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

sox vs angels, opening day predictions

dear readers,

instead of watching the oscars, like everyone else right now, im blogging about sports. although, now that im on it, let me be honest in that i didnt think americans liked indian movies all that much, but when i saw the bit that i did, 'slumdog millionare' was practically sweeping the board! for those of you who don't know, 'slumdog millionare' is an indian movie. well, its not authentically indian cuz this film was more like a collaboration between the american and indian movie industries. this isnt the 1st time america and india have joined up to make a movie; 'gandhi', about the life of mohandas 'mahatma' gandhi was, i think, the 1st time hollywood and bollywood worked together to make a movie.

but enough about indian movies, and onto sports. the 1st spring training game is on wednesday. its gonna be sox vs. angels, and im pretty sure its taking place at camelback ranch. i'm practically dying from excitement over here in AZ!! i've been dilligently scanning the tv listings for wednesday, and it doesnt appear that im gonna get the game (or any other baseball game, for that matter!), but then again, thats in 3 days so stuff could change till then.

naturally, i will cast my fate with my beloved white sox. im confident that they will win game 1. i can't find the starters for game 1 (and i probably won't know till wednesday), but i bet it'll be buhrle cuz he's 1st on the pitching rotation. buhrle's one of our best, wait, he IS our best pitcher. i trust that he will do a good job. i expect him to go 7 or 8 innings, have octavio do setup, and jenks will close out the game for us. like i said, i dont know the stats side of sports (or find it remotely interesting for that matter), so i'll keep things nice and general. i predict at least a solo HR from jim thome, and 1, if not more, from carlos quentin (who's team picture day mugshot continues to remain elusive >:[ ). alexei will get at least 1 steal, probably in the 4th or 5th, and dayan will get a double in the 6th. aj will likely have a down day, going 1 for 3, and paulie will hit some singles.

like i said, these are merely predictions. i don't expect the game to follow exactly as i predicted, but it would be good if it did (and just a wee bit creepy as well, given how specific i went on some players).

good night, and GO WHITE SOX!!!

tamtam