Spring Training 2008

[Guest Michael Myers Resplendent]

I was primed to say that it's a landmark, and it cannot be altered, but excuse me, a spaceship just landed on that other landmark on the lakefront.

 

This is awful. I bet the knuckle-dragging Sox fans at White Sox Interactive who have defied the odds to purchase and operate a computer are really gloating about this development. And they should! They'll make millions off our team. They usually only rake in money from the Cubs three days a year. As a fan, I've never felt so powerless, so hopeless against adversity. It's a terrible feeling. I don't wish it on anyone.

 

Oh, and also you're an idiot for even thinking that they should tamper with the brick and ivy.

[The Man in Blak 0]

What the fuck? It's been over an hour and nobody has replied to me! How does nobody understand the gravity of this situation?

 

We're talking about the Score here, remember? I haven't found a single mention of this story anywhere. It's not even the top story on their own website. Is there any other source or report out there that corroborates this?

 

[Guest Michael Myers Resplendent]

The Score is the house organ for the White Sox and would be on the inside track for news like this. It's been reported on every half-hourly update this I've heard this afternoon.

 

Really, though, a lot of us knew it would come to this for quite some time now, and this is probably a reasonable confirmation of our fears. You know, one of the things that has been a point of pride for me as a Cubs fan is that we haven't extorted a ballpark out of our community. It's owned by the club, operated by the club, and it's only the ticketholders, not the taxpayers, who are burdened with its necessary maintenance. Now we'll be just like everyone else, bending over the public for a private enterprise. That's not fair to Illinoisans, who may not want to foot the bill for Wrigley Field renovations because they live in Carbondale or Decatur or Springfield and support the rival club. It's not fair to residents of Cook County, who are already ridiculously overburdened with taxes for various projects such as that shuck-n--jive artist Stroger needing more funds to appoint a nephew as deputy-VP of looking out the window. It's not fair to the competitive balance of baseball that one team is collecting rent (and surely parking, concession, and other ancillary revenues) from another. Someone needs to step up to the plate, sprint up to the plate, throw a billion dollars in Sam Zell's face, and protect the Cubs from the bastards that want to leech off the team's fortunes and make them resented among their fans, viz. Messrs. Reinsdorf and Selig.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

The Score is the house organ for the White Sox and would be on the inside track for news like this. It's been reported on every half-hourly update this I've heard this afternoon.

 

 

Forgive me for a dullard, but since I am not in touch with the Chicago sports community, what is the actual story here and why should we be outraged? Who has determined that Wrigley needs updating? If updating is needed, why would it take place during the season (Fenway is in like year 5 of its remodel and they haven't missed one home game)? How does this factor into the sale of the team and stadium? What are the viable alternatives? I just don't understand the politics of what is going on, especially because I can't find an article about it anywhere.

[Hawk 34 0]

What exactly needs to be improved anyways that would require them to relocate to their rival's ballpark for an entire year?

[The Man in Blak 0]

The Score is the house organ for the White Sox

 

Yeah, that was kinda the basis for my comment in the first place.

 

There's nothing for it on the Tribune, there's nothing for it on ESPN.com, there's nothing for it anywhere else, except for a blog entry on Bleed Cubbie Blue (which, of course, was created in response to the Score's announcement).

 

Don't get me wrong: I can understand the outrage, if this were to come to pass. (Okay, maybe only some of it.) But much of the story still seems speculative at this point; "talks" can mean just about anything.

[Guest Michael Myers Resplendent]

Who has determined that Wrigley needs updating?

A shady subsidiary of the state government known as the "Illinois Sports Facility Authority," which owns and operates Comiskey Park, which was put together in the late 1980s when the state legislature just barely kept the White Sox from bolting to St. Petersburg. They "own" only Comiskey: the United Center is owned by Reinsdorf the man himself and the Wirtz family, Soldier Field by the Chicago Park District, and Wrigley Field by the Chicago Tribune/Chicago Cubs. The people in charge are largely understood to be puppets of Jerry Reinsdorf, who make sure that nothing gets too ugly when it comes to leases and so forth. They have decided that when they "acquire" Wrigley Field from the recently sold Tribune Company (owned by Sam Zell, a White Sox minority owner), which will be paid for by tax dollars, it will require substantial renovation, forcing the Cubs to move to the south side for a year.

 

If updating is needed, why would it take place during the season?

Because this allows the Cubs to pay rent to the White Sox, and likely surrender other revenues (beer, parking, &c) related to the venue.

How does this factor into the sale of the team and stadium?

Sam Zell, White Sox minority owner, has decided that it makes the most business sense to sell the Cubs and Wrigley Field independent of one another, which means either the Cubs must pay rent to the Tribune should he keep it, or to the state of Illinois, should he sell it to the state. Also take into consideration that the head of baseball's relocation committee is Jerry Reinsdorf, and he can determine who owns his crosstown competition, not to mention Brewers partisan Bud Selig (friend of Reinsdorf) having a say on who runs the bastards 90 miles to the south.

 

What are the viable alternatives?

One viable alternative is to slowly but surely renovate the park during the offseason, as was successfully done in 2005-2006 and 2007-2008, not to mention other offseasons prior.

 

I just don't understand the politics of what is going on.

Remember that this is where dead people vote, and you'll give up on trying to understand.

 

Get that!

[devo 0]

"Gerrymander" is one of my favorite verbs.

[Guest Michael Myers Resplendent]

That particular gerrymandering was to make sure a Hispanic had Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village, and a big piece of the south side. Now that Wicker Park is fully gentrified, I wonder if they'll redraw the fightin' 4th some time soon. I wish Barack Obama, while in the State Senate, could've said that "some people say we can't get rid of congressional districts that make sure certain people get elected," then looked up at Jesus, and said "...yes we can," but he was too busy. He could've really made some positive change. I'm sure the folks right off the Tri-State out in the western burbs would've appreciated it.

 

http://www.isfauthority.com/

I mean, come on! The "facility authority" only runs one goddamn facility!

 

I think it's more important that the state of Illinois makes sure stretches of Montrose Avenue don't fall into a fucking hole than buy Wrigley Field as a political favor for a charming man who already extorted one park out of an unwilling populace 20 years ago, and paid the legal bills for a Democratic congressman convicted of sex crimes.

[devo 0]

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/..._emerges_video/

 

Go Jim Bow-den, go Jim Bow-den, go Jim Bow-den gooooooooo!

 

"It stands for winning, y'know. And Washington."

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/..._emerges_video/

 

Go Jim Bow-den, go Jim Bow-den, go Jim Bow-den gooooooooo!

 

"It stands for winning, y'know. And Washington."

It shows me one of the great things about Spring Training we don't often see. Players and others joking around and just plain having fun. Sports are so much more fun when we don't lust after their blood.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Spring Training games unofficially started today with three teams playing exhibitions against college teams. Michel Abreu hit a two-out, two run home run for the Mets in the bottom of the ninth to salvage a tie against the University of Michigan. Philly and Florida State got rained out.

 

For those of you with XM Radio. Times Eastern.

XM 176: Cincinnati @ Philadelphia, 1pm (YES!!!!!!)

XM 177: NY Mets @ Detroit, 1pm

XM 178: Colorado @ Chicago White Sox, 3pm

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Tampa is showing interest in signing Barry Bonds, Mike Piazza and Kenny Lofton..

 

lol

 

They don't want to sign all three. They've expressed interest in bringing in Bonds or Piazza for DH and Lofton to try and win an outfield spot. Those are good low cost, high reward type signings. A team like Tampa Bay can take a gamble on some of these bargain guys.

 

What's the lol for?

 

The lol was for them possibly wanting to sign Bonds.

 

Im sure there are more people that would be pissed off and not go to Rays games than would be excited about Bonds to go to Rays games..they might sell FEWER tickets, though they'd certainly get more National ESPN/FOX games.

 

Signing Bonds goes almost completely against their philosophy and would probably backfire on them horribly.

 

I personally see Bonds staring in the sequel to Mr. Baseball..er..playing over in Japan.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

When the employment of Barry Bonds starts a drop in ticket sales, it will be the FIRST time a team lost money from employing a suspected PED user. They would without a doubt sell more tickets, a bit for the novelty but more importantly because they would win more games.

 

Of course, this was probably all early offseason speculation coming out. They already signed Cliff Floyd.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I think the everyone pretty much knew Sosa had used steroids at some point in 05 when the Os signed him and they sold 80,000 fewer tickets and won 4 fewer games than in 04...

[The Man in Blak 0]

An outcome that has absolutely nothing to do with the continued deterioration of the Orioles franchise from the ground up, I'm sure.

[Guest Michael Myers Resplendent]

I think the everyone pretty much knew Sosa had used steroids at some point in 05 when the Os signed him and they sold 80,000 fewer tickets and won 4 fewer games than in 04...

They didn't sign Sosa, they traded Hairston and Fontenot to get him, and I'm guessing that overall attendance went down because the team fell off the fucking planet in every way possible back in late July, causing the fans to completely abandon the team.

 

the Comiskey deal gave him free rent for up to 1.2 million in attendance each year. The Sox pay the state $2.50 for every ticket from 1.2 to 2 million, yet the team also gets back $5 million a year for stadium repairs and maintenance. In addition, the state buys 300,000 tickets if attendance drops below 1.5 after the year 2001, so in actuality, Reinsdorf got public funds to build his stadium and subsidies to guarantee its profitability.

Sweet deal. I hope the Cubs get a break like that, because, man, it'd be a bitch if the team's payroll were compromised by having to pay really high rent to the "facility authority."

 

 

CHICAGO -- The chief executive officer of the Tribune Company said Wednesday he won't hesitate to sell the naming rights to Wrigley Field -- even if baseball purists don't like the idea.

 

During an interview on CNBC, Sam Zell said despite Wrigley Field being known worldwide, he didn't get a discount because he wasn't going to use the naming rights that the field represents.

 

Zell said he plans to sell the Cubs and Wrigley separately and in his own time frame. He also disclosed that Major League Baseball has approved "four or six" potential ownership groups and that any one of them would be fine.

 

The sale of the team has been delayed by Zell's plan to sell the team and the stadium separately, and to have a state agency acquire and renovate Wrigley.

 

Here's another example of the cocksucker we're dealing with here. Year or so ago, we thought Mark Cuban was gonna buy the team and be our new Bill Veeck. How did it ever get so bad?

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

An outcome that has absolutely nothing to do with the continued deterioration of the Orioles franchise from the ground up, I'm sure.

Except for the fact that the Os were improving (67 wins in 02, 71 wins in 03, 78 wins in 04 (and 3rd place!)..SOSA ARRIVES! 74 wins in 05, 70 wins in 06 and 69 last year).

[Guest Michael Myers Resplendent]

Didn't the Orioles finish as poorly as they did because every possible player seemed to get injured, Palmiero was busted, and the organization was just in utter shambles? I don't think there's really a strong causal relationship between the Sosa trade and the tragedy of the 2005 Baltimore Orioles. As usual, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Did you incur massive head trauma recently? You're about a notch away from just posting word salads.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Didn't the Orioles finish as poorly as they did because every possible player seemed to get injured, Palmiero was busted, and the organization was just in utter shambles? I don't think there's really a strong causal relationship between the Sosa trade and the tragedy of the 2005 Baltimore Orioles. As usual, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Did you incur massive head trauma recently? You're about a notch away from just posting word salads.

If there is a relationship, it's because Sosa hit .221 and gave the Orioles sub-standard production from right field.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Didn't the Orioles finish as poorly as they did because every possible player seemed to get injured, Palmiero was busted, and the organization was just in utter shambles? I don't think there's really a strong causal relationship between the Sosa trade and the tragedy of the 2005 Baltimore Orioles. As usual, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Did you incur massive head trauma recently? You're about a notch away from just posting word salads.

If there is a relationship, it's because Sosa hit .221 and gave the Orioles sub-standard production from right field.

 

Sosa only played like 60 games in RF and DHed another 40 or so. He wasnt even a factor in their hot start (Tejada and Roberts awesome seasons) but losing him and Raffy did hurt which was why they tanked he last 3 months of the season.

 

bleh..Im tired of talking about the Orioles from the last 10 years now.

 

 

[The Man in Blak 0]

The difference between '04 and '05 is over 100 runs of offense, which can be attributed to precipitous offensive declines throughout most of the roster: Melvin Mora dropped almost 70 points of OBP, Javy Lopez dropped almost 50 points of OBP, David Newhan and Larry Bigbie came crashing back to Earth, etc. Sammy Sosa's disappointing performance certainly contributed to that dip in offense, but it wasn't the root cause of it.

 

Also, as Czech mentioned, the bigger steroid cloud over the '05 Orioles actually came from Palmeiro, who not only managed to get busted in the most ignominious way imaginable, but also found a way to rat out the team's centerpiece player (Tejada) on his way down.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

The O's sold 80,000 fewer ticked in '05 because they sucked. It had nothing to do with acquiring a suspected PED user other than the fact that said user was an offensive black hole. Does Marvin even read what he is writing?

[The Man in Blak 0]

I wasn't even going to dignify the attendance comment with a response, but let's not forget that 2005 was the Nationals' inaugural season in Washington. The Orioles should probably be happy that they only had around a 3% (yes, three percent) drop in sales with such an alternative emerging in their local market.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

The Orioles were actually in first place until June that season. From June 21 to the end of the season, they compiled a 32-60 record.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

The Orioles were actually in first place until June that season. From June 21 to the end of the season, they compiled a 32-60 record.

 

 

So you're saying from the start of the summer on (when the weather gets nice and attendance picks up) the Orioles were one of, if not the worst team in baseball? I wonder how this played into their 3% drop in attendance.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

It's all nitpicking of course. A 3% drop in attendance could be statistical noise. It certainly wasn't the result of disgusted fans turned away by Sosa's possible PED use.

 

And it is of course worth noting that Sosa has yet to be named in any scandal whatsoever.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

It's all nitpicking of course. A 3% drop in attendance could be statistical noise. It certainly wasn't the result of disgusted fans turned away by Sosa's possible PED use.

 

And it is of course worth noting that Sosa has yet to be named in any scandal whatsoever.

oh come on..ANY SCANDAL WHATSOEVER??

 

CORKED BAT?

 

I know its not steroids but come on.

 

and like I said, I remember Cubs fans being all happy the were trading him because he had obviously used steroids and since he was off he was rapidly declining.

 

I want to get in a word about 08 now..

 

Adam Loewen is making a strong run for the #1 spot in the rotation..Hes getting the start tomorrow in the Os first exhibition game. If he pitches as well this year in ST as he did last year (4-1 in 6 Starts, 22 ip, 14 hits 9 bb 23 ks 1.64 ERA, better than Erik Bedard did by the way), he'll have it unless Guthrie somehow manages to outpitch him.

 

the game will be on XM 178 tomorrow, Im so excited.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

It's all nitpicking of course. A 3% drop in attendance could be statistical noise. It certainly wasn't the result of disgusted fans turned away by Sosa's possible PED use.

 

And it is of course worth noting that Sosa has yet to be named in any scandal whatsoever.

oh come on..ANY SCANDAL WHATSOEVER??

 

CORKED BAT?

 

I know its not steroids but come on.

 

and like I said, I remember Cubs fans being all happy the were trading him because he had obviously used steroids and since he was off he was rapidly declining.

 

The corked bat was nothing more than a footnote by the time they traded him. Czech's probably more of an authority on this, but I know the Cubs fans I worked with at the time was more disgusted with Sosa walking out on the team at the end of the season. Also, since he was in obvious decline, they felt that it was time to move on (as the team was cascading downward after 2003).

 

Also, there is very little evidence that Sosa's decline was because he stopped using PEDs. The guy was 36 years old when he started his heavy downward trend and any scouting report will tell you that he lost bat speed and that caused a precipitous decline in his ability to challenge pitchers, especially righties. That's a normal thing that happens when hitters of his age and build reach their late 30s, regardless of any suspected steroid use.

[Guest Michael Myers Resplendent]

Obstinant ignorance: The Oriole Way!

 

Re: Sosa, we just got sick of his shit. He was in decline, corking his bat, he was throwing out his back from sneezing*, quitting on the team, and really just revealing himself to be a complete fraud. He's also one of the main antagonists of the plane ride bullshit that ended up sending Steve Stone out the door.

 

As for the team spiraling downward after 2003, not quite. They were in the wild card hunt almost down to the wire until the whole thing came down like a house of cards, blowing games on the last strike to the Reds and Mets. The 2004 team was the best one Dusty Baker had, if you ask me.

 

*what a weird-ass injury that doesn't happen to normal people.