As I’m sure you’re all fully aware, SoxFest is this weekend. Fans from all over will flock downtown to meet some of their favorite players and hear some of them in panels. Before SoxFest starts, the White Sox wanted to give season ticket holders a chance to talk to Tom Paciorek and Robin Ventura during a conference call this afternoon.

As with every other season ticket holder chat, Gene Honda moderated the call, and we started with Wimpy. He’ll be a big part of SoxFest this weekend, as it will partly be a celebrationg of the 1983 “Winning Ugly” team. Wimpy is excited to be there this weekend with a great group of guys and a great coaching staff. He mentioned that while most fans remember the players, some people may have forgotten the personnel of the 1983 team. » Continue reading “Conference Call with Tom Paciorek and Robin Ventura”

(l-r) Pablo Ozuna, Cliff Politte, Darrin Jackson, Chris Widger, Neal Cotts, Joe Crede

SoxFest concluded yesterday. It turned out to be a pretty full day. Lots more questions that were similar to what was asked previously. There was also some possible annoyance from some of the panelists about some questions that were constantly getting asked in the same session. Oh, and of course, more digs at a couple of players who are deemed as the ultimate bums.

Like Saturday, I did end up in twitter jail for a time. Fortunately, they let me out after an hour. Just like before, if you have any questions, please ask in the comments. I know the typing may have gotten screwy, especially with auto-correct. Also, be sure you checked out some of the various other publications out there. There were some really good news nuggets and stories people got. Definitely worth your time. Later, I will try to get you links to some of those great stories.

Happy Monday and here are the tweets from the last day of SoxFest 2012:  » Continue reading “Final Day At SoxFest 2012. Now What?”

(l-r) Jeff Manto, Brent Lillibridge, Ken "Hawk" Harrelson, Adam Dunn

Yesterday was day two of SoxFest. It was another fun day. There were moments of testiness as well as some questions that were asked that left me scratching my head. Below are the tweets of the day. There are a couple of gaps. For the first time ever, I ended up in Twitter Jail for tweeting too much in an hour. Fortunately, it only lasted for an hour. If it had gone longer, I am not sure what I would have done. Maybe create an account just for the jail time. In any event, enjoy. I will bring you day three today as well on twitter. As always, if you have any questions, please ask. I know the spelling gets wonky at times so some of the tweets might not make a ton of sense. (Like Ichiro turning into i crap!)

Day Two Tweets: » Continue reading “SoxFest Day Two. A Bit Of Drama”

“Hello! Welcome to [name of big warehouse store]! Would you like to try our [name of product]?”

I work weekends as Free Sample Girl at one of the big warehouse stores, so you can imagine how many times I say that a day. My job is to sell you whatever product is on my cart, and more often than not, I’m pretty good at it. If you have things in your shopping cart already, I can take a quick glance in and see if I can relate the product I’m sampling to what’s in your cart.

The point is, I can sell food products REALLY well. So why am I telling you this?

The AFC and NFC Championship games were on Sunday. So the store was really slow. Not many people wanted to try my red grapefruit.

It gave me time to think, and I thought to myself, “If the White Sox were a product in this store, how would I sell them? Especially this year.”
» Continue reading “Sell Me on Those Sox”

Bud Selig presenting award to Jerry Reinsdorf at Sox Fest

Hey one and all. Sox Fest began last night. It was fun times. In all honestly, I was kind of wondering what to expect given the changes the team has gone through this off season. Not to mention, it is hard to figure out just what exactly this season is going to be. In case you missed it, I am live-tweeting from the seminars. Below, you can read my tweets from last night. I apologize for the spelling errors, but that can happen when you are trying to quickly type. If you have any questions about stuff, feel free to leave them in the comments. I will be back today live-tweeting and will have a recap of Saturday for you as well.

If you want to follow along during the day, just check out my twitter feed. I apologize in advance if I don’t respond to your tweets right away. Coverage can be spotty so I might not see it for a bit. Don’t forget, if you are around tonight, come hang out with me at Miller’s Pub around 7:30. And if you are at Sox Fest, come say hi

And now for the tweets from the Opening Ceremonies:  » Continue reading “SoxFest 2012: What You Might Have Missed On Opening Night”

Will we see lots of these at the ballpark this year?

Just when I think there isn’t much in the form of news, there ends up being a lot of stories out there that may be of interest. Since there are a lot today, I will get right to them so you can get to reading (or delaying work if that is what you are up to right now)

 Before getting to the Sox news, the Tigers are going to be dealing with Victor Martinez being out for the season potentially. This might be good news for the Sox since his bat will be missing from the lineup.

 The White Sox still appear to be in on trying to acquire Yoennis Cespedes. The Cuban Tank just might be a secret weapon in his recruitment. Yoennis is also on that other team in town’s radar as well. » Continue reading “South Side Hits: January 18, 2012 White Sox Stories Of Note”

Howdy loyal White Sox fans! Not much happening at The Cell of late, but the big talk has been of Jeff Manto’s comments regarding walks. It’s enough to have people who are very big into numbers up in arms because walks can be a great thing. Personally, I prefer them over giving up unnecessary outs (like bunting does oh, 99% of the time). However, I prefer to let things shake out a little bit more than they have. At least the coaches are giving us fans something to contemplate in this off season that so far has been rather dull for Sox fans.

In case you missed these stories, Jim and James have some good recaps and takes on what Manto said. Whether the comments are something to be concerned about, remains to be seen. As for other news, Hawk Harrelson is apparently prognosticating on what the Sox will don in the future. As much as Hawk annoys me in the booth when watching games, he does entertain me when he gives his opinions on what he thinks will happen or what he thinks about things in the past. Some of the things that Hawk says just really make me shake my head. Almost as much as he does when he broadcasts a game. » Continue reading “Happenings At 35th & Shields: November 7, 2011 White Sox News”

First, a GINORMOUS Congratulations to Mark Buehrle who picked up his third consecutive Rawlings Gold Glove for the 2o11 season. If you have watched Mark at all, you know the man has a wicked pick off move as well as being incredibly good at fielding his position as a pitcher.

We still don’t know whether Mark will be back at 35th & Shields, but we can still hope for it to happen. Now for the news you might have missed with additional drama continuing on the the north side of town.

 Chris Jaffe at The Hardball Times has a great piece on Tony La Russa‘s career. It includes his playing career as well as managerial. Most of the managerial stuff has to do with the St. Louis Cardinals, but

 Bacon is in a position right now he’s probably tired of seeing: looking for a bounce back year at the dish.

 You know that the Field of Dreams sold. Now you can read about the Chicago couple who purchased the property.  » Continue reading “South Side Hits: November 3, 2011 White Sox News”

Welcome to November 1, 2011 folks. Hard to believe that we are getting so close to the end of the year. Of course, that also means we are that much closer to the 2012 baseball season. First things first though. We have to find out who the 2012 White Sox will be. We’re getting closer though. Yesterday, the rest of Robin Ventura’s coaching staff was named.

From the press release, Jeff Manto is the hitting coach, Mark Parent will be the bench coach and Joe McEwing will be the third base coach. All of these guys have some coaching experience, but not at the major league level. Given the experience level, it seems fairly clear that the direction of the team is to try to be “young” while still saddled with some veterans that if they could be moved, those guys would be out of here.

I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, to go young. However, I still am leary of the general manager trying to use this manager and his coaching staff as a shield for his failures and missteps the past few seasons. I hope Ken is smart enough to own up to his mistakes and is truly trying to fix them, but not by trying to outspend. I also hope there is a serious look at the minor league system and perhaps some re-evaluating of how things are being done. Just once I’d like to see a player drafted by him actually developed and utilized BY THE WHITE SOX instead of shipped off elsewhere. » Continue reading “Happenings At 35th & Shields: Welcome To November White Sox Fans!”