Can it be baseball season now, please?

Can it be baseball season now, please?

This morning I found a text sent to me by a friend of mine. "
What do you think?"
"Uhhh, about what?", I thought. I figured there would be a fantasy football trade offer for me to review or something that an email would clarify.
No email from him. He done crazy.
Then a coworker walks up to the door of my 100 sqft windowless office. "So, what do you think?", he said with an excited, somewhat envious smile. Then it hit me. "Oh shit, did that deal get done?", I asked.

Twenty-four hours ago, baseball was about the last thing on my mind. When I would see front page stories on the Johan Santana speculation, I would want to clear the crap off my desk with one powerful outswing of my left arm. I don't care about whatever shitty little cute Winter meetings are going on. I get enough rampant speculation with the Michigan coaching job, thank you very much. And if I want more, I can always turn to the world's game to see what players Chelsea wants to bring in so they can become the most expensive, boring team in the history of Sports. I'd rather watch distance running on Versus than Chelsea. It's like they are managed by a corpse...



I was really tired last night from staying up watching MNF on - you guessed it! - Monday night, and I was happily watching the Red Wings destroy Montreal, so I didn't bother following the story that so many of mes amis were focused on. But this morning, when my coworker walked up to my door and asked me what I thought, I instantly became fired up about the upcoming Tigers season. Assuming that all players involved pass their physicals (on three: one, two, three, PHYSICAL!), and everyone is healthy at the start of the season, the Tigers would roll in with -

OF: Ordonez, Granderson (That's my grand dawg, out there!), Jaques Jones, and Marcus "the river" Thames
IF: Cabrera, Renteria, Polanco, Carlos Guillen, and Ivan "the decent" Rodriguez
SP: Verlander, Bonderman, Dontrelle, Robertson, and Kenny "Gutterballs" Rogers
RP: Zumaya, Rodney, Jones, Aurillio Lopez, ...

Well fuck my cock! That's a pretty good squad.

And thank goodness. Like a Shakespearean tragedy, we all know how the Lions season is going to end. The Michigan Football Wolverines are about to get fisted by that quarterback, Deebo, that they have down there in Gainesville, FL.


"What you got on my Heisman?"

Yeah, I know the Red Wings and the Pistons are damn good, but come now. Unlike in football (both the American and un-American varieties), the regular season does not matter in the NHL or the NBA. We fans of Michigan-based sports teams need something positive right now. Something to give us a nice warm fuzzy feeling - the sports news equivalent of getting a lap dance from a girl wearing a chinchilla fur thong - and this trade does just that.

Monday and Tuesday I decided to clean my desk here at the office. I sorted and filed some papers. I recycled others. Then I borrowed some Pledge from a coworker and put a nice shine up on the surface. Only my PC and components, coffee and water cups, and a couple neatly organized stacks of paper remain. With this news, I want to leave work, go to the nearest hobby/sports collectibles store, buy a roll of fake grass, some Detroit Tigers figurines, and make a miniature Comerica Park on my desk, complete with the General Motors fountain. I would then close my office door, which I normally only do when I'm exceedingly gassy, and spend the rest of the day playing with my pretend 2008 Detroit Tigers team.

Cabrera: "Hola, amigo!"
Ordonez: "Hola!"
Cabrera: "My name is Miguel. I am super excited to be here. I can hardly wait to hit some home runs and bases-clearing doubles for the loyal Tiger fans."
Ordonez: "Great to meet you, my name is Magglio. Hey, we're both from Venezuela, we both like hitting home runs and bases clearing doubles, and our first names both start with 'M'. I think we're going to get along just fine."
Cabrera: "I agree, Magglio! I wonder if the media will ever write a story about how we're both from Venezuela and are good hitters on the same team... perhaps they might even ask me if I look at you as a mentor, since I am a good young player from Venezuela and you are an experienced good player from Venezuela..."
Guillen: "Hey! What about me?"
Ordonez: "Hahaha!"
Cabrera: "HAAAHAA!"
Guillen: "ha ha ha!"

Then I would answer some emails and return to playing with the new team...

Granderson: "Oh, hello good sir!"
Willis: "Hi! I can't wait to begin playing baseball with you fine fellows!"
Granderson: "Oh my, you are so well spoken! What is your name, teammate?"
Willis: "As are you, pally! My name is Dontrelle. What, may I ask, is your name, friend?"
Granderson: "My name is Curtis. It's great to meet you Dontrelle. You know what the media here in Detroit - and around the whole country in fact - would just eat up like a fresh batch of snicker doodles?"
Willis: "What would that be, Curtis?"
Granderson: "If the two of us - the most likable young African-American players in the majors became best friends."
Willis: "I do believe you are right, Curtis. We will be on all of the commercials together. Our likability will overshadow the wacko African-American players on this team...cough, cough, Gary Sheffield, cough..."
Sheffield: "Hey, I heard that!"
Willis: "Hahaha!"
Sheffield: "Ha ha ha!"
Granderson: "hahaha!"

Hey, Get Your Hate On

Hey, Get Your Hate On

One of the primary reasons why fantasy sports has become so popular is undoubtedly the increase in the number of games you have some reason to pay attention to on any given game day. Prior to the emergence of fantasy sports, you either had to be into gambling or one of those people (what do you mean, those people?) whose love of the game is so great that the success or lack of success of the teams they root for do not seem to impact the degree to which they follow the sport. These are fans of teams like the Lions as well as the fans that wear those leather jackets that display the logo for each NBA team or sport a hat with the logos of the original six NHL teams. I was given this hat as a gift years back, and it's a pretty cool hat, but I have never worn it. Ask someone wearing the hat why they are doing so and I suspect that you will get a good answer, such as "Well, the ___ are my team, but I love the collective tradition and history of these franchises. It just doesn't feel right to me that there is a team from Anaheim that just won the cup." Fair enough. As a Red Wings fan I wouldn't feel right wearing the logo of the Leafs or the Black Hawks on my person, but it is conceivable that someone might.

Watching the nightly scoreboards to track the performance of players you have selected on your fantasy team feels very similar to tracking a group of games you have money on -- it may be less intense, but it's in the same ballpark. It's probably of the same proportion that snorting cocaine is to mainlining it. As pleasant as the high is that you get from fantasy sports or gambling on it, it is artificial. You could be just as intrigued from the complement to each of your bets. If you drop a player on your fantasy team that you cheered wildly for when he hit a three-run home run a month ago, you no longer give a damn about what he does if you have traded or dropped him from your team. While gambling and fantasy sports give you an artificial interest in teams that you normally care little about, playoff qualification races are the natural alternative.

Pennant races are fun because it requires more to keep track of in order to have a clear picture of the current state of things with respect to the team you care about. If the Tigers had defeated the Yankees 16-0, as they did last night, in mid-June, it would have been enjoyable, but the only follow-up work to do would be to check how the other top teams in the Central Division of the American League had done. After last night, however, a Tiger fan not only gets to check on the Indians score and how many games back they are of them, but also the results of the games involving the teams in the wild card hunt, as well as the upcoming schedule of all of these teams. It's the kind of work sports fans love.

While the Tigers gained no ground on the Indians last night, they picked up a game on both the Yankees and the Mariners, both ahead of the Tigers in the wild card standings currently. So that's good. Even better for the Tigers is how the upcoming schedule looks for all of these teams. The Tigers head to Kansas City for three while the Indians, Mariners, and Yankees next three are all against above .500 teams. If the Tigers can win two or three against the lowly Royals, they will likely pick up a game on at least one of these three teams.

The best part about a race like this is how as the end of the season approaches, every game with the teams involved becomes just as important to you as the games involving your team. This is the kind of action I would dream about in the mid-nineties while Tigers like Kimara Bartee and Nate Cornejo would get the throw-shit-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks call-up in September. Earlier this season I went to a game at Comerica Park between the Tigers and the Red Sox. A guy several rows below me was wearing a Yankees jersey and appeared to be as into the game as any Tigers or Sox fan in attendance. It was early July, but this guy was already getting his hate on. While I am not at all a Yankee fan, I liked seeing that. When I see a Buckeye fan at a Michigan/Michigan State game, I have the same kind of respect for the hate job that the fan is doing. That's why it's fun to have rivalries, and pennant races are where rivalries in baseball are born.

is to 'W' as


is to 'BS'







One of the charms of Major League Baseball is the witnessing of a statistical anomaly that occurs during a single game resulting in a win for the team you root for. Some of these events, like the triple play, involve multiple players. Most of them, however, are associated with a single player. While batters have walk-off home runs, hitting for the cycle, the golden shower sombrero, and others, it is the starting pitcher who has the most control over the game and can achieve the most impressive single game feats, such as the no-hitter or the perfect game.

In no other sport is there an equivalent to the perfect game or no-hitter, because in most cases there is no upper limit to a single player's performance. Wilt Chamberlain could have scored more than 100 points. Red Berenson could have scored seven goals against the Flyers (sorry Dolores) in 1968. It is usually possible to kick further, run faster, throw more touchdown passes, or catch more fish. It is certainly possible for someone to win every single point in every single game of a tennis match, but if it has ever happened in professional tennis, it hasn't happened frequently enough to have developed a catchy name. Bowling certainly does have the perfect game, which is an amazing accomplishment, but every bowling alley in the US has a board with a long list of bowlers having bowled a perfect game, so it's probably not going to get you more than a few sentences in your local paper.

The baseball pitcher has one goal: to retire twenty-seven batters in a game, and while doing so, limit the batters that are not retired from crossing home plate as many times as the batters on his own team cross the plate. You play to win the game. If the pitcher is exceptionally dominant, he may record a shutout, a no-hitter, or a perfect game. A perfect game implies a no-hitter and a shutout. A no-hitter does not imply a shutout, but it almost always happens that way. Strangely, it is possible for a pitcher to accomplish all three of these feats without recording a win. Thankfully, the no-hitter thrown by Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander last week did go along with a win (Poor transition sentence, you say? Fuck you. And fuck me, because you're right).

This was the first no hitter thrown by a Tigers pitcher in Detroit in several decades. When I started following baseball closely again in the late nineties, I would sometimes wonder what it would be like to watch a Tigers pitcher throw a no-hitter. In those years and the first five years of the 00's, Tigers fans were subjected to Justin Thompson, Brian Moehler, Jeff Weaver, and other such pitchers being the opening day starters, representing the best of the staff. The starting pitching was atrocious, the bullpen was a disgrace, and the farm system offered no hope. Thankfully, Randy Smith was fired and things began to change for the organization starting with the acquisition of great young pitching prospects through the draft and via trades. No player represents the 'new Tigers' more than Justin Verlander, and it was fitting that Dave Dombrowski, the man who drafted him, stood clapping along with the fans as Verlander put the finishing touches on his girlfriend no-hitter.



Unfortunately, there is one unpleasant reminder of the 'old Tigers' lingering on the 2007 team. Dean Palmer. Damian Easley. Bobby Higgenson. If you are a Tigers fan, you may be reaching for a stummies bottle of Tums after reading those names. They had a few good seasons, got big contracts, and sucked for the rest of their years on the team when they were healthy enough to suck. Thank god they are gone. Remaining, however, is Todd Jones, who came back to the Tigers at the beginning of last year when there was no experienced closer on the team. Despite having a number of great young arms in the bullpen (who all suck ass right now, incidentally), we're still Jonesing.

Last night I watched the Tigers play in DC for the first time. It was a hot, humid, windless night and I hoped that the Tigers would blow the Nats out so Jones wouldn't have a chance to fuck it up and cause more sweating than I already was doing. It was looking good for a while, as the Tigers jumped out to a 9-1 lead. Then Maroth got shelled for four runs and was removed, handing the four run lead over to the roulette wheel in left field. Somehow Grilli and a couple of whodats held the lead. Actually, De la Cruz looked to have some good stuff in the eighth despite some wildness. Then the Marlboro Man inexplicably handed over the four run lead to Jones in a non-save situation and he of course gave up three runs on five straight hits before eking it out with two on.

Todd Jones averages three runs more per nine innings than Verlander. Jones tops out at around 93 miles per hour in the ninth inning. Verlander has throw the ball 102 miles per hour in the ninth inning, after pitching, ummm, eight innings. Jones tries to get batters out by getting them to make contact and hoping it goes at someone. Verlander makes batters look foolish trying to make any contact. Watching Jones get a save feels like you're watching a sixty year old woman give birth to a 12 pound baby. It's ugly, nauseating, and downright painful to watch. Watching Verlander pitch makes you think that it's so easy that you could do it. Jones is old. Verlander is young.

The shitty thing is that with Zumaya out and the rest of the bullpen in shambles, Leyland has no option but to keep sending To-Jo back out there. Jones continues to be the crusty old man hanging on to the job in your office because of his institutional knowledge and the lack of interest in the position from anyone else. So pull the safety bar down tight, Tiger fans, and get ready for another roller coaster ride tonight. Just don't forget your barf bag.

Dude, tomorrow's already the tenth!



Far out. We are about a third away through May and it's time to reflect on our successes and failures. Did you fail to smoke as many cigarettes as you were hoping to on Friday, May 4th? Maybe you look back at Monday, May 7th with disappointment as you managed to make it out of bed to get ready for work instead of staying home and eating bowl-after-bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and standing in front of your living room window wearing only makeshift underwear constructed from a grocery bag, as you had been considering in the time between when your alarm first went off and the snooze alarm sounded. Perhaps you made your 1st move on the girl you met at the bar Saturday, May 5th before the roofies kicked in and ended up getting slapped or maced.

Sports fans are accustomed to emotional ups and downs lagging the outcomes of games played by the teams they follow. Usually the more teams you follow, the more diversified your fan holdings are. This is why no matter how much you love the Detroit Lions, you have to root for other teams as well for your emotional safety. After the Lions lose to Green Bay for the umpteenth time, you need to be able to say "well, at least Michigan won" or "thank goodness the Wings are looking good this year". When the Lions go out and get that improbable win, like last year against Dallas, the shittiness of Michigan basketball keeps you from getting too ecstatic.

Once in a while, no matter how diversified your sports fan portfolio is, you'll go on a nice long run of ups or a painful streak of downs. Detroit sports are in one of of those precious runs of wins at the moment. The combined record of the Red Wings, Pistons, and Tigers so far in May is 11-0.

5/1: Tigers W 5-4
5/2: Tigers W 3-2, Red Wings W 3-2
5/3:
5/4: Tigers W 6-3
5/5: Tigers W 7-5, Pistons W 95-69, Red Wings W 4-1
5/6: Tigers W 13-4
5/7: Pistons W 108-87, Red Wings W 2-0
5/8: Tigers W 9-7

Detroit should break into an ad hoc pride fest this afternoon. Things may never be as good as they are for us right now. The Pistons look destined for a return to the finals, the Red Wings just completed their toughest series win since scoring seven goals against the Avalanche in game seven of the 2002 Western Conference Finals, and the Tigers have won eight straight. How often does a sports city have trifecta like Detroit on cinqo de Mayo, with two of the wins coming in the playoffs?

Who do we have to thank for this great success? The Big Johnson, that's who. Since the Lions drafted Calvin Johnson, the other three Detroit teams are 15-2. All hail, King Johnson! If the Johnson factor can somehow help put some wins on the board for his own team as well, the city or state could be in for a renaming. I can't decide what sounds better between Johnson, Michigan or Detroit, Johnson. Maybe they should just go with Johnson, Johnson or the Detroit Johnson instead of the Lions.