happy father's day!

hi everyone!

first of all, to all few guys who read my blog at this end of the internet, i want to wish you a very happy father's day!

hoo-boy! have we been busy! the crosstown classic was split after game 1 was rained out. john danks DID, however, pitch the next day against ryan "the canadian" dempster of the cubs. danks did a spectacular job-8 innings of scoreless baseball. dempster, on the other hand, gave up 2 runs and the cubs bullpen gave up 2 MORE runs later on. scott linebrink, who's been struggling lately, gave up 1 run in the 9th, but matt thornton finished it for us. final score: sox-4, cubs-1.

game 3 was on cable. gavin floyd and his BHB was pitching against the mighty carlos zambrano of the cubs. BHB did pretty well (zambrano, not so much), and the sox led for most of the game, but in the 9th, derek lee of the cubs hit a home run to win it.

things haven't been well since then. after the cubs, it was off to cincinnati to play the reds. jose contreras faced off bronson arroyo. contreras did ok, but the bullpen blew it. we lost 3-4.

yesterday, however, it was better. clayton richard faced some fella named johnny cueto. we did much better and won 10-8.

today, mark buehrle faces off against danny harang (also known as "harangutang", get it...?). when i checked the score, it was 2-0 sox in the top of the 1st.

and in other news, those damn cubs are doing better and better. they've beat the indians twice already, including former players mark derosa and kerry wood. both victories were also come-from-behinds, normally in the 9th (and often won in extra innings). on our side, fat bartolo's on the DL. knee problems listed, but i think ozzie needed a legitimate reason to bench him. as you all know, fatso's been having some problems throwing the ball in the strike zone.

happy father's day!
GO WHITE SOX!!!
tamtam

whats next?

the sox win the series against the brewers in a 5-4 thrilla'. since the game was on cable, i went to south side sox for the recap. apparantly, we came back in the 9th. mark buehrle was pitching and did ok. is it just me or does it seem that when the sox are on the road, they have a better playing record? think about this for a second: in that road trip 3-or-so weeks ago, we won every series against every team we faced. but when we came home, the team tanked! now, we get called up to milwaukee, and win that series up there! im sure im not the only one in white sox nation who's noticing this trend. it seems that 2007 is coming back with a vengance.

but on a more positive note, today is game 1 of my favorite rivalry: cubs vs. white sox. and yes, this game is on cable too. this sucks cuz on the cubs, big bad carlos zambrano is pitching and he's the 1 player on the cubs who's actually GOOD at his job! i personally dont mind watching the cubs, but only if zambrano's pitching. otherwise that team sucks.

for us, it's john danks getting the call. i think this game is at wrigley field too.

here's a random tidbit: today at macy's in downtown chicago, my boy carlos was slated to make an appearance. if you spent over $75 for father's day, you got an autographed picture of my boy. but, if you didnt have money to spend (like ME!!), you could have gone for autographs. i would have really liked to go just to get an autograph from my boy, and maybe ask him how his foot was feeling (news outta herm schnider-the white sox trainer-says that carlos won't be back till the all-star break, if not later. torn tendon in the foot is the standing diagnosis). but unfortunately, i cant drive in chicago (mainly cuz i cant parallel park, but the traffic makes me very nervous), and i dont wanna pay for parking (it costs like $20 to park ANYWHERE in chicago now!).

GO WHITE SOX!!!
tamtam

blowout, day 2

as of now, im hungry, outta money (i kid you not, my wallet is empty and my school card is down to its last dollars, but my money doesnt arrive till friday. looks like a week of soup for me), dirty, and sitting in the dark in front of my computer, having my corneas bored outta my eyes. my roommate's gone for the weekend, so ive got this dingy dormroom to myself for the weekend.

today, we suffered our second blowout. 14-0. that was the ass-raping score my white sox suffered at the hands of those damn canadians, the toronto blue jays. well, maybe i shouldnt curse canada cuz obama might chase me outta this country and up north to canada. anyway, that aside, alexei really needs to get his act together. not only is his batting average below 1 (or maybe right around 1, im too lazy to look it up), but he dropped like 5 balls today!! if thats not utterly pathetic, i dont know what is. WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU, ALEXEI?!!!! gavin floyd, the man with big hairy balls (at least thats the name that the guys at south side sox bestowed on him. note: ive never seen gavin's balls, nor do i ever want to. let me make that clear!!), lost his balls tonight-perhaps castration would be a better word to describe his performance. he couldnt get his slider down and his control was off. and to make things worse, our hitters couldnt hit!! we got into bases-loaded situations at least 2xs, and we couldnt score on either one. tomorrow's game is on wgn, so i'll get to watch it :). hopefully tomorrow wont be as pathetic as today's game.

but on the bright side, my boy carlos is back!! his hand is ok! since the man is a crystal chandelier (thats what we in chicago call injury-prone athletes), everytime he goes out on the field, doctors and the insurance company shit their pants over the amount of paperwork they'll have to fill out. we all know hospital visits aren't cheap. i hope his brand-new lovely wifey isnt worrying herself to ulcers over whether or not her glass hubby is gonna break apart as he's up at bat. to paraphrase a comment left on south side sox, when carlos isnt playing, he should be kept in bubblewrap and stored in one of the cell's many storage units to prevent injury. maybe the rival cubs could take a hint from carlos when it comes to dealing with that diva headcase milton bradley-specifically the bubblewrap and storage part. well, that duck over there, i didnt have a funny bubblewrap pic, but you get my point anyway. i hope...

thats all for tonite!!

GO WHITE SOX!!!

the one and only, tamtam

day off

the sox had the day off today, but camelback ranch was buzzing with excitement! for one, dayan viciendo turned the big 2-0 today (*sighs* he grew up so fast during his time with us!), and jose contraras flew over to miami to be sworn in as a us citizen. congrats to both men.

in other happy news, mark buerhle returned to camelback ranch. he'd been in MO cuz his wife had a baby girl, and he wanted to be there for the birth. good to have him back.

i've been thinking about the free webcasts the sox have linked on their website (which i catch whenever i can. i usually find the link to the free webcast on southside sox). there's this 1 announcer, i think its bill melton-but if not its the announcer with a real heavy chicago accent, who has alot of fun with alexei ramirez. the guys at south side sox pointed this out initially, and at the next game i watched i listened for this, but this announcer cannot pronounce alexei's name!! rather than 'ah-leks-ee', this announcer pronounces alexei's name is 'a-less-aye'. me, im speechless. the guys at south side sox were poking fun of the announcer for whenever alexei would come up to bat, they would say 'alice is up to bat' cuz those guys commented during the game. it is amusing, but really, alexei is not a difficult name to pronounce. MY REAL NAME is a heluva lot harder to pronounce then alexei's, so there is no excuse for messing that up.

(sorry, having some formatting problems here!)

before i sign off, i'll put in a final quote from rosenblog, written by steve rosenbloom of the chicago tribune.

Lemme get this straight: Cubs manager Lou Piniella said early in spring training that he wanted his players to “tone it down’’ in terms of intensity in spring training and then gets mad over losses in games that don’t mean anything? And people think Ozzie Guillen is psycho?

i know, its about the cubs (rosey is a big cubs fan, but he'll bash them when they do bad). but still, i thought i would put this in, just cuz i found it funny.

GO WHITE SOX!!!

tamtam

sweep in vegas!

hi-yo!

this just in, the sox swept the cubs in vegas!! i saw a bit of today's game. it was ok, but then i had to run off to class, so i didnt get to see the rest of the game. but our guys won, so it doesnt matter.


the other half of the sox was broadcast over mlbtv. i caught a bit of the free broadcast but i had to run, so i only saw a bit. our boys lost that game 4-5 to the dodgers and manny the diva.


in the meantime, i did see the game last night. i would have blogged throughout the game, but i also had to finish my calculus homework >:[, so homework came 1st. it was my 1st baseball game on tv in a long time, and i was very happy to see it. unfortunately, it was bob brenly and len kasper, the cubs guys, telling the game. i was hoping it'd be hawk and stoney (that would be steve stone), as i have yet to hear those 2 (im so used to 'dj' darren jackson and hawk calling the sox games).


i was impressed by the sox last night, aside from winning in a bottom-9th tiebreaker thriller. aj caught a good game, and tdogg (my new nickname for tyler flowers) looked ok in the 1st game ive seen him in. miracle man john danks pitched well, giving up only 3 hits in 3 innings. paulie, wilson betemit, and michael restovich all hit homeruns, and the sox won 7-6.


to sign off this post, i'll conclude with a colorful quote by ozzie upon returning to vegas


"I just told my wife I never thought I would come back to Las Vegas in my life and be the manager of a ballclub. That's a lot of years ago," said Guillen with a laugh. "I've been pushing for this game for a little while."





we love you ozzie!!

GO WHITE SOX!!!
tamtam

odd pictures in baseball, round 1

much like many of my contemporary (and rival) sports bloggers, i figured i'd get some funny looking pictures from around the league and make smartass comments about them. thats the bell and round 1 is underway!

i'll start with john danks of my white sox. aside from carlos quentin and alexei ramirez, danks was our miracle man. he pitched in the 1 game tiebreaker against the twins which won us our AL central title. however, if your pitching arm is fused to your back, it gives a whole new meaning to the term 'miracle man'.

the next target of my sharp-witted keyboard is placido polanco of the detroit tigers. its well known that placido has an abnormally large head. in fact, carl skanberg put it nicely when in his famous 'palehose' comic strips, the main character, don guillote, said in referance to polanco's head 'nothing this big and freaky can remain harmless forever!' the original comic can be viewed here. in the meantime, there's polanco and his freaky large head, looking more and more like jason statham.

my mom always used to complain about how boring baseball was. aside from the length of the games, the redundancy of a pitch and then a subsequent swing by the batter was just too boring in her opinion. obviously i didnt agree with her. if i did, i wouldnt be obsessively following the white sox like i do. in the mean time, this photo was taken at the cubs-rangers game in surprise. i guess my mom isnt the only one bored by baseball.

in that same stadium, the stands were crowded full of fans.

the cubs lost their appeal a long time ago. i guess all those chokes had something to do with it. CUBS SUCK!!!

up next to the chopping block is the florida marlins. this peep-hole-snooping-style shot all but speaks for itself. i can just imagine the conversation between these 4 players (hanley ramirez-2, anibal sanchez-19 (guy with the arm on the back of eulogio de la cruz,-45), and renyel pinto-37). pinto: "he's going past 2nd base! hanley, move your head!"

hanley: "naah. the view is good just here"

*pause*

sanchez: "hey eulogio, care to ride the pine?" [puts arm on de la cruz's shoulder]**

**thanks to the sports hernia for help with this one!

finally, the end! my final target of the night is none other than don zimmer. up until recently, i thought this guy was dead (no, really! i did!). he was said to have been a great ballplayer, but the only thing i remember zimmer for is getting flung down like a sack of rocks during that 1 fight with pedro martinez back in 2003, when old man zimmer worked for the yankees. here he is, back from the dead, none other than don zimmer, toasting in the warm florida sun and looking for his missing dentures.

*picks teeth* "ouch!! crap, thats right! i havent got any teeth! dammit! where did i put my teeth again?"

GO WHITE SOX!!!
tamtam