ChiTownSox77

Exactly right, BoSox. Well put.

Pitchers don't battle other pitchers directly. our hitters are to blame for that. Buehrle was unstoppable. If not, then they would have stopped him. Get it? Good. it's 1-1 and we're going to Cali for a best of 5. Your boys are at home because Buehrle and the boys sent them their. Dispatched them for a long winter of frowns. Don't be bitter. You sound like a Yankee fan- "how dare they! this is OUR sport!" I'm a Boston fan and I don't like the whining I'm getting from you guys. Red Sox fans don't whine. Red Sox fans keep battling. Why are you all taking this out on the White Sox? They had nothing to do with the bad call- they simply played it. You're telling me that Varitek wouldn't have headed to first? Oh, no... he would have turned to the ump and said, "excuse me, good sir. I believe you are mistaken. I am in fact, out. Rather, I apologize for temporary consideration and entertainment of the thought to take advantage of a legitimate umpire's call and take my undeserved place on first base. Further, I apologize for our potential victory in advance and wish you nothing but success against us." That sounds like French capitulation. No one annoints a Champ. It's earned.

as long as we're correcting calls here... I'd like the Bulls annointed 1994 champs to correct the phantom foul on scottie pippen in NY. You sound like a bunch of cubs fans... blame bartman when it was alex gonzalez's error that ruined em in '03. what a bunch of babies. it was a bad call, granted. but, people... that's baseball- bad calls and all. you guys act like the sox don't even belong in the ALCS and they were lucky to win last night. let me clue you all in on something: our pitcher last night threw a 5 hitter and DOMINATED. he started the all-star game. you might have heard of him. his name is MARK BUEHRLE. get over it. the Sox were the better team last night. the angels might very well still win the series. then, all of this garbage won't even be mentioned again except by you all who will use it to justify the angels' 'magical renaissance' or something. The sox beat them. period. let it GO. to listen to you all, we'd still be talking about jeffrey maier.

waaaaahhhh. it's not fair! waaaaaaahhhhh. can you guys hear yourselves?

the Angels gave the Sox four outs. Just like they did when washburn air-mailed a 20 foot throw over erstad in the first. just like Guererro missed the cut off man on Rowand's corner drive. just like Paul didn't attempt a throw at Ozuna's steal. just like Escobar handed Crede the perfect pitch to hit on an 0-2 count. he throws a FASTBALL?!?! the Angels played poorly. the Sox won. you can take any game... ANY game and point to ONE CALL and say it affected the outcome. real teams rise above it. the national media has now done worse than root against the sox... they've disregarded us. we weren't even part of winning our own game last night; it was the umps 'stealing it from the rightful victors, the angels'. buehrle dominated em. escobar was sub-par. we capitalized on bad pitches, errors, and no-throws on steals from the Angels to win. period. see you in cali.

boo-freaking-hoo. if the angels, as all of you are saying on this board, were sooooo gonna win this game and it was (single tear drop) stolen from them, why did they play so poorly in the field? why didn't they wrap this up earlier? you think they were going to get to buehrle? he WAS gonna come out for the 10th. BELIEVE IT. this sounds like so many little leaguers blaming everyone for their loss. get over it. it's BASEBALL. that play had NOTHING to do with escobar placing as fine a pitch as crede could ask for right down state street for deposit on the wall in left. it had nothing to do with Paul not even ATTEMPTING a throw when Ozuna went on the next at bat. terrible call? sure. game-changer? not for the PREMIER teams, it wouldn't be. If this were the Skankees or the Red Sox (sorry, it's true- I love the BoSox, but the East Coast media loves em more) no one would be giving the ChiSox so much crap. The media have done NOTHING to report that Buehrle threw what might be the best game pitched in this post-season thus far. Complete and utter disregard for any EFFORT the White Sox might have put forth to win the game. To the media, the Sox didn't win the game. It was STOLEN from the Angels. Enough already.

riiiiiiight. and what say you, oh thoughtful and intellectual Skankees fan, is the impetus for said remark? if that is true (when it couldn't possibly be further from the truth), then that explains how the Skankees managed to win a few world titles: Fox.

actually, i thought crede was out on that play. the bad calls were ball-strike calls. specifically, on Konerko and Everett. the umpiring was disgusting all night. i'm sick of the excuse making and whining coming from the national media. shut the hell up. we won, you lost. like bighurt said, the best teams WIN. crede tagged him for the game winner. even scioscia said they didn't play high level enough to win. get over it and stop making excuses for when and if the angels lose the series.

actually, i thought crede was out on that play. the bad calls were ball-strike calls. specifically, on Konerko and Everett. the umpiring was disgusting all night. i'm sick of the excuse making and whining coming from the national media. shut the hell up. we won, you lost. like bighurt said, the best teams WIN. crede tagged him for the game winner. even scioscia said they didn't play high level enough to win. get over it and stop making excuses for when and if the angels lose the series.

Ok, but this is among the debates I have frequently regarding Nolan Ryan and Clemens. I will grant that Clemens, in his prime (might still be) was a dominant pitcher. However, he only won a title when he played on a store-bought Skankees team. I will grant that he is among the 5 best right-handed pitchers of the last 50 years. However, he is not even the most dominand right hander of his PERIOD. In the last 30 years, in their primes, the best right-handed pitchers (taking as variables their personal domination, their contributive attributes to their teams' successes, and their ability to dominate over long periods of time (including their playing on winners), Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez were, in their prime years, the most dominating right-handed pitchers in the last 30 years. Keep in mind that their best numbers actully came in the middle of what will become known as a steroid era of heightened hitter ability and soaring offensive numbers. Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan, while among the most dominant pitchers of their era, are still overrated (yes, it is possible to be among the best ever AND overrated at the same time). Ryan never won a Cy Young, won 20 games, or won a championship after leaving the Mets in his early years. Clemens stayed off the road for much of his last years, lied to the Yankees about retiring in order to get closer to home, and has had the benefit of pitching in the American league for most of his career. In this, I posit that Clemens was able to intimidate hitters by not just throwing inside (not enough pitchers do that, actually), but throwing at HEADS consistently, knowing that he wouldn't have to be a man and face down the opposing team himself in the batter's box, and leaving his teammates as targets. Now in the National League, no DH, he has to hit. Hence, his style of headhunting has, POOF! Magically disappeared. But I agree with your basic claims. He was as dominant for his time as 99% of his contemporaries.

Ha. Fair enough.

Either way, it's gonna be a hell of an old-time-baseball-pitching-defense-close-plays final 5 games. I'll take our chances throwing Garland, Garcia, Contreras, and Buehrle at em for the next 4 games. I like our shots, but anything can happen; LA is a really, really good team. Maybe a World Series champ again. We'll have to see who is king of the hill.

Buehrle may have been tiring, but his performance sure indicated the heart of a champ to do what he did on, as you say, a nearly empty tank. My words betray me, though... He and Freddy are my favorite players, so you'll have to forgive my bias!

Fair enough.

Understood. The better team surmounted a 3 game deficit, though. The BoSox didn't stop there. They proved themselves a Champion by then winning 4 straight from the Cards. It's about the better team. If LA wins the series, who will remember this call? If they are the better team, we have to tip our hats. As it stands now, I still believe the series is ours to lose. Don't forget- We're a weak home team. We're conversely the best road team in baseball.

You're gonna root against the Sox simply because the umpire screwed up? Listen, coming from Chicago, I can tell you that no other city but Boston has had the heartache, bad calls, bad timing with bad plays, and terrible "luck" (or whatever you can call it) that we have had in our cities, guys. You can sympathize just a bit... From bad, knuckling pucks ruining the Hawks in the conference finals against Detroit several times in the early '90s, to Hue Hollins' phantom foul call on Scottie Pippen in Madison Square Garden in '94 ruining our chances at the finals without Michael Jordan, we've suffered our fair share of bad calls and unlucky shots at the wrong time. It's part of the game. The great teams win those games as well. If LA were truly a great team, they'll bounce back and take the series from us. That's what it's all about- The best team surmounts bad officiating and wins when they have to. It's what separated the Marlins from the Schlubs in '03, what separated the BoSox from the Skankees in '04, and what will separate either the ChiSox or the Angels this year. The Angels were more screwed by their schedule the last 4 days, in my opinion, and they came in and took one from us in game one against arguably our hottest pitcher (who threw incredible, again). They beat us fair and square. Let's not cry over things that must be played through.

The strikeout calls on Konerko and Everett were incredibly bad. Konerko's knees were his ankles on his call. Everett was the victim of two outside pitches called strikes. Ended an inning with two strikeouts and swung momentum away with Podsy on first. You're going to root for a team just because you thought they were 'robbed'? If this call ocurred in the fifth, would you feel the same way? Crede made em pay. The pitcher didn't execute. PERIOD. He's lucky that ball didn't go over the fence. Oh, and the call on Rowand was not a bad one. Never said it. What I said was that the Angels were lucky their own bad play didn't screw em earlier in the game. The Sox had a chance to score and were thwarted by bad strikeout calls. Was I complaining? Would I complain if we had lost? No. I didn't complain when Contreras' strike zone was shrunk in game one. I didn't complain when Dye was called out on a pitch so far outside in the middle innings tonight that it was in the Angels' dugout. The best teams go with the flow and win when they need to. Just like the BoSox last year, who never gave up- They won even when people doubted them.

I maintain what I said... There were countless other bad calls just as impacting on the game, just not in the 9th inning, that went AGAINST the White Sox... Konerko called out on a pitch at his ankles. Dye called out on a pitch inside. Everett called out on a pitch outside. They simply didn't happen with two outs in the 9th... Does that make it fair to the Sox? No. There's no crying in baseball. The Angels benefited from at least THREE terrible calls. If those calls went the way they should have, the Sox could, COULD, I say, have been done before a bottom of the 9th was even necessary. The call was this: The ump made a bad initial call: the ball was NOT trapped, it WAS caught. That said, the Angels' catcher, Paul, did NOT pay attention. NO OUT WAS CALLED. It was a dropped-third-strike situation, I'm sorry to say. That is FACT. Whether it was a GOOD call, that point is not relevant. The call is to be PLAYED AS CALLED BY THE UMPIRE. Paul was not paying attention. Instead of tossing the ball to the mound, he could have simply tagged Pierzynski just to make sure, as often happens. Catchers often tag the batter even when it was obviously a catch... call it a catcher's paranoia, a tick, or just tendancy, but it happens often. Following that, the Angels failed to pitch out when everyone and their mother in the western hemisphere knew Ozuna was going to go. NO THROW WAS EVEN ATTEMPTED by Paul. Then, Crede took advantage of a bad offering and let fly. This is baseball. Umps are human, not computers. Bad calls are made, all nine innings today, and all that was noted was the one bad call in the 9th. What about the ones that prevented the Sox from scoring and would have prevented a bottom of the ninth from even being played? I agree, as a Sox fan, I would be upset if it went the other way around. To summarize, the umpiring was absolutely abhorrent on BOTH SIDES at the plate tonight. But don't try to take away from a great performance by Buehrle. Why didn't the Angels score more than one run off of him and win the game before the 9th? Because Mark pitched phenomenally. Let's not let his performance get lost in the excitement of a single call. It's playoff baseball, and players should be heightened of senses and ALERT. TAG A.J. OUT if there is a question. Why throw the ball away? Stay alert and these problems would be non-factors.

Amen to that. Clemens crying would make this playoff just that much better. Nothing but an overhyped fat trailer-living hillbilly.

I just watched the crew chief, when asked by Sciosccia to explain why Pierzynski was allowed to advance to first when the home plate umpire called him 'out', the exchange went like this: Sciosscia: "Why is Pierzynski on first? The home ump called him out." Crew Chief: "Mike, he didn't call him out. He called a strike." Hopefully, Angels fans won't use this as a crutch. The game is inches. In the 9th inning of a playoff game, you have to be paying ATTENTION. Larry Walker tossing the ball into a kid's hands in the crowd, etc, is not an allowable mistake or lapse in judgement when you're playing for a trip to the World Series. Hopefully, as a Sox fan, I won't see a galvanization of the Angels around this 'victim complex' thing. They lost, fair and square. All the way around, the umpires were horrible tonight. Absolutely disgustingly horrible. You take advantage of the opportunities you get. Crede took advantage, period. The Angels could be told that their sloppy play in the first few innings could have resulted in an inside-the-park homer for Rowand, but they got lucky with a close play. Same thing with Crede getting doubled up at second on Uribe's liner. Hopefully, we take full advantage of this and win the series.

Funny... Somehow reminds me of the Armbrister/Fisk thing. and the dumbass kid in Yankee stadium in '96 with Skankees V Orioles.

I agree with your premise, but my boy Buehrle pitched his ass off tonight, and he deserves the win. I look at it this way: The Angels got good benefit from several bad calls throughout the game. The Sox's bad call benefit just happened to come in the 9th. They still had a chance to get Crede out, and he hammered that offering. Your point about Ozuna is PERFECT. Bad coaching by Scioscia all the way around and a great, ballsy move by Ozzie to let Mark go back in for the 9th. Buehrle, like L.A., could have allowed that runner on second to score, but he got out of it. This one, I believe, throws the momentum squarely back in our dugout. Remember, we're the best road team in baseball too... It's gonna be a hell of a remaining 5 games. Can't wait. Garland, Garcia, Contreras, Buehrle to come.

The umpires on the whole this eveing: pathetic and disgraceful. the strikeout calls on Konerko, Dye, and Everett were some of the worst ball-strike calls I've seen all year. so much of this series is now going to ride on the attentiveness of the umpires... by the looks of them tonight, we'd be better off with little league umpires.

the umpires were HORRIBLE tonight. the calls on Konerko, Dye, and Everett were absolutely CRIMINAL.

Thank you... I love it here. Plenty of Yankee-hating and Sox lovin'!