Sam Smith talks about the Sox.....a positive post

[Dick Allen]

Some friend, he pretty much hammered the Bulls (deservedly so) in the article.

That's true, and he has taken many shots at the Bulls before, but has never taken one at JR. JR is not blamed nearly as much for the Bulls futility as he is for the Sox. He also mentioned the Bulls were not cheap. His article is particularly interesting just by its timing alone, after some very negative press from Soxfest.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

'Cheap' Sox getting bum rap

 

By Sam Smith

 

Tribune pro basketball reporter

 

February 2, 2004, 10:25 PM CST

 

 

Because I don't want to stick to basketball. There, that answers the first nasty letter.

 

With the Bulls out of town and virtually out of mind, I went to SoxFest last weekend to see what all the fuss was about. The fussing, anyway.

 

Oh, that's right. Losing Tony Graffanino. OK, Bartolo Colon, Roberto Alomar and Carl Everett too. I'll admit it. I'm a closet White Sox fan. It seems in these heady Cubs times, it's where you find most Sox fans.

 

But I'm not that upset. Of course, I go to Bulls games. By comparison, the Sox look pretty darn good. But that's not the common perception these days. So I ventured into the belly of the angry whale—wail?—of Sox fans and heard this:

 

The Sox won't negotiate with Magglio Ordonez.

 

Well, not quite. He wants to become a free agent and test the market, sort of like Kobe Bryant in basketball. Nothing personal, he says, but no thanks to negotiations. I know no one's blaming the Lakers for Kobe's talk about leaving.

 

There also was all this angst about guys leaving:

 

Graffanino wanted more playing time. Would you make him a full-time starter?

 

Alomar bet he'd strike it big on the free-agent market and declined arbitration, preventing the Sox from negotiating with him until May.

 

Tom Gordon—raise your hand if you wanted him last year.

 

Everett drew criticism when he signed because Sox fans said he couldn't play center.

 

And Colon was only 15-13. Sure, you'd like to have him, but maybe at 30 pounds less.

 

There was fear about Willie Harris playing second base, that he was an unknown guy with little success. But it seems there was a lot of moaning last year about the Sox doing something stupid like that with a journeyman pitcher named Esteban Loaiza.

 

There was a lot of talk about being cheap, yet for what it's worth, the Sox do have the highest payroll in their division.

 

Oh, right, that big-market thing. I fast-break back to basketball on that one. Second teams in major markets invariably suffer and spend less. The New Jersey Nets tried, won two Eastern Conference titles but didn't draw, lost about $20 million a year and had to be sold. And now they'll be moved. If the Sox were sold, there's no guarantee they wouldn't be moved. Sometimes you'd better watch out what you wish for.

 

You could get an owner like the Dallas Mavericks' Mark Cuban, for instance, whose free spending has become a publicity mirage. He has been one of the few NBA owners not spending his annual salary-cap exception and has his players and staff near mutiny with his overbearing and boorish ways.

 

Bottomless money pit Paul Allen of the Portland Trail Blazers has ordered major financial cutbacks. The Boston Celtics were sold and are auctioning their highest-paid players. So are the Atlanta Hawks. The Lakers won't give Shaquille O'Neal an extension. The Pacers declined to keep All-Star Brad Miller because he cost too much. The Kings paid him, but had to drop several players and are now demanding a new arena.

 

And so it goes in sports these days.

 

I can point to occasions when the Sox have made mistakes. Frequently. But I don't really see where they haven't tried to win. Even back to the "White Flag" trade. That trade did lead to the 2000 division title. Sure, everyone wants more than a division title.

 

And shouldn't they have had that last season? They got Colon when the Yankees and Red Sox didn't. They pulled all sorts of strings for Alomar and Everett. Who knew they wouldn't be good enough? Even the bad Todd Ritchie deal. It wasn't done to save money, but to win then.

 

So they weren't right. At least they seemed to be trying. The Angels and Marlins showed you don't have to buy everyone. You just have to be a little smarter. Perhaps the Sox need to work on that.

 

Baseball fans, particularly Sox fans, should be most angry at the players association and Pate Philip. It's the union, contrary to the interests of the game, that allows the free-spending rules that favor the teams with the huge TV contracts, like the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs. Just keeping Alex Rodriguez from being traded should show who's baseball's Public Enemy No. 1.

 

And Philip, the former state Senate president from Wood Dale, refused to let the Sox build a stadium in the suburbs, where most of the fans now live. Everyone knows what it's like trying to get to U.S. Cellular Field on weeknights.

 

The Sox have seven of their nine starters back, and it wasn't until the Yankees started bringing up prospects that they began to win. The Sox say Harris, Joe Crede, Joe Borchard and Aaron Rowand are worth the look. Why not take one? New manager Ozzie Guillen seems eager and willing.

 

It was interesting to hear the angst and listen to the team's logic. What seemed clearest was the frustration of not winning while the Cubs did. The answer, always, is to buy someone. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

 

Just gimme pitchers and catchers in a couple of weeks. It doesn't look that bad.

That was a very well thought out article. The criticisms of the Sox were factually based and constructive unlike the rantings of a certain jackass who writes for the Sun Times.