Undying fan loyalty? Why?

[crockpot]

[ QUOTE ]
Rooting for a team because they make good decisions is just code words for rooting for the good teams.

[/ QUOTE ]

eh, this is not what i mean at all. most of the teams that win in baseball are not run very well. look at the recent yankee teams or last year's white sox for examples. deep pockets and good luck still triumph over intelligent design most of the time in baseball.

i'm talking clubs like the indians and a's who have to rebuild from the ground up every ten years, and have succeeded at this. those are clubs i try to get behind, partially for the same reasons one pulls for the underdogs in the NCAA tourney.

[crockpot]

[ QUOTE ]
the tribune co still owns them, so no, their front office isn't any better and that won't change until the tribune co decides to sell them to a real owner

[/ QUOTE ]

you can think this if you want, but where would the cubs lineup be right now without the trades for lee, ramirez and barrett, and without the walker signing? this is a far cry from their 90s policy of letting sammy attract fans to the park by himself.

[Fallen Hero]

If you're not rooting for a team because your heart (and not your brain) tells you so, then you won't truely enjoy the wins.

[KDawg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the tribune co still owns them, so no, their front office isn't any better and that won't change until the tribune co decides to sell them to a real owner

[/ QUOTE ]

you can think this if you want, but where would the cubs lineup be right now without the trades for lee, ramirez and barrett, and without the walker signing? this is a far cry from their 90s policy of letting sammy attract fans to the park by himself.

[/ QUOTE ]


please tell me what in the past 25 years of Tribune Co ownership is going to make me think any different. The fact is, the Tribune Co knows that Wrigley field sells itself out as is due to its own history and location, so they will never need to put together a team that will ever have a true shot at winning the WS. The fact is Reinsdorf finally started caring about how the Sox would do after the bulls started sucking and he brought to the south side what him and eddie einhorn had always intended, a world series championship. The tribune co treats the cubs as a tax write off every year. In the Trib. Co's yearly report's the cubs are lucky to get more then 4 paragraphs about them

[crockpot]

[ QUOTE ]
please tell me what in the past 25 years of Tribune Co ownership is going to make me think any different. The fact is, the Tribune Co knows that Wrigley field sells itself out as is due to its own history and location, so they will never need to put together a team that will ever have a true shot at winning the WS. The fact is Reinsdorf finally started caring about how the Sox would do after the bulls started sucking and he brought to the south side what him and eddie einhorn had always intended, a world series championship. The tribune co treats the cubs as a tax write off every year. In the Trib. Co's yearly report's the cubs are lucky to get more then 4 paragraphs about them

[/ QUOTE ]

go look at the jump in cubs attendance from early 2003 to 2004. winning sells tickets, even on the north side.

i take it you're not a big fan of the "the sox got lucky" camp? what exactly did reinsdorf do differently to "bring" them a championship? opening his pockets wide to sign jermaine dye?

go google some 2005 mlb preseason projections/predictions. joe sheehan picked the sox to go 71-91; most others had them around .500. i'm happy they won, but does this indicate that their owner went out of his way to build a world series contender? if reinsdorf really expected that team to have a good shot to win it all, he is an idiot.

[crockpot]

[ QUOTE ]
If you're not rooting for a team because your heart (and not your brain) tells you so, then you won't truely enjoy the wins.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is what i have discovered. it's the one place in life where logic completely fails me.

[TheGame1020]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't really think it matters who you root for as long as you stick with them and don't jump around from team to team if "your" team is sucking at the moment.

[/ QUOTE ]


But why? Let's stick with the Pirates, who make [censored] move after [censored] move. Why would you keep supporting that?

[/ QUOTE ]

Story of my life man, story of my life.

[mrbaseball]

[ QUOTE ]
go google some 2005 mlb preseason projections/predictions. joe sheehan picked the sox to go 71-91; most others had them around .500

[/ QUOTE ]

The fact that these morons are bad at predicting doesn't mean anything. Jim Thome should surpass his Pecota projections by May [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Look at projections for this year? Most of them are ludicrous as will be proven once again by seasons end. The team (White Sox) changed it's philosophy (pitching, defense, chemistry) and it worked. For years they had big thunder (Thomas, Lee, Konerko, Ordonez etc.) but couldn't win due to huge holes in defense and rotation. So they actually got 5 legitimate starters so they wouldn't have to promote a AAA bum every fifth day. They tightened up the pen with addition of Hermanson as others guys grew. There were lots of changes in addition to the Dye signing you mentioned. And yeah they did get a little lucky but they were also lucky in the fact that they played baseball better than anyone else.

[fryKing]

I can't think of a worse run franchise than the Knicks right now. Unlike the common Pittsburgh/KC baseball situation, the Knicks have basically infinite money, they just manage to spend it all in the worst possible ways.

But I can't just abandon them until Isiah is finally run out of town (and even then it'll take 3-4 years to clean up his mess). I can't just decide, hey, I like the Spurs - they run a great organization. Number one, that's some serious bandwagon jumping, but being a big fan of a team is all about history and an emotional connection to the past. After all, everything else about the team changes constantly - the players, the management, even the uniforms. All you have are those memories. Generally, you make this decision as a little kid and then you're stuck with it for life.

There's always the chance they'll turn it around somehow in the future, and it'll be much more meaningful and exciting when they do.

[crockpot]

[ QUOTE ]
The fact that these morons are bad at predicting doesn't mean anything. Jim Thome should surpass his Pecota projections by May [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Look at projections for this year? Most of them are ludicrous as will be proven once again by seasons end. The team (White Sox) changed it's philosophy (pitching, defense, chemistry) and it worked. For years they had big thunder (Thomas, Lee, Konerko, Ordonez etc.) but couldn't win due to huge holes in defense and rotation. So they actually got 5 legitimate starters so they wouldn't have to promote a AAA bum every fifth day. They tightened up the pen with addition of Hermanson as others guys grew. There were lots of changes in addition to the Dye signing you mentioned. And yeah they did get a little lucky but they were also lucky in the fact that they played baseball better than anyone else.

[/ QUOTE ]

what defensive statistics are you looking at? the ones i have show konerko, crede and podsednik as three consistently average to below-average defenders who suddenly turned into great glovemen in 2005. uribe and rowand also had huge jumps in their defensive value. now, if i had a reason to believe kenny williams saw this coming, i would praise him for it. however, i really doubt that he has guys smarter than BP, MGL, etc. working on fielding stats.

i am not saying they owe their championship solely to luck. they played very well at the right times. but prior to the 2005 season, there was no reason to expect that team to be a world series contender. and without the raised expectations that team created, there wouldn't be world series expectations in 2006, either.

in sports, people generally judge the job done by management solely by results. if you play a 72o and win a huge pot, does that make you a great poker player? similarly, it is better in the long run to build a team that is expected to win in the future, rather than one which has won in the past.