True for Cubs fans. They show up at the beer garden regardless of the product on the field. The White Sox fans stop showing up once it is clear the product stinks.

WashJeff on May 12, 2009 at 3:31 PM

That was also true for many years with us Red Sox fans-even when we had crappy teams, Fenway almost always sold out.

The White Sox fans are like the Oakland A’s fans. When they broke up their great early 1970s team that won back-to-back-to-back World Series, the Coliseum turned into a ghost town.

Some friends and I were in Oakland in August 1976, and we went to a Friday night game where the A’s played the Red Sox. Less than 3,000 people showed up, and it was so bad that even though we had nosebleed seats by the 4th inning we were sitting in the best box seats and no one asked us to leave.

radjah shelduck on May 12, 2009 at 5:04 PM”

Yeah, but they didn’t.

2005 World Series Champs…Chicago White Sox

If this is the strategy on which Obama will rely for health-care reform, it seems destined for failure, sort of like the Ernie Broglio-Lou Brock trade made by his Cubs. Or maybe Obama’s a White Sox fan.

You know what’s funny about that trade? Nobody ever points out that the Cubs farm system simultaneously churned out two Hall of Famers who were natural left fielders–Brock and Billy Williams. Neither one had the arm to play right field; neither had the defensive acumen to play center. The Cubs essentially traded Brock because they were frustrated watching him butcher up the place trying to play center field. (Just because a guy is fast doesn’t make him suited for center; that’s why Tim Raines and Rickey Henderson wound up in left.) The only option the Cubs had besides getting whatever they could in a trade for Brock or Williams would have been to put Brock in left and move Williams to first base. Ah, but Mr. Cub couldn’t play shortstop anymore, so they’d already committed to playing Ernie Banks at first.

Fighting words on the north side, but the Cubbies would have been better long term to keep Brock in left, move Williams to first, and trade Ernie for whatever they could get–his MVP years were behind him at that point. Imagine if they’d traded Banks for that erratic young pitcher the Cards had at that time, Bob Gibson. Everything else plays out as it did, you’ve got a Cubs team in the late sixties with Brock, Williams, Santo, Fergie Jenkins, and Gibson. They might very well have won three or four World Series and been one of the all time great teams.

Illinidiva on May 12, 2009 at 3:40 PM”

That’s right. Leave the poor guy alone. He didn’t give up six runs in the next inning, Kerry Wood did.

BaaawwwwwwHaaaaawwwww!!!!!!

BTW, you can’t be a Chicago baseball fan unless you were born and raised here. Obama’s an African. So he really roots for the Kenya Starvin’Marvins.

Trinity is on the southside so he HAD to go Sox. If he wasn’t a pol he’d be the token black guy sitting in Wrigley’s bleachers with all the yuppie pimps.

they seem incompatible with an expansion of health care.

Uh, that’s because they are incompatible with an expansion of health care. Or I should say they are compatible with an expansion of universal health care, but those with health care now will have less of it in the future.

Here’s to hoping that we all won’t need some medical procedure in the future that is “managed” by some D.C bureaucrat.

Now to find some angle to get Obama to stop showing up, even though he runs product production, in DC since that product stinks also.

WashJeff on May 12, 2009 at 3:31 PM

Well, he is fond of leaving town for international “teambuilding” exercises. Hey Barry – have you closed your eyes and fallen backwards into Dear Leader Kim’s arms yet, or just Chavez’s?

Look, it’s nearly the scariest thing in the world that President Obama publicly touts a private sector achievement. Even if he does have the power to accomplish what he says, then this is yet another example of tyrannical overreach to place alongside the Chrysler bullying and pulling tight the TARP strings.

(If he does not have that power, then it’s yet another example of his self-assurance that change can be affected by charisma and rhetoric, convincing Americans to put air in their tires or invest/save money. How charming are these Lefties!)

It’s felt that way for awhile, but jesus christ, the video really layed it out. It’s surreal. I don’t think we’ll even have another election at this rate.

Comparing O’Bimbo to ANYTHING involving my beloved Chicago Cubs?!!!

annoyinglittletwerp on May 12, 2009 at 3:44 PM

Dang straight! Obama’s only sucked for 100 days. Talked to me after the 22nd amendment is repealed and the year is 2109.

And the White Sox aren’t doing much better this year.

Knucklehead on May 12, 2009 at 3:26 PM

Which warms my cold heart. I grew up hating the Sox, and no amount of rearranging ordered by Bud Selig can change that.

Are we in the destabilization proces right now?

joshlbetts on May 12, 2009 at 3:22 PM

Yes,………….

…………… elections do have consequences, don’t they?

No matter how popular the coach is – it won’t matter much if the team sucks.

Robert Gibbs = Steve Bartman

Mark1971 on May 12, 2009 at 3:27 PM

Leave Bartman alone!! It wasn’t his fault that the Cubbies lost… However, Gibbs incompetence is totally his fault.

Think about it. Virtually the entire country, with no real opposition from repubs, has nodded with approval Obama’s trillion dollar deficits for the next decade!

As we speak Senator Cornyn is endorsing a Repub in the Florida primary who campaigned for Obama’s spending and the Cap and Trade policies.

The Titanic….

Corporatism represents an ugly deal between governments and producers. The hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and health care labor unions hope that the corporativist bargain will guarantee future profits while eliminating competition. Perhaps it will, perhaps it won’t. But there’s absolutely no question that corporativist health care will increase inefficiencies, stifle innovation, and reduce consumer choice. That’s a disastrous deal for the rest of us.

And I ask again. Where the he!! is the RNC on this?

…by aligning quality and efficiency incentives among providers across the continuum of care so that physicians, hospitals, and other health care providers are encouraged and enabled to work together…”

Hate to break it to you Barry, but in Business School we used to call statements like this BULLSHIT 101.

Given that these insurers all make profit on their business, don’t they already work to keep costs down as a means of maximizing their return?

In an ideal world, but not in the real one. My stepdad has a worker’s comp case going back to ’94. Whenever the insurance company refuses to pay for his treatment, he’ll start running up his medical bills for the stuff that they will pay. Yeah, it’s passive aggressive. The doctors bill his private insurance because they know that they will get paid in a timely fashion. So my stepdad has to call his private insurance provider and tell them not to pay because it’s covered by worker’s comp. 9 out of 10 times, they can’t be bothered and pick up the tab that another company is legally obligated to pay.

The worker’s comp insurance company is even worse. They just had to pay $100k in penalties that they could have halved if they settled the issue five years ago instead of needlessly appealing something for which they had no defense. I don’t even want to know what they spent on 5 extra years of legal fees.

The private sector will do better than the government, but that isn’t saying much in some cases…