Hiatus Over

I was reading a "newspaper" this morning on a train (apparently those things were huge back in the 1960s or something), and I stumbled across a thing written by Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times that made me miss my long months away from all you fine fellows here at FireJay.

To say it was a bad day for Sox is an understatement

I'd say it's a pretty decent description. They lost a baseball game, and a decent-ish trade idea fell through. But pray tell, Ricky, why is this the apocalypse?

And how was your day? I guarantee you it wasn't White Sox bad.

The Whipped Sox, my friends, should have slept through Thursday.

You know those White Sox....always running ridiculous errands for their girlfriends and never spending time with anyone else.

They should have found a time warp past Thursday and exited somewhere far, far down the continuum, in a place where the team, the attitude and the future all have possibilities.

I'm right on page with this. There are no possibilities for the White Sox right now. Not even losing. Just nothingness. And let's not forget that attitude! So possibilityless! No doubt that's behind that oh-so-glamorous 17-23 record!

(Psssssssst. Rick. You used the wrong word, dude! And you totally suck at writing! Teehee!)

The Sox lost by three touchdowns to the Minnesota Twins at U.S. Cellular Field

They lost by 19 runs. You are trying way too hard to work in football analogies, bro. You're allowed to say that when a team loses by either 18 or 21.

in a game so colossally bad that if there are such things as game tapes that must be burned, this was them.

We are sorry to report that the English Language was found dead in an empty apartment today at the age of 1571.

Bad pitching, bad fielding, bad hitting, bad baserunning, bad managing. That's how you get shellacked 20-1.

Did I miss anything else?

No, that's really it.

I did.

No, you didn't.

There was the humiliation of having a ballpark about as full as a field of carrots -- before the carrots have sprouted.

Dude. This was a fucking DAY GAME on a THURSDAY. Were you expecting a goddamn sellout?

The Cubs were out of town

Irrelevant. Very, very irrelevant.

the temperature was in the 80s

People were at work.

the clouds had vanished,

It was May 21st.

a light breeze blew from the south,

The team is 6 games below .500

the Sox were playing the Twins -- the hated ''piranhas'' of Ozzie Guillen's verbal creativity

About the only legitimate point you made.

and the clean, well-appointed park was about half-empty.

I'd call it half-full, or well over half, as you are about to state.

There were 23,048 attendees (56.7 percent full) at The Cell, to be precise.

This is very, very good for a day game on a Thursday for a team 6 games below .500 in a crappy division. I can probably find you 20 teams that would never have managed that attendance mark. You sir, are a pooheaded fuckshit.

More?

Yep.

Jake Peavy.

The San Diego Padres' 2007 Cy Young Award winner basically told the Sox they stink.

So he elected to stay with the San Diego Padres. Huh. Good logic there.

Did they need that?

About as much as Rosie O'Donnell needs to be told she's not runway material.

Just an awesome joke.

Hey, a big backslap to K-Will for even getting this potential trade on the table and fiddling around with it! Know what I'm saying?

Kenny Williams has made more trades than any MLB manager in the past 7 years. You're making it sound like he's terrified of doing this sort of thing.

You do remember the Cubs were the team that really wanted Peavy during the offseason -- and he really wanted them -- but the Padres and Cubs couldn't work out the compensation, so the thing fell through.

So this would have been a nice middle finger to the crosstown National League team that always hogs the Chicago headlines and attendance figures.

I'm sure that was the first thing on Kenny Williams's mind. I don't know how many times it has to be explained to writers. The Chicago White Sox do not give a shit about the Chicago Cubs. They play 6 games a year, and then that's it.

When the Sox came from nowhere to try to get Peavy, it shocked everybody in these parts.

But, uh, maybe general manager Ken Williams should have gotten word from the pitcher himself that he would come to the American League team -- Peavy has veto power over his trade rights -- before figuring out the rest of the equation.

Reliable sources have suggested that Williams knew Peavy would never come, and that this whole thing was a sham to pump up Peavy's trade value. Just a thought.

Williams and Padres GM Kevin Towers had come to an agreement, but what the hell did that mean? It was like changing Paris Hilton's lip-gloss color without getting her consent first.

I like this guy! He's got fresh one-liners!

The embarrassment of Peavy's renunciation of the Sox was so profound that it will linger for months, if not years, tarnishing the franchise that just can't seem to get over the hump of second-class status.

"Rick Telander" is clearly a pseudonym for "Jay Mariotti". You think you're exaggerating a bit there, Jay?

The guy didn't even use first-person English. (emphasis his)

''As of right now, this is the best place for us to be,'' Peavy said late Thursday, ''this'' being wretched San Diego. ''We made that decision for the time being.''

Wow. He used "we", and "us" (referring to his family and possibly agent) instead of "I" and "me". Take that, White Sox.

Is Peavy, like, a platoon?

He was talking about his family, you fuckhat.

Oh, this was sad, sad. Dumb, dumb.

Not as sad and dumb as your writing! Heyooooooooooo!