Ten Foot Mailbag: White Sox, Cubs And The Brighter Future
By Tim Baffoe-
(CBS) Oh, hello, football. Didn't see you there. How've you been? I hope well. You look good.
Man, seems like I haven't seen you in forever. You, um, still working out those issues or what? Oh, that's cool. I'm sure everything will be fine.
I've been seeing baseball for a while, but you know how that is. You can only watch so many starting lineups that have Luis Valbuena, am I right? Lolz.
I even went on a few dates with the Olympics, if you can believe it, but I was vulnerable and stupid, and I had a rash for a few weeks to pay for it.
Look, I, uh, um, well, I just wanted to say that, I... I never stopped loving you. It was hard being away from you all this time.
Gosh, I sound like an idiot. But, uh, you know, my weekends are, um, pretty wide open… so… if you ever want to get together and hang out… you know… I'm cool with that. See ya around.
On to your questions. All emails and tweets are unedited.
#TFMB which team has the brighter future, cubs or white sox?—@nathangraham3
The immediate future is obviously the Sox. I'm still waiting for them to fall apart—and, no, that's not because I'm a Cubs fan, you incredibly stupid toilet-lapping fans on both sides of town who just cannot accept that a Cub fan doesn't hate the White Sox. The Detroit series this weekend is appointment viewing, and at the very worst the Sox cannot end the weekend out of first place.
In 2013 I expect the Sox to contend as well, even if several key guys are another year into their 30s. I've always thought Kenny Williams was a great GM, mostly because every year the Sox seem ready to pack it in, he surprises a league that knows he's going to surprise it and is still surprised that he pulled a surprise yet again. Remember all that rebuilding talk? I almost have to give Williams the benefit of the doubt that he was just messing with all of us and not that the early 2012 success happened accidentally; thus, until he actually cuts ties with key parts, I will always expect KW to be playing for that year's trophy.
Eventually the well runs dry, though. And eventually Williams will actually have to construct a new-look White Sox team. Whether that's next year or the year after, I don't know, and it will be interesting to see how he does it without a good homemade outlet, one that he believes is just misunderstood. Long haul, the Cubs have the better outlook, if one can ever have a positive outlook on the Cubs.
Right now there are names in the Cubs farm system. Those names supposedly have great potential. There have been names before with great potential that have been a Felix Pie in the face of the organization. People like to put 2015 as the Promised Land Year for the team. Maybe. Maybe 2016. Maybe 2116 (cue the really stupid unoriginal jokes). I've stopped making assumptions when it comes to the Cubs.
If all these young guns the Cubs have are firing—which is highly unlikely, all of them that is, let me stress that—they could be a force in the mid to late part of this decade, which is a thoroughly depressing thing to rest on if you root for a team whose last championship was at a time when the country will still getting through the hangover from welcoming Oklahoma into the Union.
What are your most hated sporting events?--@Jake_BroDea
To attend and/or watch? I can't say that there is anything I still consume in person or on TV that I hate because I'm a grown man who can choose not to go to entertainment outlets that I don't enjoy. (And, yes, a Cubs game is technically not one of those.)
If I am not entertained by a sporting event, I just don't take it in. What do I choose not to watch? Anything auto racing, for one. I find auto racing thoroughly unentertaining, and I feel good not embracing a sort-of-sport whose culture has long been considered a blemish on the country as a whole. Much in the way Chicagoans who love the SNL Superfans sketches often don't realize it is they who are being satirized, it seems racing fans don't quite get or accept that the film Talladega Nights a skewering their culture.
Then there are the absolute pseudosports and events that people like ESPN try to make you think are sports. Eating contests are vile and circus-like. A national spelling bee's only redeeming quality is that it is great fodder for social media comedy.
I won't pretend, though, that I don't take issue with stuff in sporting events I do watch. The Super Bowl is a massive commercial fustercluck with a tiny football center. No sport as a whole or individual game/match/race is perfect. Enjoy the good, avoid the bad in entertainment outlets—best advice I can give in that regard.
You're d***** bag dude. Who even cares what Armstrong did 7 years ago! Let it go. The guy is RETIRED. Go through every top 3 cyclist from Armstrong's era and find out who was accused and actually tested positive for steroids. Everyone new it was dirty sport, get over it.
If you think the NFL is any different, then you're a complete idiot. Music had Napster, Sports have Steroids. This is a new generation of people do what ever it takes to better their lives. It's a "we don't care attitude". We are the Attitude Era.—Michael Nehrbas
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."—Edmund Burke
Your second paragraph, by the way, is the best soft drink commercial ad copy ever.
Thanks for emailing, tweeting, and reading. If your question did not get answered this time, that does not necessarily mean I am ignoring it. It may be saved for the next mailbag. Hopefully you're a slightly better person now than you were ten minutes ago. If not, your loss.
Want your questions answered in a future Mailbag? Email them to tenfootmailbag@gmail.com or tweet them with the hashtag #TFMB. No question, sports or otherwise, is off limits (with certain logistical exceptions, e.g. lots of naughty words or you type in Portuguese or you solicit my death). If you email, please include a signature.
Tim Baffoe attended the University of Iowa and Governors State University and began blogging at The Score after winning the 2011 Pepsi Max Score Search. He enjoys writing things about stuff, but not so much stuff about things. When not writing for 670TheScore.com, Tim corrupts America's youth as a high school English teacher and provides a great service to his South Side community delivering pizzas (please tip him and his colleagues well). You can follow Tim's inappropriate brain droppings on Twitter @Ten_Foot_Midget, but please don't follow him in real life. E-mail him at tenfootmailbag@gmail.com. To read more of Tim's blogs click here.
