Dan Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...ts/12970704.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kid Gleason Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 I don't want to register. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwerty Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Oct 22, 2005 -> 04:08 PM) I don't want to register. Bugmenot is a wonderful thing... CHICAGO - When the White Sox say they had a hunch, even during spring training, that they would be a playoff team this season, you have to take them at their word. But it's worth noting that the wives of three players - Paul Konerko, Freddy Garcia and Joe Crede - had babies in the past few weeks. This was either a case of bad planning, poor math or a crisis of confidence nine months ago on the part of a few Sox. "(Bad) planning, timing, everything," Crede, laughing, said Friday. "Just not good." It's also possible to look upon this as an example of positive thinking_the players were so confident of where they were headed they didn't want the World Series complicated by contractions during, say, Game 3. Talk about pinpoint scheduling! Or we can look at this as in keeping with the theme of the Sox's World Series appearance, which should be "Miracle Berth." Even now, six days after the Sox won the American League pennant, having them in the World Series feels a little like a Libertarian presidential candidate getting 30 percent of the vote. Frankly, many of us don't know how to feel or what to think, so revolutionary is all of this. But Sox in seven sounds good. It has been 46 years since the franchise's last trip to the World Series and 88 years since its last World Series title. We deal in big numbers around here. Let's see if we have this straight: The 44-year-old Astros think they can come into town for their first World Series appearance and out-sob story the Sox? Amateur hour, fellas. No, there's too much good karma working for the Sox_or too much fate or too much of whatever it is that pushes a team on in the face of overwhelming evidence that it should be sitting at the kids' table instead of the adults' table. "It's going to be a real attractive and weird World Series because you've got two teams that aren't supposed to be there," Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "Two teams that fight all the way to the end to get where they are. You're going to see a couple of similar ballclubs. "You're not going to see the big-name franchises. Nothing against them, I just think it's good for baseball." So the Sox, on a roll after flattening the defending world champion Red Sox and complete-gaming the Angels, look primed to do whatever it takes to beat the Astros, even if it means - oh, I don't know - a blown dropped-third-strike call by an umpire. Especially if it means that. If very recent history means anything, the Sox are going to be rusty in Game 1 Saturday, having taken care of business against the Angels so quickly. They came out rusty in the ALCS after sweeping Boston in three games. (Reliever Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez has been used so sparingly this postseason that he was able to enjoy his birthday Oct. 11 without the distraction of a sore arm. He blew out the 57 candles in one try.) So, please, no panic in the streets if Houston takes the opener. It might take a while for the Sox to regain their edge and their strut. Chances are, the Sox's rotation of Jose Contreras, Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland and Garcia won't pitch as well as it pitched in the ALCS, unless you believe in lightning striking four times in the same place it already had struck four times before. But it will take excellence to beat the Astros, who will respond with future Hall of Famer Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Roy Oswalt. What the Sox need most of all is the same thing that got them 99 victories in the regular season and seven victories in eight games in the playoffs. Great pitching, yes. Great defense, yes. Good hitting ... all that. But more than anything, a ton of belief. That's asking a lot of a team that doesn't have many players who have been to the playoffs. The Sox believed in themselves in the face of season-long criticism that they weren't nearly as good as their record indicated. They believed in themselves all season, even when they were throwing a 15-game lead into the fire and watching it melt down to 1 1/2 games. Belief is important, but there are limits. To what surely will be the city's everlasting regret, the Sox's postseason theme song is "Don't Stop Believin' " by Journey. I asked catcher A.J. Pierzynski, one of the evil masterminds of the idea, why he had foisted such a bad song on an unsuspecting public. "It's a great song, isn't it?" he said. No, it's a terrible song, A.J. It's a song from the 1980s by a band with big hair. "It started out as a big joke between (Aaron) Rowand and Crede and I," Pierzynski said. "What happened was we were out in a bar one night and there was a lounge singer. Crede started yelling, `Play some Journey!''' Recipe for trouble: bars, lounge singers, Journey. "And it kind of took off from there," Pierzynski said. "There were a couple of other guys who got in on it, and now we kind of go into bars more as a team and try to get them to play it. We always seem to be able to finagle a way to get them to play it. "We see (TV) reporters on the street trying to get people to sing it," an amazed Pierzynski added. Ah, well. You win in this town, you can do anything you want. If the Cubs ever win it all, people would sing Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" and be happy about it. About those Cubs: Pierzynski said he recently noticed that the ESPN Zone downtown had made some adjustments to the positioning of merchandise in its storefront windows. "I did see some Cubs stuff in the back and some White Sox stuff in the front," he said. Miracles abound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kid Gleason Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 I know he is, but can we all PLEASE stop calling Clemens "Future Hall Of Famer Roger Clemens"??? I am soooooo sick of that. It's not as annoying as many other nicknames, but it's so damn lengthy and just annoying to hear. Wow, I hope P-Ko, J-Con, J-Cred and Possible Future Hall Of Famer But Injured Right Now F-Thom have fun over this week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 I thought the line was "Play some f***ING Journey!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Posted October 22, 2005 Author Share Posted October 22, 2005 thanks werty, some people are just lazy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBlackSox8 Posted October 23, 2005 Share Posted October 23, 2005 QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Oct 22, 2005 -> 04:41 PM) I know he is, but can we all PLEASE stop calling Clemens "Future Hall Of Famer Roger Clemens"??? I am soooooo sick of that. It's not as annoying as many other nicknames, but it's so damn lengthy and just annoying to hear. Wow, I hope P-Ko, J-Con, J-Cred and Possible Future Hall Of Famer But Injured Right Now F-Thom have fun over this week. the award will be changed to the rocket clemens award....from the cy young award. maybe not now....maybe not tomorrow...but someday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercy! Posted October 23, 2005 Share Posted October 23, 2005 Bugmenot is a wonderful thing... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Dang. I had never bothered to check that out until now. Thanks! I had always figured it was as time intensive as registering, but just gave you an email address so you didn't have to use your own. It IS a wonderful thing. Power to the people! Take back the web! Don't Stop Believing! Etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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