USSoccer

Holy crap, this scrub roster is going to break our duck in Azteca. Someone's gon' git fired tonight.

I'm surprised it's still 0-0. I'm unsurprised that I've seen the US in the Mexico half for all of 90 seconds so far.

Jesus, I was just gonna comment on what was your second Zoolander reference in as many days, and there's number 3. I'm unconvinced that WSR isn't Zoolander.

He probably had a eugoogoly to write.

Sorry you didn't get the Derelict campaign. Better luck next time.

That wouldn't be a very fair comparison. The ESPN2 option is always going to get hammered by the mothership option. Fine, NBC and ESPN. The channels are irrelevant. No one cares about women's soccer-at all- unless it's a major international tournament. Not so with the USMNT. I don't know if you're in an unbiased place about this though. Neither I, nor anyone I work with had any idea, for example, that the US Men weren't in the Olympics until after the games started. It was total news to us. Among soccer enthusiasts, you may well be right....the interest in the US men is probably much, much higher. But I'm not sure that's true among the general public. I think they're equally disinterested in non-major tourneys for both women and men. And with the women's success over the last couple of years (and the stars they've developed), I think it's closer than you may think. It's not remotely close. Look at the ratings, both friendly, qualifiers and World Cup, the fact that the USMNT actually has a TV contract for their games, including friendlies and qualifiers, etc, the way NBA Sports is treating its USMNT platform. This is like comparing the Cubs and the Peoria farm team and saying Peoria is more poplular because they play more exciting games. Not even in the same stratosphere. The reason you didn't know about the men is that FIFA treats the men's Olympic tourney as a U-23 affair; most nations don't give a crap about it. Great Britian couldn't have cared less about it's hybrid team.

That wouldn't be a very fair comparison. The ESPN2 option is always going to get hammered by the mothership option. Fine, NBC and ESPN. The channels are irrelevant. No one cares about women's soccer-at all- unless it's a major international tournament. Not so with the USMNT.

Simmons is an idiot for writing that. Not only is it not true in any sense, but it's such a hyperbolic, knee jerk reaction that it's barely worth getting worked up about. You could make the point that they are more popular, but it would be basically a WSR point-wrong, ignorant and ridiculous. If there were a men's game and women's qualifier on at the same time, on ESPN & ESPN2 respectively, the women's game would get ratings equivalent to a darts tournament. Like they do every time they play a game not linked to the World Cup/Olympics. The injury thing is asinine. None of the US men roll around like they've been shot after a foul. And if Simmons had watched an MLS game, ever, he'd know that the league isn't exactly a finesse, pansy league. To add to that, the women's team has played some garbage soccer over the past 4 years, and has won games by virtue of sheer luck, refereeing incompetence and opponent incompetence/inferiority. That luck will at some point run out, the opponents have already passed the US in skill and will eventually even up the athletic advantage.

The files are INSIDE the computer?

Yep, this.

Brenly is pretty low on the list of media racists; he's the least of the problems. His was the question I was trying to answer. However, I suppose the flipside is that he's the one, more than the others, who yields the most influence as the color guy. Kaplan and Rozner are the worst; they might as well be Father Coughlin clones, and Rozner just hangs on to vendettas. Rogers is just an idiot, Sullivan is a lazy, cynical writer. Miles is by far the most objective of the bunch.

So, you're not in the camp that thinks Brenly is racist, no matter which way the racism is implied? Enough with this whole "this person is or is not a racist" duality. It's more complicated than that. Many people in the local media allow racially tinged stereotypes to color their views. It's more intellectual laziness than it is outright hostility toward people of non-white races. That's fair. Let me ask the question in another way. Do you see Bob as part of the crowd that allow racially tinged stereotypes color his view? I think, like all people of all races and ethnicity, it's intellectually easier to fall back on racial stereotypes when criticizing someone different than you. Brenly may not do it malevolently, but to say racial stereotypes don't, in some way, shape or form, influence anyone's opinions on any level is naive.

The only example anyone would really need to bring up to show the overt, ingrained racism of most of the Chicago media would be Barry Rozner and Dave Kaplan's imbecilic crusade against Aramis Ramirez. Rozner STILL bitches about him. And what did he do in his time here? Had a solid 2nd half of 2003, was pretty much the best player on the team in 2004, was good in 05 and 06 despite being hurt for parts of those years, was good in 2007, was ridiculously good in 2008, got hurt in 2009 and was good in 2010. He was arguably the best offensive 3B in team history. Never once was it reported that he was difficult in the clubhouse, "cancerous", etc. His worst offenses were being quiet, occasionally jogging out routine groundouts and mugging after a few home runs. His reward has been a constant stream of invective hate and moronic accusations of laziness by Kaplan, but especially Rozner, who acts as though Ramirez raped his family, lit his house on fire and pissed on the ashes before posting it on Youtube and Reddit. If his name had been Aaron Ramsey and had been a good quote, there would have been an insurrection in the media once he was not resigned. EDIT: In Rozner's case, it's almost certainly related to an indifference towards him shown by certain players. If you aren't a good quote, play ball with the media, etc, you're going to get torched. Prior would be an example of this as well.

Well we have tons of statistical evidence that shows what a terrible decision gambling all your savings is. That's not the case with IP. I am totally in favor of caution, but IP is just one aspect to consider. To use only that and throw everything thing else out seems stupid. And as stated, even if you take the 30IP as gospel, you've already screwed up. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk The point is that, in the absence of absolute certainty, you err on the side of what's most likely to give you the best outcome.

Analogy time: You have been broke for a long time. You finally get a okay job, and then you come into a small bit of money; enough to get you through 3 months of bills, and buy you enough time to get back on your feet and after several months, stabalize your broke-ness and build toward a long term future of never having to worry about being broke and moving back into your mom's basement again. However...you could take that money and go to Vegas. Bet it all on black (always bet on black). If you win, you're set up for far longer, you can buy a new car or whatever and be immediately on your feet again. Which of these ideas make more sense?

Who said that? Nobody; just making fun of how you think the rest of the season and the postseason are "tangible." "tangible" meaning you know you're in the playoffs this year and you know you're healthy. Neither of those things is guaranteed down the line Derwood, stop being dense. Of course there's no guarantee that they'll be in the playoffs year after year. It's about which path gives them the best possible chance overall. This is just one season. Anything can go wrong in playoff baseball, in short series. So you have to give yourself the best shot at multiple playoff runs. If that means cutting one short so you have the chance at 10 more or whatever, it's a no brainer. Also, even though it's been said multiple times already, how could you not understand this after 2003, and what happened with Wood and Prior pretty much immediately afterwards? Prior especially. We went all in, fell victim to random-ass playoff baseball, and by the time we got in again, 4 years later, Prior was in the Cape Cod league, and Kerry Wood was a setup man.

5-0....i don't see how this kind of experience is useful for anyone. Getting ass kicked in Mexico City while trotting out the B-est B-team possible isn't going to prepare us for anything.

Not surprising to me at all. Tons of 1st and 2nd generation Mexican folk want to see the US win things. Except against El Tri. Then the urine bags come out.

There's nothing wrong with someone as talented and confident as Baez hitting a small patch of adversity. If he's what we all think and hope he'll be, he'll figure it out and learn from the experience.

Adam Dunn was a horrendous and completely unacceptable OFer, so God only knows what the [expletive] you're talking about. What I'm talking about is that as horrendous his OF defense was, his bat was valuable enough that they were willing to accept it in order to get it in the lineup, so assuming he continues to develope as the beast that he is early on, and assuming that Rizzo is our long term 1B, is giving Vogelbach some OF reps an option? But why male models?

-This shows what happens when you focus on competent youth development. We need Mexico pushing us, and vice versa. -Hahahahaha suck it Show Pony.

Are you including me in the anti-Hispanic brigade? No, not at all. That's a @thekapman shot. Maybe it's semantic, but I think you're overly worried about something that isn't really cause for concern yet.

Unreal. This is an 19 year old Cubs prospect with a 1.151 OPS. In his first professional season. EDIT: 1.284 OPS. Can we put this into context for a second? Has this kind of crushery been duplicated in the past by someone at a similar age/stage of their career for us?

So I'm just checking this out now. Am I correct in summarizing the thread as: -Tim thinks a relatively superficial, quasi-blip in Castro's development means he's at greater risk of flaming out, and has definitely downgraded his ceiling? -Pretty much everyone else pointed out that the actual numbers, when properly looked at and put into context, do not really indicate this at all? -An .850 OPS SS isn't something you build around? This whole thing is just...yeesh. Starlin Castro is going to be a really, really valuable player for a really long time here, unless the anti-Hispanic brigade succeed in running him off before he makes it obvious to even the meatiest meatball that he's great.

It's so great to have a promising bunch of position players in the system whose glaring flaws aren't "giant hole in swing" or "toolsy but raw"