The pain and suffering that we as sox fans went through was flat out dreadful. I would have been more satisfied with them losing 100 games rather than them staying consistanly 4-6 games out of first place stringing us along, but i digress.....

Going into this Spring Training it is tough to feel overly excited about the club Robin Ventura will trot out on Opening Day. Without miracle comeback seasons from Peavy, Dunn, Rios, and Beckham then there is a diminutive chance this team can compete for the AL central crown. But we have all heard this same pessimism on multiple sites, radio shows, and in newspapers. I want to talk about how this team could have a rebound year like the Arizona Diamondbacks did under a similarly unexperienced manager in Kirk Gibson.

Beside the fact that it would be extremely hard to have as bad a year as Rios, Dunn, and Peavy, there are multiple reasons to believe this team could be improved this year in some areas. I can't help but smile when thinking about Dayan Viciedo swinging out of shoes and putting baseballs into orbit at the Cell. If healthy I would be shocked if he doesn't club at least 25-30 homers. Another reason to be excited is our young pitchers. Addison Reed looks like he could be a big time closer in the game for years. I believe that is why Kenny was so quick to pull the trigger on the Santos deal. Zach Stewart interests me as well because his fastball has a nice sink on it that plays well at the cell.

Trading Gavin Floyd could benefit the Sox greatly as well. I feel the team has plenty of pitching depth to be able to pull of a trade and I certainly wouldn't mind landing a nice 2nd base or CF prospect. Expect Tyler Kuhn to get some looks in the future as well after tearing up double a pitching last year at Birmingham. Axelrod Steward and Molina are all viable rotation options should Kenny decide to trade Floyd. I am extremely excited to see De Aza, Viciedo, Reed, Flowers, and Lillibridge all get considerably more playing time. This is the reason for my cautious optimism.

The old RRRR was making my laptop run slow, so time to refresh. With the football playoffs underway, the basketball and hockey seasons chugging along and featuring strong Chicago teams, and pitchers and catchers a mere month away, it's a busy time of year. What's that, some other sport over in Europe? Succor? Huh?

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Link to baseball manager online- a fine way to get a baseball fix during the off-season.

The trade market is a fickle mistress in BMO. RPs have been picked clean from the cpu teams, so much so that if you ask for one, they usually want 'an established reliever' in return.

My stable of pitchers drafted out of high school continue to drive me nuts, as they all stay down in A ball and refuse to develop. I have 6 of them down there. Three are in their third season in A ball, one is in his fourth season in the league. Only one of them is a true rookie. Because of their stagnation the IX will probably lose money this season since we have about $6M in salary dedicated to middling relievers that I had hoped would be these young guys pitching for the minimum. Couple that with a few previous poor contract decisions and my guys are set for the next two seasons for better or for worse, with no margin for error or room for improvement. Another injury like my 3B going down for the year and the central belongs to rhubarb. His White Stockings have improved dramatically. Houston could contend as well, and I don't want to count out Pittsburgh either, I'm not sure why they aren't scoring any runs. Paper tigers I guess.

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Call me a simpleton; The Giving Tree is one of my favorite books. A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends are pretty good, too, not to mention the fact that they provide about 80% of grade school memorization test material. So when I came across this story about digging through Shel Silverstein's archives, I read. Turns out he was from the Southwest Side of Chicago, was a lifelong White Sox fan, a hot dog vendor at Comiskey Park in the 40's, and a writer for Playboy.

In a June, 1962 four-page spread for the mentioned magazine, Shel is featured practicing and hanging out with the Sox during spring training in Sarasota, Florida. Here's the first two pages and the second two pages.

In the first link, number 6 would be light-hitting utility infielder Al Weis, who would get his major league debut that September. 10 would be Sherm Lollar, turning 38 that year, in his second-to-last season in baseball. Also, in one of the photographs, that's Nellie Fox batting while Shel catches. The second link features young Fred Talbot as number 35. He made his major-league debut at the tail end of the 1963 season. Lastly, Tony Cuccinello, a former all-star who played on the Sox from 1943 to 1945, wears number 33.

Apologies to BuehrleMan and others if this has been shared before; it's all new to me. Thanks to Rhubarb for the images.

Since there seems to br a slight demand for a separate RRRR thread to encapsulate all non-baseball sporting goodness, I made this.

Want to talk about how lame the NFL playoffs will be this year? Neat!

Or how about those Bulls, being on top of the NBA? That Carlos Boozer fella sure has turned it around. I would laugh if he wore a Rip Hamilton mask. And not a protective one, like Hamilton wears, but an actual mask of Hamilton's face.

RVP has been a goal scoring machine. I like soccer.

Throwback jerseys: I think more teams should wear them. Unless they involve teal. What a terrible color for sports teams. Honestly, probably the worst.

Tennis is weird.

Hockey is just crackerjack though.

Who has the worst jerseys in basketball currently? I would have to say Charlotte. Those things are hideous. Though Toronto's are pretty ugly as well. Screw Flanders.

Yes, the bleak midwinter is nigh upon us, and the ellipses have come home... to roost. What is there to do... to pass the dull dreary days of dark demented dour doldrums, save contemplate faux marketing hilarity?

Come now ye bespectacled, ye downtrodden, ye yearning to wit free, and cast your lingual net wide, perhaps to snare the elusive greening, the entertainment of your friends, and the envy of all Dutchmen.

To get thy sloganeering juices flowing, I give you after the jump, a few off the cuff efforts of my own paltry hand. Upon their reading, you will certainly say- "I can fucking do better than THAT Lizardo"... which is of course... My... Entire... Plan.

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The AL Central still exists. I know this, because I checked. However, the five teams in the division certainly have done their best to make that an open question this offseason. The five teams have made just a handful of notable moves, and even saying that stretches the definition of notable. As teams in the AL West and East scramble to win 90, 95, even 100 games, the Central provides the best case yet for the elimination of the concept of divisions.

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I plan on using this essay to make a number of things crystal fucking clear. Clearly, the handful of overpaid and almighty bloggers who write and run this site are nothing more than mental masturbating think-tanking propaganda machines. They are no better than the mainstream media, in fact they are worse! You know why? They are worse because they can’t get quotes from the actual baseball players and owe nothing to the franchise I would thankfully perish protecting. They can’t delve into the minutiae of the human levels of the organization because they don’t have any fucking access what-so-ever. Their stats don’t take into account the sociology of the game. What makes it even worse is they never, ever attempt to get at the clear truth of matters.

larry, margalus, colin, U-god…these fucking people exist for one purpose…to bend reality to conform to their unsavory blogging agendas. All they want to do is tell people how fucking stupid about baseball they are. They are the bullies in this pixilated hell. If I didn’t like the White Sox so much, I would never come here to argue with them. In fact, I feel it is my duty and fight against these villains so the old-way of of thinking from the gut never dies. Nevermind, I have nothing else better to do. If there is any reason for my existence, it is to prove these fools wrong. Never, will I actually listen to their half-baked theories. The fact that they believe they are above the constraints of quoting reliable sources and facts (yes, craig….facts) does a complete disservice to the game that I know and love better than anyone else. When they make me feel stupid by trying to force-feed me their ignorance, it is almost too much to handle. I eat my blood-pressure medicine like skittles and down a fifth of scotch but sadly still, I cannot put into words how wrong they are, even if words are all a blog and its commenters have. It is a sad state of affairs that I can’t argue this shit at a bar where I have my equally intelligent townie toughs to back me up both physically and mentally. I could totally kick their ass.

Frist, the White Sox will never win anything again because of KW. Yes, KW is the detriment to the baseball shrine I call the upperdeck of U.S. Cellular. KW probably reads at third grade level the way all his acquistions and trades have gone. He got so lucky in 2005 that I believe Selig convinced the other owners to allow the White Sox to win the World Series just to keep them relevant in case Ozzie Guillen were to leave town. Which he did by the way! If Ozzie never left then Buehrle never would have left either. Now we are stuck with Danks…a guy who won fewer than 10 games this year. How can a guy who wins fewer than 10 games get that kind of a contract! What an idiot KW is…I’ll bet Rick Hahn is seething that KW didn’t listen to him and trade Danks for Betances and Austin Romine. Poor Rick Hahn, how can he even be in the same room as KW?

Second, Peavy, Dunn and Rios…what can I say? I don’t think larry realizes that the White Sox will never win with these three albatross contracts (I say albatross because I can’t think of a better metaphor….what is an albatross?). Dunn will succumb to new lows next year, Rios will disrespect the game of baseball by using his millions to jetset around the country showing off his abs in expensive nightclubs and Peavy will never be the same! I mean Peavy’s experimental surgery should have fixed whatever was wrong with him! Its not like it take a long time to recover from surgery and get back to your old self now-a-days. The miracle of modern medicine has shown us time and time again that it fixes people for good and if it DOESN"T, that means I hate the person it didn’t work with. KW should have seen all this coming, what a piece of shit rat bastard.

Third, the only thing that the Danks extension made me do was look at the team we are going to have in 2014…how could you not?!? We as fans need to over-analyze and figure this out immediately. Where are the prospects that are going to be veterans by then? It is a shame that KW didn’t blow it up and get the best prospects in the game in return for all of our best players….I mean with Buehrle gone what chance do we have anyway? Now I have to sit here and watch an underachiever get 40 wins over the life of his 5 year contract. I don’t have all day! Get me a .300 hitter damnit. If only we had a .300 hitter and someone batting leadoff who could play defense and lay down a bunt. Instead KW had to waste all that money on a fat piece of crap with a history of on base percentage. New fangled stats…the new market inefficiency is putting fannies in the seats and with all this talk about getting that Cuban traitor they expect me to buy a Venchie plan? A 1/3 of our starters would be communists! The only way I am going to a game next year is if they give me half priced tickets or if I steal tickets from children. Instead I will be at home listening to Hawk, who should STILL be the general manager, and coming to this blog to force my grandiose presence on you small-minded infidels.

In conclusion, I am right and everyone is wrong, except that I used six paragraphs in an essay instead of the required five. Maybe if you ivory towers bloggers were more like me, we could be friends.

and Pythagoras is screwing with my St. Louis IX. 13 losses by a total of 18 runs. In the 21 wins? +93.

NL East	Won	Lost	Pct.	GB	ERA	OB%	RS	RA
Atlanta	22	10	.688	--	3.24	.327	170	117
Washington	22	11	.667	0.5	3.49	.325	187	117
Florida	19	14	.576	3.5	3.99	.332	163	141
Philadelphia	9	25	.265	14.0	5.41	.296	117	190
New York	8	26	.235	15.0	5.15	.280	97	171
NL Central	Won	Lost	Pct.	GB	ERA	On Base	RS	RA
Chicago	20	12	.625	--	4.44	.345	169	156
ST. LOUIS	21	13	.618	--	3.38	.362	215	127
Pittsburgh	18	15	.545	2.5	4.32	.319	142	149
Cincinnati	15	17	.469	5.0	4.51	.318	146	153
Milwaukee	15	17	.469	5.0	4.19	.325	141	142
Houston	14	19	.424	6.5	4.58	.327	155	161
NL West	Won	Lost	Pct.	GB	ERA	On Base	RS	RA
Arizona	24	10	.706	--	3.43	.340	179	129
San Francisco	19	15	.559	5.0	5.62	.321	165	209
San Diego	15	17	.469	8.0	4.42	.316	173	160
Los Angeles	13	19	.406	10.0	4.37	.324	168	160
Colorado	9	23	.281	14.0	6.56	.310	130	235
League Average	16	16	.500	--	4.44	.324	157	157
			Bold = Clinched Playoffs			Italics = Eliminated

Linky Dinky

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I took a class on the history of baseball at UIS this semester to fulfill my last elective, talk about a cake walk, and for my final I made a song about the White Sox. I threw together a crappy video with some pictures and posted it on YouTube. I thought maybe some of you would want to check it out.

Joe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSN9gTkUkyo