The 2005 Chicago White Sox is the best team in at least 22 years

I've been a baseball fan since 1984. The kid who lived next door to me when I was a kid was a big White Sox fan and told me all about the 1983 White Sox AL West champion team that lost to the Orioles in the playoffs. Ever since that time I've been a baseball fan. (However, I must admit that I was a bit turned off after the players went on strike in 1994, ending a season where the White Sox were in first place and poised to make the playoffs and finally win a World Series title.)

I've seen some great championship teams during that time period such as, e.g., the 1984 Tigers, the 1986 Mets, the 1989 A's, the 1998 Yankees, and the 2001 Diamondbacks. All were great teams but none were as good throughout the season and during the playoffs as the 2005 White Sox. While some of those teams had a couple awesome pitchers (such as the 2001 Diamondbacks led by the great Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling), none had an entire pitching staff of starters and relievers as good as this year's White Sox. The "Four Horsemen" of Jose Contreras, Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, and Freddy Garcia were awesome starters and the bullpen of Cliff Polite, Neal Cotts, and big Bobby Jenkes, to name a few, was unbelievable.

The scary thing is that they'll be even better next year when 2005 rookie Brandon McCarthy is pitching every 5th day. I predict they'll win at least 105 games in 2006 and capture another World Series title. As annoucer Ken "Hawk" Harrelson would say, "You can put it on the board ... YES!!!"

Al Franken needs a muzzle!

Al Franken needs a good kick to the nuts. I'm sick of reading news articles about this "blame America first" blowhard. He's the type of tax-and-spend liberal who thinks America deserved to be attacked on 9/11. Like many liberals, he complains about the state of the country yet offers no viable alternatives of his own.

Instead of esposing left-wing tripe, shouldn't be acting as his trademark flaming-homosexual character Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live? Maybe he can work on a sequel to his 1995 Oscar-worthy cinematic masterpiece "Stuart Saves His Family." After the uproar over its snub in 1995, the Academy can't possibly overlook another Stuart Smally movie for Best Picture!

Al is the type of guy who was a wise-ass punk kid back in grade school. I'll bet he lipped off to his teachers and other students without any repurcussions because they were a bunch of pussies just like him. If he'd been in my grade school and lipped off to the wrong kid, someone would have broken his "Coke bottle" glasses and booted him in the ass to keep him in line.

The Cubs suck

I'm so sick of hearing yuppies drone on and on about the Cubs. Those people need a reality check - the Cubs SUCK and will continue to suck into the future. They haven't won a World Series since 1908 or even been to the World Series since 1945! And the only reason they even made it to the World Series in 1945 is probably because the team was comprised of a bunch of draft dodgers.

Wrigley Field is nothing more than a giant gay bar. Come on, have you seen that field? It's so small - your mother could probably hit a home run when the wind is blowing out. And what's the deal with the stupid ivy-covered brick fence in the outfield? Can't they afford to install padding?

A good number of the fans just go to Wrigley because it's a social event. It doesn't really matter who wins or loses because they just go there to drink with friends. If you were to randomly poll "fans" exiting from Wrigley after a game, half probably wouldn't know the score or even the name of the opponent.

Dustin Diamond is an idiot

Remember the character Screech from Saved By The Bell??? Remember how annoying he was when he would always screw up Zack's crazy scams or annoy AC Slater? He was by far the most retarded character on that show. After Zack, AC Slater, Kelly, Lisa, and Jessie graduated with him in 1993 when the original Saved By The Bell run ended, he came back a year later to star in the dreadful Saved By The Bell: The New Class where he was apparently Mr. Belding's mentally deficient assistant.

Anyhow, Diamond has laid low for the past few years and is now trying to strike it big in the entertainment industry again. He is the bass player in Salty the Pocketknife which, as I understand it, is a horrible, horrible band. Apparently one of their biggest "hits" is called "Rim Goblin." That's sad. Check out some of the reviews for their crappy album.

Diamond is also a stand-up comedian. That's a shocker seeing as how he never said anything funny on Saved By The Bell. (Fans did laugh at him on that show, however, for being such a pathetic loser for playing Screech.) Check out these reviews of Diamond's stand-up act:
www.comedysoapbox.com review #1
www.comedysoapbox.com review #2
www.spacejunk.com

Apparently there are a lot of people who like to post fantasies about Diamond in this forum (some of these are pretty funny): "Dustin Diamond Love"

Check out Garrett Brown's anti-Screech website.

Nolan Ryan is ridiculously overrated!

I'm sick of hearing people tell me that Nolan Ryan is the best or even one of the best pitchers in baseball history! In my opinion he was good, but he wasn't even close to being the best pitcher in MLB history for the reasons set forth below.

Ryan was wild and had control problems his entire career. Yes, it is true that he's the all-time leader in strikeouts with (5714), no-hitters (7), and he did win 324 games. However, he's also the all-time leader in walks issued (2795 - more than 50% more than the #2 person!), lost a whopping 292 games (#3 all-time), and his winning percentage was a pedestrian 52.6%.

Ryan seemed to be more intent on blowing the ball by batters instead of simply getting them out. I have no doubt that many of his 292 career losses were due in large part to walked batters who later scored. In 1974 Ryan struck out 367 batters, but also walked 202 batters! That's just sloppy.

I realize that a number of Ryan's fans aruge that his lost so many games because he was on bad teams. Unfortunately, that's simply a shallow argument. For example, Steve Carlton was on a pathetic Philadelphia Phillies team in 1972 that only won 59 games! However, Carlton led the NL in wins that year with 27, 45.7% of his team's victories that season! Simply put, the great ones find ways to win games despite being on poor teams. Randy Johnson has also managed to win many games despite having been on some terrible Mariners and Diamondbacks teams.

Moreover, Ryan failed to win a single CY Young Award during his 27-year career! In fact, Ryan only finished 2nd in the Cy Young Award voting once (in 1973). If he truly were the greatest, he would have won multiple Cy Young Awards.

Finally, I can think of a number of pitchers currently playing who have had beeter careers than Ryan - Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and Pedro Martinez, to name a few.