brought back a lot of painful 7 hour memories that will soon haunt my dreams…

like the pictures of Cisco Adler’s balls that some pedophile posted.

and am fairly intoxicated, but putting aside that baseball is just a game, etc. etc. This was a really tough loss… couldn’t imagine losing in a worse way. I love you all (minus ssh)… haven’t seen the gamethread but I can imagine the horror. I’m speechless. Carlos Gomez’s pre-at bat ritual is the gayest thing I’ve ever seen.

I really wanted to post one of my “Everything will be ok” posts, but really this isn’t the time for that any more (technically still the place for it though). But idk, I can’t concede that this is over. And this might be me regressing to my senior year in high school when I would not bail on a relationship with Kaitlin (huge mistake, but hindsight never really helped anyone out), but I’m not gonna say the Twins won it. Fuck it. I know this is probably just lying to myself and ultimately I will just be let down again Sunday (or even worse, Tuesday). And I’m not gonna say we’ve got it, but shit. We’re better than this. And it’s gonna be better. Fuck it.

Even though the Sox still have a chance of making the playoffs, I am not buying the bullshit rationalization that the Sox shouldn’t have made it this far. Fuck that. All they needed to do to make the playoffs was to stay warm in September.

weekend preview for the chicago white chokers and the minnesota douchenozzles.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/down-to-the-wire/

“This is your great winter romance, isn’t it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what’s left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk?”

Paddy Chayefsky

Any idea which ticket is good for admission to Monday’s game? I suspect that the Tigers will be very pissy about having to come to Chicago to play (except Granderson, of course).

Last night sucked a giant bag of dicks. And I’m not talking about my workload either.

The Sox didn’t need the help from the umps this series. But boyyyy did they get it!
And by help, I mean blatant bullshit calls, of course.

I won’t blame losses on the umps, or any one player, because we all know there are at least 3 million little things per game that decide the outcome. But shit. When Swish got called swinging, I nearly lost my fucking gourd. Swish hasn’t been exactly stellar lately – but way to keep him down there and shut out any momentum that may have come from a lead-off walk in the 10th. Albeit, Wise may have just come up and GIDP….which brings up another excellent person to point to for blame – OZZIE.

Hey, thanks for putting in Anderson for the last couple innings there, Ozzie. Great timing – our .333 (of late) pinch-hitter didn’t even get to fucking bat!! But Dewayne did!! Several times!

My teeth are clenched with a hatred for Gomez that runs so deep within me that it may very well be coursing through my veins right now. My toes are tingling with Gomez-hatred.

Watching those fuckers dance around on the fake pos field last night was about enough to make a Sox fan cry. I can almost say that I would have preferred a good ol’ blow-out over last night’s comeback win in extras….the 6-1 lead only made this loss that much harder to stomach, imo. The Twins tried to give us that game, and we said, “no, no guys, really, you can have it, it’s cool.”

Needless to say, I miss Q now more than ever. I feel like the tears I shed on September 5th represented the larger picture – what his loss meant for the fate of the season, the spirit of the club, and the intimidation of the team.

Someone mentioned this yesterday – but we (or at least some of us) fear small-ball players on the Twins, but there is absolutely nothing scary about the heart of our line-up lately. Nobody’s shitting their cleats when Jermaine comes to bat – but there’s a RISP for the Twins and Casilla shows bunt, and I soil myself.

So yeah – I wanted to flee for the ocean this weekend, surf out my stresses, and not endure the final weekend, for complete fear that I will only get to see more Twins celebration, which my heart cannot seem to take. But I’m hanging back and watching anyway.

Why? Because the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. She is warming up, doing scales, and putting on the Viking garb….but she ain’t singing yet. And I’ll be Q-damned if I miss the final games of my favorite season because I’m letting my own petty feelings of betrayal get in the way.

Let’s have a homestand to end all homestands.
Let’s put a little faith in the Royals and see where that gets us.
Let’s continue to cheer because the Sox don’t need our negative vibes.

Onward! To Chicago! Let’s fucking do it.

What’s the deal with Tuesday?

If that game is played, when will tix go on sale?

I can’t even get Monday tix via the Sox Web site.

WTF?

wearing a twins hat

i almost pushed him in front of the bus

Matchup: Royals (73-86) at Twins (87-72), 7:10 p.m. CT
Probable Starters: Kyle Davies (107 IP, 4.71 RA, 1.48 WHIP, 63 K) vs. Francisco Liriano (71 2/3 IP, 4.27 RA, 1.31 WHIP, 62 K)
Pythagorean Record: Kansas City, 70-89 (679 RS, 772 RA); Minnesota, 88-71 (820 RS, 732 RA)
Hit List Rankings: Kansas City, #24; Minnesota, #12
Prospectus: The Twins completed their enormously important sweep of the White Sox with an extra-inning win last night, erasing a 6-1 fourth-inning deficit to move a half-game ahead of Chicago and even in the loss column. The Twins won in their classic fashion—they didn’t hit a home run, but got three triples, two from Carlos Gomez and one from Denard Span that drove home the tying run off of closer Bobby Jenks in the eighth. Last night’s game was so big that Ron Gardenhire asked Joe Nathan to pitch two innings, just the second time all year that the closer has been extended for that many outs. Nathan did not allow a baserunner in the two frames and picked up his first win of the year. The Twins closer is having another fantastic season, his fourth with an ERA below 2.00. There are only two relievers in major league history who have more sub-2.00 ERA, 60-plus inning campaigns: Mariano Rivera, who is wrapping up his eighth such season, and Hoyt Wilhelm, who had six in the pitcher-friendly ’60s.

The Twins now get to play Kansas City at home in their final three games, a team they have dominated this season by going 11-4 against them, while Chicago has to play Cleveland, which is playing very good baseball in the second half. Then again, playing Kansas City right now might not be so easy, for the Royals enter the Twin Cities as the hottest team in baseball, having taken 11 of their last 13 games, a span in which they are hitting .322/.382/.512 with a 2.69 RA. Kansas City won both of the last two times Davies took the mound, his best pair of starts this season: eight shutout innings against the Mariners, and then a seven-inning, two-run performance against the White Sox last Saturday. After entering this season with a 6.68 RA and 1.72 WHIP in 287 major league innings, Davies has taken a step forward in his first full season wearing Royals blue. The 24-year-old right-hander has improved chiefly through limiting the home run—he has given up 10, the same amount as he allowed last season in less than half as many innings (50) after coming over to Kansas City from Atlanta.

and i think i’m glad i was. i screamed when i saw the tie and then the loss. fucking hell.

it’s at cleveland, right?

POSTED: 5:32 pm EDT September 24, 2008
UPDATED: 2:59 pm EDT September 25, 2008

DOWNERS GROVE, IL — A DuPage County man and his wife said two doctors amputated the man’s penis without his consent, and have filed a lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, SSH2005, 28, went to have a circumcision last October as part of treatment for a medical condition. SSH2005 said when he woke up from the procedure, he realized his penis had been amputated.

SSH2005 has suffered mental anguish, pain, and has lost the enjoyment of life, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed in DuPage County court last week against Dr. John Patterson, who performed the procedure, Dr. Oliver James, who administered anesthesia, and Commonwealth Urology, PSC.

The lawsuit states that Patterson received consent to perform a circumcision and only a circumcision, and that SSH2005 did not consent to his penis being removed.

Kevin George, the plaintiff’s attorney, said Patterson amputated the organ after finding cancer, but he only had consent to remove the foreskin.

“Sometimes you have an emergency and you have to do this, but he could very easily closed him up and said, ‘Here are your options. You have cancer,’ and the family would have said, ‘We want a second opinion. This is a big deal,’” George said.

The lawsuit also claims the plaintiff did not consent to general anesthesia.

WLS attempted to contact the doctors, but have not been able to reach them.

The 2005s are seeking punitive damages against both doctors and the medical practice. Attorneys for the defendants will now have a chance to respond to the suit.

http://www.wlky.com/health/17550187/detail.html

If the White Sox aren’t still playing baseball a week from now, they’ll have no shortage of people to blame.

Bobby Jenks is a very good pitcher, but last night he made a couple of inexplicable decisions in critical situations that helped him blow the save. Coming on in the eighth with a 6-4 lead, one out, and a runner on third base, he quickly got ahead 0-2 on Carlos Gomez. He then threw Gomez, who has a personal strike zone as big as all outdoors, a fastball down the middle that he lined into right for a single. Carlos Gomez on an 0-2 count is 11-for-70 with 39 strikeouts. He is nearly four times as likely to strike out as to get a hit. In that situation, you throw him a pitch—maybe two—that he can’t reach without going through customs. That was a terrible decision, and the Twins made him pay for it.

Jenks got ahead of the next batter, Denard Span, 0-2. Span isn’t quite the free swinger Gomez is—Hugh Hefner isn’t quite the free swinger Carlos Gomez is—but once again, Jenks threw away his advantage by throwing a fastball down and over the middle of the plate. Span yanked it past Paul Konerko for a game-tying triple.

Jenks would lose the game in the 10th, appearing to run out of steam as he trundled past the 30-pitch mark. It’s been a very long time since Jenks had to pitch in three separate innings, and he seemed to lose his stuff a bit towards the end of the outing. He issued a four-pitch walk to Nick Punto, then two batters later threw either a spinning breaking ball or a fastball with nothing on it—I’ve looked at it a dozen times and I can’t quite figure which it was—that Alexi Casilla lined into left-center for the ballgame. The questionable 0-2 pitches in the eighth inning forced him to be pitching in the 10th, and he didn’t have enough left to go that far.

Give Ozzie Guillen some credit. He treated this game like a seventh game, knowing that winning it would give the White Sox a massive edge in the division. As mentioned yesterday, neither Matt Thornton nor Bobby Jenks had pitched since Sunday; Guillen went to Matt Thornton in the sixth and Jenks in the eighth, and used no one else in the game. That’s using your best pitchers in the highest-leverage situations. It didn’t work out, and it may cost him the use of both guys tonight, but it was the right call.

Ken Griffey Jr. will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and if he’s played poorly since coming over to the White Sox at the trade deadline, the deal for him was still justifiable given the price the Sox paid for him. The mistake, however, has been the decision to let Griffey play center field, and that mistake cost the Sox last night. Griffey’s lack of range was exploited in the first inning on a ball Justin Morneau hit over his head to the warning track. Griffey was playing too shallow—something Bert Blyleven pointed out on the telecast just before the ball was hit—and he showed both a lack of speed and difficulty reading the ball in turning the shot into a triple. Griffey has no business playing center field in the major leagues, and as long as he’s out there, the Sox fly-ball staff is at a disadvantage.

The White Sox defense did not have a strong night, as the Twins picked up four doubles and three triples, batting .429 on balls in play. The Twins hit balls past Juan Uribe and Paul Konerko, and over Dewayne Wise’s head, and seemed to spend the entire night rounding second base with a head of steam. The Sox have a middle-of-the-pack Defensive Efficient Rating, but looked like a terrible defensive team last night, and it cost them.

The Sox can also look at their hitters, who after chipping their way to a six-run fourth inning and knocking Kevin Slowey out of the box—literally, as he left after taking a Juan Uribe liner off of his right arm—shut it down. They got two singles and two walks off of six Twins relievers over 6 1/3 innings, and remember, this is a bullpen that has been a significant problem for the Twins as they’ve tried to hang in this race. Last night, that bullpen helped save a game that looked lost. The Sox managed to score five runs without hitting a home run, but it wasn’t enough on this night.

The difference in the importance of last night’s game for the two teams is this: the White Sox still control their own destiny. If they win out, including a Monday makeup against the Tigers, they’ll do no worse than a one-game playoff Tuesday against the Twins. Had the Twins lost, they would have needed a sweep of the Royals and at least two Sox losses along the way. Last night’s result makes it very likely that the Sox will have to play Monday to determine the Central winner, and the result of that game could well give us an additional tie-breaking game on Tuesday.

Looking ahead to the games, you’d have to give the Twins a solid shot at at least two wins. They’ll have a significant edge in pitching matchups on Friday and Sunday, and they’re playing at home against the Royals. The Royals have actually had a good season by their own lights, and their recent success at the plate against southpaws gives them a fighting chance against Francisco Liriano and Glen Perkins. They’ll also be up against a Twins’ pen that, after the last two nights, is on the darker side of crispy. It doesn’t seem likely that Joe Nathan will be available at all tonight.

Keep something else in mind: two years ago, the Royals went into Detroit on the season’s last weekend and swept the Tigers, a sweep that allowed the Twins to sneak away with the AL Central crown. This isn’t nearly over yet. The Sox will host the Indians, and also have an edge in the pitching matchups the first two nights before drawing Cliff Lee on Sunday.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8124

Just think of it as the playoffs starting today!

Win 5 in a row.

Simple as that

then you’re just like nick punto. so either quit liking those now or you’re a twins fan.

i’m holding a pregame bonfire of all these things at 6:30 in my backyard. you’re all invited.

Once upon a time, a young lad named Little Nicky Punto was walking home through the forest one evening after a particularly grueling game of Little League. Nicky loved baseball more than anything else, and was talking out-loud to himself about that very thing as he walked.

“Boy, I sure do love baseball!” exclaimed Nicky. “I wish I could play baseball forever and be the most awesome player ever.”

As fate would have it, his words were overheard. Out of the trees galloped a sparkling and stoic pink ninja, astride a stunningly beautiful, and obviously magical, unicorn.

Blah blah blah. More blah blah blah.

And with that, the unicorn nodded to Sparkle Ninja, who reached in the bag and sprinkled Little Nicky Punto with the magical sparkling powder, which was NOT manufactured by BALCO.

Nicky could feel the magic working already, and he was very, very happy.

“Could you make me tall too?!”

“Look, kid. We’re just a pink ninja and a talking unicorn. We’re not a fairy godmother or anything.” And then the unicorn and his ninja galloped away into the sunset.

And that is how Nick Punto came to be.

http://thosetwinsgirls.blogspot.com/2007/09/story-time-how-nick-punto-came-to-be.html

Hindenburg arrives successfully in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

McCain Given Clean Bill of Health

Sox Fans wish Cubs Good Luck in the Post Season

Winning is not a sometime thing; it´s an all the time thing. You don´t win once in a while; you don´t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit.

Unfortunately, so is losing.

There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that´s first place. I have finished second twice in my time in Chicago – that’s one more time than kenwo4life@aol.com – and I don´t ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win. And the last couple months, it appears to me that the Communists have taken over. It’s time to reject the softness of the Red and embrace the toughness of the American.

Every time a baseball player goes to play his trade he´s got to play from the ground up-from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That´s O.K. You´ve got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you´ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you´re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he´s never going to come off the field second. It’s unfortuante that SSH2005 no longer has head.

Running a baseball team is no different than running any other kind of organization-an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win-to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don´t think it is.

It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That´s why they are there-to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules-but to win.

And in truth, I´ve never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn´t appreciate the grind, the discipline. Except Javier Vazquez. You lack discipline. Get the fuck out of my sight. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.

I don´t say these things because I believe in the “brute” nature of man or that men must be brutalized – such as how BA was treated in the shower by some veterans who will remain unnamed – to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man´s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious – after extended coitus with Natalie Punto.

Surely several of my image posts could have changed things. I could have saved more people! This ring…..this 2000 dollar ring……I could have sold it to Kenny Williams so he could acquire another arm in the bullpen. This car……I could have used it to assist Ken Griffey in CF.

Oh, and the sweep was not surprising at all, mainly because every fault the White Sox have had this season was shown or exploited in the past 3 games. They were never a dominant team, maybe for a period of several weeks they were a top 5 team in baseball.

KC has been playing their annual “get excited for next season” ball, hopefully they can man up and take at least a game from the Twins. If the Sox can’t win the series this weekend…..well at least the Bears are going to wow us all!

http://tinyurl.com/5c7d5c