White Sox Times Archive

Comments For:
5/23/2004
Reinsdorf Hatred

1.

It took eight years for my dad to forgive baseball in general for the players’
strike and go back to Comiskey. He was happy about the U.S. Cellular deal because
it keeps the Sox in the city for another eight years.

While I don’t exactly *like* Reinsdorf I think there are other Chicago team owners
who are much more deserving of our wrath, like Mr. Wirtz.

Comment by soze — 5/23/2004 @ 9:00 am
2.

What might be interesting at some point is if you could actually come up with some independent thoughts and provide
analysis, instead of trolling White Sox fan sites and lamely harpooning their stories. I sense your submissions are
nothing more than an outlet for your personal agenda vs. anyone who has rejected your stories (Scalise)or moderated
your behavior (Laffer).

Note to the author: Do you have anything interesting to add, other than using this forum as an attempt to “one up”
anyone who has crossed your path?

Note to Admin: Am I the only one who sees this pattern?

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/23/2004 @ 9:18 am



Comments For:
5/22/2004
What Goes Around, Comes Around

1.

What actually happened was that you started the whole mess by initiating a lengthy diatribe on SoxTalk, trashing
Scalise in public, when the professional/classy thing to do would have been to handle it in private. And here you
are, continuing the rant as if you’re some sort of vindicated profesional writer. It’s my opinion, and it’s shared
by dozens of others, that you continue to show a lack of class by penning such childish pieces. But don’t worry, what
goes around, comes around. This article has been archived for possible use at a later date.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/23/2004 @ 9:10 am



Comments For:
5/21/2004
White Sox Win Shares

1.

And the significance of this is?

How about some analysis?

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/22/2004 @ 9:54 am
2.

I thought that the readers would find this info interesting. As for analysis, my personal opinion is that Win Shares is a lot of nonsense as is most things that have to do with sabermetrics and Bill James in particular. Any analysis is left to the indivudual reader.

Comment by Charles Rector — 5/22/2004 @ 3:49 pm
3.

Personal opinion is not the same thing as analysis. What makes an article interesting vs. a
simple statistics column is the author taking the time to explain Win Shares and comment on
why they exist. A readers role is to comment on the authors analysis, not to provide the
analysis. A good author should dig a little deeper and give a little more effort rather
than simply posting stats.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/23/2004 @ 10:57 am


Comments For:
5/21/2004
Buehrle’s Recent Wins In Perspective

1.

Buehrle’s pitching line in these games speaks for itself. First, a massive offensive output
wasn’t needed in any of the three - he pitched that well. Second, name me ANY pitcher who
doesn’t relax more when their offense supports them. Lastly, you haven’t commented on his
strikeout rate, which is clearly getting better. He is in a groove, there is no reason why
you shouldn’t give him his just due. Unless, of course, your personal biases are preventing
you from doing so.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/22/2004 @ 9:53 am



Comments For:
5/19/2004
White Sox Pitching Stats

1.

Rector, what is your point here? Stats are easily located at the main White Sox site, why
is it necessary to regurgitate them here? Just curious.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/20/2004 @ 1:43 pm
2.

But its a hassle for folks to look around the Official Site for those stats and it makes it more convenient for visitors to the WST to periodically see updated pitching stats. Remember, pitching is 70% of the game.

Comment by Charles Rector — 5/21/2004 @ 3:12 pm
3.

It really isn’t a hassle to check stats, it’s in the paper frequently, but ok. I guess the
point is: If this blog is intended to be, shall we say, “free form and opinionated” as I’ve
been told, shouldn’t we see a deeper level of analysis from the writer vs. a simple
regurgitation of stats? A reader views the author as an “expert”, and expects a journalism
professional to offer more than the same info offered up in numerous publications, both
online and offline. The author should challenge himself to offer added value to the reader.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/21/2004 @ 3:41 pm




Comments For:
5/19/2004
My Take On The Blackhawks News

1.

Why is Yawney “bush league”? Cassidy and Yawney are, in fact, friends. In addition, they
highly respect one another. Cassidy’s NHL coaching career was extemely short, why do you
state he is accomplished as an NHL coach? He was fired from Washington due to his inability
to bond with players. Are you stating that Yawney is “bush league” in order to start an
argument of some sort?

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/20/2004 @ 1:46 pm



Comments For:
5/18/2004
Cotts The New 5th Starter?

1.

You conveniently ignore Cotts’ stellar record as a starter in the minor leagues. Once again,
you are pushing your personal agenda while ignoring facts. Cotts has had significant minor
league success as a starter - in fact, much better than Adkins.

Try telling the WHOLE story Rector, instead of whatever suits your agenda. Evan, are any of
Rectors stories ever checked for “balance” before they’re posted?

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/19/2004 @ 9:39 am
2.

No. I know nothing about the White Sox, and we try to give all writers free rein.

Comment by admin — 5/19/2004 @ 10:11 am
3.

Well, you guys certainly have given him free reign, to your detriment. A simple glance at
Cotts’ record and BA’s assessment of his potential as a starter pokes major holes in Rectors
story. Sorry admin - there is a serious credibility problem here. It
starts and ends with Rector.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/19/2004 @ 11:03 am
4.

Just wondering, but what is this “agenda” that you speak of? And why is it that you construe any difference of opinion on such matters as Neal Cotts’s suitability as starting pitcher as being some sort of heresy that you have to stomp out, whitesoxfanalways aka chuckles aka JimH?

Comment by Charles Rector — 5/19/2004 @ 4:58 pm



Comments For:
5/18/2004
The Myth of Ozzieball

1.

No, Guillen is not a buffoon, but Rector has a personal agenda. An agenda that includes only
looking at 1/2 a story, 1/2 the facts, and then spinning them into whatever way is convenient
for his limited knowledge viewpoint. Guillen preaches more aggressive baseball than Manuel.
He is less than 40 games into his managerial career, using roughly the same cast of players
who were used to playing a different style. Manuel was more station-to-station, waiting for
the long ball. The White Sox won one division title in 6 years with good talent. Sorry
Rector, I think someone other than Ozzie Guillen is the buffoon … perhaps you?

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/19/2004 @ 9:43 am


Comments For:
5/18/2004
Kobe Bryant in Perspective

1.

Aren’t YOU the media? If so, I agree 100% with your last statement.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/18/2004 @ 1:04 pm



Comments For:
5/15/2004
The Media Bias Against the Sox and in Favor of the Cubs

1.

Interesting point you make about that Wrigley field has more crime in it’s half mile radius than the cell. Citizen ICAM of the Chicago Police says that there was 52 reported crimes in the past two weeks by Wrigley, and 31 by the Cell. Then again, you have to consider that Wrigley is a more densley populated area than the Cell.

Comment by spudart — 5/15/2004 @ 12:58 pm



Comments For:
5/13/2004
Secret Guidelines

1.

Wow … it’s too bad WSI is run by troll-moderators. I am flabbergasted as to why they vilified you over that.

Comment by Evan — 5/13/2004 @ 8:17 am
2.

I love WSI, but I HATE the moderators. I’ve been called a troll and a Cubs fan (by moderators!) because I’ve dared to say that, maybe, possibly, JR isn’t evil. I didn’t even say I liked the guy, I said that I understood his thinking, but apparently that isn’t allowed. I still hang around and read, sometimes even post, but I try to avoid the moderators as much as possible.

Comment by Adam — 5/13/2004 @ 9:56 am
3.

I’d like to ask the author why he seems to have so many problems at so many different fan forums?

Is it possible it’s the author’s (Rectors) fault?

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/17/2004 @ 11:57 am



Comments For:
5/12/2004
The Uncanny Similarity Between Mark Buehrle And Mark Prior


1.

As usual, several flaws in your statements. One, for all intents and purposed Prior was a
rookie last year, so with very little experience it may indeed have been shortsighted to use
him so much. On the other hand, Buehrle had four years of experience coming into 2004, and
had far and away his heaviest workload under your personal favorite, Jerry Manuel. Second,
you’re comparing apples and oranges in his ERA - a fair comparison is his ERA thus far in
2004 vs. his ERA after the same number of starts last year. Third, exactly what/where/who are
the Sox fans who describe Buehrle as either “indestructable” or “impregnable”? I’m a season
ticket holder and I know of no such commentary inferring or outright stating that Buehrle is
not susceptible to injury. Rector … where are you coming up with some of these statements??

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/12/2004 @ 2:36 pm
2.

WhiteSoxFanAlways,

I would have to say that the White Sox fans he speaks of are ones that he talks to, not you.

I would also remind you that this blog is not meant to be written objectively. This is a subjective blog. The writers are free to express their own opinion.

You do, however, make a point. Perhaps Mr. Rector should amend his column to include “some White Sox fans think…”

Comment by Evan Brunell — 5/12/2004 @ 5:20 pm
3.

Evan, then he should state it’s his opinion, instead of stating things as if they’re fact.
I’ve commented on several articles where he does just that. It’s Journalism 101 - if it’s
your opinion, make sure the reader knows that. I understand the clear difference between
subjectivity and fact.

Lastly, as a season ticket holder, I talk to dozens and dozens of Sox fans. Dare I say, more
than Mr. Rector. Many, if not most, have expressed concern with Buerhle’s well-being. Sox fans
are an astute bunch and generally don’t like it when a columnist broad brushes their thoughts,
particularly when they aren’t accurate … in my opinion (see how easy it is to say that??)

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/12/2004 @ 6:01 pm




Comments For:
5/12/2004
Felix Diaz Called Up As Sox #5 Starter

1.

You state his best pitch is the slider. It is not, it’s his fastball which up until recently,
he lacked the ability to command on both sides of the plate. Read Ken Williams comments in
the Chicago papers today, he states the slider is “improving”. It is certainly not his best
pitch. Where did you find that the slider is his best weapon???

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/12/2004 @ 2:29 pm



Comments For:
5/12/2004
Press Release: Joliet 8, Schaumburg 6

1.

Not to be nitpicky, but this has nothing to do with the White Sox. In my opinion, if this is
the White Sox Times, articles should be about the White Sox, not a minor league team that’s
not affiliated with the White Sox in any way. There are plenty of White Sox topics, if a
little research is done.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/12/2004 @ 10:33 am
2.

These are Chicago area professional baseball teams and both Chicago MLB teams scout these local teams fairly heavily.

Comment by Charles Rector — 5/12/2004 @ 11:23 am
3.

I concur. We have told all writers not to feel limited by the name or team. They can write about anything, but want an emphasis on the White Sox.

Comment by admin — 5/12/2004 @ 11:48 am
4.

Well, now I know, thank you very much. Perhaps a name change is in order? “The Chicago Area
Professional Baseball Teams Times”? Better yet, “Rector’s Fancy”? (just kidding on that last
one Evan).

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/12/2004 @ 2:39 pm



Comments For:
5/10/2004
Brian Anderson

1.

Where did you learn that a promotion for Brian Anderson is widely expected?

He’s coming off a troublesome injury and has already skipped a level of pro ball.

A promotion may occur, but it’s far from “widely expected”. I base this on a personal
discussion with Dave Wilder, White Sox minor league personnel boss.

Where do you get your information from, or is this merely your OPINION vs. something that is
“widely expected”?

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/10/2004 @ 6:07 pm



Comments For:
5/10/2004
Sox vs. Twins For AL Central Championship

1.

What is the clear difference between the manager of the Twins and the manager of the White Sox this year? Is it the usage of the starting pitchers?

Comment by Evan — 5/10/2004 @ 8:09 am
2.

Use of starting pitchers and also the fact that Gardenhire seems to have the ability to get his guys to continually give it their 110% best effort and his guys deliver in clutch situations. Also, Ron Gardenhire is very good in the strategy and tactics of the game.

Comment by Charles Rector — 5/10/2004 @ 6:58 pm




Comments For:
5/8/2004
Did Sox Blunder With Troy Cameron Release?


1.

Are you aware that Troy Cameron has a shoulder problem, which is a big reason why he was
released? Further, did you realize there’s a huge difference between Joliet, an independent
league team, and professional baseball? Just because some acquaintance of the writer(?) saw
him play doesn’t mean the guy is a good fielder at the professional level.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/9/2004 @ 5:47 pm
2.

You say that fielding has become a problem with the White Sox since Guillen took over.
Prove it.

Lose the Guillen hate, it’s way too obvious.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/9/2004 @ 5:48 pm
3.

You’re right when you say Cameron is “not your ordinary prospect”. He’s less than ordinary,
and that’s the reason he’s not become a major leaguer in 7+ years.

Why on earth would any writer with any level of credibility be bringing up some marginal
minor league 3B and suggest the White Sox may have made a mistake? That’s just ludicrous.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/9/2004 @ 5:50 pm
4.

Being a native of Joliet, and having seen Troy play, I know what a great player he truly is.
It is easy to belittle someone if you have not witnessed their talent for yourself. Not only
was he great on the field, he was genuine off the field, with a passion for this game that few
major league players exhibit. It is the Sox loss.

Comment by Melissa Honiotes — 5/18/2004 @ 10:45 am



Comments For:
5/8/2004
An In-Depth Look at the Declining Effectiveness of Mark Buehrle
1.

Hitters were hitting .306 off of him prior to his last start against the Orioles. Due to his 7 innings of shutout baseball in that start, his BAA is now down to .288. It dropped 18 points in 1 start.

I think that paints a pretty good picture of how you should take stats this early in the season with a grain of salt.

Comment by witesoxfan — 5/13/2004 @ 4:01 pm



Comments For:
5/8/2004
Dennis Ulacia Southern League Pitcher of the Week

1.

Unfortunately, no. Ulacia wasn’t even rated in Baseball America’s Top 30 Sox Prospects this
year, and last year came in between 25-30. His star has been on the decline since after the
2001 season, his best as a pro. Within the organization, there have been serious concerns
about his conditioning (he’s always had a weight problem), work ethic, and coachability.

Comment by whitesoxfanalways — 5/10/2004 @ 9:07 am
2.

I believe that Ulacia is a hard worker and through his talent, that is able to be proved. He has the ability to becaome one of the best pithcers in the major leagues. This season seems to be going in the right direction for Ulacia so good luck to him.

Comment by Robert — 5/14/2004 @ 1:39 pm


Comments For:
5/7/2004
Is Something Wrong With Wright?

1.

Who says Williams and Wright both wanted him (Wright) to be a reliever?

Back it up, quote please.

You won’t find one, because I chatted with Williams in spring training, he wanted Wright to
compete for a starter spot. Where on earth are you pulling these assumptions from? Are you
stating your opinion as fact? If you are, that’s weak journalism.

Wright himself wants to be a starter. I didn’t hear this directly from Wright, but from his
wife - whom I’d say is a pretty credible source. Much better than you, apparantly.

You make statements which are opinions but you pose them as hard facts. What journalism
school taught you to do that? I’d ask for my money back if I were you, you got ripped off.

Comments For:
5/3/2004
“Who’s The Real Troll Here?” Update


1.

Rector, calling you an idiot is truly understating things. You whine about wanting to be
treated as a professional, yet you continually rip on moderators and anyone else who sees
through your agenda. What’s next for you … coming up with another board name again, so you
can “defend” yourself? That’s one reason why you are persona non grata at 3 different fan
sites. LOL crectorset, keep talking to yourself over here … it suits you!

Comment by Chuckles — 5/3/2004 @ 10:57 am
2.

I happen to think Mr. Rector is doing just fine. He is logging plenty of hits and as for his agenda — well, EVERYONE has an agenda. Some people’s agenda is not liking Nomar, for instance, while others don’t like Terry Francona.

He’s doing just fine. I’ve been keeping up with the White Sox boards to keep an eye on how the moderators treated people - thank god I’m not a White Sox fan.

The moderators at SOSH and WEC are great. They don’t ban people for hating on managers and whatnot.

Anyways, just wanted to say my piece.

Comment by Evan — 5/3/2004 @ 11:48 am
3.

To my knowledge, Rector isn’t banned for hating managers, etc. He got chased off of one site because he was trapped
in a lie … he made up a new user name for himself, and proceeded to defend CRector (himself!). He denied it but the
ISP was tracked, and ‘ol Charles got busted. This, from a guy who decries the fact that people on the internet aren’t
accountable for their behavior. LOL Crectorset, you’ve built your castle on sand, yet again! There isn’t an ounce of
CRe-dibility in CRe-ctor.

Comment by Chuckles — 5/3/2004 @ 12:00 pm

Comments For:

Editors Can Be Just As Bad As Moderators And Others 4/27/2004

1.

Thankfully you can post your piece on MVN now. Do the MVN owners/editors/moderators give you a hard time too?

Comment by Zack — 4/30/2004 @ 7:38 am
2.

I agree that the internet causes people to be treated like dirt. We’ve all done it, it’s gonna keep happening.

Anyways, you won’t have that problem on MVN (I hope). You’re really the only current writer right now who doesn’t just write baseball - you write baseball AND your mind. Some people may not like that the kind of attitude you have, but it’s always nice to have someone in MVN who’s columns will spark a lot of debate based on the messages and what not.

Anyways, I fixed your apostrophes. Check your e-mail, I replied.

Comment by Evan — 4/30/2004 @ 7:48 am
3.

Charles keep writing what you write. We will never give you a problem for writing unless the piece falls outside of our conduct guidelines. Keep up the good work!

Comment by Dave — 4/30/2004 @ 8:14 am
4.

Zack: Nope, the MVN editors do not give me a hard time. Actually, the other 2 guys who placed Comments here, Dave and Evan are the MVN editors.

Comment by Charles Rector — 5/1/2004 @ 6:17 am
5.

Zack: Nope, no problems with the MVN editors.

Comment by Charles Rector — 5/1/2004 @ 6:20 am




Comments For:
Truly Hateful 4/27/2004

1.

I thought this was a baseball blog. What does this have to do with baseball??

Comment by Anonymous — 4/27/2004 @ 9:17 am





Comments For: 4/26/2004
Juan the Hero and Carlos the Zero

1.

At least his defense has improved. You have to admit his catch on Saturday against the Rays was pretty good. I remember when a routine fly ball for this guy was an adventure.

Comment by dolph — 4/26/2004 @ 10:13 pm
2.

True, Lee’s defense has greatly improved, but it does not fully compensate for his still too frequent baserunning errors and his stubborn tendency to swing at pitches that are clearly out of the strike zone.

Comment by Charles Rector — 4/27/2004 @ 12:44 am



Comments For: 4/20/2004
White Sox Ticket Specials

1.

I NEED TO KNOW IF THERE IS ANYTHING AVAILABLE FOR A GROUP OUTING FOR SOX\CUBS SERIES 6/25-6/27. MY BOSS IS FOOTING THE BILL AND IT NEVER HAPPENS SO WE WOULD KIND OF LIKE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE.

Comment by vicki — 5/18/2004 @ 1:39 pm




COMMENTS FOR: 4/14/2004
Who’s This Blogger Dude Anyway?




1.

Hey Charles, I’m a lost ex-Brewers fan trying tofind his way to a ligitimate club. I’m looking forward to keeping up with you and coming over to your side. I just can’t do the Cubs thing. I

Comment by Milwaukee Mike — 4/15/2004 @ 6:37 pm
2.

I just have to try and forget about the nasty rivalry the Crew had with the Sox in the early 90’s. (ps the comment page is acting a little funky…) Good luck!

Comment by Milwaukee Mike — 4/15/2004 @ 6:41 pm

Reinsdorf Hatred
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 12:23 am

One of the most depressing aspects about the White Sox today is the low attendance. The team has not had 2 Million or more attendance at home games since the early 90’s. Even the 2000 95-win AL Central winning team had only 1.9 Mil. This is a serious problem since it means that the Sox are at a budgetary disadvantage compared to other big city teams. Additionally, this also makes the idea of moving the team to another city all the more attractive.

There have been several theories floated around about why such a perennially competitive team such as the White Sox continues to experience attendance woes. One such theory is expounded by Jim Laffer aka the troll-moderator voodoochile on the WSI Forum in a recent article that is on the front page of the WSI website entitled, “Perceptions & Sox Attendance” . He believes that the low attendance at Sox games is all because the team’s General Partner, Jerry Reinsdorf, is an evil old man who is rightfully hated by White Sox fans so much so that they refuse to watch the team.

Specifically, Laffer asserts that Reinsdorf (who he calls “JR” throughout the article, evidently to associate Reinsdorf with the evil J.R. Ewing character from “Dallas") and the other investors have only cared about making money and do not give a whit about how well the team performs on the field. According to Laffer, the Sox fans understand this and totally resent Reinsdorf to the point that many of them stay away from U.S. Cellular Field. Laffer cites the estimate from Forbes Magazine that the Sox made a $12 Mil. profit in 2003 but then goes on to insinuate that none of this money went to improve the team. This despite the fact that the team’s payroll is now about 15% higher than it was last year and the Sox also has a sizable scouting/minor league budget.

One strange aspect of Laffer’s piece is that he brings in evidence that actually undermines his case. For instance, he writes:

Dating back to the 1950’s the Sox have always been in the middle of the pack in terms of attendance in the American League. Historical averages place them at:

* 3.82 out of 8 from 1950-1960
* 4.88 out of 10 from 1961-1968
* 8.38 out of 12 from 1969-1976
* 8.25 out of 14 from 1977-1980

In other words, despite the fact that the Sox had 16 straight winning seasons in the nation’s 2nd largest city during 1951-1967, they failed to average more than 3rd/4th place during that time. This shows that the South Side of Chicago was definitely not a good baseball town like St. Louis. After going through stats and figures, Laffer hit his stride when he made the accusation that Reinsdorf was somehow responsible for the 1994 player’s strike that ended the season with the Sox in 1st place. Yet he provides no evidence for this other than the fact that Reinsdorf gave the owners’s side of the strike in interviews. Despite not providing any real proof for his accusation, Laffer made the claim that, “[i]n the end, the World Series was canceled and Sox fans were left scratching their heads and questioning whether JR really cared as much about winning as he claimed.” The insinuation here, of course, is that Reinsdorf was responsible for the strike in a year when his team had a realistic shot of making the World Series.

Once done with scapegoating Reinsdorf for the debacle of 1994, Laffer then goes on with this incredible accusation:

Still, the attendance rank for 1995-1997 weren’t terrible by historical standards. Then, once again, JR struck. On June 30, 1997, the Sox – a mere 3.5 games out of first with 2 months to play – traded off most of their starting pitching staff and several other key players –basically surrendering the season. JR’s comment, “Anyone who thinks this team can catch Cleveland is crazy,†was widely replayed on the news and quoted in newspaper articles. The team became the laughing stock of professional sports. The historic White Flag Trade was so damaging that it may someday go down as the single worst public relations move in the history of professional sports. This “final insult†was too much for many Sox fans to bear and many of them finally gave up on JR and his team. Over the next few seasons, while MLB as a whole was experiencing resurgence and celebrating historic records being broken, the Sox finished 12th and 13th overall in terms of attendance.

There are several factual problems with this accusation. First, there were only 3 pitchers involved in this trade, Wilson Alvarez, Danny Darwin and Roberto Hernandez, a far cry from Laffer’s assertion that the trade involved “most of their starting pitching staff and several other key players.” All 3 of these players were having lackluster seasons with Darwin only 1 year away from retiring from baseball. Also, the Sox received good value in prospects such as Loren Barcelo, Mike Caruso and Keith Foulke in this trade. Additionally, the Sox’s record was hardly affected by this trade so much so that the team finished the season only 2.5 games further back of the eventual AL pennant winning Indians in 1997. A “White Flag Trade” this was not. Laffer is only right here in saying that the trade was a PR disaster, but that was mainly due to the role that the Chicago Tribune, which is owned by the same company that owns the stupid Cubs, in trying to make the Sox look bad with headlines such as “Sox Surrender” and the like.

Laffer continued his trashing of Reinsdorf with the following:

Still, since 1995, the Sox have averaged worse than 10th in a 14 team league in terms of attendance. They haven’t been in the top half of the league a single time in regards to attendance and have been no better than third from the bottom three times. Much of that may have to do with the bad promotional ideas that came from the office of now deposed PR director, Rob Gallas whose ideas on ways to build attendance were strictly based around wacky promotions (Dog Day, Flying Elvis Night, Sleepover at the Park, etc.) and selling tickets at half price. This latter decision has actually further damaged the Sox public image as fights have been rampant on these low price evenings and there have been a couple of bad fan-on-the-field incidents which have been widely publicized. Still, it was JR who hired Gallas. It was JR who stayed behind him when others were screaming for his head. In the end it is JR’s fault that the team has been marketed in this manner.

Notice how Laffer merely asserts that both Gallas’s promotions and the half-price nights were bad for the team. He provides no evidence for this. In fact, many of the most memorable Sox campaigns such as the “Good Guys Wear Black” and “O-E-O Magglio” as well as having a dog kennel set up at the stadium for fans with canine companions were Gallas’s ideas. As for Gallas being the “now deposed PR director,” Gallas resigned on his own free will after 15 years of service to the cause.

Finally, Laffer ends his anti-Reinsdorf screed with the following:

In the end, the numbers don’t lie. JR has been a major part of the team’s problems over the last decade. His constant hoof in mouth disease, badmouthing of the fans, blaming the fans and giving free reign to Gallas have decimated the fan base. Will it ever recover? One can only hope so, but it probably won’t happen until Reinsy sells the team. Sox fans are left clinging to the hope that it happens before the Sox become a permanent afterthought in Chicago sports.

Once again, Laffer provides neither examples or proof for his allegations. What does he mean precisely by “badmouthing of the fans”? Laffer is so consumed by an anti-Reinsdorf attitude that has clouded his mind to the reality of Reinsdorf’s service to Sox fans. If it were not for Jerry Reisndorf and his investor group, there would be no such thing as the Chicago White Sox. His was the only group that was committed to keeping the team in Chicago despite the fact that the Second City was both in decline and also becoming a Cubs town which it certainly is now. This is because Reinsdorf grew up as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan and who when his team went to LA, was so hurt that for several years he did not follow baseball at all. Other than a brief period in the late 80’s when he considered moving the team to St. Petersburg, FL, there has been zero chance of the Sox moving elsewhere. Due to the continual attendance problems, which are more likely caused by the continued economic decline on the South Side and in Chicagoland in general, it is quite likely that once Reinsdorf steps down as team general partner, it will only be a matter of time before the team leaves Chicago for good.

If/when the White Sox no longer has “Chicago” in front of the team name, look for the likes of Jim Laffer to blame it all on Jerry Reinsdorf.
Comments (2)
5/22/2004
What Goes Around, Comes Around
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 3:06 pm

As some of you are aware, there is a combination monthly free rag/website called the Chicago Sports Review or CSR. This is an endeavor that is supposed to provide Chicago sports fans with an alternative source of news/views. Specifically, the CSR was supposed to provide coverage of teams such as the Chicago Rush of the Arena Football League and the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer that the established sports media pretty much ignores. Well, the CSR website has fallen on hard times lately and if the rumors are true, the whole operation is in danger of becoming shipwrecked.

So far in May, there has not been much added to the CSR website. There has been little coverage of the games played by the Cubs, Fire, Rush and White Sox to say nothing of the minor league and college/high school teams in Chicagoland. Nor has there been any coverage of the recent resigning of Blackhawks Coach Brian Sutter. There really has not been much on the CSR website lately other than some opinion pieces and outdated news. An example of this is the fact that the most recently posted “News” piece is from May 11th. Just a few months ago, the website was a pretty busy place with regular game recaps and several new writers adding articles on a regular basis.

Back on March 29th, the “New Media Editor” of the CSR, Mario Scalise, made a post to the Soxtalk Forum entitled, “White Sox/Cubs Correspondents Needed” under the name of “Molto” in which he asked for all those who were interested in the idea of covering the 2 MLB teams in Chicago and/or the Chicago Fire for the CSR website to contact him. He also added that writing for the website was not a “paying position, but is for people who are looking for experience, to be published and/or looking to work their way up the Sports Media ladder.” Additionally, the editor stated that the reporters for the website would also enjoy the privilege of being able to “cover the White Sox or Cubs from the inside, meaning with press credentials.” The editor also stated that there would be as many as 2-4 positions for each team.

Now, that sounds enticing does it not? You may not get paid, but you do get the thrill of seeing your name down as a published writer and also get an ego boost from showing your published success to family and friends. And if you can actually get those “press credentials” you can get to meet the big time sportswriters and broadcasters that you’ve always wanted to meet and if you can make a good impression, that could lead to further opportunities down the line. Also, there’s the possiblity that this experience would help you get a paying job as a sportswriter. Sounds like a really good idea for something to do during the dog days of summer, does it not?

Unfortunately, writing for the CSR is not such a good idea as my response to the CSR editor’s post showed:

“Well, based on my experience with Molto/CSR, I don’t think that this is a particularly good way to either get quality writing experience or move up in the sportswriting world.

When I was in college, I was on the staff of the student newspaper. There were certain courtesies that the editors would follow such as telling you upfront if your article was rejected, why it was rejected and what I needed to do to make it fit to print. In my opinion, these are things that any would-be editor has to do in order to make it worth your while to deal with that editor.

Some time ago, Molto posted to this forum about how the CSR website needed some folks to write articles for it. I volunteered and eventually got a pair of articles published there, which was good.

What was not so good was the fact that I often had to email Molto about whether or not an article was accepted or not, since he was too lazy to email me about it in the first place. Whenever an article was rejected, he rarely offered any ideas on how to improve it and often his reasons for rejection didn’t seem to make sense.

The final straw came in regards to an article that I submitted on March 23rd. He never emailed back about it and when I subsequently emailed him twice about it, he never ever replied. For what its worth, I put a lot of time and effort into the articles that I submitted to Molto/CSR and getting the silent treatment from a lazy editor just does not cut it. I’m never going to waste my time/energy on Molto and the CSR ever again.

Unless you enjoy working for lazy editors, I’d doubt that any of you would find the experience of writing for Molto and the CSR worth your while.

Now, the CSR editor could have ignored this post or admitted that he screwed up and offered to correct the situation. He could have defended himself in a classy manner. However, he chose to respond in a way that showed his true nature, saying among other things:

if you want me to be completely honest with you, you are a below average writer that has no logical basis to anything you say.

You sent me 4-5 pieces, we talked about the first two a couple of times and finally I published them after you fixed them (which even then, they were below average).

I said you are more than free to send me any more pieces you work on, but never guaranteed I would publish them or take the time to work with you on it.

As a college student who has a job to go with working for the Chicago Sports Review, I don’t have time to respond to every piece you send me and I don’t have time to drop everything I have to attend to you.

If someone sends me a bad piece, I will try to work with that person the first couple of times, but after that, it is purely up to the person to send me something that is publishable. If not, unless the person is working with the magazine or helping the magazine in some other way, I will not waste my time to go through it.

This was a self-defeating response for several reasons. First, if I had really sent him such poor pieces, he should have refrained from publishing any of them until they were above average. Second, one of the very first submissions that I made was published almost intact. Third, he did not at any point in time say that I was a bad writer or that the quality of the writing needed improvement. In fact, in his initial response to my 1st submission to the CSR, he made a point of saying, “I like your writing,” that I am a “good writer with good grammar” and although that particular submission, “was long in words, it flowed very nicely.” As it happens, that partucular submission was rejected basically on the grounds that it was a “far-fetched idea” and on that, he might have been right. Fourth, he never said anything about not being willing to work with me after a certain period of time. Fifth, my signing up with the CSR website was a direct response to a previous post by the CSR editor asking for folks to write for the website. If he did not have the necessary time to work with new writers, then he had no business going around soliciting new writers to toil at no pay for him in the first place.

The most important reason why this was a bad response was that it revealed the CSR editor as being a dishonest, classless, arrogant person, not exactly the sort of fellow that most aspiring writers want to have any dealings with. It is these failings along with just plain laziness that has lead the CSR website to the state that it currently is in.

P.S.: As a further illustration of the laziness and/or dishonesty of the CSR editor, my first published piece there,
“NHL Blues” was put up on the CSR website without my byline on it. I emailed the CSR editor about it and he promised that the problem would be corrected. 3 months later, my name is still missing from that article.

And the CSR “New Media Editor,” Mario Scalise aka Molto actually seems to believe that he is a hard working professional. Unbelievable.
Comments (1)
5/21/2004
White Sox Win Shares
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— Charles Rector @ 11:34 pm

One of the best features of the
The Hardball Times
is its stats section and it has quite recently started compiling the Win Shares
for various and sundry MLB teams. Herewith are the Win Shares for the 2004
Chicago White Sox thus far in the season:

Player Team POS
M Ordonez CHW OF 7
J Uribe CHW SS 6
F Thomas CHW DH 5
S Schoenewei CHW P 4
W Harris CHW 2B 4
E Loaiza CHW P 3
J Garland CHW P 3
J Valentin CHW SS 3
M Olivo CHW C 3
P Konerko CHW 1B 3
A Rowand CHW OF 2
D Marte CHW P 2
M Buehrle CHW P 2
S Takatsu CHW P 2
B Koch CHW P 1
C Lee CHW OF 1
J Adkins CHW P 1
J Crede CHW 3B 1
M Jackson CHW P 1
N Cotts CHW P 1
S Alomar Jr. CHW C 1
T Perez CHW OF 1
C Politte CHW P 0
D Wright CHW P 0
F Diaz CHW P 0
J Burke CHW 1B 0
K Dransfeldt CHW SS 0
R Gload CHW 1B 0
Comments (3)
Buehrle’s Recent Wins In Perspective
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— Charles Rector @ 10:53 pm

Much has been made by Sox fans about Mark Buehrle’s 3 latest victories. These wins, they believe, prove that Buehrle has ended his 4 year decline. Not so fast, folks. These wins were achieved with massive offensive support, far greater than that given any other Sox starter. This allows Buehrle to become more relaxed and helps reduce both the stress on him and also the number of pitches that he has to make to get outs.

What happens when that offensive outpouring is dammed up by an opposing team? Also, given the number of pitches that Buehrle has been making lately (112 tonight for instance) increases the overall stress on his system. Remember that last year Mark Prior of the Little Bears had a 17-9 season leading pundits to proclaim him to be the greatest pitcher of his generation. Today, Prior is limited to only a few innings at a time with the Single A Lansing Lugnuts, stark testimony to the effect that overuse has on pitchers. In other words, even if by some miracle Buehrle continues in turning his season around, its still quite possible that the Fickle Fiendish Forces of Fate will grab him from behind and mess him up.
Comments (1)
5/20/2004
Konerko’s New, Improved Routine
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— Charles Rector @ 11:04 pm

White Sox 1st Baseman Paul Konerko now has a new routine at Home Plate. This consists of lifting his front leg while the pitcher is in the windup and keeping it lifted until the pitch arrives. It seems to be working for him, in the last two days since he adopted his new routine, he has been on a tear, hitting 6 for 10 including 2 Home Runs and a double and raising his batting average to .263.

Keep it up No. #14!
Comments (0)
5/19/2004
White Sox Pitching Stats
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— Charles Rector @ 6:36 pm

Following are the current pitching stats for the White Sox:

Starters:

Schoeneweis: 3-1 3.18 ERA
Garland: 3-2 3.62 ERA
Buehrle: 3-1 3.99 ERA
Loaiza: 4-3 4.20 ERA
Cotts: ????

Bullpen:

Takatsu: 2.13 ERA
Cotts: 2.45 ERA
Adkins: 2.63 ERA
Jackson: 3.68 ERA
Marte: 3.86 ERA
Koch: 4.41 ERA
Politte: 5.73 ERA
Comments (3)
Desperation Move: KC Royals Move Golden Boy to the MLB Squad
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— Charles Rector @ 6:10 pm

Following is an Official Press Release from the Omaha Royals:

May 19, 2004 - OMAHA – Zack Greinke was scheduled to start for the Omaha Royals Saturday afternoon at Tacoma. Instead, the 20-year old right-hander is now set to make his Major League debut pitching Saturday afternoon at Oakland, with Greinke squaring off against Barry Zito, the 2002 American League Cy Young Award winner.

The Kansas City Royals say Greinke, ranked by Baseball America as the team’s top prospect entering this season, will join the parent club for the series opener in Oakland on Friday night. The transaction to add him to KC’s roster is not expected to happen until Saturday.

Greinke made six starts for Omaha, going 1-1 and posting a 2.51 ERA. In three of his first five starts, a strict pitch count held him to four innings in each outing. However, Greinke turned in his longest, and possibly best stint of the season Monday night at Rosenblatt Stadium when he recorded his first Triple-A win in a 2-1 victory over the Fresno Grizzlies.

Rain delayed the start of the contest for one-hour-and-13 minutes and once it belatedly began, Greinke gave up one run on two hits and a hit batter in the first inning. But, after his teammates scored two runs in the bottom of the first to give Greinke the lead, he blanked Fresno over the next five frames. Greinke, who was Kansas City’s first pick and the sixth overall selection in the 2002 draft out of Apopka High School in Florida, did not walk a batter Monday, while chalking up a season-high seven strikeouts and retiring ten straight batters at one point during his 83-pitch effort.

Overall with Omaha, Greinke pitched 28-and-two-thirds innings, allowing 8 earned runs on 25 hits. He walked just six batters, while striking out 23 and held opposing batters to a .225 average. In his three starts at Rosenblatt Stadium, the wunderkind went 1-0 with a 0.60 ERA, allowing just one run in fifteen innings at Omaha.
GOODBYE DAWLEY: Omaha is losing another pitcher off its roster. The Cleveland Indians claimed Joe Dawley off waivers today. Dawley had to be designated for assignment on May 16 so that Kansas City could add infielder Wilton Guerrero to its 40-man roster and call him up. It was hoped that the 32-year old right-hander would clear waivers and join Omaha tomorrow for the start of its eight-game road trip to Tacoma and Portland. Dawley went 1-2 with a 3.19 ERA in 9 appearances, including three spot starts, for Omaha. He’s expected to be assigned to Triple-A Buffalo.
Comments (0)
My Take On The Blackhawks News
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— Charles Rector @ 6:06 pm

My take on the decision of the Chicago Blackhawks to both renew the contract of head coach Brian Sutter and hire Bruce Cassidy as a new assistant coach for team defense is that it is a good move. Perhaps even the best move. Sutter knows hockey and is committed to the team. Cassidy is a former Blackhawks player and is an accomplished coach on both the major and minor league level. It appears likely that Cassidy is to be Sutter’s designated heir and is for now the apprentice of the 12th winningest coach in NHL history. Having said that, if the Blackhawks had decided to drop Sutter entirely in favor of Cassidy taking the reins, that would also have been a good move in light of Cassidy’s credentials as a head coach.

In any event, this is a much better decision than what could easily have been a disaster. During the past several years, a number of incompetent coaches such as Dirk Graham, Lorne Molleken and the Coach Named Alpo have sat in the coaches’s chair and done nothing but fail. The track record of Blackhawks management in hiring coaches has not been the best. There were a number of media reports suggesting that the team was seriously considering the unaccomplished bush leaguer Trent Yawney of the Norfolk Admirals for the position. That being the case, the renewal of Sutter coupled with the hiring of Cassidy comes as a great relief to this lifetime Blackhawks fan.
Comments (1)
Decent News Regarding The Chicago Blackhawks Coaching Situation
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— Charles Rector @ 5:53 pm

Following is a press release from the Official Website of the Chicago Blackhawks NHL hockey team:

Sutter Gets One-Year Extension
Savard, Cassidy To Serve As Assistants

By Adam Kempenaar
chicagoblackhawks.com
May 19, 2004

Coming off a year that saw a team-record 19 rookies used in the lineup, Brian Sutter believed he deserved a chance to continue guiding the Blackhawks’ young talent now that the worst of the growing pains were over. General manager Bob Pulford agreed, as the Blackhawks announced Wednesday that the club has extended Sutter’s contract to coach the team next season.

“I am very satisfied and excited about our coaching staff,” said Pulford. “We were struck by key injuries early last season and Brian Sutter did a very good job with the talent we had. I think we can make improvements to our team and that he deserves a chance to coach that team.”

The 12th-winningest coach in NHL history, Sutter will be re-joined behind the Blackhawks’ bench by assistant coach Denis Savard, who also had his contract extended. Assistant coach Al Mac Adam will be replaced by former Hawk defenseman Bruce Cassidy, who joined the organization in January as a professional scout after being terminated as the head coach of the Washington Capitals mid-season.

Cassidy, 39, posted a 47-47-9-7 record in 110 games during his tenure with the Capitals (2002-04). Prior to that, he spent two seasons as head coach of the Grand Rapid Griffins of the International Hockey League compiling a record of 95-49-11-7. While with Grand Rapids, he was named The Hockey News’ IHL Coach of the Year for 2000-01 and the American Hockey League’s Coach of the Year (2001-02).

“Denis Savard has worked very hard in his time as an assistant coach with the Blackhawks and he has developed into a very good coach,” added Pulford. “The addition of Bruce Cassidy is going to really help our young defensemen. He has played defense in the NHL and has also been a coach at the NHL level. I believe we have put together an excellent coaching staff.”
Comments (0)
5/18/2004
Cotts The New 5th Starter?
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— Charles Rector @ 11:49 pm

It has been reported on WSCR 670 AM that Felix Diaz has been sent back down to the minors and left-handed specialist relief pitcher Kelly Wunsch will be brought up to Chicago. Additionally, Neal Cotts will replace Diaz in the starting rotation. This is a stupid decision. Last year, Cotts was a miserable failure as a starting pitcher. It also ignores the fact that relief pitcher Jon Adkins has an accomplished record as a starting pitcher.

In 2002, Adkins was 11-9 as a starter at a couple different levels, he recorded a 5.40 ERA, and he allowed 11.8 hits per nine innings pitched. In 2003 he had 19 starts at Charlotte, was 7-7 with a 4.21 ERA. In 9 relief apearances, he was 0-1 with a 2.30 ERA. Clearly, Adkins deserves consideration to be Felix Diaz’s successor as 5th starter.

At the minor league level, Neal Cotts has had success. He has won most of his games in the minors, but he has almost always given up about 1 hit per inning. Additionally, he has given up a walk for roughly every 2 strikeouts as well as a walk for almost every hit. Another problem is that he has never pitched at the Triple-A level, depriving him of that experience.

Neal Cotts has been successful at the major league level as a relief pitcher where he has fit into a groove. This is in direct contrast to the disastrous performance he has last year as a starter. In 2003, he posted a 1-1 record from 4 starts with a whopping 8.10 ERA. He pitched only 13 1/3rd innings in those 4 starts. That is an average of not much more than 4 innings completed each start. That is abysmal. Even worse was his behavior while a member of the club in Chicago. Prior to his game vs. the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, he whined to the manager, other players and reporters about how much he wanted to pitch at Yankee Stadium until then Manager Jerry Manuel relented. The end result was that Cotts looked just like a deer in the Yankee headlights and what almost certainly would have been a victory under the pitcher who was originally scheduled for that game, Mark Buehrle, turned into a rout under the hapless Cotts who only lasted 1/3rd of an inning.

There is little to indicate that he will not repeat his poor showing as a starter this year. Or to put it another way, if Cotts kept to being a relief pitcher, he could become a perennial All-Star, but as a starter, he’s nothing but a DS: Designated Scapegoat.
Comments (4)
The Myth of Ozzieball
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— Charles Rector @ 11:37 pm

There is a persistent myth about the Chicago White Sox these days. It holds that the team has been miraculously transformed from a losing “corpseball” team under former manager Jerry Manuel into a winning “smallball” team under new manager Ozzie Guillen. Nothing could be further from the truth.

According to those in the news media who claim that Guillen has changed the team for the better, Ozzie has made the Sox into a base-stealing outfit. However, the team as a whole has a grand total of 22 Stolen Bases, 11 times Caught Stealing and 5 Pick-Offs. In other words, 22 SB’s for 16 outs. That’s well below the70% success in stealing bases threshold. This is important since a stealing base artist needs at least a 70% rate if his efforts are to be a plus for the team.

Ozzie is trying to have slow players steal bases and that just makes no sense whatsoever.

Truly, Ozzie Guillen is a buffoon.
Comments (1)
The Worst Division in Baseball
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— Charles Rector @ 7:55 pm

We’ve all heard the nonsense about how the American League Central Division is the worst division in baseball, right? Well, here’s a recent development that puts things in perspective:

Except for a solitary Colorado victory over the Larry Bowa-addled Philadelphia Phillies, the entire NL West got swept at home this weekend. The Reds swept LA while Pittsburgh swept San Francisco and the Expos swept the D-Backs. Even the stupid Cubs swept the Padres.

Utterly pathetic.
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Kobe Bryant in Perspective
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— Charles Rector @ 12:13 pm

I am getting sick and tired of the whole “Kobe Bryant In 2 Courts” media soap opera. This creep isn’t going through terrible things physically when he goes to law court and plays a game at a basketball court later on the same day. Bryant’s day follows this basic routine:

Wakes up in the morning
Puts on fancy clothes
Boards a private plane
Sit in an air conditioned law court room for a few hours and listen to lawyers babble
Goes back to LA on that private plane
Go to the basketball court
Puts on uniform
Play basketball for millions of dollars
Watch the media say how amazing he is for doing these things.

It might be a little tough mentally to go to court for rape charges and play in an NBA game the same day, but the media is greatly exaggerating how amazing Kobe is for playing and dealing with legal issues this season. By doing so, the media is glorifying this scum. The media deserves a good swift kick in the head.
Comments (1)
5/15/2004
Northern League Preseason: Schaumburg Defeats Joliet 6-2
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— Charles Rector @ 7:58 pm

FLYERS DEFEAT JACKHAMMERS
Schaumburg’s 6-2 Win Evens Pre-Season Record At 1-1

SCHAUMBURG, IL- The Schaumburg Flyers defeated the Joliet JackHammers by a 6-2 score in a pre-season game on Saturday afternoon at Alexian Field. The Flyers picked up their first win of the pre-season, evening their exhibition record at 1-1. Joliet is also 1-1. The game was not open to the public.

The Flyers took control in the bottom of the third inning, batting around and scoring four runs to take the lead for good at 4-0. JackHammers reliever Brian Mazone (0-1) retired the first batter of the inning and then gave up six straight singles and a sacrifice fly. RF Ben Van Iderstine lashed a two-run single to put Schaumburg on the board and 1B Mario Delgado followed with a line drive hit to score another run. DH T.J. Staton lofted a sacrifice fly to left field, accounting for the fourth run. Starter Brad Ziegler (1-0) was very sharp in his first outing of the spring, pitching four shutout innings to record the victory. He struck out four batters and allowed just one hit, a bad hop single by Joliet CF Josh Loggins in the first inning.

2004 newcomer Eric Cole belted a solo homer off Julio Medina (Elk Grove High School) in the bottom of the eighth. David Gordon hit a solo shot for Joliet, taking reliever Zack Otte deep in the top of the ninth.

The Flyers will conclude their brief exhibition slate on Sunday afternoon at Gary (No Radio). LHP Anthony Boughner will start for Schaumburg in the 1:00 PM game. Regular season play begins on Thursday, May 20 vs. Fargo-Moorhead.

Notes: The six pitchers that appeared in Saturday’s game are not expected to journey to Gary on Sunday…
Comments (0)
The Media Bias Against the Sox and in Favor of the Cubs
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— Charles Rector @ 12:00 pm

For too long, there has been a pervasive pro-Cubs bias in Chicago news media. The Tribune owns the Lovable Losers and has attendance-wise pushed the Cubs into a position of dominance. There is a long string of poorly reported stories that have appeared in the Chicago media that collectively cast an unfavorable light on the Sox. When U.S. Cellular Field first opened, there were wildly erroneous media accounts of how the new seats had bullet holes in them. The media has also continually smeared the neighborhood around the former Comiskey Park as being a bad crime zone which is actually a gentrified area. The media has also hyped a few on-the-field incidents in the last few years beyond belief. This has created the image that Sox fans are dangerous and out of control. However, the two fans who actually attacked the umpire and coach were really self-confessed Cubs fans. They have widely been reported as Sox fans irregardless of the truth. The news media has continually ran more stories about the Cubs than about the Sox and the pieces about the Cubs are almost uniformly of a positive nature. The media has glossed over the bad aspects of the Cubs situation while emphasizing the negative stuff about the Sox.

A person recently died in the immediate vicinity of Wrigley Field. He was gunned down in the street after hitting the hood of a car with a toy bat purchased at the ballpark roughly 100 yards or so away. The Cub fans walk from the game to the bars that line the streets. The dirty little secret about the area around Wrigley Field is that it isn’t a nice place to live. Chicago Police Department stats in the half mile radius around Wrigley are far worse than for the area around the Sox’s ballpark. However there is hardly any coverage of that fact in either the Tribune or the Sun-Times.

The root cause why the bad situation around Wrigley is glossed over while the nicer situation around U.S. Cellular Field is besmirched lies in the fact that the economic and social elites of Chicago live on the North Side. This includes the journalistic elite. Thus the coverage is to glorify the North while trashing the South.

We can only hope that the rampant media bias against the South Side ball park and for its counterpart on the North Side will come to an end. Don’t hold your breath about it.
Comments (1)
5/13/2004
Secret Guidelines
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— Charles Rector @ 7:59 am

There are some fansites/fan forums that operate under what can only be described as “secret guidelines” that are enforced every bit as much as the guidelines that are publically viewable. One such place is White Sox Interactive (WSI). For example, in a thread devoted to discussion of the April 30th game vs. the Toronto Blue Jays, one of the moderators, “Daver,” put up a picture reading “take it to chat,” meaning that the game should be discussed on chat and not on the forum. One of the regular forum posters questioned Daver as follows:

“Take it to chat”.

Daver, I’m having trouble reconciling your concerns with bandwidth regarding the “Today’s Game” topic with the countless repetitive threads on other topics, i.e., “I hate the Cubs”, “I hate the local media”, “Go Sox” (the numerous content-free versions), “what is your favorite jersey”, “if you were a Sox fan, what animal would you be”, etc.

What’s the mods’ rule on bandwidth wasteage? I don’t mean this in an inflammatory way, I’m just curious. Point being, there’s substantive baseball talk on the PBP– chat doesn’t seem to provide that very often.

Now, this poster raised a very good point. As this writer has witnessed first hand, the problem with the game time chat is that hardly anything relevant to the baseball game is in the chat and any attempt to talk about the actual game is drowned in a sea of inanity. Given that so much of the forum’s content is in the form of drivel, it seems hard believe that the moderators really believe that a game day thread, which is the purest form of baseball posting on what’s supposed to be a baseball forum, could be a waste of bandwidth.

In any event, since the poster made his point and a solid question to boot, you would think that the moderators would respond with a good answer. If so, you would be dead wrong. The question was answered this way: a moderator named “voodoochile” quoted the cited post and then put up a picture that on the WSI Forum means “troll.” The website owner, “PaleHoseGeorge,” followed up voodoochile’s trollery accusation with the line, “more than that” with crybaby faces on his post. In other words, instead of answering the question, the moderators responded with insults and calumny.

The poster took the moderators’s insults personally and responded thusly:

I’m a hardcore Sox fan, and I get the “troll” thing from no less than two mods– huh?

I asked a legitimate question regarding “chat” (no content, usually) vs. “Game Day” thread (not content-filled, but actual, substantive baseball content does sift in) and I get “troll” from you guys?

Yeesh, I’m a huge Sox fan, and I get that? A “mod” should exhibit a “mod"icum of impartiality. Mods posting troll images on a Sox fan that simply made an observation on interactions occurring on this site? That ain’t fair, and

JohnJeter! He gawn!

Now, the poster reconsidered his position and soon returned to the forum. However, the moderators refused to even reconsider either their decision about eliminating gameday threads let alone their poor treatment of a forum member for asking a perfectly good question. Now, there are only post-game threads allowed on the forum. What all this amounts to is there is a secret guideline of “Don’t You Dare Question The Moderators Judgement.”

There is another example of a secret guideline at work at WSI. On the front page of the WSI website, there are some articles and if you click on the headline you will access a page that has the entire article on it. On the bottom of the page, you will find the following:

Have a Thought about
[name of column or article in question]

You Can Put it on the Board – Yes!

Clicking on the “You Can Put it on the Board – Yes!” button leads you in turn to the WSI Forum where you can post your thoughts about the piece in question. Now, this may seem quite straightforward, but as the following example demonstrates, Some Things Are Not What They Seem To Be.

One of the columnists at WSI is one Hal Vickery who wrote a column back in November, 2003, that included this passage:

• Someone is tighter than The Chairman: On the other hand if the Sox are that way, what does that make the Milwaukee Brewers ghost owner Commissioner Budlight? After promising the Milwaukee voters that if they approved a new stadium the Brewers would field a competitive team, their ownership is instead trimming their budget to a measly $30 million.

As it happens, this writer disagreed with Vickery’s premise and posted to the WSI Forum under the heading, “A Question for Hal Vickery” the following:

Mr. Vickery:

If you are so rich that you can call a $30 Mil. payroll for the Milwaukee Brewers, “measly,” then why don’t you pony up the money to buy the team? The same question goes for the rest of you who talk about millions of dollars as if it were just so much pocket change.

Now, that does not seem terribly harsh or vindictive does it? Basically, its a question that could be posed to a great many sportswriters and others who seem to think that the wish of owners and GM’s to win can only be adequately guaged by how much money that they spend on payroll and who presume that any hesitation at paying outrageous salary demands is due to “cheapness” and a desire to place profits over winning. That being the case, you would think that Vickery would have no problem answering that question or that the moderators would have no problem with the question being asked in the first place. If so, you would be dead wrong.

The first reaction by a WSI moderator was by voodoochile in putting up a picture reading “This Thread Sucks.” This is a common WSI technique of deriding posts/threads that the moderators do not like. Voodoochile also included this question in a subsequent post: “That is an interesting question. Are you trolling Hal, Crector? You seem to have an issue with him personally…” That was a reference to some previous criticisms that I had made of some of Vickery’s writings.

The next reaction was by Hal Vickery himself who posted, ” I am Hal, and I have only one thing to say regarding crector’s post:” and that statement was followed by the troll picture. In other words, instead of engaging in debate, Vickery only did name-calling. Daver thereupon followed up on Vickery’s post with the following:

I have exactly one thing to say to this thread,if you want to question Hal about his column do it via the e-mail link provided at the bottom of his column,to do it here is trolling,nothing more and nothing less.

I kill trolls,and I do it well.Perhaps you should consider going back to the MLB boards,they turn a blind eye to this type of thing,it doesn’t work that way here.

This writer responded to Daver by pointing out the obvious:

If you were to point your browser to: http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/…egory=2&id=2381
and scroll down, you will find the following:

Have a Thought about
Maggs a Goner?

You Can Put it on the Board – Yes!

Well, that’s what I was doing. I put down a question for the author of the piece concerning a statement that he made in his article. Considering that it says that you can do so on the WSI website, I don’t see how that can be considered as being “trolling” at all.

Please clarify this for both myself and others who were also under the impression that the articles and statements made in those articles were suitable topics for discussion here on the WSI Forum.

Now that does seem like a perfectly legitimate post, does it not? If WSI provides a button to readers of its posted articles and columns, then how can a moderator take the position that posting about the piece in question is “trolling”? However, none of the moderators replied. One of the regular writers at WSI, Dan Helpingstine, was also confused by the moderators’s reaction as shown by his post:

Your post was ill advised, but you had every right to make it. This was not trolling whatever trolling is. I don’t think anyone should be discouraged from responding to a column on the message board. I thought that was a purpose of WSI. As far as embarassing yourself, I’ve seen others do a hell of lot worse.

As for the website owner, he made his sentiments clear when he wroter that the follwoing about this writer’s original post, “Believe me, you would have been far better off sending an email. The embarrassing nature of your rant would have remained private. Too late now.” Between that and a subsequent nasty email, this writer believed that he had been banned from the WSI Forum and as a result, it was not until 2 months later that this writer ever again posted there.

Basically, what all this boils down to is that there is a secret guideline of “Don’t You Dare Post Disagreements With WSI Writers.” Ever since the Vickery incident, there have not been any incidents of folks posting to the WSI Forum their disagreements with articles posted to the website. And no, it is not the result of WSI only posting articles that are so innocuous that nobody could ever disagree with them either. The behavior of the moderators in the Vickery incident served to suppress debate on issues of interest and importance to White Sox fans. However, the button inviting readers to post to the forum their reactions to the articles remains and it is only a matter of time until some other unlucky soul triggers the wrath of the moderators.

Of course, there is the problem of considering the WSI Forum moderators as being moderators. Real moderators serve to facilitate discussion, not suppress it. At the WSI Forum, what they really have are trolls masquerading as moderators or perhaps rather troll-moderators. There are other secret guidelines at the WSI Forum and cases of Moderators Behaving Badly so much so that a lot of formerly active posters there, such as this writer, have quit posting there altogether.

And folks wonder why some fansites and/or fan forums eventually evaporate………….
Comments (3)
Ozzie Guillen, Please Take Note
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 5:11 am

If you want to see a non-Cubs example of how overuse of a pitcher such as Mark Buehrle can negatively affect his future performance, just check out the “The Trouble With Barry” post from the
Feel the Pain of a Reds Fan… blog.
Comments (0)
5/12/2004
The Uncanny Similarity Between Mark Buehrle And Mark Prior
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 1:54 pm

There is a disturbing similarity between the way that Dusty Baker used Mark Prior in 2003 and the way that Ozzie Guillen is using Mark Buehrle thus far in 2004. Also disturbing is the way that Cubs fans last year talked about how Prior was “indestructable” and how this year White Sox fans are talking about how Buehrle is similarly impregnable. Despite a good performance over the lackluster Orioles last night, Buehrle’s 2004 ERA is 4.53 which is still a marked increase over the 4.14 ERA that he posted last year. Buehrle is still in the middle of a 4-year decline despite the good news of last night’s 15-0 shellacking of Baltimore. Hopefully, Buehrle will not be stricken in 2005 by the kind of medical situation that Prior is currently in.
Comments (3)
Felix Diaz Called Up As Sox #5 Starter
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 1:35 pm

The Chicago White Sox have just announced that 23 year old Felix Diaz will be called up from Triple A Charlotte to become the team’s new #5 Starter. Diaz replaces the luckless Danny Wright. Diaz first came to the Sox as a result of the trade of alleged clubhouse cancer Kenny Lofton to the San Francisco Giants for pitching prospects. This was a major victory for Sox GM Kenny Williams who picked up both Diaz and Ryan Meaux who are both still in the Sox organization as opposed to Lofton who has since left the Giants for Pittsburgh, then the stupid Cubs and now the ARod afflicted N.Y. Yankees. Diaz has a solid fastball with velocity in the mid-to-low 90s and has excellent movement on his pitches. His best pitch is the slider.

Following are the stats of the No. #1 pitcher in the International League aka Felix Diaz:

W-L: 5-0
ERA: 1.83
Innings Pitched: 39 1/3rd
Runs: 10
Earned Runs: 8
Hits: 33
Home Runs: 3
Strikeouts: 32
Walks: 5
Comments (1)
So True
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 11:20 am

From:

RedsZone Post

Now they’re blaming Dusty Baker for destroying woods arm.
Just for kicks, here’s other threads on the cubs message board:
-Sosa to NYY for…Kenny Lofton and prospects
-The curse lives on
-We are in trouble tonight
-Folks we need to pray
-this does not look good

Cubs fans make me want to vomit.
Comments (0)
Press Release: Joliet 8, Schaumburg 6
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 9:55 am

May 11, 2004

FLYERS OPEN 2004 EXHIBITION SEASON
Schaumburg Loses To JackHammers 8-6 At Alexian Field

SCHAUMBURG, IL- The Schaumburg Flyers faced competition for the first time this season, losing their first exhibition game of 2004 by an 8-6 score to Joliet on Tuesday afternoon at Alexian Field. The ballpark was not open for Tuesday’s game. The game featured promising performances from several new players who joined the Flyers in the off-season.

The JackHammers put the first run of the game on the board in the top of the third inning.
Blake Woods singled and stole second, eventually scoring on a Kevin Roberson fly ball that was dropped by Flyers left fielder Eric Goerdt. The Flyers responded in the bottom of the fourth when off-season acquisition Eric Cole drove in T.J. Staton with a double to center field. Cole finished the game 2-4 at the plate with 2 RBI.

Joliet scored five runs in their half of the sixth to jump out to a 6-2 lead. New Flyers pitcher Zack Otte (0-1) gave up all five runs, but none were earned. He got all three outs of the inning on strikeouts. First baseman Justin Hendrickson led off the Flyers’ sixth inning with a solo home run to straightaway center field. He finished with two hits, a walk, 2 RBI and two runs scored.

Right fielder Ben Van Iderstine and Hendrickson hit back to back doubles in the bottom of the ninth, bringing home the final two runs of the game for the Flyers as Schaumburg rallied in vain.

Right-hander J.P. Fauske, recently added to the Flyers bullpen, pitched two strong innings, allowing no runs or hits and striking out three Joliet hitters. Starter Brett Gray went three innings, giving up four hits and an unearned run with 3 strikeouts. LHP Matt Miller (1-0) picked up the win out of the JackHammers bullpen.

NOTES: The Flyers play an exhibition game against the Gary SouthShore RailCats at Alexian Field Wednesday night at 7:05…Tickets are only $5 and are available by calling 847-891-2255 or by visiting the Flyers Ticket Office…RHP Dave Therneau will start and is scheduled to pitch three innings…
Comments (4)
5/11/2004
Something Worth Pondering
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 10:14 am

From Page 55 of Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Lineups:

About Ozzie Guillen: “At twenty-one, arrived in the majors fully formed: fantastic glove, but virtually zero plate discipline or power.”

Currently, the Sox’s greatest weakness is the fact that outside of Frank Thomas hardly anyone on the team has plate discipline and is able to consistently draw walks. Is this team becoming a mirror reflection of Ozzie as Player?
Comments (0)
New 5-Spot Ticket Plan
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 8:39 am

From whitesox.com , here are the details on a new ticket plan:

http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/cws/ticketing/ticketdeals.jsp

With the White Sox Five-Spot ticket plan, enjoy five exciting White Sox Baseball games - four Thursday games and a Friday game, one per month - in the Lower Reserved seating section (Sections 104-105) for just $100 per seat. Save nearly 20 percent off the regular ticket price!

Plus, each Thursday game is Dollar Dog Thursday presented by Ball Park Franks, featuring $1 Ball Park Franks and $2.50 Kosher hot dogs at select concession stands. On Friday, June 11, enjoy Pan American Night and signature postgame Fireworks, all presented by Miller Lite.

The White Sox Five-Spot games include:

Thursday, May 27 vs. Rangers, 7:05

Friday, June 11 vs. Braves, 7:05

Thursday, July 8 vs. Angels, 1:05

Thursday, August 19 vs. Tigers, 7:05

Thursday, September 23 vs. Royals, 7:05
Comments (0)
5/10/2004
The State of the Chicago White Sox 1 Month Into the 2004 Season
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 11:28 am

The 2004 baseball season is already a month old, and White Sox fans are fairly happy with their team’s performance so far. There have been some pleasant surprises and some notable weaknesses along the way. Baseball history tells us that the teams leading their divisions after April are quite often the teams still playing in October. With the Sox tied for 1st in the AL Central, there is room for optimism.

Clubhouse leader Jose Valentin was hitting well before he went to the Disabled List, but new Sox Juan Uribe has salmmed the ball early and often and has been a fielding wizard. A lot of Sox fans expected Esteban Loaiza to mess up this year after an unpecedented 21-win season in 2003, but he is currently sporting a 4-2 record after six starts. Lefty Scott Schoeneweis has defied the expecations of the majority of the fans who thought that he would fail as a starter with a 3-2 mark.

Sox fans still have fits of apprehension when Closer Billy Koch comes out of the bullpen, even though he has converted most of his opportunities into saves. Carlos Lee is having his customary slow start at the plate. The fifth spot in the rotation is still a glaring weakness and Danny Wright lost all four of his starts, posted an 8.15 ERA and has been sent down to Triple A Charlotte.

Willie Harris has had an inconsistent beginning to the season. Juan Uribe cannot be taken out of the lineup the way he is swinging the bat and fielding the ball. Magglio Ordonez, who has been making excessive salary demands if the team wants to resign him, has been having his ususal poor start to the season. Frank Thomas continues to draw walks and make clutch hits. 3B J. Crede seems to swing the bat better as the mercury rises and his start to this season is much like his start to last season: poor.

Paul Konerko is still the streaky hitter that he always has been. Aaron Rowandwas supposed to have been given the opportunity to win the centerfieldposition, but Ozzie has had him platoned with Timo Perez in an inconsistent manner . Miguel Olivo and Sandy Alomar have been a solid pairing at catcher, especially with Olivo improving at the plate.

Loaiza has defied the gloomy forecasts of his critics, although his ERA is up and his strikeouts are down as compared to a year ago. Mark Buehrle has been over-used and it shows in his pathetic 5.27 ERA. Jon Garland has been his usual lackadaisical self. Schoeneweis has been the stalwart of the rotation to date, and is currently making a strong showing for the 2004 AL Cy Young Award. As many fans feared, Danny Wright was a huge bust as 5th starter and it looks like his days as a Sox pitcher are numbered. It is still not known just who his successor as 5th starter will be.

The Sox bullpen is strong although Billy Koch is still an achilles heel. The Sox bullpen has such talented pitchers as Jon Adkins, Cliff Politte and Damaso Marte. “Mr. Zero” Shingo Takatsu has a 2-0 record here in MLB.

The White Sox’s record this year is roughly the same that it was last year at this point in time. Under Manager Jerry Manuel, the Sox were a team that utilized many different lineups so as to achieve the best statistical matchups on a batter vs. pitcher basis. Thus far, under Manuel’s successor Ozzie Guillen, the Sox lineup has been stable with an increased reliance on bunts and stolen bases. GM Kenny Williams has done a magnificent job with the team’s minor league system and has a surplus of quality talent from which to draw on to address future needs.
Comments (0)
Brian Anderson
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 7:03 am

Brian Anderson is one of the hottest Sox prospects at the Single A level. Following are his stats:

Avg.: .326
Hits: 28
Walks: 10
Runs: 10
Doubles: 11
Home Runs: 2
RBI: 15
Strikeouts: 22
Stolen Bases: 4

It is widely expected that Anderson will soon be called up to Double A Birmingham. If that’s the case, then watch out Southern League! Here comes Brian Anderson!
Comments (1)
Sox vs. Twins For AL Central Championship
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 6:36 am

Thus far, the White Sox have mainly played weak teams such as the Toronto Blue Jays and KC Royals. Tied for first with the Minnesota Twins is decent even though the Twins schedule thus far in the season was tougher than the Sox’s. It’s early, but the signs are troubling. Basically, the Sox have done less with their rookie manager Ozzie Guillen than what the Twins have done with their veteran manager, Ron Gardenhire.

A day of reckoning for fans of both teams is coming since the Sox play 8 games in 11 days vs. the Twins beginning May 14th. The early season games between the Twins and Sox will give the victor to build both a lead in the standings and provide momentum that could carry the winning team through the rest of the season.

The Twins have gotten off to a strong start despite both a rash of injuries and the fact that they have been playing a stronger schedule than the Sox. The fast start is due mostly to the Twins offense that has stayed away from the temptation of home run glory and concentrated on the fundamentals.

Overall, the Twins have scored 159 runs as compared to 149 for the Sox. The Sox have an On Base Percentage of .345 as opposed to .344 for the Twins. The Twins lead the Sox in batting average, .276 to .271. And in slugging, the Sox have a decent lead at .456 as compared to .436 for the Twins. The Sox’s biggest lead over the Twins is in home runs where they have 42 to the Twins 32.

Neither team has especially good pitching. The Sox staff has an ERA of 4.49 while that of the Twins has an ERA of 4.56. Sox pitchers have allowed 148 runs while Minnesota’s pitchers have allowed 153. Only in Batting Average Against does the Sox staff (.267) have a discernible lead over the Twins pitching (.283).

The reason for the slight Sox superiority in pitching lies in the fact the Sox have had their starters go deeper into games, and therefore the Sox bullpen is comparatively rested. However, that may backfire since there is a risk that the Sox starters may burn out over the course of the season. Already, Sox starter Mark Buehrle’s effectiveness is on the wane due to overuse this season.

As things stand, the odds are that both teams will split the May games and the race for the AL Central crown will continue to be tight for the short run. However, given that the remainder of the schedule will be a bit tougher for the Sox than the Twins and the clear difference in the quality of the team managers, the chances of the Twins winning their 3rd consecutive divisional title are better than those of the Sox.
Comments (2)
5/8/2004
Did Sox Blunder With Troy Cameron Release?
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 8:38 am

Recently, Troy Cameron was released by the White Sox’s Single A affiliate at Winston-Salem. On the face of it, this move was justified by Cameron’s slow start with a batting average of .230 and only 6 RBI’s in 15 games. There were other factors at work here including a desire to free up playing time for other prospects.

However, Cameron is not your ordinary prospect. He is a 7-year veteran of professional baseball and was originally drafted in the 1st round of the 1997 draft by the Atlanta Braves. He spent the next several years playing in the minor league systems of Atlanta, Cleveland and Colorado. During 2003, he played with the Joliet JackHammers of the independent Northern League. Cameron’s stats at Joliet included a .250 batting average, four HR’s and 23 RBI’s in 43 games.

However, it was as a fielder that the thrid baseman really distinguished himself. An acquaintance of this writer who saw Cameron play at 3B at Joliet last year says that Cameron was one of the very best fielders that he has ever seen. This is an important point since fielding has become a Sox team weakness since Ozzie Guillen took over as manager. Additionally, Cameron also had a slow start at Joliet but by season’s end became a key power hitter with the offense.

Currently, the Sox system has many prospects who are power hitters, but all too often are weak with the glove. This is a serious weakness and had the Sox had taken the time and effort to coach Cameron on the hitting side, they would have had a prospect who already was an experienced pro ballplayer. Instead, the Sox just let Cameron go.

Currently, the White Sox Times is unaware of whether or not Troy Cameron has signed on with another minor league team. If he does, this weblog will keep you posted on his progress. It will be most interesting to see if Cameron ultimately gets the last laugh and if the White Sox pays a price for letting Cameron go too early into the young season.
Comments (4)
An In-Depth Look at the Declining Effectiveness of Mark Buehrle
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 7:14 am

Mark Buehrle’s decline is entering its 4th year. His overall stats are poor (1-1 5.27 ERA). His allowed hits and home runs are significantly higher than they were at this point last year. Opposing batters are hitting .306 off Buehrle through seven starts. Of all the Sox starting pitchers, only Danny Wright has a higher batting average against (.320). This is the third straight year opponents’s average against Buehrle has continually gone up. This is definitely a trend that White Sox management needs to be aware of.

Overuse is the root cause of Buehrle’s problem. Manager Jerry Manuel instituted a hard pitch count limit at 100 on his starting pitchers. However, the bullheaded pitcher resented this limit and it showed whenever his manager took him out of a game. Under Manuel’s successor, Ozzie Guillen, things have become worse, much worse. Buehrle’s pitch counts are higher than last year as is his ERA. On May 5th, Buehrle pitched in Baltimore on 3 days rest. Unless Sox management reinstitutes the policies of the departed Manager Manuel, it is looking at the last days of Mark Buehrle as an effective starting pitcher wane to a pathetic end.
Comments (1)
Dennis Ulacia Southern League Pitcher of the Week
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 5:40 am

Star Sox pitching prospect Dennis Ulacia of the Sox’s Double A affiliate Birmingham Barons was just named the Southern League Pitcher of the Week. Ulacia’s stats for the past week are as follows:

W-L: 2-0
IP: 11 2/3rds
Strikeouts: 10
Hits: 6
Walks: 0
Runs: 1
ERA: 0.77!

Overall, Ulacia has an ERA of 2.70 over 27 2/3rds Innings Pitched. Ulacia was drafted in the 8th round in 1999 and has been widely considered as one of the top Sox pitching prospects. Due to the overall strength of the Barons’s pitching staff, Ulacia had been relegated to the bullpen until injuries necessitated his being moved into the starting rotation. Given the strength of his performance, it is likely that Ulacia will become a member of the Sox staff as early as next season. Barring major injury, Ulacia could have a bright future as a big leagues pitcher.
Comments (2)
5/7/2004
The Selective Outrage Of J. Hood
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 1:59 pm

Last night, while listening to WSCR 670 AM, the sports talk radion station in Chicago, I became ticked off by J. Hood’s handling of a caller. This caller was pointing out the difference in how the news media covered crimes that are committed in the vicinity of Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field (formerly Comiskey Partk). J. Hood’s method of dealing with the caller illustrated the fact that the Chicago media elite is composed of North Sider Cub fans.

Background: Whenever crimes are committed in the vicinity of the Ballpark Formerly Known As Comiskey, the media plays them up big time. However, when crimes of equal or greater severity are committed in the vincinity of Wrigley Field, they are downplayed. Case in point: yesterday’s case of a shooting at a bar near Wrigley. Several of the primary media outlets in Chicago are owned by the Tribune Company that owns the Cubs. All of those outlets, including the Chicago Tribune newspaper, either did not report the crime or severely downplayed its coverage. Many other media concerns, with the conspicuous exception of the Chicago Sun-Times, have followed the lead of the Tribune properties.

The caller to Hood’s show was attempting to point out the truth of how the Chicago media operates to Hood. Hood, however, refused to let the caller make his case without repeatedly rudely interrupting him and then ultimately hanging up on him. Hood then made the statement that he was sick of all this North Side/South Side stuff.

This was most interesting in light of Hood’s prior conduct. Hood has always talked up the North Side as a great place to live and he himself has talked about how he lives within easy waking distance of Wrigley Field and how its a nice neighborhood. However, he has gone out of his way to denegrate the area around where the Sox play as a crime-ridden place and he has had callers on who make ad hominem statements trashing the South Side as a whole as a “ghetto” where druggies and career criminals roam without interrupting or hanging up on them. In other words, Hood is only sick of hearing about North Side/South Side if the caller in question is relating things from the South Side perspective. This important since there are a lot of people who prefer going to Wrigley since they think that its a lot safer than the Cell.

One of the worst aspects of the Chicago media culture, outside of the manifest conflict of interest in the Tribune Co. owning the Cubs, is the fact that the overwhelming majority of the media elite live on the North Side and has done so for decades. Traditionally, the South Side is a working class industrial area while the North Side is where the financial district is located and where the yuppies like to settle. Since the Cubs are the team of the North Side, the media elite has been biased in favor of the Cubs and it shows in their reporting. According to Chicago Police Department statistics, the area around the former Comiskey Park actually has a lower crime rate than the area around Wrigley Field. However, you’d hardly know that from the reportage and as long as folks like J. Hood predominate, the disparity in reporting the facts concerning the living conditions around the 2 ballparks will continue.
Comments (0)
The Continued Decline And Fall Of Mark Buehrle
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 11:59 am

As previously reported here at the White Sox Times, Starting Pitcher Mark Buehrle’s performance has been on the wane. Following is the the three year decline of starter Mark Buehrle as evidenced by his stats from 2001, 2002 and 2003 (in order):

ERA: 3.29, 3.58, 4.14
K/BB: 2.63, 2.20, 1.95
K/9IP: 5.12, 5.05, 4.65
BAA: .230, .260, .278

Thus far this season, Buehrle has been a poster child for Manager Ozzie Guillen’s inability to properly handle a pitching staff. Consider: Buehrle’s ERA thus far is 5.27, yet Guillen had him throw 107 pitches against Baltimore on May 5th on only 3 days rest. The White Sox won that game only because the offense (Juan Uribe hit a triple), defense (Uribe made a pair of incredible catches) and the bullpen (Shingo Takatsu aka Mr. Zero picked up his 2nd win) came through. At this rate, Buehrle will be lucky not to finish the season with an ERA of 6.00 or worse. If so, he will get the last laugh since he has a 3 years $18 Mil. guaranteed contract that he must be paid even if his medical situation becomes such that he cannot pitch anymore.
Comments (0)
Is Something Wrong With Wright?
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 10:45 am

Danny Wright had his first rehab pitching stint with the Triple A Charlotte Knights last night. The results were not pretty. Following are the stats that he accumulated in the 2 innings that he pitched:

Innings Pitched: 2
Hits: 9
Runs: 9
Earned Runs: 9
Walks: 4
Strikeouts: 1
Home Runs: 2
ERA: 40.50

This is the absolute worst that Danny Wright has ever pitched. As such, you have to wonder if there is not something wrong with him of a medical nature.

It should be remembered that both Wright and Sox GM Kenny Williams wanted Wright to be a strictly relief pitcher, but Ozzie just had to have Wright as a starting pitcher. The higher workload that a starting pitcher has may have been a factor here. What a waste of talent.
Comments (1)
A Manager Worse Than Ozzie Guillen?
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 8:27 am

There are other teams that also have poor managers. One such team is the Philadelphia Phillies.

On April 29th, the Phillies were in extra innings against the St. Louis Cardinals and Relief Pitcher Amaury Telemaco was on the mound in the 10th inning. Phillies Manager Larry Bowa had Doug Glanville, Jason Michaels, and Shawn Wooten sitting on the bench ready to be called upon to pinch hit at anytime. However, he failed to utilize their services. Closer Billy Wagner sat through the whole game. Instead, Bowa left Telemaco in the game to hit, not just once but twice, and this was in a situation when getting an extra run is of paramount importance. The end result was that an obviously tiring Telemaco gave up a walk off home run to Jim Edmonds in the bottom of the 13th inning.

Unbelievable, but true.
Comments (0)
FireBrand’s Open Letter to JimH
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 6:01 am

Note: The following was originally posted to the Soxtalk forum, but it was moved by Chisoxfn aka Jason Gage aka the apparent website owner into a locked thread, guaranteeing that hardly anyone would read it. That move came as no surprise given the fact that JimH is Soxtalk’s official troll.

JimH … or should I say, Chuckles…

We do not allow your comments anymore because you say them with malice. A
troll is not one who has differing opinions on the White Sox, as you and
Rector obviously differ on things.

A troll is someone who says things with incredible malice and is intended
to start a war.

All you do is get off on insulting Rector every chance you get. I’ve been
following the Sox boards to see how Rector acts. Honestly, he’s fine.
He’s posting his comments to have a civilized discussion on it.

But that’s not fine with you, is it? After all, you may disagree with his
comments. And god help those who disagree with you.

A troll is not Rector. A troll is you - posting 10 comments IN ONE
FRICKING DAY on White Sox Times - each of them making fun of him.

Shut the f–k up.

Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. You’ve really pissed me off.

Listen. I’ve been on a Sox (Red) board that I left because of trolls.
Trolls are not Rector - posting differing opinions.

Trolls do what you do.

There were Yankee trolls on Projo.com, and they were posting with abandon
(kind of like you) saying incredibly horrible things, unprofessional
things (kind of like you).

Did you have a point about Politte being signed as a FA and not traded?

Absolutely.

Why didn’t we post it then? Well, let’s see.

1] You made it sound like it was a horrible mistake, when in actuality,
ESPN writers also make this mistake. (Mark Bellhorn was traded to the
Sox. We did not sign him as a FA as one of the ESPN writers said.)

2] You said it in a horrible way. Why in the world are your comments so
vitrolic? Why can’t you say nice things? You sound like someone who has
no life, no girlfriend … I mean … good lord, your comments are
abusive! (That is why we stopped allowing your comments. They were WAY
too mean. You really went overboard.)

3] If you want to correct a factual error, say it in a nice way!

Do you have any idea how horrible your comments were?

I mean, seriously?

—Apologies to the other members of the board. JimH has convieniently
left fake e-mail addresses on his WST comments and also on this board. I
had to get this out to the crowd.

Charles Rector is not a troll. Again, Charles Rector is not a troll. He
is just someone who wants to have a discussion.

Please don’t hesitate to reach me at firebrand@mostvaluablenetwork.com.

If moderators would like to close this thread, I have no problem with it.
I just ask that JimH sees it.

Evan Brunell
firebrand.mostvaluablenetwork.com
Comments (0)
5/5/2004
Official Trolls
Filed under:

* General

— Charles Rector @ 6:29 am

Earlier on, the White Sox Times has covered how some pro sports forum moderators also engage in troll type behavior. Well, there’s a related phenomenon that might best be described as “official trolls.” That is literally certain posters who engage in troll behavior without any interference whatsoever from the moderators. This is apparently because the trolls trash posters that the moderators clearly don’t like and enforce whatever orthodoxy that the moderators agree on.

As some of you may recall, in a post about my experience as a writer with the Chicago Sports Review website, I submitted an article entitled, “The Chicago Blackhawks Coaching Situation,” that was published here verbatim. A friend of mine read it and asked if I had ever posted it on any forums. I said no and he asked why not? So, I went and cross-posted it to 4 different boards. On 1 forum, it received mixed responses. On the other forums, it brought out the worst in some folks.

One such place was the forum of a Blackhawks fansite. There, one of the first responses was by a troll-moderator who wrote among other things:

It is a waste of time to respond to this moron.

This is the exact same post he copies and pastes on 3-4 other web sites, and he does this solely to get a reaction. He is completely incapable of backing up his drivel with any logic, reasoning, or facts.

This was soon followed up by the forum’s official troll:

Hey…CLOWN!!!

it might be nice if you posted Your OWN thoughts on the matter, rahter than lifting a 2-month old article from one of the local papers (Herald), and plagairising it as your own!!!!

You have no f–king clue what you are talking about, so you pull out an article that has been posted both here and CBH.com a million times before.

look at the first paragraph. Sutter’s contract will run out at the end of the season…the Hawks season ended over a month a go, loser!

Go crawl back under that rock you call home!

you are a clueless f–cking d—wad.

After a blizzard of vicious posts from both the moderator and the other poster, I responded directly to the baseless plagiarism allegation by posting:

Really? Well then, if the article really was plagiarized, why don’t you provide us with a link to the original article? Also, once you figure out who wrote it and when it was published, you should email them about it so that they can take appropriate legal action.

Its time to put up or shut up.

Now, you would think that one of them would have tried to look up the article that I had allegedly plagiarized. However, that is not the way with trolls who typically move on to making further accusations without ever offering any proof. And so it was that on both this fan forum and on the Official Blackhawks Forum, which is overrrun by trolls as are so many other official pro sports forums, they expanded their allegations to saying that all of my writings on baseball here on the White Sox Times were plagiarisms from other websites and most insultingly, that the original post about the Blackhawks coaching situation was a plagiarism of an article by Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times!

Interestingly enough, the troll moderator of the Blackhawks fan forum is also an official troll on a Sox fan forum and as such when I post there, he almost always posts in response. Among other things, he has accused me of smoking dope and sniffing glue. If it were not for the fact that I am not exactly one of the moderators’s favorite forum members, he likely would have been publically warned to stop it and if he persisted, he would have been banned. However, since he trolls on folks who the moderators don’t like, he gets away with it.

And some folks who run fan forums wonder why so many posters go inactive……………
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Editorial Laziness CSR Style
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— Charles Rector @ 4:25 am

As some of you may or may not recall, earlier on this writer recounted some of his experiences as a writer for the Chicago Sports Review website involving the laziness and unprofessional behavior of the editor there. Well, that laziness also extends to fact-checking. Just a little bit ago, I was at the CSR website and read an article there about Danny Wright being sent down to the minors and on the possible candidates to succeed him as the 5th Starter.

There was one sentence that caught my eye that reads, “Jon Rauch and Jason Grilli have also pitched well, both posting sub-4.00 ERAs in their time at Charlotte.” This did not ring true and so I accessed the player stats page on the Charlotte Knights website. As it turns out, the info on Rauch was right on the money. However, Grilli’s record is 1-3 with an ERA of 4.45. That’s neither pitching well or a sub-4.00 ERA. It only took a minute or two to check out the info, so why could that error get published?

Now, some of you may be thinking that this is nick-picking and you may very well be right. However, the CSR has been promoting itself as being a must read for all Chicago sports fans both offline and online. By doing so, the CSR has raised the threshold that it must meet if it is to match its lofty aspirations with reality. And no, this is not an isolated incident either.
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5/4/2004
A Serving of Well Done Crow
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— Charles Rector @ 11:54 pm

As you may recall, this writer confidently predicted yesterday that, “[t]oday’s game features Sox ace Esteban Loaiza vs. some DuBose guy. The Sox should dominate this game as long as Loaiza remains in the game.” Well, I messed it up big time since the Orioles won 10-3 while Loaiza did not pitch too well.

In case you’re wondering why I referred to Eric DuBose as “some DuBose guy,” well its like this: you can only follow so many sports teams on a regular basis with the result that you can be really knowledgable about some of them while other teams are completely off your radar. One such team that I know little about is (obviously) the Baltimore Orioles. Two other teams are the NY Yankees and the Texas Rangers. Last year in some fan forum threads devoted to predictions about how the 2004 season would end, I confidently predicted that the Rangers would lose 110+ games and would possibly lose more than 120. Meanwhile, I had the Yankees pegged at both winning 100+ games and the World Series to boot. Thus far, the Rangers look like a World Championship caliber team while the Yankees may not even make the playoffs. Having said that, I have been right thus far on some calls such as that the Pittsburgh Pirates would have their first winning season in over a decade and that the Florida Marlins would both win the NL East hands down and repeat as the NL pennant winners.

Needless to say, when the Sox play the Rangers, there will be no predictions as to the outcome here at the White Sox Times.
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Schoeneweis Shines While Uribe Saves the Day
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— Charles Rector @ 6:49 am

Last night’s competition with the Orioles was both a victory over a good team and a showcase for Manager Ozzie Guillen’s inability to properly manage a bullpen. Scott Schoeneweis pitched a magnificent game for the Sox. He pitched 7 complete innings while giving up only 1 Earned Run. Meanwhile, the pitcher that he replaced in the Sox starting rotation, Bartolo Colon aka “Tub O’ Goo” pitched 6 innings for the Anaheim Angels, giving up 4 Earned Runs and 2 Unearned Runs. Interestingly enough, when the Angels traded Schoeneweis to the Sox, they only got a warm body in return and Angels fans hardly even noticed Scott S.’s leaving the team, but when Colon came to the Angels, the fans acted as if he was the key to another world championship. The way things are going, Angels fans will be screaming for the head of the GM who both let Scott S. go and signed Colon to that excessive 4 years for $51 Mil. deal. And that’s assuming that the present concerns about Colon’s arm and whether or not he may miss a year for Tommy John Surgery prove unfounded.

Once Schoeneweis left the game, Ozzie decided to place Cliff Politte in the start of the 8th Inning. Politte did not have a good showing, giving up a run in the process. Guillen then replaced Politte with the redoubtable Damaso Marte who has closing experience. Marte got a guy out on a single pitch and it looked like he would cruise on the end of the game. However, for strange and mysterious reasons known only to him, Guillen decided to pull Marte out. Marte’s replacement was Shingo Takatsu aka Mr. Zero who is also Japan’s all-time saves leader. Zero wasted no time in getting the 3rd out in the inning and it looked as if he would finish out the game. However, in a further defiance of common sense, Guillen decided that the 9th Inning would be pitched by the ever struggling Man Known To All Sox Fans As “Botch.” In the process of getting 2 outs, Billy the Koch also gave up 2 runs putting the score at 5-4 Sox.

It was at this point that all Sox fans with heart conditions had to turn off their radios and TV’s for the sake of their self-preservation. With Orioles at 1st and 3rd, the Kochinator threw a pitch that was smacked towards left field. SS Juan Uribe made one of the most incredible single handed catches that this writer has ever seen, sliding with his back turned to the ball. Uribe saved the day from what otherwise would have been at least a tie if not an out and out Baltimore win.

Today’s game features Sox ace Esteban Loaiza vs. some DuBose guy. The Sox should dominate this game as long as Loaiza remains in the game. If it turns out that Loaiza either cannot or will not finish out the game, and a reliever gets outs without giving up runs, then let’s all hope that Ozzie has the common sense to keep him in there as long he’s effective.
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What the White Sox Need Most to Win the AL Central
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— Charles Rector @ 4:36 am

What this team needs is a new starting pitcher. Currently the Sox have 2 #1 Starter quality pitchers in Loaiza and Schoeneweiss and 2 #5 Starter quality pitchers in Garland and the declining Mark Buehrle. This team is winning in spite of most of the starting rotation, not because of it. Instead of going for a new #5 Starter, Sox GM Kenny Williams needs to pick up someone better than that. Ideally, it would be someone such as Cincinnati’s Cory Lidle or the Milwaukee Brewers Ben Sheets. I’d say that a straight up trade of Carlos Lee for either one of these 2 guys would be a fair deal.
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Despite Ozzie, Sox No. #1 in MLB!
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— Charles Rector @ 12:41 am

Despite the fact that the Sox have an inexperienced rookie manager, Ozzie Guillen, the team now has the best record in baseball (16-9, .640), if you take into account the fact that the Texas Rangers (17-9, .654!) have played one more game than the White Sox have. This record is a testament of the skill of GM Kenny Williams in putting together a team that’s both better than last year’s squad and also strong enough to overcome Guillen’s deficiencies in the judgment department. It is also indicative of just how good the Sox scouting staff is in identifying both amateur talent and also in guaging the talent of players on other teams, resulting in the pickups via trade or Free Agency for such players as Cliff Politte, Scott Schoeneweiss and Juan Uribe.

Having said that, it should be noted that outside of the A-Rod afflicted Yankees and the current opponents, the Baltimore Orioles, the White Sox have not yet played any really good teams. Its one thing to kick around the likes of KC and Tampa Bay, but its quite another to defeat teams like Boston and Oakland, not to mention the defending World Champion Florida Marlins whom the Sox will play later this season. The next few months should show if the Sox are only a flash in the pan like the 2003 Royals or if they are the real deal.
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5/3/2004
“Who’s The Real Troll Here?” Update
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— Charles Rector @ 7:47 am

In an earlier post entitled, Who’s The Real Troll Here?, this blog covered how a moderator at a White Sox fan forum handled a post/thread concerning the proclivity of the 2004 Sox bullpen to let inherited runners score. Well, there’s been a further development to this story, but first a rundown in case you have either forgotten about it or have never read the original post.

It all started when a member of the forum community started a new thread with the following ungrammatical post:

“Yeah they’re ERA is low but it seems like every inherited runner this year has scored. Like the two just now the Politte inherited.”
This post started a spirited discussion about the bullpen and other Sox matters that attracted the attention of one of the moderators who posted that the original post was an example of, “Trollery at is reachingist.”

In the earlier thread post to this blog, I said that I was going to post to the forum asking the moderator in question just why that post/thread was an example of “trollery.” About this time, I also changed my signature on that forum to provide a link to this blog. The question that I posted was this:

“Just why is it “Trollery at is reachingist,”? Really, you should provide reasons to back up the accusations that you make. There is nothing wrong with the initial post to this thread which made a perfectly legitimate point that the Sox bullpen has a tendency to give up too many inherited runners.”

Sounds like a pretty straightforward question, does it not? That being the case, you would think that the moderator would respond with an answer that would at least halfway explain why he did what he did, right? Well, he did not. Here’s his response:

“Hmm mostly because you are trying to piss off people here so that they go to your site, where only you post. Is that enough?”

In other words, instead of explaining why he accused the initial poster of “trollery” he made an accusation that I’m trying to siphon off traffic to this blog. Lest you think that my including a link to this blog justified that accusation, that moderator had been insinuating that I was a troll with an “agenda” well before I ever heard of MVN.

In any event, its pretty clear that the moderator himself probably does not know why he made that accusation in the first place. Chances are that he did it because he felt like doing it and it made him feel powerful at the same time. Moderators who get full of themselves and try to exercise dictatorial power over the other members of the forum community are often the cause of the decline or even death of those communities and unless the other moderators/forum website owner(s) clamp down on this nonsense, then this Sox fan forum will likely suffer the same fate down the road.
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Traditional Baseball Is Not Necessarily Bad
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— Charles Rector @ 6:40 am

There is a larger story in the Cub Reporter’s trashing of LaRussa for having 2 of his players lay down successive bunts. This is the fact that all too often baseball blog writers take the dogmatic position that such staples of traditional baseball such as bunting and base stealing are stupid and ruinous to the cause. After all, Bill James says it, so it must be true. Oftentimes, blogs trash managers who employ bunting even it it makes the difference in a team’s winning or losing. This is stupid stuff by blog writers who get their jollies by running down baseball professionals even though they themselves do not understand the game. Bill James has been shown to be wrongheaded on a great many things and many of the blog writers seem to think that because they can look up a players stats on the Internet, that automatically makes themselves wiser and holier than folks who have been intimately involved in the game their entire lives.

Baseball blog writers oftentimes whine and pine about the fact that so many GM’s and Field Managers do not read the blogs and take guidance from them. Taking doctrinaire positions on how to play the game and gratuitously trashing all those who do not agree with those doctrines is not a way to win your intended audience of higher ups.
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Bad Cubs Blog, Bad!
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— Charles Rector @ 6:25 am

There is a Cubs blog called The Cub Reporter that has lofty pretentions but which all too often is a fountain of unintentional humor. One such instance comes from the following paragraph:

I don’t know what was more embarrassing; that the Cubs lost by walking in Mike Matheny (!) with the bases loaded, or that the Cubs lost after Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa asked both Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen to bunt runners over in consecutive at-bats. As infuriating as Dusty can be as a manager, I have to imagine that being a Cardinals fan can be even more frustrating. At least Dusty’s occasionally-lame tactical moves are understandable, given his “old school” manager mentality. LaRussa comes across like Dr. Frankenstein, a once-sharp man who has lost it, and whose bizarre experiments with run-scoring and relief strategies are an unfortunate combination of senility and hubris.

Yes, you read that right. LaRussa employed a novel bunting strategy that was a key factor in beating the Cubs and the clown who wrote this thinks that Cardinals fans would find this “frustrating.” No, Mr. Cubs fan, the St. Louis fans would find it frustrating if Edmonds and Rolen had gone for home run glory Sammy Sosa style and had struck out swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone, just like Sammy. As for those senile, bizarre Dr. Frankenstein experiments that reek of hubris, I certainly hope and pray that LaRussa keeps on implementing them against the North Siders. Go for it Tony! Show those Cub fans just how senile and bizarre you can be!
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Good Cubs Blog
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— Charles Rector @ 5:11 am

There is a pretty good blog devoted to the perennial losers known as the Cubs. This is Cubs Pundit. At Cubs Pundit, there is a table that keeps track of the 3 young Cub players who the much-vaunted GM Jim Hendry has traded away: Hee-Seop Choi, Juan Cruz and Bobby Hill. From this table, you learn that thus far this young season, Cruz has an ERA of 1.00 while Choi and Hill have On Base Percentages of .415 and .405 respectively. These stats are important since the guys that they were traded away for are generally doing much worse at much higher salaries than the young guys. This is part of a larger Cubs trend that includes such trades as when Cubs mgmt. got the bright idea of trading future Hall of Famer Lou Brock for an old, beaten down pitcher named Ernie Broglie who was on the verge of retirement. Perhaps Hendry should spend less time preening in front of the mirror and more time getting his act together. A few more brilliant trades along the lines of trading Juan Cruz for Andy Pratt (he of the 21.60 ERA and who currently cannot handle pitching at the minor league level) and Hendry might have to start looking for a new job.
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Santiago the Splendid
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— Charles Rector @ 4:12 am

Last year, in a move that the Cubs-loving Chicago news media basically ignored, the Sox signed relief pitcher Jose Santiago to a minor league deal. Although Santiago did well in Spring Training, he was ultimately sent to the Triple-A Charlotte Knights to serve as their closer. And serve he has! Following are the stats for this stalwart pitcher that those Sox fans who get their info from the non-internet news media have never heard of:

W-L: 0-1
ERA: 1.15
Saves: 3
Innings Pitched: 15 2/3rds
8 Hits
2 Walks
10 Strikeouts
K/BB Ratio: 5/1 (!)
2 Runs
2 Unearned Runs

If there are any injuries in the Sox bullpen or if Billy Koch continues to mess up as Sox closer, Santiago should be able to have his chance with the Chicago Outfit.
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Felix Diaz Update
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— Charles Rector @ 3:32 am

The stats from Felix Diaz’s latest game at Triple-A Charlotte:

W-L: 4-0
2.01 ERA
7.0 IP
5 Hits
2 Runs
0 Unearned Runs
1 Walk
8 Strikeouts

Folks, this is nothing short of excellent. Felix Diaz has replaced the recently DL’d Kris Honel as the Sox’s #1 pitching prospect. If he can keep up this level of performance, he should get a solid shot at becoming a starting pitcher with the Chicago outfit either later this season or next season.
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Wright Perspective
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— Charles Rector @ 3:18 am

What’s really disturbing about the Danny Wright saga thus far in 2004 is how it ever came about that a failed starter such as Wright got another chance in the #5 slot when there were much better alternatives available. Following a 14-12 performance in 2002, Wright only went 1-6 as a starter in 2003. However, in 2003 Wright also posted a quite good record in long relief. Therefore, it appeared that Wright’s talents would be best utilized strictly in the bullpen.

From what I have been able to gather, Wright accepted the idea of becoming a strictly bullpen pitcher as did GM Kenny Williams. However, Ozzie wanted Wright as #5 Starter after seeing his stuff in Spring Training. The rest of the Sox staff was skeptical of the idea because Wright has historically been great in ST, but not so great in the regular season, but oh no Ozzie just had to have his circus and so it was that Danny Wright once again became a 5th Starter. Now, the questions are can Wright become rehabilitated and will Ozzie allow him to stick to the bullpen where he can pitch up to the level of performance that he is capable of achieving.
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Danny Wright: He Gawn!
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— Charles Rector @ 2:36 am

However, not everything that’s going with the Sox is depressing. There is actually some good news, albeit mixed with some potentially bad news. Following his disastrous start against Toronto that resulted in his record going to 0-4 and an ERA of 8.15, Danny Wright has been sent down to Triple-A. However, his replacement on the 25-man roster is Jamie Burke who is not a pitcher.

This means that Wright’s replacement as #5 Starter will be someone who is already on the squad in Chicago. Currently, there are only 2 relievers who could plausibly be quality starting pitchers. However, the Sox have made it clear that Damaso Marte will remain a reliever and Jon Adkins is in the doghouse after a single bad inning in which he gave up 4 runs. This means that the new #5 will almost certainly be Neal Cotts.

Now, thus far this year, Cotts has been a very effective relief pitcher with a .90 ERA. However, his stint as a starting pitcher in 2003 was most unimpressive including an outing at Yankee Stadium in which he gave up 6 runs in 1/3rd of an inning and looked just like a deer in the headlights. Its possible that Cotts could prove to be every bit as effective as a starter as he has been as a reliever. However, its more likely that history will repeat itself. Better to keep Cotts in his present useful role and call up a quality starter from the minors such as Felix Daz. But that is not what the Sox are planning on doing.

Brace yourselves. Cotts as Starter the Sequel could be one wild ride!
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Depressing Sox
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— Charles Rector @ 2:07 am

Things on the White Sox front are rather depressing now. Not however, because of winning 3/4ths of the series with Toronto which was pretty decent in its own right, especially since Danny Wright was the starter for one of those games. Nope, its that Manager Ozzie Guillen in a stunning display of his already trademark bad judgement that he especially shows in making pitching decisions, has decided to have Mark Buehrle pitch against the Orioles on only 3 days rest. This is the same Mark Buehrle who has a 5.35 ERA this year and who is in the middle of a 3-years decline and on top of that who during the offseason signed a new 3 year, $18 Mil. guaranteed contract. This decision makes no sense at all. If I did not know any better, I would think that Guillen was purposely trying to short-circuit Buehrle’s career and bring about a situation where Buehrle became a completely worn out pitcher well before his hefty contract expires. As it happens, Guillen has already had Buehrle throw an excessive number of pitches in most of his games and Buehrle has gone down from having the quality of a #2 Starter in 2003 to being a #5 Starter quality pitcher.

Apparently, Ozzie never understood the moral of the story of the goose that laid the golden eggs…….
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Slow to Return
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— Charles Rector @ 1:49 am

Well, I’m back to posting after too long an absence due to other matters. Got plenty of stuff to post about too. Times a wasting!
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5/1/2004
Lester Munson
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— Charles Rector @ 7:03 am

Lester Munson is evidently Sports Illustrated(s) man in Chicago. He was on last night’s edition of Chicago Tonight on WTTW Channel 11 talking about the success of the White Sox. He claimed that this team was a “turnaround” from this time last year. Munson gave all the credit for the Sox’s success this year to “enthusiasm” generated by the new manager Ozzie Guillen.

This is interesting since the Sox record in 2004 is virtually identical to what it was this time in 2003 under manager Jerrry Manuel. Guillen has a much better bullpen than what Manuel usually had and Guillen also has a much better starting rotation than any of the 5-man rotations that Manuel had available to him. Additionally, Manuel never had a hard-hitting high avg. infielder like Juan Uribe. Manuel was also saddled with a number of clubhouse cancers and other losers such as Royce Clayton, Brian Daubach, Cal Eldred, Todd Ritchie, David Wells and Rick White. Thus far, there does not appear to be any sort of icky characters on the 25-man roster. In other words, comparing the 2004 Ozzie Sox to the 2003 Manuel Sox is a lot like comparing apples to oranges.

Lester Munson only gave the conventional wisdom about the genius of Ozzie Guillen. Let’s wait until the end of this season before we give Ozzie too many accolades, especially since outside of the A-Rod afflicted New York Yankees, the team really has not played against any really tough opponents. Kicking the likes of KC and Tampa Bay around is lots of fun, but there are tougher teams such as Baltimore, Boston and Oakland out there not to mention the Minnesota Twins at the Metrodome. In other words, neither this team or its manager has really been tested yet.
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Brandon McCarthy
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— Charles Rector @ 6:35 am

Brandon McCarthy, a Sox prospect with the Single A Kannapolis Intimidators is doing well. Currently, he is 2-2 with a ERA of 3.42 with an impressive 29 strikeouts to only 7 walks. That’s a K/BB ratio of over 4/1. Additionally, he leads the Kannapolis pitchers with 23 2/3rds Innings Pitched.

If McCarthy can continue doing this well, in a few years he should be with the club in Chicago.
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Who’s The Real Troll Here?
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— Charles Rector @ 5:49 am

On one of the Sox fan forums, there is a thread about the state of the Sox bullpen that begins with the following post:

“Yeah they’re ERA is low but it seems like every inherited runner this year has scored. Like the two just now the Politte inherited.”

Now, this is not exactly the most grammatically correct sentence ever written, but its author does have a legitimate point here. This year’s White Sox bullpen does have a certain proclivity to let inherited runners score. That being the case, it appears to be a pretty innocous post.

However, the post did in fact spark a lengthy discussion much of which concerned matters outside of the bullpen. There were a few posters who did not like the premise of the original post including one who opined that it was, “Trollery at is reachingist,” without giving any reasons why this is the case. This comment is significant because the person who made it is a moderator. If it were not for the fact that this particular forum has multiple moderators who do not excise threads/ban posters unless there is a consensus amongst the moderators to do so. This particular moderator has a distinct tendency to accuse posters of being trolls whenever a thread becomes (a) lengthy, (b) heated or © just plain controversial. He seems to believe that if a post/thread sparks serious discussion, then there could only have been ulterior motives behind its being posted in the first place.
He has also made it clear that if he had the supreme moderating power, several of the posters at this particular forum, including this writer, would be banned. Due to the fact that his allegations have hurt the feelings of some folks, this forum has lost some of its previously active posters who have left for more hospitable climes.

This particular moderator’s logic is quite reminiscent to that of the detractors of President Bush in the days and weeks after 9/11 who called up various and sundry radio talk shows alleging that Bush knew that if a major terrorist attack happened in America, his popularity would go up. Therefore, according to these critics, the fact that 9/11 occurred proved that Bush knew all along about the 9/11 plot and refused to do anything to stop it. Talk about weird stuff.

Having said that, I’vedecided to post to that forum asking the moderator just why that post/thread is an example of “trollery.” Of course, his response will probably be along the lines of saying that its interesting that a troll like you would defend another troll. It does raise the question of whether moderators can be trolls too and my answer to that is yes.
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Please End The Danny Wright Experiment At 5th Starter Now
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— Charles Rector @ 4:15 am

The great mystery:

Why does Danny Wright get to be 5th starter over either Neal Cotts or Felix Diaz? Cotts or Diaz each has a decent chance to contribute to the team’s success while Wright has a good chance to embarrass himself.
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Sure Made Up For No Sox Game Tonight!
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— Charles Rector @ 2:48 am

While the White Sox did not play tonight as originally scheduled, the stupid Cubs of the North Side were down in St. Louis to play the Cardinals who have been rather lackluster this year. Despite numerous Cubs miscues, the Cardinals failed to score more than 3 runs from their own offense.

However, the Cubs proved quite adept at handing the victory to the Card, in the way that only the Cubs can do so. The score was 3-3 in the bottom of the 9th. The Man Called “Dustiny” By Cubs Fans had Relief Pitcher Kyle Farnsworth start the inning even though J. Borowski is the team’s designated closer. Farnsworth immediately gave up a walk and Baker decided to pull him out of the game without even opting to have his pitching coach talk to Farnsworth to try to settle him down and work out of the inning. The new reliever, Kent Mercker, walked a batter and once again Baker pulled him off the mound and replaced him with a Pitcher Not Named Borowski. Then, once LaTroy Hawkins took the mound, Baker had an idea: why not intentionally walk the next batter and that way load the bases? What happened next was that Hawkins morphed from being a former Minnesota Twin into being a current Chicago Cub and after throwing 2 straight strikes, proceeded to make 4 pitches outside of the strike zone and walk in the winning run.

This defeat has inspired more than the usual amount of cries of horror and weepy wailing from the Cubs faithful. Following are some of the comments left by readers of the Cub Reporter blog:

“That game sucked. I guess you’d have to call that a walk off.”

and

“"Walks help. But you ain’t going to walk across the plate. You’re going to hit across the plate. That’s the school I come from.”

Well as twisted as your school is Dusty, maybe you need to talk to your pitchers more often. Actually Dusty might point out that the bullpen didn’t allow a hit, so they actually didn’t lose.”

and

“Is there a worse way to lose a game? I was standing in my kitchen and exclaimed “D-mn Cubs!” The wife inquired. I said we just lost in the worst freaking way possible. She says, “Did they walk in the winning run?”

’nuff said.”

and finally, my favorite:

“Anybody else worried that Lou Brock in Korean is Hee Seop Choi?”

One wonders what effect the way that Baker handled their relief service tonight will have on the psyches of Farnsworth and Mercker and how their future performance will be affected. With the NL Central the most competitive division in baseball, just a few more clunkers like this will send the North Siders down to the cellar.

We can only hope.
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Cotts Also A Contender
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— Charles Rector @ 1:00 am

If Sox mgmt. does decide to drop the luckless Wright from the starting rotation, Diaz will have competition from Sox Relief Pitcher Neal Cotts. Currently, Cotts sports a .90 ERA in his 10 Innings Pitched and has an ok K/BB ratio of just under 2.0/1. Despite his very low ERA, Cotts’s stats are not exactly stunning. However, since he is already in Chicago, Cotts will very likely have a leg up over Diaz in the team’s decision on the matter.
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Felix Diaz 3-0 At Charlotte
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— Charles Rector @ 12:02 am

White Sox pitching prospect Felix Diaz is off to a great start at Triple-A Charlotte. This is the gent who many Sox fans felt should have been the 5th starter this year, but Mgr. Ozzie Guillen went along with the lackluster Danny Wright. While Wright is 0-3, Diaz is 3-0. Following are Diaz’s stellar stats:

Innings Pitched: 24 1/3
Strikeouts: 21
Walks: 2
Batting Avg. Agnst: .209
Hits: 18
Earned Runs: 7
K/BB Ratio: 10.5/1 (!)

Attention Sox Mgmt.: We’ve found our 5th Starter! Please bring Diaz up to Chicago ASAP!