I tellya what Stone Pony, Ah luv Bizarro Wednesday...

[Princess Dye]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stone_Pony

 

a former Hawk hangout?

[bobryansson]

Born in 1960, I'm not the oldest poster here, nor the youngest (or even close), nor do I have the most or fewest posts. I have been watching the Sox since the mid-60's. There were some incredibly painful stretches. I try to explain to my kids, who have only known them for the last 10+ years, how painful. They have no idea, without experiencing it. Sox fans don't revel in the futility as some others do. I don't know about this as a turning point, because, as has been noted several times, there have been a ton of them. I do want to jump on the bandwagon to say that it is incredibly enjoyable to even consider contending nearly all the time. Having young talent in the program and having experienced talent signed for years fills me with hope. Hope was not a description of how things looked for the Sox when I was the age my kids (21, 18, and 14) are now. The turning point was the joining or JR, KW, and Ozzie.

[WCSox]

In 23 yrs of watching White Sox baseball, this decade has undoubtedly been the best. The 80s' were awful, the 90's were very disappointing and both decades only had one division title to speak of with very few seasons of still being in the race by Aug.

 

IMO, '83 and '85 were both pretty exciting, but I agree that the rest of the decade overwhelmingly sucked.

 

Sure, there's been lots of bad pts this decade (The end of 2003, the absolute collapse after the '06 All Star break where the Sox led the Wild Card by 6 games to wind up 6 games out) but mostly, it's been good times to be a Sox fan.

 

I agree. From the mid-80's up until 2000, the Sox were never the team that would make the huge free-agent signing (Albert Belle notwithstanding) that would put them over the top. They were always outbid/outspent by the "big market" teams. Because of this, you always felt that the battle to overthrow the Big Boys was uphill. Kenny Williams changed that. Not all of his teams were competitive, but you knew that he was willing to take the risk of bringing in expensive, high-caliber veteran talent to put them in a position to win. That was a pipe dream back in the Ron Schueler days. And, by God, it worked in 2005. And even though we've only made it back to the playoffs once since then, you always felt that the Sox had a chance at another ring going into Opening Day. Kenny made White Sox baseball exciting.

Edited August 20, 2009 by WCSox

[Milkman delivers]

Are you talking about the schizo ups/down on the board from posters on a daily basis from games as the "supposed" turning pts? Or something else?

 

And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we fans shouldn't ever criticize the organization. We do that just by not showing up at Comiskey....

 

Yeah, there are a bunch of times each year where some, or even most, of the board think "we're going to go on a roll after this game" or "we're going to go into a spiral after this debacle," and it doesn't happen.

[Allsox]

Yeah, there are a bunch of times each year where some, or even most, of the board think "we're going to go on a roll after this game" or "we're going to go into a spiral after this debacle," and it doesn't happen.

 

Yeah, I dunno why such high hopes or bitter disappointment are pinned on every single game either. In football, you can do that somewhat but it's not possible in baseball. The sheer number of games doesn't allow for one game to be marked as a turning pt. Stretches of games, ok, maybe there's some correlation but not a single one.

[Allsox]

Born in 1960, I'm not the oldest poster here, nor the youngest (or even close), nor do I have the most or fewest posts. I have been watching the Sox since the mid-60's. There were some incredibly painful stretches. I try to explain to my kids, who have only known them for the last 10+ years, how painful. They have no idea, without experiencing it. Sox fans don't revel in the futility as some others do. I don't know about this as a turning point, because, as has been noted several times, there have been a ton of them. I do want to jump on the bandwagon to say that it is incredibly enjoyable to even consider contending nearly all the time. Having young talent in the program and having experienced talent signed for years fills me with hope. Hope was not a description of how things looked for the Sox when I was the age my kids (21, 18, and 14) are now. The turning point was the joining or JR, KW, and Ozzie.

 

Kenny is the big reason why. The guy lives and dies with every game and his recent quote Mon about how the Sox have been underachieving all this yr let me know the team is in the right hands.

 

It's not to say he's been absolutely perfect (CF, leadoff spot, Linestink) but the man does give his best shot of keeping the Sox competitive yr in, yr out without sinking the Sox into a death spiral.