It was pretty much everything else about the experience of going - good friends, good food and drink, the sights and sounds of the ballpark, and the White Sox players. More recently. I loved sitting in the GRate club and a few games in the Scout seats.

Sox do not need a new stadium. They need good players....a lot of them.

Mite is right. Time for JR to buy talent fort next year. Robert is the only decent hitter left in the line-up and he is having a terrible year. Potential trade bait. Eloy should not be playing the rest of this year and should be traded in the off-season. Vaughn, Sheets, Bennintendi can ride the season out but not sure why anyone would favor bringing them back next year. It doesn't look like the Sox have many position player prospects that will potentially help next season unless one is convinced Montgomery will make it. But after him, probably no one. Yes. time to open the wallet and get some big hitters in here.

Eloy's hamstring has not fully recovered. He is hobbling around and wincing in pain as he runs out of the box, yet they still put him in the line-up. Why?

The prospect of the White Sox moving out of Chicago has always titillated Cub fans. Not going to Happen.

Avoid claiming that you speak for others. Just speak fr yourself. Likewise, maybe stop piling on Greg or any one poster. That is a worthless and shallow endeavor.

Back to the first round Draft pick, I found it interesting that Caglionone was selected by KC with the pick following the WSox. Hopefully, Sox fans will not regret missing out on him, especially if he adds further "thunder" to KC's lineup, which is already powerful. Witt is an absolute stud that is going to be an AllStar for years to come. Also, Caglionone is a pretty good pitcher. So anyway, that is the player I was hoping the Sox would have Drafted.

I often see copycat posting and opinions here that IMO diminish any claim of collective baseball wisdom. And of course, there have been any number of opinions over time that have eventually proven to be wrong. Best to express your own opinion, even if it might be unpopular, and defend it. Then admit it was wrong if that turns out to be the case. I don't think Greg is blaming the forum, but if he is that is not a good idea here where cliques abound. Let me guess now who dislikes my post...

What did I say about Eloy that you think was incorrect? WTF are you talking about son.

George is only a teenager. He has a ton of talent and is a big kid. (6'7" 240lb.) You s%*# on everything here but I am rooting for him.

The bullpen including Kopech, blew a lot of games and removed any possibility that the Sox could sustain any consistency or momentum. They made a bad season into an epic disaster.

One of the takeaways when the Sox play the Twins is the enormous talent deficit the Sox roster has compared to the Twins. Buxton is better than Luis Robert . Lee is going to be a perennial All Star. Correa in an incredible player, etc. plus Santana, Wallner etc, and their bullpen. Sox have just had too many failed Drafts and trades over the years and I doubt money alone will fix that.

I decided it is a non-issue.

After the mistake of bringing Kopech in to Close, any self respecting Manager would have intentionally walked Burger, a fastball hitter with tremendous power who had all sorts of motivation to dial it up in that situation. Everyone watching other than Grifol saw that coming. He is a terrible Manager.

Kopech is toast. No reason to keep him on the roster.

Some shortstops play into their 30's but age and wear and tear on his legs were too much for him to sustain what he had in his best years. Best to leave it at that and not pursue another narrative.

My post was accurate concerning the demographics in Chicago moron.

The City of Chicago is mainly black and Hispanic within its City limits - definitely a White Sox town. Hispanic Sox fan pride night. Lots of good food, good company, and good spirits. Stay safe my friends.

Lots of piling on, sarcasm, and beating a dead horse and that is always fun for a certain kind of person. After all that has been said and repeated ad nauseum, there are some things that need to be addressed given what has happened this year. The Sox have been in a lot of games that they lost in late innings. Something should have been done weeks/months ago to improve the bullpen and to acquire a hitter or two to step in the middle of the line-up to fill in for Robert/Jiminez and slumping hitters like Vaughn and Benintendi. Grifol should have been fired once the pattern of losses became obvious and predictable, however, no corrective action(s) were taken. Let's bring this back to the attendance at games. If these issues were addressed maybe we would have had a team that was more competitive and generated more fan interest. Instead, JR allowed the Sox and our fan base to become punching bags, taking it on the chin, over and again. Having fun with that? Yes, a lot of that here. I still think it is not too late to make some changes and at least win some games instead of throwing the towel in.