As I only had the honor of watching the 9th inning tonight, did Hawk and Dj complain about the strike zone all night or just when I tuned in? As a Sox fan don't you ever get sick of the whining? I don't watch that much Sox baseball, but when I do, it seems this topic never ends?

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

They didn;t say a damn word about the strike zone until the ninth inning. Then the game became one of the worst officiated games in the history of MLB baseball.

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Fire Phil Emery

I don't pay attention to it anymore. I tune it out. I wouldn't know. Hawk is gonna bitch about the umps. Every game. I just deal with it. I don't even hear it like I said.

So wait, you're telling me that the Sox were losing 5-1 in the ninth, and Hawk was actually speaking into the microphone? B.S......

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I watched the last two innings and Hawk was beyond tolerable. I have said it before, but if he doesnt think that shit gets back to the umps he is wrong and those guys have along memory, he is only hurting the team when does that crap.

I have been sick of this shit since last year. Never is it we just lost a game, it is always an excuse.

The 2-2 pitch from Thornton on Drew. He must have talked about that for a half an hour.

It was a good pitch, maybe caught the edge, but by no means was it a definite strike. To blame the whole game on that call is shit and I wonder why this guy has a job

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""I am now done at the Score."
Mike North, June 24, 2008

I was tuning in & out...and my observation was that they didn't start talking about the umpiring until the Sox fell behind.

"It's amazin DJ on one pitch, one bad call, can turn around and entire ballgame".

While that is true at times...Hawk was talking about the first pitch in an at bat. 1 & 0 vs 0 & 1. Geez!

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Proud to be UNVERIFIED.

Its pretty fucking simple- don't watch or mute the TV. Most of the people who piss and moan the most about Hawk and his beef with the umps are Cub fans anyway so why the fuck do you all care so much?

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Yea, its not like 'some" sox fans bitch about the cubs.

And, with that, we have seen the end of the "kinder, gentler" Frank Costanza. Man that was a great ride - all 48 hours of it.

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Go look at all the threads about Hawk and DJ. 90+ percent of them are started by Cubs fans and they invaribly start with how much they hate Hawk.

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And how many threads are starte by sox fan about the cubs when something goes bad for them?..100%.

I agree Frank, most hawk haters are cubs fans, but Hawk does suck, he is a giant baby and he makes the white sox look bad in my opinion.

I do like DJ though, if he could get away from the inbred hick, he would really do well

Im not talking about plays on the field though. Shit, I think bigfan starts more threads in this forum than any other here, and he's a Cub season ticket holder. I'm talking solely about the dozen or so threads on the board that have a message which consists of "Hawk Sucks," and how pretty much all of them are invariably started by Cubs fans.

Most people here, Cubs and Sox fans alike, think Ron Santo has no business calling an MLB game, but you don't see 10 different threads pointing out how clueless and he is.

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Hawk was undoubtedly bitching about it. I couldn't hear it because I was yelling in my living room about how the (relief) pitchers sucked. A relief pitcher should not come into a game and immediately start with a 3-0 count. WTF?! The umpire doesn't make a difference if all you do is try to pick away at the corners. If you're not good enough to throw a strike past a major league hitter then you shouldn't be a major league pitcher.
Then, of course, there was Uribe's bad play on the pop up & then Swisher with the non-play at first. There was plenty of garbage on the field after the no-hitter was broken up, but personally I didn't notice any questionable calls by the ump.
What difference does it make anyway if you swing at awful pitches in the first place? Did you see that pitch the Quentin swung at (slider about a foot outside....seriously, a foot, maybe more)? Rough night for him.

[/quote]Hawk was undoubtedly bitching about it. I couldn't hear it because I was yelling in my living room about how the (relief) pitchers sucked. A relief pitcher should not come into a game and immediately start with a 3-0 count. WTF?! The umpire doesn't make a difference if all you do is try to pick away at the corners. If you're not good enough to throw a strike past a major league hitter then you shouldn't be a major league pitcher.
Then, of course, there was Uribe's bad play on the pop up & then Swisher with the non-play at first. There was plenty of garbage on the field after the no-hitter was broken up, but personally I didn't notice any questionable calls by the ump.
What difference does it make anyway if you swing at awful pitches in the first place? Did you see that pitch the Quentin swung at (slider about a foot outside....seriously, a foot, maybe more)? Rough night for him.[/quote]

Nice post. Actual analysis of the PLAYED GAME and not the calls surrounding it. Well done.

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Proud to be UNVERIFIED.

More people watch the game on television than listen to it on radio. That's part of the reason. Plus, it's not just a matter of Hawk being bad. It's more than that. He's actively annoying about the umpire stuff. It's unprofessional and unbecoming a broadcaster to spend multiple innings complaining about a call. All that stuff balances out throughout the season- although Hawk is curiously silent on some of the bad calls that go the Sox way (like in the Minnesota series).

Plus, after a while, all the bitching becomes self-fulfilling prophesy. From the broadcast booth to the managers to the players, this team does as much jawing at umps as any MLB team I've ever seen. That can't help, if even only on a subconscious level. Even guys like Thome who are known as real good guys and generally unintrusive players have been getting into it with umps this year. It's unseemly.

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Fire Phil Emery

Santo isn't calling the game, he's just the color guy. Hawk dominates the broadcast of Sox games, so while most of Santo's "insight" is an array of "Ohh!"'s and "Man!"'s and "All right!"'s, you still have the smooth and rhythmic Pat Hughes to get you through the actual broadcast.

I actually don't dislike Hawk, and although I have 90% of any sporting event on mute most of the time, I don't really think he's all that insufferable like some people do. But I do think he is unprofessional especially with his hard on for umps, and he does sound like a crotchety old man.

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All that stuff balances out throughout the season- although Hawk is curiously silent on some of the bad calls that go the Sox way (like in the Minnesota series).

[/quote]

I find it funny when Hawk complains about the umpiring. Especially since in the '05 playoffs there were two huge calls that went in the Sox favor, the Pierzynski third strike and the phantom HBP with Dye in the WS, which was followed by the Konerko grand slam.

So it is amusing when Hawk complains about a borderline first pitch to a batter, about how it can change the outcome of a game. It happens, get over it. sometimes calls do go your way like in 2005.

Yeah, going 11-1 in the postseason all because of the umpires

The big blue train does not mix well with green.

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Did the Sox win the WS in '05 just because of those calls? No.

The Sox probably would have beaten the Angels without that call and the Sox were certainly the better team than the Astros. But to say those calls didn't help the Sox is just drinking the cool-aid.

But the point of my initial post was that the constant bitching Hawk does about umpires is laughable since a couple of huge calls went in the Sox favor in '05, when the stakes were the most important. But to hear Hawk, jus because a borderline 1-0 pitch is called a ball instead of a strike, it's a major talking point. As if every call goes against the Sox.

He's gotten a lot worse, there's no denying it from me. And DJ and him have zero chemistry together. I'm just saying that nearly EVERY thread here about how bad Hawk is or how much bitching he does about the umps is started by a Cubs fan. But Sox fans have the supposed inferiority complex.

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If your not a fan of the Sox but if you like watching baseball (like myself), then the harping about umpiring is going to be more of a turnoff than if you were a Sox fan. And since there are people here who are not necessarily fans of the Sox i.e. Cub fans, I am not surprised that Cub fans start these threads.

I just don't like it when commentators complain about officiating on a consistent basis. I could not stomach watching Bulls games because Tom Dore bitched about every call. He was worse than Hawk.

Hawk's a homer. Is that a newsflash to anybody? *hawk* "no"
So why is this such a big deal? From reading these threads you'd think Hawk complains every time a strike is called on a Sox hitter or a ball is called for Sox pitcher. He doesn't. He doesn't even do this in every game. The rants need to be shortened up or dumped completely but complaining about a few calls a game is part of every sporting event broadcast.
I've heard him say "the Sox got away with one there" or "the Sox caught a break" plenty of times. But I watch all the games and I'm not listening to Hawk just so I can rip on him.

The guy that says that Hawk's bitching is heard by the umpires and affects the team negatively is the same guy that says that bad calls even themselves out in the end. So which one is it? Do the bad calls even themselves out or does Hawks give the opposing teams an advantage with the umps?

Sounds to me like maybe people should listen to their own advice: stop the bitching because it makes you like an ass and it doesn't help anything.

Regarding yesterday- the ump had a generous outside corner all nite. There were quite a few players on both teams that turned around and looked at the ump after a pitch that was called a strike but was probably outside. Jose Guillen and Alexi come to mind right off.

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He complains about calls almost every game, and he does so for extended periods of time. If you are bringing up a call an inning after the fact, you really need to let it go. If you're bringing up a call four innings after the fact, you're being a whiny crybaby. That's unprofessional.

I do think the calls even out, but if anything is going to affect that, it would be an organization that, from the top down, makes a point about moaning about every questionable call. I don't know whether it has an impact of umps or not. But it can't help.

If you think that all announcers do this a few times every game, or even a few times a week, you need to listen to more broadcast teams. I've obviously listened to a lot of Cubs broadcasts, but I watched about 20-30 Cardinals games per year in Champaign and never heard anything of the sort (and I actually hate the Cardinals, unlike the Sox, so I would have been the first to notice their bitching.) I don't remember Skip Caray doing that on national Braves telecasts. I watched a handful of Nationals and Orioles broadcasts while I was in Washington D.C. and don't remember it happening once. I'm sure there's a MLB broadcast personality somewhere that's as annoyingly red-assed as Hawk. But I haven't heard it.

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Fire Phil Emery

Thats fine because he was calling it for both teams, but of course hawk see's it this way.

White Sox pitch for a strike - DJ, thats just a perfect pitch from a perfect pitcher on a perfect team..MERCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Royals Pitch for a strike, same pitch, same location - Strike, we aint getting that call? Why does this ump hate us dj, we've had problems with this guy all year.

I will leave you alone now so you can go "connect" with Sox Nation, have a nice night mr. Meatball.

Honestly now?

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What is even happening here.

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