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Chicago Sox Exchange

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A weekly email exchange between The Sports Bank’s two Super fan White Sox experts, Soxman and Paul M. Banks

Banks in Italics, Soxman in normal type

Sports Bank #2 officer David K. and I go way back. Like myself, he’s from Palos Township and we used to talk about ideas for this site back in the Southwest suburbs…many years before I founded it. We also refer to home not as Palos Park, Palos Heights, or the ‘burbs. We just call it SICA. Named after the old and now almost defunct high school sports conference SICA (South Inter Conference Association), we felt our home needed a nickname like the parts of Sox country: “the Southside” or the proper Chicago neighborhood names like Bridgeport and Pilsen. I have just as many non SICA friends catching on and calling it SICA, as I do SICA friends who only refer to this area as the S-I-C-A when they see me. This area stretches from Oak Park to Bolingbrook , from Kankakee to Chicago Heights . Obviously, SICA country is hard core Sox country. And that’s why I bring it up, because they are our people. It’s more than a geographic area, it’s a state of mind like “Margaritaville” or “Scarborough Country.” As one of the elite few who knows the location of the Sox Cave and your Bruce Wayne type alter ego, you’re one of us. Welcome to the SICA way of life and feel free to use the term.

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Well thanks Paul, I genuinely appreciate the inclusion in the naming of SICA country despite the fact that Cubs may try to use it against us.  I can just hear them now. 
 
“That’s right, Sox fans make me SICA.”  
“No wonder Sox Fans look diseased and overweight, they are SICA.”
 
Yes, this will be their justice for all of the jokes surrounding their geographic proximity to “Boys Town” (not that there’s anything wrong with that as Seinfeld would say), and for the 100 creative uses I’ve heard for Fukudome thus far. I will gladly add SICA to the Soxside vernacular.  Did you know that the phrase Soxside was coined by a t-shirt store off of 111th and Pulaski or in “the Heart of SICA?” Soxman has a lot of friends and family in that neck of the woods.  “Bruce Wayne” may have partied in that area at one time or another himself.
 
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Well, I guess I learn something new everyday. Jose Contreras had a rough first outing. I was at his worst outing of all in a very bad 2007 season last year. (When the Yankees shelled him in the Bronx) That game featured a lot of very slow fastballs and sinkers that unfortunately stayed very much afloat. Hopefully, that’s last year and not 2008. I recall you saying that part of the reason he was so God-awful last season was because it was mostly in his head. That he was going through a rough divorce (not that there’s any other kind) and it was affecting his game. Do you think he’ll turn it around this season? He, along with the other two starters in the back three, key our season. On the plus side, John Danks looked great in his first outing and Gavin Floyd did a great job not pitching like Gavin Floyd in his outing against a very tough Detroit Tigers team. 
 
Well, I’m not going to ask for my Soxtridamus crown as it relates to the Sox season as of yet.  However, everything I wrote that would be keys to the Sox success this season has proven true thus far.  As you asked specifically about starting pitching, I won’t mention the dividends Uribe’s cannon of an arm has paid off thus far at second base. Jose Contreras has a season now to be over his divorce, and he’s not pitching with any real expectation outside of keeping the Sox in ball games. And avoid throwing batting practice like he did in so many games last season.  Still, we must remember that historically Jose is a second half pitcher, so if his ERA remains in the high fours for the first half, than we are getting what we should expect from him.
 
Steve Stone indicated that Jose Contreras appeared to be correcting a couple mechanical flaws in his delivery as well, including throwing with his hand over the ball more.  We’ll see how that develops. You couldn’t have asked for a better outing from Danks and Floyd.  Danks went right after the hitters and wasted no time with his delivery.  He actually reminded me of Mark Buehrle a little bit.  He had great stuff in his debut.  A no hitter into the 5th!  What more could you ask for from a starter whose ERA last season was over 6! Speaking of high ERAs, I was most proud of Gavin Floyd, who after a so-so spring delivered in a HUGE way Saturday.  I ask Sox fans to have cautious optimism.  Floyd pitched well against the Tigers last season yet still had a season ERA of 6.59
 My fingers are crossed!
 

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Well maybe the roar hasn’t exactly been restored this year so far!
 
And how about those Tigers? It’s WAY too early to make any snap judgments about any team…but the felines from “the D” were picked to take the pennant by many experts, and perhaps even win the whole thing this season. And no team that has started the season 0-5 has EVER won the World Series.
 
Well, how about a team that started 0-6?  The Sox swept them baby!  I was likely the ONLY sports writer in town who said the Tigers would finish 3rd or lower in the division.  I received a lot of hate mail from Soxpranos saying my head was in the clouds.  I said this all along, the Tigers are vulnerable in their bullpen and they really have no sure thing starter besides Verlander. He was torched by the Sox Sunday!  Finally, just throwing a bunch of high-priced superstars together does not guarantee you a title.  Just ask the Yankees.  The Tigers need to find some team chemistry and address their pitching holes in order to get a solid win streak together.
 
You have to give the Sox an “A” for their first road trip of the season.  They should easily be 5-1, but instead they have to settle for 4-2.  Taking one of three from the best competitor in the division in the opening series of the year, on the road, is just awesome in my book.  Plus, look at the chemistry!  There is passion on this team.  Players are high-fiving each other in the dugout, Ozzie is actually walking the dugout as opposed to staring into the stands from one corner, and we are fighting until the end in every game.
 
 Yes, the post 2001 Yanks and this year’s Tiger team are more of an ultimate fantasy league team than they are a championship formula.

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The Sox Cave may be located somewhere on this map of SICA…hard core Sox Country!