Tadahito Iguchi needs your help

June 29th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

Not a huge fan of the White Sox, am I, but I kinda enjoy Tadahito. Thus, I’ll give him an entirely inconsequential and ultimately fruitless blog shoutout.

Hey, All-Star voters. Tada needs you.

He’s currently around 150,000 votes behind Robinson Cano, who’s injured, for a starting spot on the AL East All-Star team. The final voting ends in a week, so Tada has some ground to make up here.

Can he do it? I don’t know. Certainly, his votes won’t be boosted any from this blog post.

Nonetheless, he’s better than Cano. And we believe in the power of the internet. Get it done!

Case of the Mondays : Without that movie, what would they say?

June 26th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Bend it like Beckham! Beckham bends in lone goal for England! Bend! Bend! Bend!

Yep, this phraseology was all over the place yesterday on the Web and on TV. Despite puking all over the pitch, Beckham bent (we just had to) in a free kick just inside the left post which lead to a 1-0 win for England over Ecuador.

In other World Cup news, the referee of the Portugal-Netherlands game went a bit loco, issuing 16 yellow cards and four reds during the match. Hey, yet another sports match in which people will blame their squad’s loss on poor officiating instead of not getting the job done. Portugal won the match 1-0.

The White Sox nine-game winning streak finally came to a close last night, as they lost in 13 innings to the Astros 10-9. (Note to self: Don’t leave the Cell in the top of the eight when the Sox are down seven runs. You will miss Iguchi’s three-run homer and grand slam that tied up the game to send it into extras. Whoops.)

If you’re looking for an update on the lingering story that is Jay Mariotti and Ozzie Guillen, get at it here. (Jay made himself the story again!)

And for the record, I am in fact sitting in my underwear as I blog. Take that, traditional and professional media.

Revisiting the Oswaldo Guillen Situation

June 22nd, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

So, this Ozzie Guillen f-word story (not the four letter one, the three letter one, silly) has become a big deal. (A bigger deal than even the mighty Ron Burgundy, in fact.) It’s all over ESPN, the radio, the blogosphere, you know; pretty much anywhere sports opinion disseminates from, you’ll find commentary on it.

Few quick things on it.

First, plain and simple, he shouldn’t have used that word. Even though he wasn’t targeting gay people, as he said, that word in today’s society has negative connotations. Sure, plenty of players and managers talk like this in the clubhouse, but to do it in front of a bunch of microphones, well that’s just plain stupid.

Second, as commenter Sam pointed out, as long as the White Sox are winning, Guillen’s outbursts will most likely continue to be tolerated by the club. It doesn’t seem like Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf came down on him too hard, only telling him he shouldn’t have used that word. The Chicago Sports Review has an excellent take on this situation, essentially saying he is ‘forfeiting his ability to ever manage a struggling baseball team’ because of his antics. I’m going to have to go ahead and agree with their take. If you have even a remote interest in this, I would suggest reading it. It’s one of the better written columns I’ve ever read, regardless of subject matter. (It makes mention of some scholarly book I’ve never heard of, but you don’t have to have read the said book to understand the concept the writer uses to illustrate his point in the column. Phew.)

And third, Mariotti still sucks. I’m glad Guillen is not backing down on that. But for as much as I applaud him for doing that, all he (and the entire White Sox organization, for that matter) are doing is fueling Mariotti’s ego, fame, fortune and essentially his ineptitude as a writer. Really, the best solution for Ozzie and the White Sox would be to just ignore Mariotti. Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson continues to bring up how he doesn’t like him. Everyone knows Reinsdorf and Mariotti have gotten into many feuds in the past. To continue to verbalize it only makes matters worse. Just ignore the dude.

Hell, we’re even contributing to his fame and fortune by posting about it right now. (Well, maybe.)

Oh, and if you need proof Mariotti is not good at what he does, here it is for you. (Again, I highly suggest you take a look at that.)

But all of this is neither here nor there. What’s really important is who would win in a fight between these two loudmouthed bravados. (This is an idea that’s been used on other sites and really since the dawn of mankind, or dinosaurkind, you choose. We’re not claiming to be revolutionaries or anything here with this idea.)

If we have 20 people vote on our poll, we’re claiming moral victory for ourselves. Get at it after the jump. (Height, weight, strengths and weaknesses included!)

CONTINUE READING THIS POST –>

Ozzie Guillen blows a gasket

June 15th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

I haven’t done a post about my White Sox in a long, long time, so hey, check this out. Last night the Sox got blanked by the Rangers, 8-0. (Nothing fun about that.)

A.J. Pierzynski was hit by a pitch in each of his first two at-bats. Fast forward to the seventh inning when rookie Sean Tracey was brought in to reportedly throw at Hank Blalock. He didn’t, instead getting him to groundout. Apparently, this was a mistake. A big, big mistake. And according to the AP/ESPN, here is what happened.

After getting the out, Tracey was removed from the game. Guillen slammed a water bottle to the ground when Blalock grounded out and the manager then brought Agustin Montero in to pitch. Guillen was then seen in the dugout barking at Tracey, who pulled the collar of his jersey over his head.Guillen didn’t address why he screamed at Tracey and had a different explanation why he took the rookie out of the game.”I tried to get Montero ready [to face Blalock] and wasn’t able to. It was a little late,” Guillen explained. “It was my mistake. I didn’t get him up quick enough. I didn’t want Tracey in that situation.”

Tracey refused comment.

A source told the Sun-Times that Tracey was informed he was being demoted to Triple-A after the game. “Ozzie went nuts,” one source told the newspaper.

So yeah, with Tracey refusing comment and what these sources had to say, it’s looks like Ozzie called little Seanie out for being a coward about the whole ordeal - which isn’t very nice. I mean, would you like it if someone threw a baseball at you? No, I don’t think you would. Sure, it’s part of the game and all, but he’s just a rookie. It’s not like he would have ever been asked to do this sort of thing in the minors or at any other point in his career.

Give him a break Ozzie, jeebuz.

A.J. Pierzynski: A case study

May 22nd, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

I know A.J. Pierzynski is an asshole. And I know he isn’t liked by many players and a good number of baseball fans. And if I wasn’t a White Sox guy, I wouldn’t like him either. But I am, and because of it, I love his style of play.

His decision to run on the supposed dropped third strike against the Angels in game two of the ALCS was a heads-up, smart play.

And if you think that Pierzynski’s running over of Michael Barrett on Saturday was a dirty play, you don’t know baseball. If a catcher is blocking the plate, you have every right to mow him over. That’s baseball.

At lot of people are claiming the fight happened because it was Pierzynski’s jerk reputation preceding itself, but I’d blame it more on a combination of that and Barrett’s reputation of losing his cool. Last week against the Padres, the Cubs catcher got into it with David Roberts of the San Diego Padres. In 2004, benches cleared at Wrigley Field as Barrett jawed with Roy Oswalt of the Astros at home plate. Barrett was the one who said ‘I didn’t even have the f’n ball, bitch’ to Pierzynski and threw a cheap shot punch. (Although it didn’t help that A.J. nudged him as he went for his helmet.)

People didn’t like that Pierzynski raised his arms to the crowd and came back to the dugout fired up while giving out high fives to his teammates after the fight. And again, if I’m an outside observer watching this, I’d be annoyed. But as a Sox fan, I like that a guy shows a little fire, emotion and passion.

Bottom line, if you don’t have Pierzynski on your team, you aren’t going to like him. If he’s on your team, you’re going to love him. It’s as simple as that.

I know everyone has probably seen this clip a bazillion times by now, but hey, we’re going to put it up on our site for your viewing pleasure because this happened Saturday and we weren’t blogging. There’s not a thing you can do about it, okay?

Enjoy.

We’ll see you Monday…

May 12th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

…because we’ve decided (due to decreased readership on the weekends and the realization that we do in fact have lives (just barely) outside the land of blogdom) that barring a monumental event (like Greg Oden somehow leaving Ohio State for Indiana) that we’ll be keeping the Postmen to a strict Monday-Friday operation.

But don’t fret. There are plenty of things to entertain you this weekend that don’t involve sitting in front of your computer screen.

- The Chicago White Sox start a three game series against the Twins tonight up in Minnesota. Garland vs. Santana in the opener.

- The Cubs returned home today against the Padres after their miserable 1-8 road trip. They’re currently losing 8-2. Is Derrek Lee healthy yet?

- The agonizingly long NBA playoffs are available for your viewing pleasure. The Heat face the Nets in New Jersey tonight and the Clippers play host to the Suns. LeBron and the Cavs will try and get their first win of the series tomorrow at home vs. the Pistons.

-Mr. Barry Bonds gets a chance to catch the Babe this weekend at home against the Dodgers.

Oh, and that picture we have across the banner. Philidelphia fans weren’t actually holding up a sign promoting the Postmen. (We know you’re all shocked.) You can make that white space on the sign say anything your heart desires at fansonbonds.com.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

It’s a slow sports day…

May 3rd, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

…And since we can’t find anything too blog-worthy at the moment, here’s a compilation of what some other sports bloggers are talking about.

The Mighty MJD does not like Joe Buck.

The Realests are backing up the Bears for not drafting any worthy offensive talent.

Hawk says the White Sox have rhythm.

Free Darko thinks this is a problem.

Matt Leinart and Paris Hilton? That’s hot.

Hammer’s got our back

May 2nd, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Deadspin makes reference to M.C. Hammer’s blog from time to time, and after perusing the site for a bit today, I realized one thing - Hammer has our back.

The White Sox seem to have picked up where they left off.
It’s to early to runaway with it but the swagger is right. Vazquez is looking
strong and was near flawless in his two hitter this week. The Sox have won
9 of their last 10 games.The Cubs are in striking distance early on and should
give Houston all the fight they can stand this season.
Look for others to step up while Lee recovers. The Cubs
will be there fighting it out in September.

(We left the grammar intact as it was on Hammer’s blog. We aren’t about to mess with the man who is ‘Too Legit to Quit.’)

As some of you know, we here at the Postmen are 2/3 White Sox fans and 1/3 Cubs fans. And when we found out M.C. freakin’ Hammer was reppin’ both of our clubs, we got pretty excited. (Even if the post is a few weeks old.)

I guess all we can say is thank you M.C. Hammer, thank you.

No more tarp-slidin’ Buehrle

April 17th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

As two-thirds of the Postmen are White Sox fans, we were a little perturbed when we found out that Mark Buehrle’s signature tarp-slides during rain delays are most likely over - as he was reportedly fined for doing it yesterday during a White Sox-Blue Jays rain delay at U.S. Cellular Field.

White Sox GM Kenny Williams said in an email to mlb.com, “He needs to find another hobby.”

Apparently during the rain delay yesterday, some knucklehead came out of the stands and did a little tarp-slidin’ himself. He was promptly apprehended by security.

One team official was pretty certain this had a lot to do with them shutting down Buehrle for good.

It was fun while it lasted, Mark.

Does anyone like this Jay Mariotti guy?

April 6th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

Just picked up this interesting tidbit from the good folks over at Deadspin. Looks like Cubs president Andy MacPhail and White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf co-authored a letter to the Chicago Sun-Times publisher John Cruickshank regarding the world’s most notorious columnist, Jay Mariotti.

Mr. Mariotti ripped Bud Selig’s supposed slow response to this whole steroid business in a recent column. MacPhail and Reinsdorf fired back saying that Mariotti ‘has made no effort to be the least bit informed on this important subject.’ And later, ‘If Mariotti would ever trouble himself to make a phone call, maybe he would get the story right.’

It may be a little difficult to side with MacPhail and Reinsdorf for defending baseball’s response to steroids, (and after reading their facts and evidence it’s pretty convincing the burden rested on the Player’s Association and not on Bud Selig) but either way, it’s nice to see the Cubs and Sox can at least agree on one thing – their hatred for Mr. Jay Mariotti.