The 2005 Baseball Thread

[vip]

WHY THE HELL did they pitch to him last night ?! They had it won !! Walk the man damnit ! Oh well, my chisox are there... just thought it was DUMB on the part of the astros !

[....]

I was actually happy. lengthen the series so my sox get rested, and when houston wins, look out!

[rsktkr]

If ever in the history of baseball there was a more obvious reason to walk a batter than last night with Pujols up please someone tell me. Arizona once walked Barry Bonds with THE BASES LOADED!!!!! That wasn't even a playoff game. Give me a break people....I was screaming at the tv and I'm not even a Houston fan just a baseball fan! Pathetic.

They deserve to lose the series because of that epic meltdown.

[BroChaos Veteran]

my god, that home run was ginormous!!

[RangerLG]

I would rather have taken my chances with a sore Sanders than a Pujols who was 0 for 4. If not intentional, throw all fastballs off the outside of the plate. Maybe he chases or hits a ground ball. Or just intentional pass and face Sanders. I'm ready for Game 6. Yesterday is history.

[BroChaos Veteran]

well at least you have the right attitude. the angles shoulda taken advice from you ;)

[MGOB]

yeah but that come back and hot streak sent shivers down White Sox nation.  I've almost never seen a team sustain being that hot for so long to creep up on the Sox. 

The White Sox have the Cleveland Indians to thank for lighting a fire under their rears and helping them realize there is still work to do.

P.S. I'm a huge white sox fan.  and I thank cleveland

586687744[/snapback]

well you are welcome lol

[Galley]

If Minute Maid Park didn't have a roof on it, Pujols' homer would've gone all the way out!

[Tuffgong4]

this article is long but great...if it's too long I'll just post the link to the article, but I'm worried the bandwidth to the site will go over the cap.

"Let's Go SOX!!

I grew up on the South Side of Chicago and my earliest memories of baseball revolve around my father's love of the White Sox. Then, as now, the White Sox were the red-headed step-child of the Chicago sports world.

Not that it mattered to my father.

Strange as it seems, today the White Sox are not my favorite baseball team - that distinction goes to the Boston Red Sox. You can imagine that over the last 25 years many have asked why a born and bred Chicagoan would root for Red Sox.

I usually tell them some made-up story and it often varies depending on my mood or who asked the question. Not that my duplicity lessens my fervor for the Red Sox. I also have never shaken my affinity for the White Sox and had the Red Sox not won the World-Series last year my allegiance would be to them when the teams met-up in this year's Divisional play-off.

Instead, I found myself pulling for the White Sox.

The reasons I adopted an out of town favorite are two-fold. First, no self-respecting baseball fan could root for the Cubs. Their ownership fools the silly north-siders every year by bringing in popular but unskilled players and each year the ?lovable losers? finish well out of first place. Sure, by accident, every so often they win a division but that's the extent of their success.

Think about it, the owners of the Cubs have a license to fail ? and they use it.

The real reason I gave up my allegiance to the White Sox is owner Jerry Reindsdorf who has been in my perpetual doghouse since he put them on pay-per-view television when I was still watching games at my father's knee. See, my family didn't have the money to add Sportsvision, as the pay-per-view station is known, to our cable package. So, for sometime we could no longer see the Sox, or the Chicago Blackhawk games at home.

No, the Hawks aren't my favorite hockey team either.

My dad had this ugly hand-me-down blue chair in our living room that had seen much better days. It was his perch during White Sox and Blackhawk games and my oldest sister and I would sit on the floor mesmerized by the exploits of players like Harold Baines, Julio Cruz, Rudy Law, Murry Bannerman and Al Secord.

Few outside of Chicago can remember it was Harold Baines that drove in Julio Cruz with a walk-off sacrifice fly for the winning run in the game that clinched the 1983 Western Division Championship for the Sox.

The first baseball game I ever went to was at old Comiskey Park . Wayne Nordhagen hit and upper deck home-run and Mike Squires picked a low throw out of the dirt to cap a game ending double-play. My dad carried me on his shoulders out of the park that night.

It's something I will never forget.

For sometime it was pretty quiet in our house until my mother somehow found a way to scrape together the extra money for Sportsvision. It was never the same for me after that and I still believe that Reinsdorf has no right to extort Chicago White Sox fans. Reinsdorf alienated many Sox's fans with his greed in the early 80's which is one of the reason's their popularity has continued to trail the Bears, Cubs, Hawks and Bulls.

My father still doesn't know the reason I cast the White Sox aside and took the Red Sox as my favorite team. Although my guess is once he reads this he finally will know the reason.

Now, if someone could have told me the pain the Red Sox would inflict over the next 25 years I might have picked a different team. Funny thing is, I still go back and read the online news reports about once a month to make sure they still won. I guess even though I'm a transplant true Red Sox blood runs through my veins.

To add the insult, Reinsdorf was the lead ownership hawk in 1994 when the play-offs were wiped out by a players strike. The White Sox had a great team that year yet because of his actions they never had a chance to finish the season.

Last year when my beloved Red Sox won the World Series I sat in my wife's arms and cried. For a year now only she and I knew that I actually cried. A grown man crying over a game will tell you that in my household baseball was so much more than a game.

The first call I made after the game was to my father who was thrilled for me but sounded a little jealous. When I told him I never thought the Red Sox would win in my lifetime he stopped me cold by saying, ?how do you think I feel, there has never been a baseball champ in Chicago during my lifetime - and I'm 72.?

He ruined my hatred of the Cubs with that one sentence. If the Sox win it all this year though, my father's wish of a World Series victory will be fulfilled and I can go back to hating the north-siders.

Now, the aforementioned Jerry Reinsdorf, my greatest childhood nemesis has the White Sox in the World Series. Brought there by Ozzie Guillen, a childhood hero due to his small stature which mirrored my own.

My guess is Mr. Reinsdorf will never read my reasons for giving up on the White Sox or ever know what a World Series championship in Chicago means to my father. I'm also sure there are a thousand more stories across Chicago that mirror my own.

Being selfish, though, all I care about is that the Sox win it all for my father.

Being a Red Sox fan I know never to get excited over anything until the final out. Even last year when they were up 10-3 on the Yankees in game 7 of the ALCS I figured something would go wrong. The same held true with two outs and two strikes in game 4 of the World Series, yet, they didn't break my heart.

My hope is my father will feel the elation, the joy, the relief when the White Sox record the final out of their World Series victory. In my lifetime I have only seen him cry twice both times it broke my heart to see such a strong yet gentle man cry.

I hope this time though, I cry right along with him."

[kylejn]

YES! YES! YES!

Go 'Stros!!!

[OrangesOfCourse]

Go Astros!

world series here we come!

[Matt]

:beer:

[bigbluepride35]

I wonder how Yankee fans will feel to see what could have been a potential four-fifths of their pitching rotation (assuming El Duque makes an appearance) in the World Series? :p :laugh: Go 'Stros.

[RangerLG]

I'm pumped!!! Can't wait for Saturday night!!

[RangerLG]

There has been some talking about using Jeff Bagwell as the DH in Chicago. I don't think if that would be a good idea. Bagwell is basically playing with 1 good shoulder and half of the other. I think Lamb should DH (provided the pitcher is a rightie) and put Burke in LF and Berkman at 1B. The Astros are slightly better defensively with this lineup since Berkman is still not 100%. Against lefties, Bagwell may be an opition, but he's not hitting with any power right now. I understand that Garner may want him to get in a game since this is his first WS, but he has to decide on the lineup that gives the team a chance to win.

[Tuffgong4]

can't believe the lack of attention for this world series. last night's game was amazing. I'm an enormous sox fan but even if the astros win this is going to be an amazing series

[Galley]

I agree; last night's game was terrific. One one hand I'm rooting for the Astros because I like Clemens, Bagwell and Biggio, but on the other hand, I'm from Greenville, the home of Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the White Sox's (and MLB's) greatest players.

[kylejn]

Grr. Sox Grand Slam. Right after that incorrect call by the home plate umpire.

*shakes head*

[thechitowncubs]

that was a nice one

go sox

[kylejn]

YEAAAAAAAAH!

6-6!

Go 'Stros!!!

[Got3n]

DOH TIED!!!!!!!!!

[firebud]

Gahhhhhhhhhh.

Sox win. :(

[family guy]

Yea Sox!!!!

2-0

And I bet you guys the call involving Dye will be talked about for days. The umpire called it as he saw it, and thats it. Sure it may have been the wrong call, but it happened. If it happened with the Astros they wouldn't be complaining, and in all honesty I probably wouldnt either. I'm not perfect, and without the slow-motion, it looked like a hit-by-pitch to me too

[Tuffgong4]

what was funny is in the close up view of that dye play the zoom in showed the umps eyes closed!

[family guy]

I wish I could have been there. It was an awesome game! I still can't believe it!