Sox vs. Sox Series Thread

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

This has to be Sal's fault.

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

Also the White Sox have never bitched and whined about some Billy Goat curse, or Babe Ruth curse, or anything about why they haven't won since 1917

Even though they have a legit reason why the Baseball Gods would be punishing the franchise

Steve

[Guest Edgy DC]

Thanks for a fine year as champions, Red Sox.

[Guest Rotblatt]

I fucking loved the suicide squeeze call by Ozzie.

I'm kind of happy about this, which surprises me a bit. I'm morally opposed to the White Sox as Twinkie rivals, but they'd be much more interesting to see in the world series than Anaheim, Boston or the Yankees (please, no, Jeebus!).

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

The White Sox are definitely an interesting team. I'll have no problem getting behind them as they take on the next series.

[smg58]

They were the best team in baseball by far for four months, then kind of went on cruise control the rest of the way. Good pitching beats good hitting, no upset there. Sure I'm surprised by the sweep, but there's no reason to think that the better team didn't win.

As far as rooting for them goes, well of course if they play the Yankees, but they do have Carl Everett. And will they let Timo run the bases if they make the WS?

[Frayed Knot]

The Sox are dead, long live the Sox!

]I fucking loved the suicide squeeze call by Ozzie

It was gutsy move I'll give him that. As it was they had bags-loaded/no outs and made 1 out already ... had that squeeze failed they would have almost certainly killed that inning and gotten zero runs out of it. I don't think I'd have had the guts to call it. Nice job by Finley.


Was a bit torn watching El Ducky. He always annoyed me for no specific reason at all so I was torn between wanting him to get lit up (I at least wanted a longer series) and wanting him to look good as the current MFY staff falls apart. Same with Leiber down the stretch, and ditto Contreras, ditto Pettitte and ditto Cle ... um no, not Roger.

[MFS62]

I loved watching the Connecticut TV station news this morning.
The sportscasters on the stations, and even the announcers, love their Sawks.
A typical sportscast is:
1) Red Sox game tape
2) Red Sox Interview
3) Yankee game tape, then
4) MAYBE (depending on the station) they give the score of the Mets game (even though more than half of the population of the state lives closer to New York than it does to Boston)
One time, one of the anchors asked the sportscaster the score of the previous night's Mets game. The sportscaster said "I don't know".

Then, after the sports, the anchors talk about last night's Red Sox game before resuming the rest of the news telecast.

Well fuck them.
Fuck them all
I loved the looks on their faces today.
I really did.

Later

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

MFS62 wrote: I loved watching the Connecticut TV station news this morning. The sportscasters on the stations, and even the announcers, love their Sawks. A typical sportscast is: 1) Red Sox game tape 2) Red Sox Interview 3) Yankee game tape, then 4) MAYBE (depending on the station) they give the score of the Mets game (even though more than half of the population of the state lives closer to New York than it does to Boston) One time, one of the anchors asked the sportscaster the score of the previous night's Mets game. The sportscaster said "I don't know". Then, after the sports, the anchors talk about last night's Red Sox game before resuming the rest of the news telecast. Well fuck them. Fuck them all I loved the looks on their faces today. I really did. Later

Thats the reason (well other than not dealing with the cheezy CT local commericials, SHUT UP BOB I'M NOT COMING ON DOWN TO BUY YOUR STUPID MATTRESS!) when I was at school in Fairfield University I would only watch the NYC affiliates over the CT affiliates for NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, WB and UPN

Its one thing to be in Southern New England, but you are only A HOUR FROM BROADWAY! It seemed like it was Yanks/Red Sox all the time up there

Steve

[Frayed Knot]

I never really thought about it before ... but New England might be the one section of the country that's both a strong baseball area at the same time as having strictly an American League mindset.

Think about it, the other sections of the country that have had a long and/or strong affiliation with baseball have either been NL country or at worst split.
* NY - as much (if not more) NL as AL throughout the century
* Wash/Balt - never really strong franchise histories and now no longer just AL
* Chicago - split/leaning NL
* Cleveland - good fan support ... but more football territory than baseball plus there's Reds fans towards southern Ohio and Pitt fans to the east.
* LA - AL is just now grabbing the headlines after playing distant 2nd banana for 4 decades
* Milwaukee - Once and eventual NL team who were anxious to switch leagues saying they "always felt like" an NL franchise even while in AL
* Seattle/Dallas/Toronto/Tampa/Oakland - relative newbie towns w/o strong baseball identifications
* Detroit & KC might be the best 'AL only' towns if only the cities (Det) and franchises (both) weren't so run down.


So I'm afraid that Nutmegger Met fans are going to feel like secondary citizens for the foreseeable future. The whole of NE (5-1/2 states worth anyway) just views the bb world through a different prism than the rest of us.

[Frayed Knot]

2 oddities from Boston this week:

1) 3 champagne celebrations in 6 days in Fenway.
* Yanx on Saturday after winning division
* BoSox on Sunday after clinching WC
* ChiSox last night

2) Edgar Renteria ends (by my count) a 3rd post-season series:
* grounded out for last out last night
* grounded out against Boston to end World Series in '04
* "walk-off" single for Marlins to beat Cleveland in '97 WS


I'll bet those are (weird) records.

[Willets Point]

Connecticut in the 1980's was as blue & orange as New York City.

I'm happy for the White Sox, but if they roll over and play patsy to the Yankees in the ALCS now, I'm going to be really pissed!

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Frayed Knot wrote: ]I fucking loved the suicide squeeze call by Ozzie It was gutsy move I'll give him that. As it was they had bags-loaded/no outs and made 1 out already ... had that squeeze failed they would have almost certainly killed that inning and gotten zero runs out of it. I don't think I'd have had the guts to call it. Nice job by Finley.

I think you got your ALDS squeeze plays confused. Rott's referring to the 9th inning Chisox one and you the 7th inning Angels one.

I hated the Angels call but at least they made the gaddamn play. What I was hoping for that inning was for Erstad to do some conventional damage but Al Leiter made Erstad look awful.

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah you're right, I getting all my playoff baseball confused here.

The ChiSox squeeze was a much better call since they already had the lead and it was late in the game where the extra run was HUGE!!!!

The Angel one even though it "worked" still almost assured the fact that the LAAs would score just the one run out of a bags-loaded/no out situation (1 out by the time of the bunt). No doubt little-ball lovers will cite that as a winning factor even though playing it straight up may have resulted in more and the downside to failing there would have been HUGE for the MFYs.


btw, when Eckstein squeezed home a run agin the Pads the other day the announcers mentioned that it was the 17th!!!! time LaGenius had called that this year (w/3 or 4 by Eckstein alone) and I think it was something like 14 times successful.
Howie & Gary on the other hand grew fond of tracking the squeeze possibilities for Les Mets and the number of times Willie went ahead and employed it (17 times fewer than TLaR).

[MFS62]

"I never really thought about it before ... but New England might be the one section of the country that's both a strong baseball area at the same time as having strictly an American League mindset. "

And St. Louis showed what they thought of AL baseball by driving the Browns (now Orioles for you young'ins) out of town. Of course, what the woeful Browns of the time were playing might not even have been classified as baseball.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah, that's the other thing about Boston/NE that I forgot to mention; that of all the "shared" cities (NY, Chi, LA, Philly, StL) they're the only one who decidedly went for the AL team over the NL.

]Connecticut in the 1980's was as blue & orange as New York City.

Parts of it sure, but the other 5-1/2 states I doubt it.



I guess the best way to put it is that New England is the one area of the country where they're so into baseball at the same time that much of it is so dismissive of an entire half of the league. It's like when Rizzutto was still announcing and he openly admitted that he paid no attention to the NL.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I wouldn't poo-poo Detroit, Kansas City, and Seattle's fan bases so much.

On the other hand, many of Seattle's fans grew up Expo watchers, so they know about the whole pitcher-batting thingie.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

I wouldn't generalize from D-Dad. He watched the Expos because, in the pre-cable tv days, the CBC reception across the Straits of Juan DeFuca was better than the crappy reception from Seattle. Presumably fans in Seattle had better access to other programming.

[Guest Edgy DC]

There were Expo fans at one point across the entire northwest. I've met them from Montana, I've met them from Idaho, I've met them from Washington.

The breadth of what once was Expos Nation (or Internation) is a story that needs to be well told.

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

Edgy DC wrote: There were Expo fans at one point across the entire northwest. I've met them from Montana, I've met them from Idaho, I've met them from Washington. The breadth of what once was Expos Nation (or Internation) is a story that needs to be well told.

I wonder what was the point that changed Montreal into the sad franchise that they'd became

Several places I've seen labels the Carter for Hubie Brooks deal as a salery dump, could THAT have been the move?

Then again they did make the Mark Langston trade

Steve

[Guest Edgy DC]

It was a multitude of factors that unmade the Expos --- including bad ownership, bad MLB policies, and bad economic realities (this last exacerbated by the previous two factors).

Montreal didn't make out so bad out of the Gary Carter trade. Speaking of that trade, check out Hubie Brooks's draft history. (See new thread.)

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

Edgy DC wrote: It was a multitude of factors that unmade the Expos --- including bad ownership, bad MLB policies, and bad economic realities (this last exacerbated by the previous two factors). Montreal didn't make out so bad out of the Gary Carter trade. Speaking of that trade, check out Hubie Brooks's draft history. (See new thread.)

True, it wasn't a Seaver/Hernandez-esque rip off where the team is sending some hastily thrown together package just because they are about to land a Franchise player but it was labeled as a flat salary dump. I forget the sources off hand (sure it was some long after the fact book like Amazin' or something)

Steve