a700hitter

For more than a week, Optimist's signature has my quote: :The only way our boys get to the post-season is with a ticket. I knew it was over before your Yankees got off the plane.

Do you see the signature in your own post? I declared our boys dead before the Yankees boarded the plan for Boston. This team is not good. It can't beat teams with over .500 records when healthy, and when it's just a little banged up it can't beat the KC's and Tampa. This is just a bad season by a badly constructed team. It's not fun losing, but since the 1 and 5 road trip very few of us thought we had a chance at the playoffs. See the poll on the other thread. I don't think anyone thought this team had Championship possibilitites. The fans don't likle to see the Sox lose to the Yankees, but with "The Ultimate Loser" and a rookie pitching the first two games we knew it would be a huge uphill battle. I hope the FO learned a lesson by watching Damon clean our clocks these past 4 games, and I hope there is a bit of a s*** storm at their next meeting. But this doesn't come close to the way we slowly ripped your beating hearts out of your chests and showed them to you in the 2004 ALCS. It's not even close. Not the same solar system or universe. Remember the pain. The Red Sox did that to you. You hold an infamous record that can never be broken.

As long as the ashats with the pink hats fill the place, we, the diehards, are toast. We will have nothing to look forwar to but teams that are competitive until a June swoon or maybe they will last a month or two longer, but by September we'll need football to occupy our time. BTW: The last time I was at a game there was a pink hat sitting behind me asking her friend why the seats in left field were so high. I had to get up in the middle of an inning and go to the bathroom to throw cold water on my face. As long as those people go to the games, the businessmen in the suits will make sure that we don't do what it takes to win, and the Yankees will be eating our lunch for a long time.

That's enough until the Yankees can do that to us in our House for the AL Penant. It tops anything the Yankees have done to the Red Sox in my lifetime. Edit: I know you remember the pain.

I worked in the life insurance business for many years. An agent is a prospects besw friend throughout the sales process holding his/her hand throughout. Once the sale is closed, you can't find anyone to service your contract. Management closed the sale with the '04 Championship, and I thank them for that, but now they have the guaranteed full houses every night, so they don't have to and are not doing their best to have the team win in 2005 and 06. They'll put their best foot forward when there is more juice to squeeze out of the fans. We need to cancel our season tickets and stop going to the games to get them moving faster. Of course no one will do that, so we will get jerked around like the closed-sale that we are.

Leskanic was at least a seasoned professional that had experienced substantial professional success. He had a damaged shoulder, but a seasoned professional has the poise and knowledge how to get buy even when not at his best. A kid like Lopez is just totally overwhelmed in a big situation. Also, there was no one left in the Pen in '04 when he went to Leskanic. The better options had either been used or were worn out. Last night he had a rested Papelbon and he started the inning with an old tired Timlin and followed him with a nervous rookie while Papelbon sat in the pen.

Gloat all you want. Read my signature and remember that pain and experience the humiliation of being the first team in the history of the game to accomplish this. It's a record that can't be broken.

If he was 1998-2000 Petey he'd be getting $20 million. He's not that Petey anymore, which is why he'll only be geting $13 million/year not $15 million. He's still pretty darn good , and he would be #1 or 2 on the Sox without a question.

I know don't take your remarks as personal. I was just being snide back. I felt bad for papelbon because our idiot manager put him in an impossible situation and he ended up using him for two innings anyway. It was a collosal blunder by Tito and we all knew it as we were watching it. This was not 20--20 hindsight criticism. He compounded his initial mistake of bringing in Timlin to start the 8th by bringing in Javy Lopez with 2 on.

What does that mean that it's the nature of the business? Giving up your stars and reliable players and replacing them with inferior ones? Is that what you mean?

They got the fans all excited when they told us their goal was to win several titles, but they are going about it in a very odd way.

He can't win all the games by himself. He couldn't do it in 1999 when he was at his peak. I don't care about the Met and whether they get to the WS, but it will hurt watching Petey perform on a big stage for someone else.

That's total unfounded speculation on your part about what his performance would be if he were in the AL East. When he was in the AL East even after his injury he was winning games at a .700 clip. Let's see how badly the Hall of Famer is toasted when the spotlight is on him in October, and the Red Sox have to back up a truck to load on the garbage from their pitching staff.

Me too-- no Lugo.

He created the holes. We need two starter. Pedro is in NY and Lowe is in LA. Both teams are heading for the playoffs. By letting Damon walk, he was forced to use his most valuable prospect and trading chip, Marte to get an inferior Crisp. If he kept Damon, he could have used marte to get some high quality bullpen help.

You are entitled to rant and you are right. The Yankees kept the key components of their wiining teams together as long as possible, and they still have Jeter and Mo. The WhiteSox re-signed Garland and Konerko. They didn't low ball them the way our FO lowballed our stars. They never even made an offer to Lowe. The White Sox kept their core together and built on it with Thome. Our Fo took a different path, and the results are undeniable.

When some team breaks -- I mean ties- the Yankee record for the biggest post-season choke, then 2004 is over, but until then it lives on like Dimaggio's winning streak. That must have been some dark 4 days and night for you. What a slow torturous death for a team. Be proud of your unbreakable record.

Missed it by that much.

Bandwagon fan

I've go no beef with TalkSox members unless they call me bandwagon or tell me to root for the Skankees.

Just because it is a fact doesn't mean that it isn't an excuse. If it wasn't a fact, it would be a lie in addition to being an excuse. It's an excuse and it's the same one we heard when Haywood Sullivan and Buddy Leroux owned the team and let Fisk walk away and they gave away Freddie Lynn and Rick Burleson. It's the same excuse used by the Yawkey trust. It may be a fact, but it's still an excuse.

I have a wife that might get pissed if I took a girlfriend. My two kids are in college and they are top students at excellent universities. Thank you very much for your interest in my life. I guess you guys are okay with the Yankees eating our lunch year after year. I remember a time after Steinbrenner was the owner when we ate their lunch more often than they ate ours, but that all ended in 1996. In the late 60's, early 70's and 80's the Red Sox had less financial resources than the Yankees, but the owners figured out a way. That all earned in 1996, and we are told that we can't compete with the Yankees finances. I'm sorry, buty it's an excuse. If you guys are okay with the Yankees taking the Division every year, good for you. It doesn't sit well with me. You might have a different perspective on the issue if you had to live among Yankee fans.

Especially if you can get Miner.

What the hell was wrong with this site today? I was blocked for a good 3 hours.

I'm not going to rehash everything in your post, but yeah you are right that I am pissed that we are sucking. I thought we finally turned a corner in 2004 and that we would be beating up on the Yankees for a while and competing for World Championships. I thought new ownership was serious about making that happen. We are not beating the Yankees and we've got no chance at a World Championship. Most of all, I don't like the excuses that I am hearing about finances and budget and luxury taxes and not having the unlimited budget of the Yankees. Pardon me, but these are the same excuses that prior ownership used. I've heard that they can't react to what the Yankees are doing because they are not the only competition. That excuse makes me furious. Does that mean that we will concede the AL East every year except when we catch lightning in a bottle and a few of the kids turn out to be stars? I'm sorry, but that's BS. The Yankees are our competition so what they do directly impacts our team's chances. Last I looked we were in the AL East, not the NL West or AL West. When this ownership bought this team, they knew that it was in the AL East. They are in with the Yankees. This is the big boys division, so they should stop whining about budgets and finances and put out a team that will finally beat the Yankees. That should be their goal. It's ridiculous for us to sit here and think that the Yankees are a bottomless pit of money. They are running a business too, and the Boss is not the only owner. Their owners like making money too. Our fan base is every bit as big and monied as the Yankees fan base. It's up to the owners to figure out how to transform that into Yankee type profits. That's their job, and I frankly am not interested in how they accomplish it. I am only interested in the team they put on the field. SO, please FO stop whining about your budget and your finances. If you can't make the money the Yankees do, it's not because of a lack of fan support. I realize that they draw about a million more fans but that doesn't come close to making up for difference in payrolls. Yankee management makes money in ways unrelated to gate receipts. It's your job to figure out how to do that, and we don't care about the details, but stop using finances and budget as an excuse why you can't do what the Yankees do. You really sound like the many previous generations of incompetent owners and management. I though you were better than them. We expected more from you.