Mickey Tettleton Memorial Overpass

The Comeback Vol. XXIV

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 23:36:00 +0000

Once again I have got the bug to update my blog. I don't mean that in a metaphorical sense either as unfortunately the Ugandan Goliathus blog beetle laid eggs in my brain and the only way to avoid a long and painful demise is to update this site regularly. I wish I had some way to explain away my long absence by saying I had teamed up with Lincoln's ghost and traveled through time to catch Jefferson Davis before he could reach Mexico with a fortune in Confederate gold, or better yet joined forces with the reanimated corpse of Andrew Jackson and worked covert ops missions for the President to protect America from villains the public didn't even know existed like Dr. Fartsocks and his evil army of SharkBadgers. However, try as I might to extend premises that sound like rejected ideas for Timecop 2 or Quantum Leap fan fiction into 3,000 word blog posts and then disappear for eight months, I decided to not waste everybody's time and just write that I will be updating this site as the Tigers head into the playoffs and hopefully play deep into October for the first time since 2006. Also look at me writing this post like I still have any kind of audience . I think the most traffic I ever had was averaging a few hundred people a day who stumbled across my site after doing a Google Image Search for Stacy London. At least my unjustified and delusional sense of self worth remains heartily intact. Don't fear imaginary loyal fan base who derive nourishment from my every word like nectar from a God, I will lead you out of the wilderness towards a greater understanding of Tiger baseball!

/watches 4 hour "Victorious" marathon/
/eats a dinner of Andy Capp's Hot Fries and Chocolate Fudge Pop Tarts/
/curses at Brad Penny even though Penny isn't pitching/
/cries himself to sleep/

Season in Review: Prelude

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 02:44:00 +0000

Ahoy hoy, dear readers. It has been months since I've updated this blog but that is because I have been busy establishing myself as a young attorney. I was fortunate enough to hire into the illustrious law firm of Howe & Hummel where I found myself assigned to the high profile case of busting the Amalgamated-Men's-Hat-Penny-Farthing-Syndicate-Liniment-Oil-Tobacco-Concern trust. I couldn't believe my good fortune. The whole reason I went to law school was because I had grown up idolizing Teddy Roosevelt, even going so far as growing a bushy walrus mustache in the third grade, and how he would fearlessly take on the biggest and most powerful monopolies. I saw this case as Providence bestowing the opportunity for me to send my career soaring like a space rocket into the moon's eye. If I was successful it could be the beginning of the fame I so desperately sought. I could picture it now, my name on the front pages of the Times, being invited to the opening night performance of Miss Cairo's seductive and centuries old "Forbidden Egypt Dance", courting the beautiful Ms. Crosby and wooing her with trips to the finest candy stores and expensive parasols, purchasing ruby and sapphire tie pins and launching my own political career as a champion of the people and opponent of vice and corruption. I sequestered myself and read nothing but law books in preparation of the case, my only real contact with the outside world was a little street urchin named Paddy O'Sullivan who would bring me copies of the dailies and a variety of cakes and sweetmeats in exchange for pieces of stale bread. It was through these reports that I kept abreast of the progress of the Detroit squad. My excitement knew no bounds as the local nine entered the All-Star break in first place however the team trailed off terribly in the second half and finished a distant third place.

Jesus Christ, who am I kidding? All this stuff is obviously fake. Anyone who has followed this site over the years, and I seriously doubt there is anybody out there who has kept up with my erratic posting for five years, knows about my unabashed love of anything from the Progressive Era. The truth is I am a struggling young attorney in Flint whose biggest case so far was the prosecution of the infamous Family Dollar bandits. No teenage girl is going to steal headbands from a dollar store and not pay the ultimate price of pleaing down to a deferred sentence and spending a Saturday afternoon at Shoplifters Anonymous. I'm essentially the Elliot Ness of busting petty criminals. I'm also only about one step away from living in a Motel 6 in the North End of Flint, setting up my office in a storage unit and taking cases on a Sandwich and Flaming Hot Cheetos retainer. So instead of just sitting around and waiting for the phone to ring and daydreaming of stealing all the money from the office trust account and disappearing to the Chilean mountains under the alias Zesty Alvarado, where I would raise goats and be the moody and mysterious gringo who would grow silent and angry when people asked questions about my career as a lawyer in the States, I thought I would go back to updating this site regularly or semi-regularly or three times in one week before my ambition and time to update the site simultaneously run out and the site goes dormant again.

The first thing I am going to do is write up a season in review for the Tigers as well as a look at some of the Tigers off-season moves now that I have had months to carefully contemplate and examine them. Expect the usual array of schizophrenic level word salad, paper thin analysis, unabashed love of Austin Jackson and hatred of Ryan Raburn that knows no bounds. The first player due up on the review is Austin Jackson and I'm going to try to have something up on him by tomorrow.

Ernie Harwell

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Wed, 05 May 2010 06:33:00 +0000

Just like everybody else who grew up a Tigers fan between 1960 and 2002 and who lived within the broadcasting range of the "Golden Tower of the Fisher Building", which reached the whole state of Michigan and large parts of Ohio and Ontario and on a real clear summer night could probably be fuzzily picked up in far-off cities like Pittsburgh and St. Louis, I spent the majority of my summer nights as a kid in my bedroom listening to Ernie Harwell broadcast Tigers games on the radio. I don't want to get overly nostalgic or dramatic about listening to these games as a youth. It's not like I was wearing baseball player pajamas and a comically adorable oversized baseball cap while flipping a baseball in the air and imagining myself hitting grand slam homeruns for the Tigers and then running out to celebrate afterwards over Chicken McNugget Happy Meals with my new best friends Rob Deer, Frank Tanana and Mickey Tettleton. Nor was I turning the volume up on my handheld transistor radio, holding it close to my ear and using Ernie's sweet, comforting Southern voice to take me away to different idyllic ballparks across the country as my parents fought loudly over my Dad losing the rent money down at the horse track. No, and as much as I believe that I accidently stumbled upon an idea for a screenplay for an ABC Family after-school melodrama with the working title "Caught by the kid from Ypsilanti", the truth is I spent most of my summer nights listening to Tigers games on the radio in my bedroom as background music while playing R.B.I. 3 on Nintendo (anything was better than listening to that shrill, grating R.B.I. 3 background music, I feel like if I went to a personal hell where I was tortured by having too much of the things I loved on Earth the R.B.I. 3 music would be playing full blast as Super Macho Man stood laughing over me while flexing his pectoral muscles…but I digress.) and being slightly peeved that my Dad was too cheap to spring the few extra bucks a month it cost to subscribe to PASS.

That year of playing R.B.I. 3 obsessively was 1991, which also happened to be the year that I went from being a kid who collected a few baseball cards and had a passing interest in the Tigers to fully fledged Tigers fanaticism and Ernie had as much to do with that as anyone outside of my Dad and the God amongst common men known as Mr. Tettleton. In 1990, as a six year old I kind of, sort of followed the Tigers. I picked up enough to know that what Cecil Fielder was doing was pretty special, given the fact that my Dad opted to stay in the car and listen to the radio during the final game of the season instead of accompany the family inside Frank's Nursery and Crafts (also if there is a personal hell for things I hated on earth and can't escape in the afterlife, mine would take place at Frank's Nursery and Crafts or Michaels…shudder) and that Brian Sather was hot shit on the playground for owning Fielder's '86 Topps Blue Jays rookie card. During the winter following the'90 season two important things happened that turned me into a Tiger lifer. First was the purchase and obsession with the aforementioned R.B.I. 3 Nintendo game and second was the purchase by my parents of my Uncle Tim's baseball card collection. All of a sudden I was bombarded with thousands of baseball cards from the late 70's and early 80's including the local stars I had heard so much about. I was finally able to put faces and numbers to the names and I was fascinated.

My dad recognized this opportunity to raise a second generation hardcore Tigers fan and exploited this to its fullest advantage. He took me to my first Tiger game early in the '91 season and I was initially skeptical. The big city frightened me, the sights, the sounds, the smell, the throng of people, more people than I had ever seen at any point in my life all moving towards a towering somewhat dingy stadium. I remember stopping on the middle of the overpass that led to Tiger Stadium from where we parked the car and not wanting to go in the stadium. This was not what I had imagined, it was intimidating, the bland aluminum siding, the towering light structures, the sad and rundown area surrounding the stadium. Where was the green field and blue awning, the seats in the upper level that appeared to hang well over the field so close to the action it looked like the fans could touch the players? I was coaxed inside and things were no better, the ceilings seemed short and were dripping, the concourse was wet with what smelled like piss and everything echoed terribly, a very claustrophobic setting for a seven year old kid. (Re-reading this paragraph it's no wonder now why my Dad was worried about me spending so much time inside reading, even at the age of seven I acted like a hermetic cat-lady who spent the past twenty years shut-indoors because she saw a Mexican teenager riding his bike down the street one afternoon and it frightened her.) However once we walked up to our seats and I was first able to glance at the magnificent green field for the first time I was hooked for life. I saw the new catcher Mickey Tettleton crush a homerun and I cheered so wildly and loud that I lost a baby tooth, it seemed like a sign and Mickey Tettleton became my favorite Tiger of all time. I left the stadium thinking the once scary and daunting structure was now the most incredible place on earth and I couldn't wait to come back.

There was no turning back now as I embraced my Tigers madness completely, I started calling my games of R.B.I. 3 in a fake Ernie voice (wait I think we have a new contender for nerdiest sports moment) and did an oral report in third grade about Denny McLain, much to the horror of my teacher Mrs. Marshall. As a substitute for being at the games Ernie and the Tigers became regular fixtures on my radio for the rest of that season. In what may be my nerdiest sports moment in my life (the other contender is when I lied at a Pistons game that I had been assaulted in the bathroom and had my Darko Milicic bobblehead stolen from me in an attempt to procure one. I got a bobblehead but only at the cost of my dignity…fair trade though.) I kept score to the Tigers final game of the '91 season against the Baltimore Orioles while listening to Ernie Harwell and the Voice of God sign off for what many felt was the final time due to the Tigers famously shortsighted and unpopular decision to fire the most beloved man in the whole state of Michigan. Even though I had only had a chance to listen to them for a year I felt like I was losing two close friends and made a lifetime vow to hate Rick Rizzs for as long as he was on the radio. Luckily my hate only had to last for one season as in 1993, new owner Mike Ilitch, did the only thing he would do right for the first twelve years of his ownership and brought Ernie back to the broadcast booth (personal hell update…Randy Smith would have to be involved in some way, shape or fashion).

Now for the eulogizing part of the post and the saddest paragraph I've ever had to write on this website. I never had the pleasure to meet Ernie Harwell, but I have read numerous accounts and met people who were fortunate enough to cross paths with the man and the thing that stands out is their universal acclaim that Ernie was one of the most genuinely nice, gracious and cordial people they had ever had the pleasure to meet. The common thread in all of these stories has been how genuinely excited everyone was to meet Ernie, to just be able to spend a moment of time with the person who was THE VOICE of their summer nights as a kid, and how when they left their encounter with Ernie they felt like the opposite had occurred, that their idol was the one who was thrilled to have met them and to have listened to their stories even though he had probably been told similar stories thousands of times before. It is also admirable how he faced his death with such dignity, no bitterness, no songs of faded glory, just acceptance and pride in the kind of life he had led. There are very few people I can honestly say that I would be happy if I could one day believe I had lived a life half as fulfilling as theirs and Ernie Harwell is one of those people. Like so many people I grew up as a second generation Tigers fan who got to listen to the greatest announcer in the history of baseball. It was a special connection to know that the same guy who was broadcasting Tigers games while my dad was listening to the World Series as a college freshman in 1968 was the same guy who was calling games while I was commuting back and forth to college as a freshman at MSU and listening to the radio in my car. It makes me sad to think that if I have a son one day he won't have the pleasure of hearing Ernie call the games or hear his corny but lovable sayings like "called out for excessive window shopping" or "two for the price of one". As the games became more readily available on television I stopped listening to Ernie on the radio, something I regret very much now and I only tuned in to the last few innings of the final game he would call before his retirement in 2002. Even after it was announced last year that he had terminal cancer and there would be a day at Comerica honoring him, I couldn't bring myself to go. He was someone I always hoped and imagined would be around forever. He wasn't dying, that was unpossible. There was no need to go to this one because I would just come back next year after he had beaten the odds and the Tigers were celebrating his spectacular career again. This was all denial, of course, and when the devastating news came down today of his passing, the reality of it all set in almost immediately. The first person I called, as I'm sure many people across the state did, was my dad to share the news with him. He was incredibly sad to hear Ernie had passed and it led us to a long conversation of all the great baseball memories we shared together and that first Tigers game we attended as father and son. It was a good conversation about something we had not talked about in a long time and a connection all made possible by Ernie.

Thank you, Ernie and may you rest in peace.

The Sixth Annual Authoritative Detroit Tigers Season Preview Vol. 2

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:17:00 +0000

I've lived in Flint, Michigan for a little over a year now and it has been interesting to say the least. I know Flint has a bad rap as it annually tops lists for most dangerous city, most depressing city, most violent city and city most likely to be overtaken by rats and turned into a highly intelligent rat society Secret of Nimh style. I mean there was even a list that came out this past winter of the worst places to live and they didn't even bother listing Flint because they said nobody would ever willingly move there. However, my experiences living in downtown Flint has led me to believe the city has gotten a bad rap over the years. Sure the violent crime rate is through the roof, unemployment levels are around 25%, it has more foreclosures than any place in the country, an arsonist is currently running amok, bankruptcy looming and weekly human sacrifices to appease the bum god Hobonicus but the city is not without its' charms.

For example there is this kickass takeout Chinese restaurant located in the heart of the most dangerous part of the city. There would never be any reason to travel to this part of the city unless you were looking to tweak on meth, get stabbed and have your shoes stolen or buy a giant Tweety Bird rug from the back of some serial killers van. However this Chinese food is so amazingly good that it's worth the risk it takes to go get it, even if a person has to armor up like they are going off to fight Predator just to pick up some Cashew Chicken. The people that work at the takeout place are amazing too. The place is run by an old Chinese lady who hardly speaks any English and a teenage girl that wears a different terrifyingly graphic "Cannibal Corpse" t-shirt and helps translate for the lady as well as prepare the food. Where else on Earth would you find a business like this? Some sixty year old Chinese lady screaming at costumers in Mandarin while some pimply faced teenage girl in an oversize black t-shirt that says "Hammer Smashed Face" on it scoops out chicken fried rice as costumers keep glancing nervously back at their car to make sure someone isn't murdering someone in it.

Why am I writing about this? Because I ate it this evening and it was so transcendently delicious that as I was eating it I could see through time and space. Yes, as I was eating it I suddenly got the sensation of floating through the fourth dimension, passing by grandfather clocks with the hands spinning out of control, math equations sailed past me, neon colors flashed and I think I saw Kirk Gibson making out with a bear, but that might have just been another fantasy dream I had. I was fascinated to see where I might end up when my journey through time ended. Sometime during the French Revolution? Maybe a thousand years from now in a utopian world where everyone had hovercrafts? No, instead I ended up in September of this year looking at Tigers statistics and what I saw surprised me. I woke up on the floor in a puddle of sweet & sour sauce with my cat licking my face, but I rushed to the computer to write down what I saw. But since I wrote this long ass introduction I forgot everything from my vision and now I have to make up all this stuff as I go along. Crap.

Regardless here is volume two of my season preview focusing on the infielders.

Miguel Cabrera: Cabrera famously finished last season on a sour note, when reports came out that he spent the night before the most important game of the season getting shit-faced with a few White Sox players, including former Tiger Freddy Garcia at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham. He then got into a violent argument with his wife, had the police called out to his house, blew a .26 and then topped it off with a night in the drunk tank to sleep it off, before Dombrowski picked him up in the morning and drove him to the ballpark to get ready for THE BIGGEST GAME OF THE SEASON!

That's the part of the story that cracks me up I always picture Dombrowski as a dad from an 80's movie, mostly because of his haircut and wardrobe of blazers over turtlenecks. I just picture him showing up at the jail with a stern look as Cabrera looks on sheepishly before Dombrowski cracks a boys will be boys smile and promises not to tell Mom of all the trouble Miggy cause as he slaps him on the back and they walk out of the police station as the credits roll. Of course in the movies Cabrera would've showed up in time to hit the game winning homerun and as Cabrera celebrated with his teammates he would take a quick break to giving a knowing thumbs up to a smirking Dombrowski in the croud.

Not surprisingly, in real life, Cabrera put up an oh-fer in that game and generally play like a guy who was working off a hangover. Of course people were annoyed by Cabrera's unbelievable immaturity and it was the latest incident in a long line of childish behavior that has followed him throughout his career. Even with his huge statistics last season (.324/.396/.547) it seems as though Cabrera is seen as a mild disappointment mainly because he hasn't improved much statistically from his early numbers with the Marlins. This may be true but I think most people, myself included, forget that he is just now entering his prime years as he doesn't turn 27 until the 18^th of this month. Even with all the tales of immaturity off the field and some goofy baserunning mistakes on the field from all accounts he is a tireless worker who has put in a ton of work in trying to make himself a solid defensive first baseman. Also there were reports that he went to alcohol counseling and received mentoring and is working to control whatever problems he has with booze. It seems like Cabrera is someone who wants to learn from his mistakes and continue to make himself a better player or, who knows, maybe he peaked early and he didn't have any projection left in him from when he was tearing it up as a 22 year old, but at least he's working to maintain that still extraordinary level and I wouldn't be surprised if he had a breakout season during his peak age 27 season.

Alex Avila: Avila jumped straight from AA Erie to the majors and in seventy-two plate appearances gave the Tigers nearly as much value with the bat as Laird had over an entire season. Avila is a little rough defensively as he's only been playing the position regularly for the past few seasons, but his switch-hitting bat carries enough promise that if he can just become an average defensive catcher he would provide a tremendous value to the club at a nice cost controlled price. My ideal scenario for Avila this season would be for him to split the job with Laird at the beginning of the season and slowly taking over the lion's share of the playing time as the season progresses with an eye towards Avila being the starting catcher from the outset of the 2011 season, leaving Laird and his good defensive skills and weak bat to test free agency. I know this is likely what the plan is going to be and I'm not breaking any new ground with this prediction but I just have this nagging feeling that Laird is going to be a Tiger long past his utility as Avila scuffles to find regular playing time. Hopefully I'm wrong on this one

Gerald Laird: Something about Laird is off-putting and I'm not sure what it is, maybe it's his goblin like face, or the fact that his legs look to skinny for the rest of his body or the fact that his batting stance looks like he's straddling over one of those weird European toilets that requires a person to poop in what is essentially a tiny whole in the ground. It also could be that his bat was completely absent for most of the season and it seems like he came up to the plate time after time in big situations only to end up striking out swinging at a pitch high in the zone or skying harmless flyballs into the infield. There is no question that Laird is a great defensive catcher and that is where most of his value lies but as I laid out in the Avila paragraph above I hope that Laird slowly gets replaced by Avila and by the end of the season is used exclusively in the short side of a platoon or as a defensive replacement for Avila in the late innings.

Scott Sizemore: Sizemore is an intriguing prospect replacing the popular and uncannily consistent Placido Polanco. I don't know much about Sizemore other than that scouts love him and project him to be a solid .270 hitter with 12-15 homeruns and solid defense. If he comes close to that and gives the Tigers a solid #8 hitter to break up the whirling, infinitely dark swirling vortex of suck that are known as Gerald Laird and Adam Everett than I will be happy. Whenever I see Sizemore's jersey out on the field I think of Detroit native Tome Sizemore playing for the Tigers and think of the team's second baseman as a surly, chain smoking, prostitute banging, Passenger 57 co-starring menace out there. Hopefully Scott Sizemore's personality is much different than his Hollywood namesakes.

Adam Everett: It's a toss-up between Everett and Laird for the title of my most hated Tiger. This is a very prestigious title as the winner would join the likes of Bobby Higginson, Juan Gonzalez, Todd Jones, Roger Cedeno, Jason Grilli, Mike Moore and the granddaddy of them all Chad Kreuter, (as a quick aside when I was a kid I had an irrational hated towards Chad Kreuter because 1) he looked like a douchebag before I even knew what a douchebag was and 2) I saw his as the usurper to Mickey Tettleton's rightful position on the team as starting catcher. It made no difference to the nine-year old me that Tettleton was still in the lineup every day as the DH or that Kreuter was a better defensive catcher because I was playing catcher in Little League for one reason only because it was the position Tettleton played, not because of Chad Effin Kreuter. It would also explain why Rich Rowland and Phil Clark received misspelled death threats written in crayon imploring them it was in their best interest to not make the team out of spring training.)

It seems Everett is living off a defensive rep that has long since been untrue. It's not that he is a Yuniesky Betancourt level disaster in the field, it's just that he seems only average at best and not noticeably better than Ramon Santiago out there. His arm seems a little weak out there as it seems like he really has to load up on his throws to get it across the diamond. Also his bat is completely non-existent almost on a Ray Oyler level of uselessness, especially against right handed pitching. I never thought I would ever see a Tigers shortstop that made me long for the Edgar Renteria era but Everett's helpless flailing at the plate made me misty eyed for the days when the Tigers had a shortstop who could ground out solidly to the shortstop with regularity.

The problem with hating Everett is that he seems like a likable enough guy and he's making near the minimum for a veteran and there were no expectations of greatness when he signed as a free agent. In fact he was supposed to be a one year patch for an organization that had shockingly little depth at the position unless you're one of those people who believed Cale Iorg would be anything other than a below average Double-AA player, and I think the only person who believed in that scenario was Cale Iorg and maybe Iorg's mother.

Brandon Inge: After struggling mightily at the plate the past two seasons as well as bouncing around the field in a utility role and playing some catcher at the end of the 2008 season, Inge had a surprisingly great start to last season hitting 20 home runs in the first half and even getting an invite to participate in the Home Run Derby. Inge went homerless during the derby and then fell off a cliff during the second half of the season. Honestly if Inge had actually fallen off a cliff in real life it would have helped explain away his atrocious second half. Of course in real life Inge was playing with two wrecked knees and it made him a completely useless hitter in the second half (.186/.259/.279).

Not only was he ineffective at the plate was his amazing defense in the field fell precipitously in the second half as he went from being a highlight a night player at third making plays and showing range that no one else in the league could match to just being an average defender who looked like he was wearing concrete shows during some games. Not only did Inge struggle at baseball but he also alienated his fan base of 40 year old moms who thought he was hot and would go to the games with their girlfriends get drunk and yell out things about Inge's ass as their husbands silently stewed at being so publicly emasculated, by getting those gigantic forearm tattoos of his kids names. I feel like that was the real turning point of the season for Inge. However Inge did have offseason surgery on both of his knees and claims to be feeling 100%. If he can just return to being a .250 hitter with 25 homeruns and play some spectacular defense at third he could remain a valuable part of the team while setting himself up nicely for someone other than Detroit to over pay for his decline when he becomes a free agent after the season.

Ramon Santiago: Santiago has made a nice little career for himself as a utility infielder. Pretty amazing if you can remember how overmatched he was during his rookie year on that atrocious 2003 Tigers team that was full of overmatched young players. As I said in the Everett paragraph I kind of hope that Santiago can take over the job as the everyday shortstop or at least the starter against all right-handers given Everett's severe limitiations against righties.

Julian Casablancas Concert Review 4/5/10

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 06:15:00 +0000

Last night I journeyed back to Detroit to catch the Julian Casablancas concert at St. Andrews Hall. Casablancas was/is the lead singer for The Strokes, the group most responsible for the garage rock revival in the early 2000's. There are certain things that I feel a special connection with because I identify them with certain milestone events in my life. One of those events is my freshman year of college at Michigan State which occurred in the fall of 2001. Like most people going away to college felt like the beginning of some transformative experience. I was going to make new friends for life, try new experiences, go to parties, learn about interesting cultures and philosophies, come out of my shell and become a better more interesting person because of it. Of course I squandered that opportunity as my shyness kept me from taking advantage of my new environs. Instead I sat in my dorm, listened to music, watched sports and played entire seasons of Tecmo Super Bowl with my friend since kindergarten and college roommate Mike. So when I think of freshman year of college I don't think of wild dorm parties, making out with random girls and making new friends, instead I think of listening to Radiohead, watching Charlie Rogers and getting into a near fist fight with my roommate because he thought I was excessively celebrating a last second Al Toon touchdown in Tecmo. It was during this time that the Strokes were making their quick rise to fame. There had been a considerable amount of buzz surrounding them and their debut album "Is This It" which came out in October of 2001 and the first two singles from that album were in regular rotation on the college radio station that broadcast out of my dorm. I was instantly hooked and ran out and bought the album as soon as it came out, and songs like "Hard to Explain" and "Last Nite" quickly became part of the soundtrack to my freshman year, joining such timeless classics as "Bootylicious", "Lady Marmalade" and 'N Sync's "Girlfriend". After the success of their first album, the Strokes started putting out new material at approximately the same pace that I update this site. Their follow-up "Room on Fire" came out in 2003 and their third and last album "First Impressions of Earth" came out in 2006. After the stress of creating nearly two hours of music over a six year period, the Strokes went on an indefinite hiatus, much like how when I write a post I take a one month break to unwind from the stress and hard work of typing a few thousand words. Even though The Strokes as a band went on hiatus the members of the group stayed busy with side projects, with the exception of lead singer Casablancas who was mostly silent except for popping up on a few guest appearances singing on some singles. However in October of last year Casablancas released a solo album, "Phrazes for the Young", of Strokes-esque garage rock combined with some 80's style synths, which was surprisingly good and had me anxious to see him live when his tour supporting the album came through Detroit.

The opening act was Funeral Party a five piece group of kids, who made me feel extremely old and uncool as no member of the group, at least from my position in the crowd, appeared to be over the age of 17. They made me feel doubly old, when towards the end of their set they did a short cover of "Champagne Supernova" by Oasis. I remember when that song was popular originally, I was a 12 year old in seventh grade at the time and my sister, who is three years older than me was obsessed with Oasis and most of the Britpop scene in general. My sister was in high school when I was in middle school and had this annoying habit of playing her stereo extremely loud in the morning while she was getting ready for school, so my last hour of sleep before having to get up and get ready for school was constantly interrupted by whatever songs my sister was blasting on her stereo, (I'm not a morning person but I'm also very non-confrontational, so as my sister was blasting her Counting Crows or Oasis album at 6:45 in the morning I was silently stewing in rage underneath my covers and since I didn't want to blow up and start screaming at my sister I would instead imagine all the terrible things I would do to Adam Duritz or Liam Gallagher if I ever had the chance to meet either of them, seeing as how Adam Duritz is probably working at a gas station these days my dreams of finally confronting him for ruining so many mornings is probably close to reality. Seriously though is "Round Here" ever inexplicably became a radio hit again I would probably have some Manchurian Candidate reaction and go on a multi-state murder spree without even realizing what I was doing.) Back to Funeral Party though, I was thinking these kids are so young and were probably rocking out to Sesame Street in 1996 that a song like "Champagne Supernova" is probably some rock classic that they were too young to appreciate when it was new and are now revisiting it, and the same could be said for probably half the crowd in attendance last night. At 26 I don't appreciate being made to feel old so there was some underlying resentment towards Funeral Party on my part. Overall I found their brand of rock music generic, just a collection of indistinguishable songs that sounded like it came straight from "So You Want to be an Indie Rock Band" starter kit. Even the bands actions on-stage were uninspired. The lead singer did the spastic dancing, leg kicking, arm waving, foot stamping routine, followed by the squatting on the speaker, collapse writhing on the floor move that tends to be a favorite of front men who want to project themselves as a brooding and troubled soul. To end the set they through down their instruments in mock hissy-fit disdain. The guitarist led the way by dropping his guitar on the ground to a loud crunching sound, the lead singer dropped the mic and gave a half hearted kick to the guitar on his way off, the drummer flipped a cymbal and even the dorky keyboardist, who fulfilled every stereotype of dorky keyboardists with his comically oversized black button up, making him look like somebody more likely to be working in the IT department than playing in a rock band, even getting in on the act and flipping his keyboard. Oh wow, what badasses, I hope I don't run into them after the concert, they might beat me up and emasculate me in front of my girlfriend, so out of fear I threw my wallet on the stage as a peace offering from being beaten by four tough guy rockers. I have a problem with this too. I feel like in order to leave the stage in a matter that is so abrupt and without thanking or acknowledging the audience you have to earn it. These guys aren't rock stars yet, and 99% of the audience wasn't there to see them, so for them to act like they were to fucking cool to be there was off-putting. If I wanted to watch a young, bland indie rock band with no charisma, I would go check out a high school talent show. Jesus Christ that last paragraph, could be summed up as Get Off My Lawn!!! I am getting old.

I had seen the Strokes live twice before and the best way to describe their energy was somewhere between moribund and lifeless. But they had earned this type of aloofness or arrogance by putting out some of the most defining rock music in nearly a decade. It was all part of their persona as a group of New Yorkers who were to cool to care about their success. They knew the crowd was there to see them, to awe at them, to squeal in delight when they played the crowds favorite songs and they didn't care or need that kind of support. So I didn't know what to expect last night when Casablancas took the stage without his fellow Stroke-mates, Strokers…ehh there really is no way to write that sentence without it sounding like some kind of masturbatory gay porno…I give up. I was half expecting him to sing from a hammock, with somebody holding a microphone to his mouth, another person feeding him grapes, while he mumbled the words to each of his songs while also smoking a cigarette between each song and refusing to engage the crowd. The thirty minute delay between sets was disturbing as I pictured some roadie frantically urging Casablancas to wake up from his nap and take the stage. So it was much to my delight when Casablancas came bounding out from the side stage thanked the audience for coming out and launched full force into his opening number "Ludlow St." His high energy was apparent from the beginning and was surprisingly infectious. He jokingly apologized after opening with the slow-paced Ludlow Street that he had just played the most undanceable song on the album and taken the excitement out of the crowd. He followed this banter by launching into a series of his most catchy and danceable solo stuff, pacing around the stage, touching hands with crowd members and noticeably enjoying himself. This was light years ahead of the type of performer he was during the two times I saw him performing with The Strokes, this time he seemed like a natural entertainer, someone who was comfortable in his own skin, confident with being the center of attention and not so concerned with hiding behind long hair and sunglasses on a darkened stage. Casablancas is a chameleon of cool, some people, not unlike myself…wait I mean very unlike myself, have the ability to be effortlessly cool. With Casablancas he was cool when he was the moody, temperamental sort of morose lead singer, who wore leather jackets, black skinny jeans, Chuck Taylors and kept his hair long, stringy and covering his face while refusing to be engaging in anyway. However, he was effortlessly cool last night too even though he was a embodying a different persona. He came out wearing a brownish track suit, bright red skinny jeans, 80's style Converse high tops and even though he still had long unkempt hair it was pushed back from his face, with a couple of feathers braided into it (a look I unconvincingly tried to get my girlfriend on board with but she didn't like it and she thought it would be a little unprofessional for a lawyer to be in court with two bright pink feathers dangling from his hair, she's probably right…probably) allowing him to engage the crowd. He gave an inspired performance of his first two singles from his solo album, the insanely catchy "11^th Dimension" and the more spacey and dark "Out of the Blue", letting the songs hang in the crowd and simmer giving the audience a chance to enjoy them, he went a little bigger with them, singing with slightly more emphasis without over-selling them. There was the obligatory Strokes songs, "Hard to Explain" and a more low-key version of "You Only Live Once", for his encore he sang I Wish it was Christmas Today", which seemed a little out of place and inappropriate in the beginning of April on a day that had reached the mid-70's. Overall it was a short set, clocking in at just under an hour, but it was lively enough to leave me anticipating The Strokes fourth album due out this September and first tour in four years supporting it. All in all it was a pretty great show and if there was a gun to my head and I had to put a grade on it I would give Casablancas a solid B+, with my only complaint being the short length of the set and lack of Strokes songs.

The Sixth Annual Authoritative Detroit Tigers Season Preview Vol. 1

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 03:14:00 +0000

hello.......

who goes there......?

Is that a reader...?

Come closer into the light, see I've been blogging for nearly six years, which equates to about 300 years in real life and due to spending an ungodly amount of time over the years staring at the computer screen my eyes aren't what they used to be. It's nice of you to stop by because, you see, I don't get as many visitors as I used to. When you get to be my age in blogging years it gets to be awfully lonely, most of the friends who were the reason why I started this silly little hobby have passed me by, evaporating into the ether of Tigers lore. Why it seems only yesterday that I was singing the praises of a young fireballer named Wil Ledezma or jumping up and down on my futon cheering a homerun robbing catch made by wiry, speedster Nuke Logan. I can't believe years have passed since Jason Grilli would drive me into a alcohol fueled rage by coming into a game, allowing every inherited runner to score with ease, walking the bases loaded and then leaving the mound to a chorus of boos covered in his disgusting flop sweat, while I frantically searched my apartment for anything to help me drink away the trauma of another Cheese-man experience. This would also help explain the chemical dependency I have for store brand cough syrup mixed with Olde English and the delusions where I see Grilli's head on my cats body, but I digress. Now in my advanced blogging age I have noticed it takes me longer to recover from tough losses and distressing transactions. I remember my early days as a strapping young blogger, back when I was a just sickly underweight, ghostly pale and could survive on a diet of Sour Patch Kids, chocolate milk and burritos that I could buy and microwave at a gas station. Back in those days a Todd Jones blown save would just lead to a string of curse words and a few holes punched in the wall. As the heartbreaking losses mounted over the past few seasons my erratic behavior escalated. Soon I was drinking vodka from a Dora the Explorer sand pail and training a pack of wolves that I would unleash to terrorize my neighborhood after I was angered by Brandon Inge flailing at a face high fastball for strike three with runners on base. However after the double whammy of the Tigers painful loss in their one-game playoff against the Twins and the trade of fan favorite Curtis Granderson I finally became unhinged. I wandered out of my Flint apartment in a haze, wearing only a silk bathrobe and leaving behind a whole harem of beautiful women who had been gifted to me out of thanks by the locals for agreeing not to release my wolf pack anymore. For days I ambled along the streets disoriented, covered in feces, talking to myself and threatening strangers. Since this was Flint, I was able to blend in with the rest of the homeless and mentally ill for weeks before I finally collapsed in defeat outside of Halo Burger. The once proud, feared, underweight, ghostly blogger Beefshower was now just a sad, broken down, emaciated and translucently pale shell of a man.

It took months to recover my physical and mental health after the loss to the Twins and the trade of Granderson to the hated New York Highlanders. Intense therapy that allowed me to finally see the name Carlos Gomez or Alexei Casilla and not want to vomit in rage or to think about Zach Miner without turning into a homicidal maniac, not unlike Officer Matthew Cordell in the Maniac Cop series of movies. I know I'm not all the way recovered from those terrible events of last fall, but I do feel as though I'm 95 % of the way back and my memory is still as sharp as ever. Why I still remember where I was when I heard that Magglio Ordonez had just edged out Nap Lajoie for the first Tigers batting title since Ty Cobb was the oldest batting title winner in major league history as a sixty-nine year old in 1955. I listened live on the radio as famous Detroiter Louis Whitaker fought and defeated the ghost of Primo Carnera and helped boost U.S. morale in the fight against the spread of fascism. I even served as Luis Pujols' second in his famous duel in the Caucasus where he killed Phil Garner while protecting the honor of Wendell Magee. Yes, so many memories and so many great moments following a team with such a rich and storied history, and to be honest that is what baseball is all about and what drew me to becoming a fan at such a young age. The chance to watch the unknown, to potentially watch history be made, to see something that I've never seen before, or to see a player that I will tell my grandkids about someday, that is if hours sitting in front of a computer screen hasn't left my testicles withered and sterile. That is what has me so excited for the beginning of the season tomorrow afternoon in Kansas City. Kansas City was where that magical 2006 season began, when untested rookies Justin Verlander and Joel Zumaya helped propel a team of new faces to the Tigers first World Series appearance in 22 years. Who knows, maybe tomorrow we could see a new set of untested Tigers in Austin Jackson and Scott Sizemore along with veteran free agent signings like Johnny Damon help propel the Tigers to a division title and October baseball.

Enough with the intro though, here is part one of my Tigers season preview.

Justin Verlander: Verlander has had an excellent beginning to his still young career. A.L. Rookie of the Year and a World Series appearance in 2006, a no-hitter and increase in his strikeout rate in 2007, followed by a wildly inconsistent 2008, that looked like it could have been a major step backwards for the young ace. But for all the promise Verlander showed during his first three full seasons, he was still frustrating because it seemed like he hadn't filled his considerable promise yet. I was worried that he might be one of those players who coasted by on his tremendous natural skills such as his effortless velocity and the sharp break of his curveball. Not that I would ever begrudge somebody for coasting because given the opportunity to be very good with almost no effort or transcendently great with a lot of hard work and effort, I would choose very good a thousand out of a hundred times. But that's just because I am apathetic and lazy, in fact if I had to pick the one thing that I probably am fantastic at it would be by apathetic laziness of "lazithetic" as I like to call it because I'm too lazy to say both words. Last season though the Tigers finally got to see Verlander put everything together and put in a truly dominant Cy Young caliber season. After a rough start Verlander pitched lights out baseball for nearly the remainder of the season, putting up quality start after quality start and once again overpowering hitter with a fastball that routinely touched the high 90's again after a year where his velocity dipped noticeably. By the time everything was said and done, Verlander had paced the A.L. in strikeouts and posted his best statistical season yet, and if you believe the stats Verlander may have been a little unlucky and could still see room for improvement if his BABIP comes into line. He parlayed this success into a much deserved 5 year deal worth $80 million and if he pitched like he did last season over the life of the contract he has a very good chance of going down in history as the greatest Tigers pitcher ever. Now for the bad, Verlander pitched the most innings of his career last season by a wide margin and also threw more pitched than anybody in baseball, even more than traditional workhorses like C.C. Sabathia, Roy Halladay and Oliver the pitching Tennessee Walking Horse that was found on the Carnival Circuit and pitched 43 straight complete games for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Also, even though Verlander earned the money of his new contract, the Tigers recent history of doling out big money contracts for pitchers is discouraging. Now, granted, Verlander has much more talent and a better track record than Bonderman, Robertson or Willis but having lived through that trio's history of injuries and ineffectiveness I can't help be wary of big money contracts given out to pitchers wearing the Olde English D.

Rick Porcello: With Porcello last season I was expecting the worst. I thought he was being rushed, I thought the Tigers were sliding down a slippery slope that they had fell down once before with Bonderman and I was certain that Porcello would struggle mightily. After a shaky first month to his career, (with the exception to his superb second start against the Mariners) I was concerned the Tigers might be doing irreparable damage to their young prospect who didn't have a start above High-A. It wasn't so much a concern over his ability, which he obviously had plenty of, or even his health as the Tigers were doing everything possible to protect his arm and limit his innings. Instead I was more worried about damage that might be done to him psychologically. Not to read too much into a players psychological makeup because everyone is different, but I think back to when I was 20 and my lack of maturity in handling adversity at such a young age. Back then if I asked a girl out and she said no, I usually started hyperventilating, crawling about the floor gasping for air as tears filled my eyes. I had essentially the same reaction if I did poorly on a test or ran out of Count Chocula, so I couldn't imagine struggling on such a big stage, with so many of your peers relying on you. Obviously there are more differences between 20 year old Porcello and 20 year old Beefshower than 40 miles per hour on a fastball. Porcello settled down in May and easily established himself as the Tigers third best starter. The one bugaboo with Porcello was his alarmingly low K rate, striking out only 4.7 batters per nine innings, which is about as low as a pitcher can be without being knocked out of the league. All the signs were there that Porcello had the capability to be a high strikeout pitcher, the mid 90's fastball and assortment of filthy off-speed pitches but he wasn't putting hitters away and was relying predominantly on his low 90's sinker to induce groundouts. However in the 163^rd game against the Twins Porcello finally cut loose and showed the kind of dominating pitcher he could be, striking out eight Twins in 5 2/3 innings and keeping the Tigers in a close game. Of course we all know how that ended, Leyland brought in Zach Miner who promptly shit all over himself. But focusing just on Porcello in that one game playoff, it was amazing to see such a poised, young pitcher giving it his all with the season on the line and putting his team in the best possible position to win. It exceeded all of my wildest expectations and I'm excited to watch Porcello over the next several seasons fulfill his potential as one of the best young players in the game. What do I expect for the upcoming season? Well, for one I think we will see more of the eight strikeout version of Porcello as the Tigers turn him loose a little bit. Sure they will still protect the hell out of his arm, as they should, and they aren't going to rely on him for some kind of Old Hoss Radbourn workload but I think the kid gloves will come off and he'll be allowed to tap a little deeper into his arsenal. I'm of the opinion that there is really nothing a team can do to protect a young arm, for example the Tigers did everything right with Bonderman and he still broke down, it just seems like some pitchers are pre-disposed to injury, whether it be because of reliance on a high stress pitch or some violent mechanics but from everything I've read Porcello doesn't have either of those issues. Whatever happens I just want Porcello to stay healthy and productive as baseball has seen to many promising your pitching careers ruined by injury. Jesus this paragraph turned into a rambling mess, I shouldn't have drank that bottle of Listerine, I think my cat could write more coherently than this by just walking across the keyboard.

Max Scherzer: Scherzer famously has two different colored eyes a medical condition technically known as "What the hell is wrong with your eyes". I have a friend Josh who has this same condition and my friends and I still aren't entirely convinced that Josh is not some sort of werewolf. We've shot him with silver bullets, covered our houses with mountain ash and even stabbed him with a knife covered in wolfsbane and he's always reacted like a human would but there have been signs of an underlying werewolf, namely stemming from events during late night games of Risk that involved rage, lashing out at the game board, growling and possible transformations. I'm sure the Tigers put Scherzer through a battery of tests to see if he suffered from lycanthropy before they traded for him but we won't really know the story until we see if there is a sudden rise in attacks throughout the city. Seriously though, I love the Granderson/Jackson trade from the standpoint that flipping a possible fluke season by EJack into a 25 year old strikeout artist under team control for several more seasons was a stroke of genius on Dombrowski's part. I've always been a big Scherzer fan and think that adding him to a rotation already featuring Verlander and Porcello gives the Tigers a devastating short rotation that would make them a difficult out in the playoffs, if they are fortunate enough to get there.

Jeremy Bonderman: I'm going to use Bonderman's spot to talk a little about the Nate Robertson deal that went down last week. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of this deal. Neither Bonderman, Robertson, nor Willis are great options for a long relief mop-up duty spot on the roster let alone the final two spots in the rotation. I have zero faith in Willis and I think his whole spring has been a mirage. Best case scenario for him would be a five inning pitcher w/ a 5.00 ERA who has the occasional wild outing and worst case scenario is he reverts back to the mechanical disaster who walks every other batter and is a complete mental train wreck to boot. Bonderman is supposedly healthy but his spring has been less than encouraging and he was a guy who relied completely on his slider for any kind of success and that pitch is supposedly a shadow of what it used to be. He might have the same velocity but the bite on the pitch is lacking from all the reports I've read. Robertson has some utility and he did pitch relatively decent down the stretch last season after he came back from injury. He also is the only guy who probably had any trade value so I see how he was easily the choice to go if he didn't win a roster spot. I could see taking a token prospect like Voss if the Tigers got a little salary relief from it but they didn't, they are still on the hook for everything they would have paid if they just released him outright, and if you are going to release someone outright just get rid of D-Train and keep Galarraga (I can never spell his name right) or Bonine as the 5/swingman. Also I don't see the need for another lefty in the pen, which is surely what Voss' role would be if he made it to the big leagues, the Tigers already have decent younger guys for that role in Ni, Coke and Thomas. Maybe Voss' ceiling is Clay Rapada's role, which isn't that exciting.

If I were in charge I would have either cut Willis outright anticipating him blowing up eventually and being useless and giving him a chance to change scenery and get his career back together and thrown Bonderman and Robertson in the 4/5 role and kept Bonine/Galarraga in reserve. Or I would've given Robertson the 4 spot Willis the five, moved Bonderman to the bullpen and see if his two pitch repertoire and short outings might make him an effective middle innings reliever and have Bonarraga ready to step in.

Dontrelle Willis: I feel like I pretty much covered my feelings on Willis in the previous section under Bonderman, but like any well prepared and thorough person I always come up with a plan B. If Willis turns out to be an unmitigated disaster for a third straight season I think it would behoove the Tigers to have a clubhouse attendant "discover" a bloody leather apron in Willis' locker, making Willis a prime suspect in the 122 year old unsolved Jack the Ripper murders in London's Whitechapel district. Now obviously Dontrelle couldn't be the murderer unless we get into some kind of weird 4^th dimension theory about time and space, but given the physical evidence, the anxiety disorder and the history of pain he has inflicted on Tiger fans who have had to watch him pitch over the past two seasons, I think this is a risk worth taking. The English tabloids would have a field day and the constant inquests and trials would keep D-Train tied up for the majority of the season. As a token of gratitude I will offer to serve as his barrister for a minimum fee, although with my lawyering skills I would probably end up just getting him put into stocks at Trafalgar Square or something, so he probably wouldn't want that. In all honesty though, I am rooting for Dontrelle and I hope that even if he doesn't get his career back going he can at least be happy with his personal life.

Phil Coke: There was some debate between Dombrowski and Leyland at the beginning of spring over what Coke's role on the team was going to be. Dombrowski wanted him to be tried out as a starter while Leyland was adamant that he remain in the bullpen. In the end the Marlboro Man won out and now Coke joins a whole gaggle of lefties in the bullpen, alongside Fu-Te Ni, Brad Thomas and the now injured Bobby Seay. This seems like lefty overkill for the pen, especially considering the rotation doesn't necessarily have the greatest options at the 4-5 spot, so personally I would have liked to see what Coke had to offer as a starter and maybe even give him a little time in Toledo to see if this is where his potential might lie down the road. Even if he turned out to be only a league average four starter, I believe that would be considerably more valuable than his current role as an above average lefty specialist in a pen that already has three of those including two that are appreciably better in Ni and Seay.

Fu-Te Ni: Ni was a nice surprise last season, as like most people I am are not a hardcore fan of the Taiwan Professional League. I had never heard of him prior to last year and had missed his work in during the World Baseball Classic. Ni quickly turned into one of my favorite pitchers to watch last season as I've always had an affinity for junk balling situational lefties. Ni hardly throws anything above the high 80's and he never throws anything straight. He was absolute murder on lefthanders last season and by the end of the year had earned the confidence of Leyland to pitch in big spots. He played a crucial role in the 163^rd game last season against the Twins, effectively shutting down the Twins dangerous left handed heavy middle of the order. Having Ni makes it much easier for the Tigers to stomach the loss of Bobby Seay due to injury and he is a credit to the Tigers eye for pitching talent.

Ryan Perry: Count me among the many who are really excited for Ryan Perry's future as a Tiger. Although he struggled mightily with his control at times last year and was sent down to the minors on more than one occasion to corral his wildness and develop some semblance of a second pitch, Perry's overall numbers at the end of the year were impressive for a young player. The Tigers drafted Perry in the first round two seasons ago because they thought he was major league ready and would move quickly through the minors, however I don't think the Tigers expected him to move this quickly. His fastball is still a little straight and the lack of a consistent second pitch is troubling, but when a pitcher cooks with as much gas as Perry does, high 90's with the occasional triple digit offering, they can afford to have a shall shallow repertoire. My best case scenario for Perry would be for him to slide into the set-up role sometime during this season, find some success in high leverage situations and have him groomed and ready to slide into the closer's role when Valverde's deal expires after the 2011 season.

Jose Valverde: Initially I was pissed at the Valverde signing, since it came right on the heels of the Granderson trade. In an effort to make my monkey brain understand the Granderson trade I came up with the conclusion that the only way to justify it was that it must have been first and foremost a business decision, strictly a cost cutting move because the team was in dire financial straits and all those rumors of the team hemorrhaging money due to the economic collapse were not only true, but possibly even worse than imagined. Then the Tigers went out and spent $14 million on a closer who would make more money over the next two seasons than Granderson would and I was infuriated. It seemed like such an unnecessary signing, especially considering the Tigers had options in-house such as the aforementioned Perry, or maybe they could do some wishcasting and hope and pray that Zumaya would be healthy and effective enough to finally take over the mantle of closer he seemed destined to inherit 3 years ago. In all honesty Perry is probably a couple years away from being crowned closer and expecting Zumaya to ever be healthy enough or dependable enough to be closer probably died with his first serious arm injury, so after I calmed down and realized that the Granderson deal wasn't the worst thing to happen to me since my parents gave away my first dog while I was away at school, I sort of like the Valverde signing. Also after having to sit through years of watching Todd Jones and Fernando Rodney desperately struggle to close games with their differing high wire acts, the money saved on health care and Rolaids and Tums alone would more than make up for the value of Valverde's contract.

Joel Zumaya: I'm putting the over/under on how many innings Zumaya throws this season at 40 and taking the under. I'm also putting a line out there that the over/under on how may years it will be before Zumaya throws a pitch so violently that his arm detaches from his body and makes it to home plate at 2 years and I'm once again taking the under. It truly is amazing that with how many traumatic arm injuries Zumaya has had that he can even throw a baseball much less a fastball that still regularly hits triple digits. However with each injury Zumaya has suffered it seems like he loses a little bit of effectiveness, which is completely understandable. Even though he may look like the same pitcher from his magical 2006 season, when he was living the high life of local sports sensation, folk hero, future closer and Comcast High Speed Internet commercial stardom, a quick look at his statistics for the past three seasons show that the Zumaya of 2006 is long gone and he ain't coming back. I think the only thing to hope for is a full healthy season of Zumaya serving in a late inning role, with an ERA around 4.00 and hopefully some flashes of the dominant fireballer we all fell in love with four seasons ago, but I fear even that is probably asking for way to much.

Opening the Vault: Juan Gonzalez

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:22:00 +0000

Over a year ago Sports Illustrated posted their entire archives for free online. At the time I wrote about how fantastic this was for sports history nerds like myself, who could spend hours a day at work or in class reading articles about Mark Fidrych or Magic Johnson or Olympic heroes at the height of their glory or fallen stars like Dwight Gooden or Mike Tyson at their lowest. Little did I know how much time I would actually waste on this site. I've read articles ranging from an interesting profile on Michael Jordan after his first retirement to recaps of the 1991 NHL playoff semifinals. I became such a shut-in while reading these articles that in order to quell any suspicion about my disappearance I dressed a gorilla in human clothing and trained it to go out in my place to any social events that came up. Of course this plan backfired as my friends, family and girlfriend all preferred the more stimulating conversations, improved manners and decrease in feces throwing that my trained gorilla provided over my company. Now that same gorilla is my boss and dating my ex. How embarrassing. Anyways my time in the S.I. Vault reached it's nadir the other day when I found myself neglecting my duties at work for a chance to read an article grading the Major League Baseball free agent class of 1977. I had never heard of Wayne Garland before reading that article but I felt compelled to read a five page story dealing with his various struggles after signing the first large contract ever handed out to a free agent pitcher. This constant need to read S.I. articles had spiraled out of control into my worst obsession since I maxed out all my credit cards in college buying Precious Moments figurines from Hallmark.
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Just so something positive can come out of my addiction to the S.I. Vault I thought I would post this article about Juan Gonzalez's disastrous season with the Detroit Tigers. I wrote one of these last summer about Matt Millen with the idea of making this a weekly feature on this site and here it is over a year later and I'm only posting my second one, which sounds about right for me. Once again I'm not going to be critical of Tom Verducci's writing, because 1: Verducci is one of the best writer's covering baseball today and 2: my writing is terrible and I'm barely literate so I have no room to speak. Instead I'm just going to focus on the parts of this article that are funny or painful now that we can look back on them with some historical perspective. This was a rather long article so I've only excerpted parts of it and if you want to read the whole thing go here.

One of the finer features of the home clubhouse in Comerica Park, the Detroit Tigers' new stadium, is a huge TV in the center of the team's clubhouse. The unit faces the right side of the room, and it inspired envy among a few of the Tigers with lockers on the left side when they checked out their new digs on the eve of their April 11 home opener. One of those players quickly calmed the others by noting that the left-side residents had an expensive addition of their own who would undoubtedly help them attain oversized-appliance parity: outfielder Juan Gonzalez. "Is Juan on our side?" said one of the left-side guys. "Then we'll have a TV of our own tomorrow."

Little did these players know that they dodged a bullet, because in Juan Gonzalez's media guide biography from the 2000 season it says his favorite T.V. shows were "Suddenly Susan" and "Caroline in the City." Speaking of "Caroline in the City", which is a sentence I never thought I would say or write, I have kind of a funny story about that show as it is directly involved in one of the only fistfights I've ever been in during my life since I retired from the Kumite after defeating Chong Li for the World Title in Martial Arts. Anyways, during my freshman year at State my room mate Mike, who I've talked about frequently on this site, stayed up until all hours watching whatever crap was on the television. This was back before I became the caustic, cynical and lazy person I am today so I was taking all morning and early afternoon classes and actually cared enough about my grades to read all the materials and attend all the lectures and take a copious amount of notes. Exams were coming up and my stress level was reaching an all time high. Mike of course could care less about how he did on exams as long as his GPA was high enough not to get kicked out of school, so he stayed up until ungodly hours watching whatever crappy movie or tv show was playing on TV. Since we lived in a cramped dorm room my loft bed was literally on top of the television so there was no way for me to avoid the sounds of the tv. Things started to get tense the night before when he stayed up until 4 AM watching "Enemy Mine" a terrible 80's sci-fi flick about a human and alien stranded on a deserted planet and the friendship they forge even though the two are at war with each other. I let this slide but the next day I was tired as hell and had an exam the following morning. I went and laid down in my loft and Mike started watching tv, namely an episode of "Caroline in the City" where Dill is trying to learn how to rollerblade. Without warning I sprung out of my loft bed and pulled the cord for the tv out of the wall. Mike got up and shoved me in the back and I picked up a case of Capri Suns (my weapon of choice that year) and started swinging it around my head. After this skirmish went on for about 10 minutes, our neighbors next door started banging on the wall so we stopped. I went to bed, he plugged the tv back in and we never mentioned the incident again because it was easily the most embarrassing fight either one of us had ever been in.

He must not be interested in a big-screen TV because another one has yet to appear in the clubhouse. But the Tigers are perfectly willing to make Gonzalez the highest-paid player in the game by a margin of more than 25% over what the Dodgers are paying righthander Kevin Brown, who is getting $15 million per year. Detroit offered Gonzalez $151.5 million over eight years shortly after the Nov. 2 trade with Texas, according to a source familiar with the proposal.

Let's play a terrifying game of What If? What If Juan Gonzalez didn't have an agent who must have been certifiably insane. What If Juan Gone's agent had acted like any normal rational agent would have and after waking up from passing out after receiving such a mind-blowingly large contract offer immediately said, "YES! YES! YES! He'll sign immediately! Where can I meet you? How soon do you want to do this? I'll draw the contract up right now! No takesie backsies!" Now I'm not sure how this contract would've worked. I'm assuming it would've kicked in like an extension after the 2000 season, which means the Tigers would've been paying Juan Gone at least $18,875,000 last season and that's assuming the offer wasn't backloaded. Now Juan rebounded and did have a couple of nice seasons after he left Detroit but he hasn't played an inning in the majors since he played exactly one inning back in 2005. That would've been the single most disastrous contract in Major League history. If Gonzalez signs that deal it would've crippled the franchise for the entire decade. No Dombrowski, no Pudge, no Maggs, no Leyland, no World Series run in '06, just a bloated payroll being weighed down by the contract of an oft-injured, useless and washed up old slugger. Even acquiring and playing Edgar Renteria wasn't as damaging as this contract would've been. That's the scariest thought I've had since my dream the other night that Matt Millen had been hired to run the Lions again and he hired a coaching staff that was the cast of the Puppetmaster movies.

General manager Randy Smith gambled on Nov. 2 that Gonzalez was the marquee player who would be the foundation of the franchise's revival and help sell tickets that go for as much as $75 at the Copa. Smith traded pitchers Justin Thompson and Francisco Cordero, outfielder Gabe Kapler, infielder Frank Catalanotto, catcher Bill Haselman and minor league pitcher Alan Webb for Gonzalez and two spare parts, catcher Greg Zaun and pitcher Danny Patterson.

What a bunch of crap for both teams. I remember when this trade went down I was excited to have a two-time MVP on the team but was wary with the way the Tigers had completely gutted their system to make it happen. Thompson was the centerpiece at the time but ended up suffering a major arm injury and was never the same pitcher after that. Kapler was a hot prospect at the time but seemed more concerned with modeling than playing baseball. I still remember when he played for the Tigers he would come up to the music "Whatta Man", preen in the batter's box and then strike out on three straight pitches. Catalanotto pieced together a solid career as a platoon utilityman and Patterson gave the Tigers a few solid relief seasons before succumbing to an arm injury himself. Cordero probably had the best career of anybody after this trade as he became a top line closer for the Rangers and has made a few All-Star teams in his career. The Rangers also managed to flip him to the Brewers for half a season of Carlos Lee and Nelson Cruz, the latter of which has blossomed into an All-Star outfield slugger. In the long view this trade turned out pretty good for the Rangers due to the fact that they are still benefiting from the deal in the form of the production they are getting from Nelson Cruz. However if you break it down on the players traded in the original transaction and what they provided their respective clubs it turns out to just be kind of a "meh" trade.

There are those in the Tigers organization, however, who wonder why the deal was made in the first place. Peter Bragan Jr., general manager of their Double A affiliate in Jacksonville recently told the Detroit Free Press, "Did those boys up there have a brain spasm or something? They told us as far back as two years ago that their plan with the new stadium was to build the team around higher-caliber pitchers because they pushed the fences back.... Then they acquire a righthanded slugger in Gonzalez. That seems kind of strange."

This is a perfect indictment of the Randy Smith era. The fact that the general manager of the Double-A affiliate openly questioned the moves the general manager of the major league team in a major publication is unbelievable. This would be like the whitetrash assistant manager of a local Arby's going on the record in Forbes magazine with criticism of the company's decision to give away Roastburgers for free on Wednesday afternoons. The funny thing here is that the Double-A manager is right and was probably eminently more qualified to run the Tigers than Randy Smith was. I remember after it became obvious that Juan Gone was going to leave after the season, the Tigers made a bunch of noise about going out and acquiring Mike Mussina and another pitcher (Kevin Appier maybe?) with the money they had offered to Gonzalez with the idea they would assemble the great pitching and defense required to win at the expansive Copa. Of course both Mussina and Appier laughed in the Tigers faces and took big money to sign with the Yankees and Mets respectively and the Tigers were left holding their cash and making their hundredth trade with the Astros to acquire Chris Holt and drudging up Willie Blair's corpse for another abbreviated go-around. Ugh. I hate Randy Smith. He almost single handily ruined my interest in baseball. It's funny that he was viewed as some sort of general manager prodigy when he was first hired, and then turned into a disaster of such epic proportions that, if not for Matt Millen's reign of terror, he would have been viewed as the worst general manager in Detroit's sports history. This would be like if Mozart had been billed as a musical genius wunderkind and then ended up only playing keyboards in a Flock of Seagulls tribute band.

If you were to cast someone to play Rangers manager Johnny Oates in a movie, you'd choose an actor such as Wilford Brimley, someone with a grandfatherly manner and a twinkle in his eye. Oates says... "He's not a bad guy. He is sensitive and moody. Any little thing could set him off and ruin his day, and you weren't going to get anything out of him that day. But he's not a bad guy."

I know I promised not to be critical of Verducci's writing but it's just lazy to say the actor most likely to portray Oates in a movie is the guy whose most famous for being the Quaker Oats spokesman. My last name is Stout, so this would be like saying the actor most likely to play me in a movie would be Fatty Arbuckle while ignoring the fact that in real life I look like some kind of mutant cross between DJ Qualls and Sandra Bernhard.

"Juan will not play if he's not 100 percent," says Melvin. "He has so much pride, he doesn't want to go out there if it means he can't run full speed to first base. Because that means the fans might boo him. He is a prideful person. He's not a bad guy."

I'm pretty sure that if one person has to preface a statement about your character by saying "He's not a bad guy, but..." It means you are a pretty bad guy. However if multiple people, including nearly every person you've had a working relationship with over the previous decade has to preface what they say about you with, "He's not a bad guy, but..." then you might be the worst human being since Ivan the Terrible or at least Stalin.

That tag—he's not a bad guy—gets thrown at Gonzalez more than breaking balls a foot off the plate. He grew up in a drug-infested barrio in Puerto Rico, the same streets that claimed the life of an older half-brother, Puma, a heroin addict, in 1994. One brother dies of an overdose, another never so much as puts a cigarette to his lips and becomes such a Puerto Rican icon that shopkeepers build shrines to him behind their counters. "When you walk with him in Alto de Cuba," Smith says of Gonzalez's barrio, "it is like walking with a god."

Wow, being motivated by the death of a heroin addicted older brother named Puma. That sounds almost to badass to be true. It seems more like the backstory to a television drama about a motivated and serious young Puerto Rican undercover cop, who shoots first and asks questions later, plays fast and loose and blurs the line between following police procedure and stopping at nothing to get his man, all while butting heads with his straight-laced, by the book partner and hard assed sergeant who is always threatening to pull him off the case. Damn, for a minute there I thought I had an original idea for a television but I just realized that I just described pretty much every police drama going back to the Andy Griffith Show episode where town drunk Otis is coerced by Colombian drug lords into smuggling little balloons filled with cocaine into Mayberry for distribution. After getting drunk and ending up in the town's drunk tank one of the ballons burst inside Otis' stomach sending him into a murderous coke induced rage where he strangled town deputy Harry Fife to death before he could be subdued. Harry's brother Barney took over his deceased brother's position and posed as a bumbling and comically inept town deputy while coldly and methodically killing off the men he saw as responsible for his brother's tragic death. How could I forget such a landmark series.

Gonzalez reached the big leagues at 19 and won a home run title at 22. He spoke almost no English, so in 1992 the Rangers hired Luis Mayoral, a respected Latin American journalist and baseball executive, as a kind of guidance counselor for Gonzalez and his Puerto Rican teammates, catcher Ivan Rodriguez and outfielder Ruben Sierra.

Until this paragraph I never realized that so many former Rangers stars essentially ended their careers as productive players in Detroit, and this list doesn't even include Dean Palmer. I guess what I'm saying is I can't wait for 2020 when a past their prime Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler or Michael Young are slowly fading away while wearing the Olde English D.

...A few weeks later Gonzalez refused to dress for the Hall of Fame exhibition game because the uniform pants the Rangers brought for him were too large. Of the All-Star voting, he says, "The system is wrong. Any player who plays every day, works hard and puts up numbers like I do should be starting the All-Star Game. Players and managers should vote for the starting players." About the exhibition in Cooperstown, Gonzalez says, "I couldn't play because my right wrist was sore. The pants they gave me were size 40. I wear 34. They were clown pants."

I actually love this idea. The way the Tigers played from 1995-2005 was the equivalent of watching a group of drunk Shriner clowns mimic a baseball game. The idea of Juan Encarnacion kicking a ball around in right field while wearing some oversized green and purple polka dot pants while Roger Cedeno comes running over to help before slipping on a banana peel and Bobby Higginson is stuck in left field with his head up some horses ass kicking his legs around in a comical fashion while circus music plays in the background would've been a humorous way to watch some painful Tigers defense. I think it should be a written rule in baseball that the worst team from the previous year has to play the following season dressed like clowns. Attendance at Nationals games would go through the roof. They could even get a donkey to play left field. Hang on, my head is exploding with ideas right now.

Smith wasn't bothered by either incident. The Tigers G.M. had been badgering Melvin about a trade for Gonzalez since last June. Melvin kept telling Smith he didn't have the nerve to trade Gonzalez with the team still in a pennant race. The Rangers eventually lost to the Yankees in the Division Series. At the World Series, Melvin bumped into Gonzalez's agent, Jim Bronner. Knowing that Gonzalez's contract ran out after the 2000 season, Melvin asked, "Would Juan consider a deal similar to what Larry Walker [six years, $75 million] took from the Rockies?" "I don't think we can do that," Bronner said.

So now we find out that Juan Gonzalez turned down two contract proposals in the matter of months that were worth tens of millions of dollars more than he would make over the remainder of his career. I'm assuming his agent never represented anybody of note again and in fact I wouldn't be surprised if his body turned up in some lake in Puerto Rico. I wonder if he was this bad at negotiating in other areas of the law. "Ok so I got you out of your speeding ticket, but in order to get the prosecutor to drop it I had to agree to have you plea to a third offense D.U.I. Now you'll lose your license for life and you may end up serving a year in jail but at least you won't have to pay the $120 fine. Now I think this is a really generous offer but if you want to hold out and see if I can get him to agree to give you a vehicular manslaughter charge just let me know."

When the Tigers made their $151.5 million offer to Gonzalez, they also invited him to Detroit for an introductory news conference. Who knows, Smith thought, maybe he'll even sign the contract when he steps off the plane. Except Gonzalez didn't show.

Wow, as much as I hate Randy Smith for single handily trying to ruin my interest in baseball as a child reading this paragraph actually made me feel a little sorry for him. As a single man who lives with a cat and whose idea of an exciting Friday night is working on a cross stitch and watching old VHS copies of the Frugal Gourmet I know a thing or two about being stood up. I've asked out girls who never called me back, called me Allan when I was out with them, came up with fake illnesses to get out of seeing me again or just plain didn't show up. But that's mostly because I drive around in a windowless conversion van with "Sex Wagon" spray painted on the side and rope, duct tape and bags of lye in the back and my idea of a romantic first date mostly involves them picking up the tab after eating out at a gas station Rally's, so my bad luck with girls is more than deserved. However I think if I were taking someone out for the purpose of giving them a check for 151 million dollars they would at least show up regardless of how creepy my car was or how low on the shit totem pole of gas station fast food garbage I tried to feed them.

In his seven full big league seasons (not including the strike-shortened 1994 and '95 seasons), Gonzalez has averaged 41 home runs and 127 RBIs while batting .298. "I don't care if he's high-maintenance," says Detroit third baseman Dean Palmer, who played with Gonzalez in Texas. "When you produce like he does, it doesn't matter. I'm sick of hearing him take crap. The bottom line is the guy drives in 140 runs year in and year out and works as hard as any player in baseball. That's what counts."

Well, according to baseball-reference.com, Nostradamus Palmer's bold prediction of 140 rbi for Juan Gone was only short by 73. Juan's final line that year .289/.337/.505 with 29 homeruns and 67 rbi, which was hands down the worst season of his career up to this point. Since Palmer was so off-base on this prediction it makes me feel more secure that his prediction that the world will come to an end in 2012 and that I will die after being eaten alive by a grizzly bear in the ensuing chaos won't come true.

Says Smith, "If you invest the money on a star player, you want a guy who's as dedicated to the game as this guy. He doesn't want much. He wants to play, work out, go home, and do it again tomorrow."

Did Smith even talk to Melvin or Oates or anybody in baseball before he traded for Juan Gone? Because about five paragraphs up both Melvin and Oates talk about how he refuses to play unless everything surrounding him is absolutley perfect, including the size of his pants. By all accounts Juan was famous for being one of the most mercurial prima donna sluggers to play in baseball since Mercuilus McPrimadonna starred for the Boston Bees in 1938. Gonzalez would keep this reputation up for the remainder of his career until it eventually forced him out of the game. He was famous before his season with the Royals for training with a shirt on that said "162", for the number of games he was going to play in. He ended up playing 33. The next season he signed a one year deal with the Indians and had all of one at bat before straining his hamstring and sitting out the rest of the season. That's how Juan's career finished. That doesn't sound like someone who wants to play, work out and go home, it just looks like someone who will work just hard enough for someone to cut him a check, a work ethic that I'm trying my hardest to get named "the Beefshower method."

After dinner Gonzalez and his friends piled into his white Mercedes and headed for his downtown apartment. He drove the car through empty streets wet from a cold rain, past the silhouettes of abandoned and crumbling buildings. In such spots the utter darkness of Detroit is as complete and foreboding as Europe during the war.

It wouldn't be an article about Detroit without an unnecessary shot at how run down Detroit is. I'm surprised Verducci, whose writing I generally like just didn't go the whole nine yards when mentioning Detroit cliches and say something like, "As we drove back through downtown Detroit, past a group of fat fans holding up Tigers pennants and dancing around a burning police car, drug dealing prostitutes, sewer dwelling cannibals and a series of bombed out buildings that appeared to be straight from 1945 Dresden, I know longer wondered what it would be like to live in a Mad-Max style post apocalyptic world, where lawlessness prevailed and the streets were patrolled by a homo-erotic punk rock biker gang in search of gasoline because I was already in a place that was much worse."

The future Gonzalez said he didn't worry about now seems as murky as the air that night. Six months of courtship, and the Tigers still don't know if he will stay.

He won't

In a more hopeful moment, before Gonzalez had experienced the vastness of Comerica Park and the ineptitude of his new team, the Tigers printed pocket-sized informational brochures about the shiny new ballpark, with a smiling Gonzalez on the cover. The tag line below the photograph resonates with unintended irony: YOU'LL LOVE PLAYING HERE.

He didn't

Ty Cobb's Diary

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:08:00 +0000

Reading has always been one of my biggest hobbies and anyone who has ever seen me can attest to this fact by noting that I have the body of a heavy reader. I have been dishonest in the past when I've described my physique on this website. I'm not a seven foot tall, bronzed Adonis, I wasn't the inspiration for the Statue of David and I wasn't named the handsomest lawyer since Abe Lincoln by the International Association of Swimsuit Supermodels. In fact that organization doesn't even exist and the ribbon I claimed to have won from them is really nothing but an elementary school track and field day participation ribbon. This was probably all patently obvious to anybody who saw the ribbon, which featured a cartoon girl jumping over a hurdle, but everyone was either to polite or to terrified to ever correct me. No, the truth is I actually have skin that's so pale it appears translucent, skinny arms, a sunken chest, thick glasses and an asthmatic cough that is stereotypical of a nerdy bookworms body. I may only be twenty-five but from the neck down I could be mistaken for a feeble octogenarian or that frightening Zelda from the first Pet Semetary movie, but I digress.

I wanted to keep this post short but I couldn't get through the opening paragraph without going off on some tangential nonsense. Regardless, the point of this post is that whenever I'm reading heavily I'll target certain genres and read as much as I can about them before I get bored. For example I've gone through phases where I've read nothing but Russian literature, British literature, baseball history, the Revolutionary War, the Sweet Valley High Series and numerous online slash fiction that revolves around the cast of "Roseanne". However my most recent area of focus has been on biographies of great historical figures namely, Peter the Great, Ty Cobb, Henry Ford, Andrew Jackson and most recently David McCullough's outstanding biography about John Adams. One common theme from all of these books is that the author relied heavily on the subject's personal diaries and journals when reconstructing their past. This was especially apparent in the aforementioned "John Adams" where McCullough excerpts whole passages from Adams' diary dating back to his days as a student at Harvard University. These detailed entries from a young Adams were awash in the lofty ideals and ambitions that would shape the future president's political outlook as well as shedding light on his bouts with melancholy and vanity that would continue to plague him throughout his life. However fascinating and illuminating these passages were in giving life to the subject, the more I thought about it the more I realized that only the best and most interesting diary entries made the cut and appeared in the biography. Of course this is common sense, as nobody really cares to read about Henry Ford's grocery list, but it did get me wondering what the more mundane entries in a famous persons diary might look like. Unfortunately I wasn't able to procure John Adams diaries because he lived way the hell out in Massachusetts and I'm to lazy to walk up a flight of stairs let alone travel all the way to Boston to read some dead guys diary. However I was able to come across Ty Cobb's personal journal and found exactly what I was looking for. I've posted his unedited entry below, which I believe has never been published before and was surprisingly overlooked in Al Stump's biography of the Georgia Peach. It offers a fascinating look into the day to day life of the Tigers most legendary player.

July 22, 1911: Detroit

"Today I came closer to crapping my pants than I have at any point in my life. That's not the way I typically start one of these journal entries so let me do a little explaining. The day was already off to a bad start as we had dropped our third straight to the visiting New York Highlanders and saw our lead atop the American League diminish as we learned via the wire after our loss that the hard charging Phil(adelphia) A's had gained on us in the standings thanks to their smiting of the hapless Wash(ington) Sens. I was already feeling somewhat ill from having to frequently look at Hal Chase's disfigured pox marked face as I safely reached first four times this 'noon. After the game had finished I retired to the clubhouse and was surprised to find that our miserly, penny pinching bastard owner (Frank) Navin had actually sprung for a post-game buffet. I was immediately suspicious of this unexpected generosity bestowed on us by this owl looking Shylock, but my spirits were low and my body was famished so I partook in the spread of fruit and fish. I instantly regretted this decision and it later came to my attention that Mr. Navin had procured these provisions after he had passed a local market and saw the help disposing of the spoiled fish. Mr. Pinchfist couldn't stand the fact that the fish was going to waste, so he had his driver circle the block before he sneaked upon the trashcan, fended off a swarm of alley cats and made off with the rotten fish. Unfortunately these facts did not come to light until after I had eaten a substantial proportion of the fish. I immediately felt queasy and sat quietly in the clubhouse waiting for my insides to calm down as the rest of my team mates departed. I read the local papers and (racist comments redacted to protect the interests of this blog and it's proprietor). Finally feeling settled I gathered my things and hopped in my shiny, new Chalmers Touring Car I received for winning the batting title in 1910, despite the best efforts of that swarthy Frenchman Nap Lajoie and those sad sack St. Louis Browns. Little does anyone know that we ourselves cheated in an effort to get me that batting title, counting my stats twice from a game earlier in the season to boast my average upward. It's not like anyone will ever find out, I mean unless there is some nervous, sweaty jerk with no life perusing 75 year old box scores in some library will anybody ever know, and nobody in the future will be wasting their time looking at old stats, by that time everybody will be living on the moon and making love to beautiful moon women. Sigh...I wish I could live in the future, but I digress. Anyways I turned north on Trumbull on my way back to my nice little home over on Commonwealth, when, a little less than halfway to my apartment I felt the entire contents of my stomach drop into my ass. Not good. I spent the next two minutes focusing in a desperate attempt to turn the contents of my bowels from imminent diarrhea into a series of farts. Driving was of secondary importance at this moment in time as a much more serious and earnest matter was at hand. So the farts came slowly and they were "roll down all four windows" level of vile. I pushed this to the brink and it wasn't until the last fart seared my leg like hot steam escaping from a blast furnace that I decided to stop passing them. Luckily this had bought me enough time to get to the driveway of my residence. However, I feared that if I moved, even slightly, the floodgates would open and wouldn't cease and I would be stuck in my brand new touring car with pants full of feces. So I had to put myself in a trance, slow down everything that was happening around me and focus intently on not crapping my pants, not unlike the level of concentration required when staring down a Walter Johnson speedball or a knee buckling Chief Bender jughandle curve. After a few moments of meditation I was ready to calmly walk up to my residence, go inside and proceed to the bathroom. However, much to my infinite consternation, part way up the stairs the family mutt barked (note, make young Tyrus dig a hole in the back yard and shoot the dog he wanted in front of him as a lesson for not keeping his infernal beast quiet and angering his father. Also include this in your planned upcoming instructional guide to parenting tentatively titled "How to Raise a Son to be a Doctor but Still Make Him So Ashamed He Turns into a Suicidal Alcoholic.") and snapped my concentration and a cold sweat instantly poured over me. I sprinted for the front door with such fury that I would've assuredly beaten Don Lippincott in a foot race at that moment. I was simultaneously fumbling for my keys and disrobing on the front porch in full view of all the neighbors before finally getting inside. This led to a long turtle walk down the hallway and past the missus to the toilet where I was finally able to unleash all of my glory upon the porcelain throne. After a solid minute of such wrath I was contemplating if this was the end of my days and was embarrassed that the headline off tomorrow's Times would certainly read, "Baseball's Georgia Peach Found Dead After Crapping His Brains Out His Ass." Fortunately the terror soon stopped and after a quick cleansing I retired to my bedroom for the evening where I plotted a plan to make Wild Bill Donovan suffer what I had gone through this eve."

Progress Report Card: Starting Pitchers

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:37:00 +0000

As promised I said I was going to start posting more frequently than I did in the past, which had really slowed down to about a bi-annual pace, and then it takes me a week to follow through with my first posting. Once again I blame my lack of updates on being busy with work and also for having a lousy work ethic. I know that last sentence sounds contradictory, but I wouldn't be the nervous, sweaty and insecure person I am today if I didn't possess the amazing ability to immediately contradict everything I say and do. I always thought I worked hard. I got through school relatively quick. I eschewed all sorts of parties in college and grad school to stay home alone crying and sewing sweaters for my cats....wait.....I meant to say studying for exams and reading casebooks. In retrospect I realize that I was only working hard in comparison to my pothead friends from high school who still work at an outlet mall. So even during those days in college where I slept in until 1 in the afternoon I didn't feel like I was being too lazy because I knew at least one of my friends was probably sitting in a darkened room, eating a box of Cheez-It's and watching a seventh straight hour of "Married With Children" on DVD without having gone to bed yet. However, now that I've been working with my Dad for the past six weeks I get to see first hand that my work ethic is sorely lacking. My Dad is literally a machine programmed to practice the law. I wouldn't be surprised if one day he cut open his arm and revealed a titanium skeleton underneath, or some kind of motherboard that has all the Court reports programmed into it, or if he shot orange juice out of his finger and had a microwave where his stomach should be. Hmm, well I guess those last two things aren't really relevant for being a lawbot but it would be pretty convenient nonetheless. My typical day begins with me getting to the office at 8:30 bleary-eyed and ready to go back to sleep and I'll find him already there carrying on three separate phone conversations, writing out a fax, checking an e-mail and barking at his secretary. It's madness and it makes me feel like I'm a lazy slacker for having commissioned a guy to paint a "closed for naps" sign to hang on my office door. I've tried to keep up but it's been impossorous. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if my Dad, in his free time, already operated a Tigers blog that updated news daily, provided pre and post game reports, live game blogs and had 100x's more traffic than my site all while writing under the pseudonym Ian Casselberry.

Anyways, I was going to write a midseason report on the Tigers but I realized that by the time I actually finished it the season would probably be over and no one would care about mid-season grades anymore. So instead of a comprehensive mid-season report I'm going to break it up into smaller groupings and hand out progress reports. I hated progress reports when I was in school. It just seemed like another way for the slower kids to get in trouble for having bad grades. I always felt terrible for the Louis Morrises and Billy Thorns of my grade who were perpetually grounded during the school year because they were required to bring home a report card full of failing grades every four weeks or so. Of course I only felt bad for as long as it took me to turn my straight-A progress report cards into free video game rentals at the video store or free games of bowling at the bowling alley. Of course this is because I'm a selfish jerk and it was hard to feel sympathetic for Mike Rock, who was probably chained to a leash outside his house after he got a D- in Global Studies, when I was in the middle of trying to beat Double Dragon II or impress some girl by bowling a 150, but I digress. Fortunately the Tigers are off to a rousing success to begin the season and are currently leading the AL Central so the grades I hand out are going to be pretty favorable and that means none of their parents are going to have to beat them with a sack of potatoes. Well maybe Nate Robertson.

Edwin Jackson: I don't think I ever wrote about it at the time but I was one of the people in the long line of naysayers who thought the Tigers blew it by trading away Matt Joyce for Edwin Jackson. Like a lot of Tigers fans I fell instantly for Matt Joyce. The powerful left handed stroke, the frozen rope throws from the outfield, the fearlessness in the field and on the basepaths, the handsome face, the gallant stride, the confidence in his voice, his dreamy eyes, *sigh*, and all we got in return was Edwin Jackson. Sure he won 14 games in 2008, but who cares. He was extremely lucky as his peripheral stats, namely his strikeout and walks, were middling. He didn't even profile as an inning eating mid rotation guy as his inefficiency led to high pitch counts and therfore short outings. Sure he threw hard and he looked like he should be better than he was, but he had already enticed and frustrated two organizations with potential but had disappointing results. I thought Detroit was going to be burned badly on this one and I had visions of Matt Joyce on his way to a 30 homerun season as Detroit continued its search for another lefty bat to balance the lineup. All the meanwhile E Jack would struggle to keep his ERA under 5.00 which would leave me planning to raise Bobby Veach from the dead to platoon with Ryan Raburn in RF. However this is why I'm not a scout and why I only show up at high school games posing as one to leer at the players hot teenage girlfriends. This is also why I'm not allowed within 1,500 feet from a high school. Anyways Jackson has been a revelation this year and if he had any kind of run support, like he did last season with Tampa, he would easily be in double digits for wins. It looks like he's actually putting all the talent and promise that enticed for years together in one complete package, not unlike Vanessa Hudgens. Grade: A

Rick Porcello: Thank god I was to busy to write a season preview because if I had I would be eating more crow than usual because of Rick Porcello (Note: During my previous life as a Depression Era wandering vagrant I had to get creative at times when it came time to find my next meal. I found crow to be an excellent source of nutrition and much tastier than possum and voles. This Depression Era alter ego still comes out in strange ways, so don't be surprised if I write a report on Tommy Bridges or am carving hobo code into the fence surrounding your lawn.) My friend Bill and I had a pretty heated argument over whether bringing Porcello north coming out of spring training was a good idea or not. I was firmly opposed to the idea and had reams and reams of evidence printed from the internet to support my conclusions. Unfortunately most of the stuff I printed from the internet were just nude photos of Rue McClanahan which didn't really support my argument and ended up just being a colossal waste of time and resources. Anyways the crux of my argument was that I didn't think this year's Tigers squad had what it took to contend and I thought it was a desperate move that could end up hindering Porcello's progress. I've always wondered if the Tigers rushed Jeremy Bonderman. Granted the circumstances surrounding Bonderman's arrival were much different than Porcello's as the 2003 Tigers were essentially a minor league team playing at the Major League level, but it seems like Bonderman's biggest hindrance was his inability to ever develop his changeup. This seems like something that, had he been able to follow a typical path to the big leagues, he would have developed and gained confidence in at the minor league level. Who cares if you get your brains beat in at Erie because your throwing some rudimentary changeup that some 28 year old organizational soldier hit 450 feet for a homerun? However if that happens at the big league level, you are costing the team games, a chance at the playoffs and letting major league hitters know they don't have to worry about being fooled by some sloppy offspeed offering. After reading that Porcello had been restricted in what he could throw at A ball last year I thought for sure he was heading for disaster while testing out his full arsenal at the big league level, regardless of how good he looked in spring training. So far I've been proven wrong as he's been essentially a league average pitcher while showing an impressive amount of poise and ability to get big league hitters with a heavy groundball generating sinker. I wish the K rate was higher and hopefully that's something the Tigers can see improve in the second half. But so far so good. Grade B+

Justin Verlander: JV was another guy I was pessimistic about entering the season. Mostly because I'm a terribly negative person who sits alone in a large barren mansion surrounded by dozens of cats with human names like Paul and Brenda. With all the stimulating cat conversations I have who needs any human friends? Back to JV though. I was worried that he was going to be one of those pitchers who had his best seasons early in his career and then slowly regressed to a league average pitcher, while everyone else wondered what the hell happened to the guy who regularly touched triple digits and had the stuff to once throw a no-hitter. My biggest fear was that he would continue to pitch just good enough for the fan base to put pressure on the front office to reward JV with a big contract extension before he settled into relative mediocrity or worse. I call this the Bobby Higginson/Damion Easley/Tony Clark Effect. Of course, despite feeling this way about Verlander and since I have a self-defeating personality and like to needlessly torture myself I felt obligated to draft Verlander for my fantasy team, which would allow him to frustrate me twice as much as normal. The season got off to a predictably bad start as through JV's first four starts he sported a tidy 9.00 ERA and my personal frustration level was through the roof. However despite the ridiculously high ERA there were signs that the Verlander of old was returning as his strikeout rate remained high and his velocity and movement seemed to be at 2006/07 levels instead of last years debacle. The very next start at home against the Yankees Verlander began what may be the most impressive nine game stretch by a pitcher I've ever seen. He won 7 straight decisions, regularly racked up double digit strikeout totals and with the help of Curtis Granderson's spectacular game saving homerun catch against Cleveland Verlander recorded his first shoutout since that no-hitter against the Brewers two years ago. He's cooled off slightly in the past month but has still pitched well enough to sport the best ERA of his career and lead the league in strikeouts despite his disastrous month of April. If he can keep up this performance during the second half and hopefully into October, Verlander and Jackson could make up the most formidable 1-2 punch in the A.L. Grade A:

Armando Galarraga: Just to reinforce the fact that I know absolutely nothing about baseball even though I have been watching this game my entire life, that my predictions are terrible no matter how much I trust my gut or statistical projections and that you shouldn't even be reading this blog no matter how witty and engaging my commentary may be, I am going to share with you what my preseason feeling about Armando Galarraga was. I thought he was going to be the ace of this staff and surprisingly turn into one of the best pitchers in baseball. Instead, of course, after a brilliant April he has struggled mightily and during Jeremy Bonderman's abbreviated return this season Armando was in serious jeopardy of losing his job in the rotation. The thing that seems odd when I watch Galarraga (And by the way trying to spell Galarraga's name makes me feel dyslexic. Just in this post alone I've spelled it Gallaraga, Galaraga, Galaragga and Ggaallaarraaggaa. My brain hurts) this season is that, in most of his starts he looks fine. It seems like his two seamer still has a ton of movement on it and that his slider has good bite to it, but it feels like every time a batter makes contact with a pitch it gets hit hard. I know there have been a couple of occasions this year where I have been watching a game and seen a little slider that looks like a nice pitch get hit to the outfield and look like a routine lineout and when the camera pans to the outfield it's scraping over the fence for a homerun. Granted there have been a few times, namely a start against the Pirates back in June, where Armando has just looked terrible, but you could say that about nearly any pitcher not named Verlander or Jackson. I almost wish that there was some sort of website that had advanced statistics that was easily accessible and gave information like BABip and line drive rate. Maybe I'll invent it and name it Fangraphs or make a subscription website named Baseball Prospectus and charge people for that data! This is how I'm going to make my millions off the Internet and leave this whole law job behind. Suckers. Now to just go register those domain names and.......wait.....hmmm......it seems someone has already done that. Crap. Well now I'm way to disappointed to actually access those statistics and make a point about Galaragga hopefully heading towards some kind of correction between his stats and performance. Here's hoping that he finds some middle ground between his April stats and his current ones and turns into a solid league average #4 starter down the stretch. Grade C-

Luke French: After the disaster with Jacques Jones last season I was ready to swear off any baseball player that had any kind of tangential connection to France whether it be cheese, froglegs, baguettes, a French sounding name or Steve Jeltz's gherri curl . Even if Napoleons skeleton rose from the grave and his tiny stature made him the most effective leadoff hitter since Tony Phillips or I found out the Curtis Granderson was a member of the Jacobin Club I was adamantly opposed to cheering for anything remotely French again. So when I saw some dude named Luke French was not only sliding into the rotation but was also replacing my latest Latin pitching obsession I was less than pleased. However French has slowly won me over because if there is one thing I love more than hard throwing Latin pitchers with a ton of movement, it's crafty left handed pitchers that get by with control, deception, moxie, guts, whatever name you want to call it, etc, and etc. French has only made three starts since joining the rotation following the demotion of Alfredo Figaro and has pitched admirably well in all three games, including a great start against a hot Yankees team that could've earned him a win if not for Joel Zumaya's final disasterpiece before hitting the DL. The Tigers top three starters have been so good this season that they really only need to get league average or so pitching from the other two spots in the rotation to be O.K. If French can keep up a league average performance as well as provide the rotation with the token southpaw that could give some of the left-leaning A.L. teams some trouble down the stretch, he would be a very valuable commodity. However this is also coming from someone who was genuinely excited about Andy Van Hekken's future. Grade: A

Alfredo Figaro: Anyone who has read this site over the past few years knows my endless obsession with tall, thin Latino pitchers who throw hard and have a ton of movement on their pitches. The obsession began with Wil Ledezma who, and I mention this every time because it may have been the most insane thing I've ever written and this is coming from someone who just wrote about Napoleans skeleton batting leadoff for the Tigers, I thought had the potential to be the next Pedro Martinez. Seriously I should have been Ledezma's agent just for the fact that it would have been hilarious for me to be on the phone with the Washington Nationals GM after they DFA'ed Ledezma this season screaming, "I hope you know he's going to mention what a jackass you are during his Hall of Fame speech, you assclown!". After Ledezma was unceremoniously dumped on the Braves my attention turned towards Yorman Bazardo. I didn't have as high a ceiling for Bazardo as I did Ledezma because I think I only compared Bazardo to the second coming of Luis Tiant. Of course that didn't work out either as I'm pretty sure Bazardo is selling oranges in a little cart outside my law office nowadays. So when Figaro made his debut against the Brewers on national TV I made a promise to myself not to get to excited no matter how well he pitched. Of course this lasted only until about the 4th inning of a stellar debut that had me online purchasing a customized and authentic Figaro jersey. That pretty much jinxed him for life and by his next start he was giving up second deck bombs to Kaz Matsui and earning a one way ticket back to Toledo. I hope he makes it back otherwise my Figaro jersey is going to look awfully foolish. Grade: Inc.

Dontrelle Willis and Jeremy Bonderman: Of course with all good news there has to be bad news. Like "hey, some girl like Andy! Oh, she's got three legs and a hump....". So even though the pitching has been a pleasant surprise this year, ranking second in the A.L. behind only the Mariners, there have been two things that have gone horribly awry and their names are Dontrelle Willis and Jeremy Bonderman. Both of these pitchers are dealing with serious problems that may be putting their careers in jeopardy. Dontrelle had the stunning news at the end of spring training that he was going on the D.L. with an anxiety disorder. After months of rehab in the minors as well as medication by team doctors, Dontrelle made his debut with the big league club. With everyone, including myself, expecting the worst D-Train's first start was solid. He followed that up with an impressive one-hitter against the Texas Rangers that had many people, again myself included, claiming he was back. Things slowly unraveled from there and by his last start in Pittsburgh he was a complete and total mess. Walking batter after batter and looking completely lost on the mound. It was painful to watch someone's career ending right before your eyes. Not surprisingly after the game D-Train was back on the D.L. with a recurrence of his anxiety disorder. Bonderman's issues were physical as he had major surgery last season on his shoulder to correct a blood clot issue. Rumors spread that there may have been damage done to a nerve during the surgery and Bonderman pitching ineffectively during spring training and his minor league rehab assignment did little to dispel those rumors. After making one start against the White Sox that featured below average velocity and stuff Bonderman was back on the D.L. for another extended stay. It appears that neither of these pitchers will be able to help the Tigers this season as the team pursues an A.L. Central crown but here is hoping that they both can get their health and careers back on track and contribute to next years team in some capacity. Grade: Inc.

New Content Coming Soon

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:41:00 +0000

To the five people who read this site that aren't my cat or my mom I promise to post some new content ASAP. For those who were wondering about my latest mysterious disappearance I'm sorry to say it's for a rather boring reason. I've previously explained away absences by blaming my meth addiction, taking journeys through Paris with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway or being abducted by a clan of underground ninjas whose secrets I threatened to expose but this time I was away because I passed by the bar exam (Hey 8th times a charm). This has led to me having to work hard at a regular 9-5 job for the first time in my life and the adjustment has been absolutely brutal. Now that my fledgling law practice is starting to get off the ground a little, I feel like I can get back to writing on this blog, which has always been one of my favorite things to do. Even better I can now bill a clueless client for the time I spend writing about some mundane Tigers transaction. It's really win-win for everyone.

Hugs,

Beefshower

The Fifth Annual Authoritative Detroit Tigers Season Preview Vol. 1

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:24:00 +0000

Holy crap! Tomorrow is Opening Day. The only thing I had written in my planner for the whole month of March was....and to write my Annual Detroit Tigers Season Preview. Now here it is a week into April and I haven't written a single word about the Tigers. I think the reason this season has snuck up on me is because it doesn't really feel like spring yet. For example, as I'm writing this right now a heavy and wet snow is falling outside my window and I'm trying to stay warm in my apartment by burning all of my books and wrapping myself in layers of bearskins and beaver pelts while growing a long grizzled beard. I look and feel more like I'm getting ready to join Henry Hudson on an expedition through Arctic waters than I feel ready to watch Opening Day tomorrow night. I'm sure it will be just as cold and miserable in Toronto tomorrow night as it will be in Michigan and I hope the Blue Jays do something to commemorate the occasion of opening the season in sub-zero (Celsius, of course) temperatures by having their most famous citizen, Yeti, throw out the first pitch.

Wait, why am I complaining about some bad weather? Tomorrow is the beginning of baseball season, which for me is the most exciting day on the sports calendar not involving women's field hockey or Olympic Qualifying for German men's handball. If anything, when the first pitch is thrown tomorrow night all of the snow will melt away and flowers will bloom, the packs of hungry timberwolves roaming the streets will be replaced by singing robins and playful chipmunks and Old Man Winter will die a sudden and violent death gasping for air and clutching his throat as he's replaced by the smiling, giggling baby Sun from the Teletubbies.

In past season previews I have usually given a short recap of the prior year and tried to put a positive spin on it, but I'm going to skip that this year. This is because the Tigers 2008 season has to rank as one of the most depressingly disappointing seasons in the history of sports. Sure the Tigers have had several seasons with won-loss records worse than last years 74-88 record, but there were usually no expectations for those teams. However after the offseason trades that brought in Miguel Cabrera and Edgar Renteria, as well as the continued excellence of Magglio, Placido and Guillen, the rising stardom of Granderson and a dead cat bounce season from Gary Sheffield last years Tigers outfit came affixed with a guarantee to score a thousand runs and bludgeon opposing teams pitching staffs into submission. However in the time it takes to recite all the U.S. Presidents without consulting Wikipedia, (for me about a week because all the ones after Lincoln look identical, you know those guys...the ones with the moustaches) it became apparent the Tigers were over hyped and barrelling towards disappointment. The offense looked old and was wildly inconsistent, fluctuating between getting shutout on three hits by Gavin Floyd and scoring nineteen runs on a seemingly daily basis. The pitching staff wasn't able to pick up the slack as they dealt with injury, ineffectiveness and bad luck in almost equal doses. Finally the defense overwent a major facelift in the early stages of the season, with several players switching positions on the fly, and never seemed to gel. In fact I would go so far as to say the past year, dating back to the beginning of last April when Tigers began the year 0-7, has been the most difficult and trying year as a Detroit sports fan and Michigan resident in decades. It began with the disappointing Tigers season, then the Pistons losing to the Celtics in the playoffs, 0-16 for the Lions, 3-9 for Michigan football, Chauncey being traded, the Pistons struggling to make the playoffs this year, tens of thousands of people losing their jobs and homes and the Big Three teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. And to think, this is all Edgar Renteria's fault, and if Detroit were somehow relocated to 14th century Europe Renteria would certainly have been presumed to be some sort of warlock that had brought an evil spirit to the city and led to a year of darkness and bad hoodoo. Uttering his name in Detroit would lead to mothers covering their children's ears and elderly women blowing out their candles and slamming their shutters closed. Edgars swath of destruction in his one season as a Tiger is truly legendary and hopefully now that he's been banished to San Francisco happy days can return to Detroit.

Alas, the season preview...

Mike Ilitch: During the first few years that I wrote these season previews I was hard on Ilitch and his tenure as owner of the Tigers. I blamed him for sticking with Randy Smith as general manager for about 3 years to long. I cursed him for being reluctant to spend any money in free agency and failing to put a competitive team on the field during the first few seasons at Comerica Park, especially the 2003 season. I compared his appearance to Nosferatu with a gheri curl and blamed his cheap pizzas for giving me a heart murmur, but now I feel the need to defend him. We've become a version of the odd couple, the penniless, handsome, young and talented recent college grad and the billionaire, hideous, ancient and translucent pizza industry mogul. However I'm sick of all the rumors that the economy in Detroit will force some kind of massive firesale not seen in baseball since the '97 Marlins or early '90's Padres. The most egregious of these believers is Bill Simmons who has written about it repeatedly and even devoted a lengthy portion of one of his podcasts to the subject. He's practically counting down the days until the Red Sox trade for Miguel Cabrera in exchange for some middling overhyped Red Sox prospect like Ryan Kalish or something. Look I know shit in Michigan is bad right now. It's arguably the most economically depressed state in the country and if GM and Chrysler go under the damage would be devastating. However it's not like everyone in the state is penniless. Sure season ticket sales are down drastically but I think thats a product of a last place finish as much as anything. Also Ilitch's wealth isn't tied to the auto industry in the least (I think a lot of outsiders thinks the whole state of Michigan is employed by or financially dependant on GM/Ford/Chrysler) and his net worth supposedly went up in the past season (unlike several owners who have lost millions in this economy i.e. the Wilpons). He's also ridden out tough times in the NHL and isnt cut from the same cloth as some owners that care only about the bottom line. I believe that nothing motivates people like the icy cold hand of death approaching them. I don't mean to sound grim or insensitive but Ilitch is getting quite old and from everything I've read the one thing Ilitch wants more than anything right now, besides an endless supply of blood for sustenance, is to bring a World Series Championship to Detroit. I realize this is overly simplistic but so are many of the arguments about why the Tigers are facing economic disaster.

Jim Leyland: Leyland goes into this season with his managerial butt firmly on the hot seat, and not because he fell asleep on the couch with a cigarette in his mouth. After last season Leyland was a little miffed that he did not receive a contract extension. There were also rumblings of a growing discord in the previously tight relationship between Dombrowski and Leyland. How quickly past accomplishments are forgotten in a win now environment with the second highest payroll in baseball. It just seems like yesterday that Leyland was kissing his wife through the fence and getting carried of the field after Magglio's walk off homerun in the ALCS in 2006. There is no question that Leyland will be managing for his very job this season and Dombrowski is accommodating him by allowing him to take the 25 players that Leyland sees as the best fit for the team come north with him. Even if that did mean the embarrassing scenario of cutting bait and eating 14 million dollars in payroll for a much ballyhooed addition to the team just a couple of seasons ago, as well as allowing him to take a couple of pitchers who between them have very little pro experience and none above A ball.

Gerald Laird: Laird is the Tigers new starting backstop. If that statement doesnt really inspire a lot of confidence there is a reason for it. Laird broke out with the Rangers in 2006 while splitting time with Rod Barrajas. He was given the full time job in 2007 and promptly fell flat on his face. Last year Laird split time with a gaggle of Rangers catching prospects and after putting up slightly below average offensive production coupled with slightly above average defense was deemed expendable as the Rangers decided to flip him to the Tigers for a pair of live minor league arms. Laird is the definition of a league average catcher with decent pop, low OBP and decent defense. The thing that impresses me the most about Laird is that he has been able to succeed despite having an ugly sounding name. I'm a big believer that a person's name plays an important part in how their life will turn out. For example if your name is Colt McCoy is there really any doubt that you're going to grow up and become a star quarterback? Would Cole Hamels have grown up to be the ace of the World Champion Phillies and married to a model if his name had been Melvin Thorpe? If Gerald Laird were to exist in 1930's Hollywood I guarantee the first thing that would've happened is some cigar smoking, bowtie wearing studio executive would have changed his name to Jerry Sexington or Chase Powers or something outrageous like that. Just say Laird's name out loud and tell me it doesnt sound like the guttural sounds someone makes when they are having a stroke or vomiting.

Miguel Cabrera: There was some concern last season when Cabrera got off to a slow start at the plate, slugging about 100 points lower than his career average midway through June. This was coupled with his atrociously bad defense at third base, which prompted a move across the diamond (to replace the equally atrocious Carlos Guillen at first) as well as another round of questions about his conditioning and dedication to the game. Then over the course of the last three months of the season Cabrera caught fire and slugged over .600 and hit 21 second half homeruns which propelled him into the league lead. He also adapted quite nicely to playing first base and even though he may never cover much range he did prove adept at picking throws out of the dirt and making the occasional spectacular diving stab of a line drive shot. Questions about his conditioning still persist but with his natural talent and the fact that he's still so young, (he'll turn 26 in a couple of weeks) there is a chance that we haven't even seen his best seasons yet.

Placido Polanco: Polanco is entering the final year of the four year contract he signed with the Tigers shortly after his arrival in the trade that sent Uegeth Urbina to Philadelphia, back when Dombrowski was still making trades that worked out favorably for Detroit (Pre-Jurrjens/Hernandez/Renteria). No one can argue that Polanco hasn't been a bargain for the duration of this contract, back when Dombrowski was still signing guys for below market value (Pre-Robertson/Willis). It will be interesting to see what happens with Polanco following this season. If he puts up another .300/.350/.400 season with solid defense there will be a strong sentiment to re-sign him and possibly reward him for his past performance when he was vastly underpaid. However if there is one thing that my subscription to BP has taught me its that baseball is a business and the best route is to ruthlessly cut loose any player in his mid-30's regardless of sentimental value as they are likely on the downslope of their career. However, given the relative dearth of options on the free agent market following this season at the keystone (Freddy Sanchez anyone?) and the similar lack of options up the middle in the minors the Tigers may find themselves backed into a corner when it comes to negotiating with Polanco this offseason.

Adam Everett: When you live a fast paced lifestyle like I do, with sports cars (my 2001 Buick Century), illicit drug use (drinking cough syrup until I pass out), beautiful women (my obese cat Sgt. Hugs) and thousands of dollars (...in student loan debt) you don't have time to regret anything. In fact "No Regrets" is kind of my motto to live by as evidenced by the large Hello Kitty crossbones tattoo that covers my entire back will emphatically tell you. Long story short I can't really empathize with the regret Dave Dombrowski must feel when he looks out at Adam Everett starting at shortstop every day. Sure Everett isn't really costing them anything monetarily as he signed a 1 year 1 million dollar deal this past offseason, but his anemic bat and slick glove are whats left to show for Dombrowski's decision to trade Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez for Edgar Renteria. I know I've mentioned that trade a hundred times already but it may take years of therapy for me to get over that deal, so instead of continuing to bitch about the trade I'll shift gears to something else. After the Rays shaved hundreds of runs off their runs allowed total en route to the World Series last year defense became the hot commodity during the offseason. Much of the credit for the Rays defensive turnaround was credited to their acquiring Jason Bartlett a no hit good-glove shortstop from the Minnesota Twins. Well lucky for Detroit they signed a similar scrappy white shortstop with a good defensive reputation away from their AL Central rival Twins. He should be a vast improvement defensively over Renteria who had all the range of my 84 year old wheelchair bound Grandpa. Did I mention we traded Jair.......whoops sorry.

Brandon Inge: I think the lesson I learned from Brandon Inge last season was that if things aren't going your way or your employee asks you to sacrifice for the good of the team the proper and professional way to act is to publicly question their decisions through thinly veiled passive aggresive remarks. Maybe even demand a trade or two or openly sulk to the point that it effects my job performance. Sure this method may get me called out by my boss and may even make my image take a hit but I would be so wildly overpaid that no one else would want me and eventually I would get my way and even a promotion. Probably from the sarcastic tone of those first few sentences its pretty clear that Inge isn't my favorite Tiger. He's joined the list of Tigers, headed by Bobby Higginson, who I once cheered for but who hung around long enough for me to grow to hate them. His defense at the hot corner is rather spectacular and he is exciting to watch while in the field but his performance at the plate has been putrid since his flukey 2006 power surge. His OPS the past two seasons have been sub 700, which means he has to be Brooks Robinson-esqe in the field to drag his worth above replacement value. However maybe now that he's been properly coddled and has the job he wants he'll be able to produce a little with the bat.

Matt Treanor: I don't know anything about Matt Treanor other than the fact that his wife is infinitely more popular and famous than he is and she's a professional beach volleyball player. This led to my startling discovery that there is such a thing as professional beach volleyball. Treanor joins the long line of backup catchers who passed through Detroit for only a season or two before fading away into oblivion, although there is still a chance that the team is waiting for Vance Wilson to return from his seemingly decade long rehab from Tommy John surgery. I'm a little disappointed in the teams decision to bring in Treanor as I had worked myself up into a hot sweaty lather over the prospect of the beginning of the Dusty Ryan era after his promising cup of coffee with the team last September. Oh well Dusty's absence will only make my heart grow fonder.

Ramon Santiago: I've always been a big fan of Santiago and I was hoping he would get a crack at landing the every day job after The Disaster Known as Edgar Renteria had his option declined within seconds of the 2008 season ending.

Magglio Ordonez: Magglio regressed from his MVP caliber 2007 season but still put together an impressive season. He's essentially a .300/.370/.500 player who will hit 20-25 homeruns and drive in 100 plus RBI's a season. He'll never come close to putting up the numbers he did two years ago but he's still well above average for a corner outfielder. Sadly this could be Magglio's final season in Detroit as his name constantly gets bandied about in trade rumors and if the Tigers struggle out of the gate and look to shed some payroll he could be moved. Given how critical many in the media were when the Tigers handed this contract out when Magglio was coming off a devastating knee injury that required some sort of radical surgery that wasn't even legal to perform in this country, this deal turned out surprisingly well for the Tigers.

Curtis Granderson: Granderson wasn't able to match his 2007 season at the plate or in the field. But he still had a productive season overall and ranks among the best centerfielders and most exciting players in the game. Even with a decrease across the board in Granderson's slash stats there were still improvements in his game that, like Cabrera lead some to belief that we haven't even seen the best of Granderson yet. Namely he increased his walk rate while slashing his strikeout rate for the third consecutive season. Also he learned to hit left-handers after previously being completely helpless against them. Granderson had been so bad against lefties before last season that there was a groundswell last spring to have him platoon with a 12 year old blind girl named Nicole Cramer who played in one of those leagues with the beeping baseballs. The only reason the Tigers didn't go through with it was because the idea of a 12 year old blind girl playing professional baseball would have made Rick Reilly orgasm to death and the Tigers didn't want that blood and.....uh....other matter on their hands.

Carlos Guillen: Once again Guillen is switching positions, this time heading to left field. Last year saw his odyssey take him from shortstop to first base, where his awful footwork around the bag almost led to him getting killed in a collision with someone barrelling down the first base line on several occasions. Once it became apparent that both him and Cabrera were out of place defensively the two swapped spots across the diamond where Guillen provided above average defense. He was sidelined at one point by a killer case of hemorrhoids, which is the worst possible injury imaginable. I know this from experience as I seemed to have developed a raging case of them just while writing this insanely long blog post. Anyways Guillen is still athletic enough to where he could be an asset defensively in the outfield and maybe the position takes some of the burden of his aching surgically repaired knees that will allow his bat to return to the level it was a couple of years back.

Marcus Thames: After years of being jerked around by the front office, dating back to 2005 when he didn't make the team coming out of spring training because the team was to gutless to cut ties with Bobby Higginson rotting carcass, Thames has finally forced his way into a major role on the team. A year removed from having the indignity of sharing the short half of a platoon with Jacques Jones it looked like Thames might once again lose significant playing time and possibly his spot on the roster to another aging and washed up veteran, this time future Hall of Famer Gary Sheffield. However, in a surprising move the Tigers cut ties with Sheffield and ate 14 million dollars in remaining salary just for the privilege of having Sheffield not play for them this season. If I were an owner with an infinite amount of money, I think a good way to punish a G.M. who had handed an ill advised contract would be to sit him down and make him actually eat 14 million dollars in singles with a knife and fork for my entertainment. With Sheffield gone Thames will appear to get a full seasons worth of at bats while rotating between the outfield corners and DH. He has the potential to put up the following slash stats in a full season of at-bats: .220/.280/.600. Just as an idea of what kind of player Thames could end up being Baseball Prospectus lists his top player comps as Dave Kingman, Pete Incaviglia and Steve Balboni. I've always had a soft spot for these kinds of all or nothing power hitters and I'm glad Thames finally seems to be getting a full season worth of playing time in Detroit.

Josh Anderson: Anderson is the newest Tiger, having been acquired for one of the several minor league relievers the Tigers seemingly throw into every deal. In this case a side arm reliver named Rudy Darrow. I know even less about Darrow than I do Anderson so I can't really offer any insight on to whether this is a good trade or not. I really cant offer any insight into anything though, so this couldnt really come as any surprise. Most of Anderson's value lies in his batting average, as a glance at his career number reveals little plate discipline and a modicum of power. He also brings a decent amount of speed to the lineup having stole 52 bases between AAA and the majors last season, while only being caught 8 times, so he could have his uses as a pinch runner. Supposedly he also brings good defense to the table, even though he might be a bit overmatched for the expansive centerfield at Comerica. But with a team currently running Magglio, Guillen and Thames out to play defense in the corners Anderson could have some utility as a late inning defensive replacement for any of the aforementioned aging/iron gloved trio. It's been awhile since the Tigers have had a legitimate speed threat on their roster, maybe since Alex Sanchez who was arguably the worst baserunner in Tigers history. Sanchez had as much sense on the basepaths as the squirrel in the video on those late night sports bloopers shows that ran around the paths to Benny Hill's theme music. Somewhere Andres Torres is wondering if Dave Dombrowski lost his phone number because Anderson's job was supposed to be Torres' destiny.

The Return

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:30:00 +0000

I've been away for months and unlike my previous absences where I explained away my lack of posting by personally showing up at the doorsteps of my twelve faithful readers hat in hand and bindle over the shoulder and admitting to letting them down with my laziness. However if they were willing to just give this lonely vagrant blogger a place to stay, a laptop to write with, a little encouragement and some vittles I wouldn't disappoint them again. Of course this led to people asking who I was and what I was doing on their doorstep and the polite few who let me in to their homes were paid back by having their couch defiled, their appliances stolen and empty cans of beans littered about the kitchen. I had an opportunity to win back my readers trust and I blew it. This time though I have a legitimate excuse for neglecting my website for an obscene amount of time. It started off innocently enough when I travelled to the United Nations General Assembly to clear up a simple case of mistaken identity. Next thing I know the diplomat I'm talking to gets a knife thrown into his back, I'm accused of murdering him and I'm stowing away on a train bound for Chicago where I spend the night making love to a flirtatious young blond. Things just got crazier from there. I got shot at by a crop duster while traveling through rural northern Indiana (which, come to think of it really isnt that odd) and got into a fistfight at an auction for expensive artwork in Chicago before everything culminated in a wrestling match between a surprisingly strong and agile 77 year old Martin Landau and I on the side of Lincoln's face atop Mt. Rushmore. Aside from a few scrapes and bruises everything is fine now, my name has been cleared and as a bonus I'm proud to announce my recent engagement to the stunning Eva Marie Saint.
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O.k. I must admit something. None of what I wrote in that first paragraph, aside from soiling my friends couch, is true. Yes, yes I know that's probably shocking to most of you that read this site and come to hear me regale my exciting adventures and epic journeys, such as my 2,000 word story about buying baseball cards from a homeless man at a Burger King drive-thru in Detroit. It's like I'm a modern day Sir Francis Drake or something. Anyways I just inserted myself into the role of Cary Grant in the famous and very entertaining North by Northwest, which was one of the many movies I watched during the months long depression that followed after I found out I failed the bar exam in November. Once again I know what you're thinking, partly because of the new mind reading device I've been tinkering with the past few weeks but mostly because you're so damn predictable (right now you're thinking about how delicious toast is and you're regretting skipping out on breakfast in lieu of the 9 more minutes of sleep you got for hitting the snooze button, you're that easy). You're probably thinking or rather standing up and shouting, "But Andrew you're the smartest man I know and if the Board of Examiners tested on the subjects that were actually important to the practice of law such as looks, personality, wit, taste in food and clothes and how to properly cut an onion you would be aces." Unfortunately they didn't test those subjects last summer, nor did they hit on any of my other areas of expertise like old Tigers statistics, Raul Julia's filmography and how to make cocaine. I spent hours listening to Clipse CD's and spent several hundred dollars enrolling in that bar review course run by a group of violent gang members who used to hang out in front of my building for absolutely nothing. Instead they asked about things called "Trusts" and "Secured Transactions" which surprisingly has nothing to do with confident transsexuals. Who knew.

With that being said it should come as no surprise that in early November I received a large first class envelope with a letter inside informing me that I had failed the bar exam but was more than welcome to come back and take it again in February. Now in all honesty there have been many times in my life that I have felt like a failure. When I've gotten bad grades, when I've been dumped by my girlfriend, when my parents call me a failure on my birthday every year, or the other night when I was in my apartment watching Extra at 3 A.M. as Mario Lopez profiled how to get in the best shape of your life with the advice of 20 something year old trainers as I sat on the couch with my obese cat laying on my chest picking out the Krackel's from a bag of Hershey's miniatures. It was exactly like that Garfield comic strip when John Arbuckle hangs himself with his belt in the last panel. However this was the first time my failure had been spelled out in bold caps on a piece of paper and mailed to my house first class. I didnt handle it well and for about two weeks I sat in complete darkness in my apartment, watched a million movies through Netflix and ate Shells and Cheese directly from the pan before finally deciding to re-dedicate myself to studying and passing the bar exam when I retook the damn thing in February.

I also had to move away from my beloved Detroit as the lease on my apartment (which was about a mile away from Comerica) was expiring and the job market in Metro Detroit wasn't exactly the best place for a 25 year old with almost zero work experience to find a job. So I went to the library and researched for vibrant cities with a rising population, a robust job market, a ton of young professionals and many attractive young women. The one city that came up every time was Flint, Michigan. So I rushed due north 80 miles and signed a lease at the first building I saw with a now leasing sign hanging in the window. Much to my dismay I later found out that the book I was researching out of was published in 1957, which I should have realized when it said by 1999 1/2 the worlds population will have relocated to the moon accompanied with a cartoon of Bob Hope and Dwight Eisenhower playing golf in space cadet suits with alien caddies. Oh well it's not like Flint is without its perks. The 25% unemployment rate within the city makes drugs more accessible, dangerous and cheaper than they ever were in Detroit, Halo Burger is the most amazing fast food restaurant in the world and Flint boasts the highest amount of soiled matresses laying on the side of the road per capita than any other city of 100,000+ in the North America (take that Mexico City!!).

This is all just a long way of saying I have nothing to do now. So I thought I would dust off the old blog and get back into chronicling the Tigers season and posting other odds and ends before the fumes from the meth lab above my apartment rot my brain and teeth to the point of not being able to communicate. This should be fun.

Detroit Tigers Season in Review: Vol. 2

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 04:40:00 +0000

Part one of the season review is below. If you desire to read it then you have 30 seconds to scroll down or risk the previous posts self-destructing on your computer screen and not in that humorous cartoony way where soot blows in your face and spins your duck bill around to the back of your head. No, I'm talking about Die Hard level explosions with flames billowing through the heating vents and blowing the roof off the top of your house. So seriously, if you havent read the first installment do so now and if you have read it and are just coming back for seconds then I guess this would be a good time to inform you that this season review is a $10,000 a post fundraiser for my last ditch attempt to run for political office this November. Not for any U.S. state or federal office mind you, but rather I'm throwing my hat into the Romanian national legislative race on the National Peasants Party ticket. We'll no longer let those fat cats in Bucharest walk around in their fancy brightly colored sweaters and acid washed jeans as they ignore the plight of the average agrarian worker. Jesus, I don't even know what I'm writing about anymore but I do know I just spent an hour of my life researching Romania, (well five minutes on the countries Wikipedia page and 55 minutes Google image searching for photos of their Olympic gymnasts, but I'm counting that as research anyways.) to make some unfunny jokes about.....something. Anyways on to the pitchers.

Justin Verlander: Before the season began my stoner friend TJ (I feel it necessary to refer to TJ exclusively as my stoner friend, even though I probably have two others that would comfortably fit under that same title. I think everyone has a friend or two like this in their current circle or in their not to distant past, and frankly it's terrifying. I've made a point of remaining on the straight and narrow for most of my young adult life. Sure I've done some pretty stupid stuff over the years but I was careful to make show nothing ever stuck because of an official record or a video camera. I even deleted my MySpace account because I was worried that something I wrote or posted on there would come back to bite me in the future. Sure this may be more a sign of some kind of narcissistic/paranoid/delusional personality disorder than anything else but a part of me is idealistic no matter how hopeless that may seem and I'd like to run for office one day. The fact that this hope could be submarined by a couple of friends who work at the outlet mall, smoke weed multiple times a day and spend all their free time watching/playing Pokemon or building Star Wars models out of Legos keeps me awake at night. My biggest fear is one day being elected to office, let's just hypothetically say I'm a state rep working in Lansing, and as I open the door to my office I see everything clouded with smoke and the acrid smell of marijuana as T.J. sits on a couch eating macaroni and cheese straight out of the pot while my friend Mike is fast forwarding to all the parts showing nudity in the most recent Starship Troopers direct to video DVD. I wasn't expecting this parenthses to be this long. My apologies) and I made a list of pre-season predictions. Looking back on it now it's laughable how overly enthusiastic we were in late March. Back then we predicted that Verlander would build on his stellar sophomore season and become the Tigers first 20 game winner since Bill Gullickson in 1991 as well as lowering his ERA, bumping up his K rate and possibly taking home a Cy Young award. Wrong, wrong and wrong. Instead Verlander put up by far the worst statistical season of his young career. On top of that his stuff seemed to regress, so much at one point that some were wondering if he was injured. In 2008 the Tigers didn't see the same Verlander who was throwing 102 MPH in the ninth inning of his no-hitter the previous year. His curveball didnt seem to have the same bite as it had in past seasons either. Another unsettling aspect to Verlander's season was his apparent immaturity and unwillingness to say he pitched like crap on nights that he obviously did. This was a little grating as a fan, when you would tune into the postgame report and Verlander would be standing there by his locker after giving up 8 runs saying things like "Well I felt pretty good out there but I made a few mistakes and the other team capitalized on them." This would be like me explaining away a C grade by saying "Well I think I understood Tax Law pretty well except the professor asked too many tough questions." (However, unlike with Verlander it was a 100% true in my case.) Leyland called Verlander out on this lack of accountability a couple of times. I'm wrapping this up with Verlander. Before the season I thought Verlander was going to be an ace the Tigers could rely on for the next decade. Now there's a chance, granted a small one, that maybe we've already seen the best of Verlander. There's a long line of pitchers who peaked early in their career and then had long mediocre stretch. So if Justin Verlander became the next Matt Morris instead of the next Jim Palmer I wouldnt be surprised. Grade: C-

Armando Galarraga: Now this was a surprise. Kind of. I have this crazy theory of a Jewish and Masonic plot to achieve world domination. Wait, no that was Henry Ford's theory from the 20's. My theory relates to David Dombrowski. Throughout his career Dombrowski has been in charge of some teams with pretty low budgets. This has required him and the front offices he's worked with to evaluate young players to pursue via the draft or trades instead of big free agent signings. The late 80's and early 90's Expos remained competitive for years due to a great minor league system that produced a number of young stars that were traded for other young talent shortly before they hit free agency. The obvious exception of course is the 1997 Marlins, which won the World Series with what was practically an All-Star team but afterwards he had to infamously dismantle the team in a wildly unpopular fire sale. Of course the Marlins were terrible for a few years after all the trading but Dombrowski's post World Series dealing led to the foundation of a young team that went on to win another World Series in 2003. When Dombrowski took over the Tigers he inherited one of the worst teams and lowest payrolls in baseball. However through shrewd trades and drafting along with a couple of big free agent signings (after years of drafting incompetence by Randy Smith, which has been mostly forgotten about thanks to the historically inept reign of terror presided over by Matt Millen) he quickly turned the Tigers into a contender. O.k. I probably should have put more thought into this theory and I don't feel like analyzing every move Dombrowski has made over the years, but long story short I think Dombrowski is more comfortable and better suited to run a team thats more geared towards youth and development, then a team that signs a bunch of expensive free agents and has a payroll north of $140 million. Grade: A-

Nate Robertson: People who have read this site for awhile know that Jason Grilli was a favorite whipping boy of mine over the past few seasons. After Grilli was jettisoned I was searching for a new person on the Tigers to aim my vitriol at. Todd Jones was the natural choice but it was a rather lazy and uninspired one. Edgar Renteria hadn't yet plummeted to the depths of suckitude he would reach by the All-Star break. So my attention reluctantly turned to the bespectacled train wreck who took the mound every fifth day. I say reluctantly because as I've mentioned in the past I have a soft spot for any Tiger who was a member of that historically bad 2003 squad no matter how briefly they were on it. But Robertson was so consistently atrocious this entire season that he quickly found his way to the center of my cold, shriveled, blackened heart. Grade: F

Kenny Rogers: Gamblor is probably finished as a Tiger, which is sad in a way. His short tenure with the Tigers will go down as one of my favorites. I'll miss his comically overgrown jaw. The strange stroke faces he would make when he was delivering each pitch. At the beginning of the season I thought it was foolish of the Tigers to expect Rogers to make 30 starts and make it through the season healthy enough to pitch effectively in the post-season. Unfortunately we don't have to worry about that problem because the Tigers couldn't even finish ahead of the freaking Kansas City Royals. The Royals haven't been out of the A.L. Central basement in so long you'd think they were lonely sports bloggers. (Zing! Somewhere Chris McCoskey is laughing to himself while wondering how to type with a bucket a chicken stuck to both hands.) Of course Rogers poor pitching this season was part of the reason why the Tigers finished in last place. I know he hasn't officially retired but Rogers did look D-U-N done this past season. Crafty 40-something lefties like Jamie Moyer and Rogers are some of my favorite players in baseball, next to back-up catchers, but they do walk a fine line of effectiveness and if they aren't perfect the results will usually be ugly. I don't want to remember the Rogers of this past season though. When I think back on Rogers time in Detroit I'll definitely remember his spectacular postseason scoreless innings streak during that magical 2006 run. His pouring champagne on the police officer during the on-field celebration after beating the Yankees in the Divisional round, screaming hysterically and pumping his fist during late inning strikeouts and of course smearing enough pine tar on his hand that he looked like a juvenile delinquent that just got revenge on his group home mentors by rubbing feces all over the wall. Ah memories. Grade: D

Zach Miner: Less of a success story than Armando, Miner was impressive nonetheless. I've always been a pretty big fan of Miner's. Look I don't think he's the second coming of Greg Maddux or anything but I think Miner could definitely hold his own as a league average pitcher and solid back of the rotation starter, which as hard as it is to believe with a payroll exceeding 130 million dollars, is exactly what the Tigers are looking for. I feel like Miner has gotten the same treatment from the Tigers as Thames has. Sure he has some holes in his game but stop jerking him around between the bullpen and rotation and just let him be himself and come into the spring as one of the front runners if the not the favorite to hold down the number 5 spot in the rotation. Grade: B-

Dontrelle Willis: In the list of idiots who believed a change of scenery was all that was needed to turn Dontrelle back into an effective big-league pitcher, my name should be towards to top. Granted a few spots after the guy that traded for and then signed Dontrelle to a 3 year 30 million dollar contract. Of course hindsight is 20/20 but even though I thought Dontrelle would rebound some and become an effective middle of the rotation starter I still believed it was short sighted to reward him with a contract extension before he proved his effectiveness. Had Instead Dontrelle turned into the second coming of Steve Blass and completely lost control of the strike zone. His 35 walks in 24 innings was disastrous. The interesting and promising thing (and I admit that I'm grasping at straws here) about Dontrelle was the fact that he only gave up 18 hits in those same 24 innings. Granted I'm sure there were times that D-Train was so wild that most batters went to the plate with the specific instruction not to swing unless it was in defense of their life. On the flip side though, it still seemed like Dontrelle had some decent stuff. Granted he didn't know where the hell the ball was going half the time, but the velocity and movement on his pitches seemed solid. Grade: F

Jeremy Bonderman: For years I along with several other Tigers fans have been waiting for Bonderman to take the next step and establish himself as a premier young power pitcher. He's always been armed with a devastating slider and heavy fastball, but his utter lack to develop any kind of 3rd off-speed pitch hindered his development. For me this seemed like a make or break season for Bonderman. Either he was finally going to take that next step or he was always going to be what he always has been. Not that there was anything wrong with being a 15 game winner with a sub-4 ERA and a decent K rate, but he probably wasn't going to become Curt Schilling without all the annoying outspokeness and backwards political ideas. When the season began Bonderman appeared to have taken a step back. His slider wasn't biting as viciously as it used to, he was having problems locating his fastball and his K rate dropped precipitously. His regression wasn't something I was anticipating, so I was relieved to find out his ineffectiveness was due to injury and not some dip in his overall skill set. Not that I would ever want to see someone be injured especially with something as serious and potentially life threatening like Bonderman was going through with his blood clots but at least it was a legitimate excuse to his performance. Here's hoping that Bonderman comes back healthy and rested for next season and taking another shot at establishing himself as a great young pitcher. Grade: I

Freddy Garcia: When Garcia was getting ready to make his season debut in September I was expecting a complete disaster. The scouting reports when he signed claimed that his fastball was sitting in the mid-80's with a slider in the low to mid-70's, which is essentially batting practice for major league hitters and would be even more of a disaster since that first start was coming at Arlington against one of the most prolific offenses in baseball. Surprisingly Garcia pitched effectively, even without his best stuff, not allowing an earned run and striking out five in five innings pitched. He wasn't very good in his second start, allowing three homeruns in a loss to the Royals, but he finished strong on the final day of the season against his former White Sox team. Garcia showed that he's a smart pitcher who is savvy enough to pitch capably after major shoulder surgery. He's intriguing enough that I hope the Tigers re-sign him this off-season and see if he can give them 20-25 starts at the back of the rotation. Grade: I

Detroit Tigers Season in Review: Vol. 1

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:15:00 +0000

I've been meaning to write a season review for the past couple of weeks but I wasn't eager to get over the euphoria I've been feeling since Matt Millen was fired by revisiting the terribly disappointing failure of a season the Tigers had just finished. But it's just not in my nature to feel good about something for a long time and after watching the debacle at Ford Field on Sunday it finally set in that I was in the midst of watching another lost season for a Detroit franchise. So I might as well wrap up the Tigers season by handing out some end of the year grades. Usually I joke about my subjectivity when assigning these grades but this time I set up an objective scoring system that tested the Tigers skills in a variety of subjects such as Spelling, Math, Geography (dominated Ryan Raburn, even I didn't know the capital of Vermont was Montpelier) and an essay about who was the most influential person in their life (Highlighted by Marcus Thames thoroughly detailed biography on the life of Oliver Cromwell....who knew). Coincidentally their grades in this objective system matched up identically with my subjective, irrational and spiteful grades. Ah, I'm just kidding of course. Raburn was terrible at geography and I was just trying to sleep with his single mom. Enough nonsense though. Hark! (Trumpets sound). The grades, Sire!!!!!

Brandon Inge: I hate Brandon Inge. There I said it and I feel much better for having done so. I usually have a soft spot for the Tigers on the team that were members of the wretched 2003 squad and Brandon is the longest tenured Tiger on the team. With that being said tho, his play on the field and his attitude off of it have been so poor the past couple of seasons that I find myself disliking him. I don't understand why he mostly gets a free pass from the fan base either. I was at a game late this season where Inge got the start behind the plate and Sheffield started at DH. Both had equally miserable nights at the plate, striking out, leaving guys on base, hitting feeble infield pop-ups and for good measure Inge even accounted for a wild pitch that from my vantage point in the seats looked like it could have easily been scored a passed ball. Anyways, by the end of what was shaping up to be another Tigers loss Sheffield came to the plate for a final time and was booed roundly and enthusiastically by the crowd. He popped out and as he was trotting back to the dugout the boos came down with even more force. However when Inge was introduced before his final AB he was greeted to a nice sarcasm-free round of applause and cheers. The guy next to me went so far as to complain with a straight face that the Tigers biggest reason for their disappointing season was the teams decision to remove Inge as the everyday third baseman after the Cabrera trade. Inge made an out, of course and left the field to an indifferent silence. I just don't understand the love affair, or more accurately lack of hatred, for Inge. As if putting up slash stats of .205/.303/.369 wasn't enough to draw the ire of fans his constant complaining during spring training about losing his position to one of the top-5 hitters in the game and his insubordinate refusal to play back-up catcher for the good of the team should have been enough to turn the tide against his favor. Instead the team rewarded him by handing him the starting third base job next year without question or competition. I'm not ripping his skills playing third and he's arguably one of the top five defensively at his position but if he hits as putrid in '09 as he did this season he'll have to play Brooks Robinson level defense if not better. Personally I'd like to see the Tigers roll the dice and sign somebody like Joe Crede to push Inge for the job. Sure Crede's back is so wrecked he makes Quasimodo look like the picture of perfect posture, but if he's healthy he would provide equally good if not better defensive value and he wouldn't look like a blind 12 year old girl flailing wildly when he was at the plate. Just saying. Grade: D-

Dusty Ryan: When I first saw Dusty Ryan's name in the lineup I immediately confused him for the wrestler from the mid-80's Dusty Rhodes. I haven't been a wrestling fan in a good fifteen years or so but when I was in elementary school it was a pretty big part of my life. I remember high fiving my friend Don for successfully spitting a giant loogie on the back of Earthquake as he walked by during some crappy Tuesday night wrestling event at the Flint IMA. I was distraught when my Mom wouldn't buy me a Jake "The Snake" Roberts folder for school and equally pissed when I saw the slow kid who had to go to speech class carrying the same folder on the first day of class, (actually now that I think about it this may have happened just last year). Even my first run-in with a celebrity was when my friend Nick, his Dad Bob and I ran into Ted Dibiase ordering food at a McDonald's in Fenton. Of course I'm using the term "celebrity" loosely here but to a 3rd grader who was used to seeing "The Million Dollar Man" on television every Saturday morning it was the equivalent of the President parachuting into the parking lot wearing a full astronaut suit and playing an electric guitar that shot fireworks. So the nostalgic side of me was excited about the possibility of a fat catcher in a leotard that was accompanied by an obese female sidekick wearing a bumble bee outfit who sat in the dugout and threw salt in the opposing batters faces. Unfortunately my memory failed me as these two Dusty's spell and pronounce their last names differently. As for the Dusty Ryan who actually played for the Tigers, he was pretty impressive in his cup of coffee and hopefully features prominently into next years plans behind the plate. Grade: A-

Miguel Cabrera: This is going to be my first real cop-out. It's so much easier for me to be negative and cynical about everything and anything than it is for me to heap praise on somebody. But Cabrera was amazing this season. Just about every superlative you can come up with applies to Cabrera production at the plate. He even looked like a competent 1st baseman after being nothing short of a disaster at third base. So me saying nothing about Cabrera is actually the biggest compliment I could pay him. I'm definitely excited about the next 8 years. Grade: A

Placido Polanco: Placido did what he does every season. That's not just lazy analysis on my part either. Well not entirely. Here are Placido's career 162 game averages. 92 runs, 31 2B, 3 3B, 10 HR, 63 RBI, 8 SB, 34 BB, 43 SO, .306/.350/.416. Here's are Placido's stats from this season. 90 runs, 34 2B, 3 3B, 8 HR, 58 RBI, 7 SB, 35 BB, 43 SO, .307/.350/.417. That's amazingly consistent. In fact my source close to the team, who I made up just now, told me that the real Placido Polanco tragically passed away during this past off-season after the alien that had been living in his head burst open. The Tigers invested in a team of crack scientists specializing in robotics and created a eerily lifelike model and programmed him to hit and field according to Polanco's career averages. Under the model name Placi-Tron 9000 the prototype was a rousing success (and much more productive than Macias-borg CX-100) and manufacturing began on several back-up models to be used over the remaining seasons left on Placido's contract, which are stored in an abandoned storage room underneath the Whitcomb Observatory on Belle Isle. Spooky. Grade: B

Carlos Guillen: Guillen used to fit in the category with Polanco and Maggs for being crazy consistent. Where you could pretty much pencil in .300/20/100 at the start of the season and plan accordingly. Guillen started strong too, being about the only Tiger pulling his weight on offense during the miserable first month of the season that saw the Tigers stumble out of the gate. However from then on he regressed terribly at the plate, almost got run over at first base a dozen times do to some of the worst footwork ever seen at the position, battled nagging injuries and 'roids (not the illegal kind but the kind that make it hell to sit down without a padded seat) got jerked around between a few positions and ended the season on the DL with a balky back. Not the kind of season you would hope for from a guy in the first year of a 4 year 48 million dollar contract. Now to appease crybaby Inge, (have I mentioned that I don't like Inge anymore?) Guillen is once again switching positions and taking over as the everyday left-fielder at the expense of at-bats for the powerful Marcus Thames and young players Matt Joyce and Clete Thomas. Awesome. I think the seemingly off-the-cuff and reactionary decision making regarding Guillen this season served as a perfect microcosm of everything that went wrong with the Tigers this season. Grade: C+

Edgar Renteria: The most impressive aspect of Edgar Renteria's only season in Detroit was how much damage to the franchise in both the long and short term future he caused in just a single season. I can't think of an addition the Tigers have made in their recent history that was such a calamitous failure. Sure Doyle Alexander for John Smoltz is a ridiculously lopsided trade in hindsight, but without Alexander's addition to the '87 team there is no way the Tigers would have held off the Blue Jays for the Division crown. Juan Gonzalez was a disaster but aside from costing the Tigers the services of Francisco Cordero, Detroit didn't really lose much in that trade personnel wise and there were almost no expectations of success going into that 2000 season. However the swath of destruction Renteria caused during his tenure with the Tigers was genuinely remarkable. If someone held a gun to my head and asked my opinion on who was most responsible for this disappointing season, I would probably hand them my wallet and sob that I thought it was Edgar. I'm not tooting my own horn here but I was vehemently opposed to the Renteria deal as soon as it went down. I thought Jurrjens was very impressive during his short stint with the Tigers last season and I was intrigued by the speed and defense that Gorkys Hernandez flashed in the minors. I thought surrendering both in the same deal for an aging shortstop coming off a career year, who really wasn't as good as his reputation would lead one to believe in the first place, was a horrendous and short-sighted idea. I'd like to take this time to point out that Bill, who contributed a couple of posts for this site back in April before disappearing, wasn't as high on Jurrjens and compared him favorably to Kevin Ritz. This led to me justifiably beating him to death with a shoe and disposing his body in Buell Lake. Of course it took about a month to see that Renteria had aged a decade overnight as his range, arm and bat had slowed tremendously. My favorite Renteria moment was around the All-Star break when he had been in more DP's, than my friend TJ's mom.....wait I mean than he had extra base hits. Fantastic. Naturally Jurrjens had the best season by a rookie pitcher in the N.L. and drew raves from Bobby Cox, whereas the Tigers took about .00000273 seconds to decline Renteria's option after the season ended. So I'm issuing this warning to anyone who dares wear a Renteria jersey/T-shirt next year. I'm punching you in the back of the head. Unless your big, then I'll hit your wife instead. Grade: F

Marcus Thames: Ah yes another pre-season prediction of mine that came true. Before the season I prophesied that Thames would rise from the Pumpkin Patch Graveyard and smite the teenage boys who killed my son when they ran him over with their dirtbikes, only I would be cursed to take over Thames role as a vengeful spirit summoned by the weak of heart. Oh shit nevermind, that's the plot to the movie Pumpkinhead not what I predicted for Thames. Hang on let me check the archives here. Oh yes, I prophesied that Thames would hit 40 homeruns if he was given the chance to play everyday instead of getting jerked around by Leyland and losing at-bats to nobodies like Jacque Jones and Clete Thomas. For a bit it looked as though I might be right as Thames mashed homeruns in seemingly every at bat. Then the holes in his swing were exploited and his average and power totals plummeted. Now he appears to be on the outside looking in for at-bats in left next season. Grade: C

Matt Joyce: Pass. I was hoping that would sound intriguing and keep fans begging for my opinion on Matt Joyce's play this season, a la Bill James' comment regarding Jeff Bagwell in his Historical Abstract, but I've really got nothing. Good left handed power bat, good arm, glove, etc. Grade: B

Curtis Granderson: Granderson just keeps getting better and better and hopefully the Tigers can pick up a decent leadoff hitter that will allow Granderson to drop down in the order. Joe Posnanski wrote a pretty convincing argument on his blog that Grady Sizemore had outgrown his role as a leadoff hitter and it was actually detrimental for the Indians to play him in that spot, especially if it meant giving at bats to scrubs like Ben Francisco and Ryan Garko in the 3/4 holes. Now of course Tigers don't have a black hole like Francisco/Garko in the middle of their order but I think they would be much more potent if they had Granderson batting third. Of course this would raise the issue of who would become the Tigers new leadoff hitter. Personally I think Rafael Furcal, who I've always been a big fan of, would be perfect in that role and on this team in general as the everyday starting shortstop. Of course this seemed like a better idea before Furcal came back towards the end of the season and re-established himself as the catalyst for a World Series contending team. Apparently I have a thing for guys coming back from crippling back injuries as my endorsement for Crede and Furcal prove but the point I was trying to get at is the possiblity of signing Furcal on the cheap has probably vanished as his play of late will likely lead some team to dump millions of dollars and a long term deal in Furcal's lap and price him out of the Tigers off-season plans. Alas. Grade: A-

Magglio Ordonez: Ordonez is very similar to Polanco in the fact that you can just about pencil in his numbers every year and if he's healthy he'll be right around those totals when everything is said and done. Of course the intriguing story regarding Magglio is if the Tigers might unload him this off-season. If this question would have been raised after last season when Maggs put up arguably the best statistical season in a Tigers uniform since Hank Greenberg left, I would've reacted swiftly and violently with an assortment of roundhouse kicks and throat punches. Now I'm kind of open to the idea. Look, I love Magglio, he's been on my fantasy team for the past two seasons and I will be forever grateful for his efforts in turning my last place team into a sixth place one but with that said Magglio is probably the only tradeable player on this team. If the Tigers could get a decent return of young players back for Magglio or pair him with a terrible contract like Robertson's or Dontrelle's that would give them some payroll flexibility, I wouldn't be opposed to it. Especially given the abundance of corner outfield prospects in the organization, probably the only area in the organization where there is decent depth, and the fact that the DH spot will likely be occupied by a series of players over the next few seasons it only makes sense that the team would entertain offers for Ordonez if not actively shop him. Grade: A-

Gary Sheffield: I always try to write about abstract silliness on this website so I'm going to try my hand at a little topical humor with Sheffield. This year Sheffields stock took a bigger hit than a stock that lost a lot of money in this recent financial crisis. Huh....huh...anything? Hmm, maybe it didn't work because you can't see my bowtie spinning. Sheff was always one of my favorite players in baseball even before he came to Detroit and during the first half of last season he played superbly and I was enjoying it thoroughly. Then he got hurt and was ineffective before shutting it down entirely. After off-season surgery and a proclamation by Sheff that he was healthy and looking forward to crushing A.L. pitching as well as scaring the shit out of Gene Lamont in the 3rd base coaching box. Sheff started slowly and it looked like all the pop was zapped from his bat. Then he played in left after complaining about the DH role but apparently forgot to tell anyone that he couldn't throw a baseball which, and I don't know because I'm not a professional, seems like a pretty important part of the position. Next came a stint on the DL and it looked like Sheff was about finished. Except he was still a badass. Look I don't care if Sheff was hitting .220 he was still menacing as hell when he stood in batter's box with his bat waggling and his eyes burning holes into the pitcher. However once Fausto Carmona kicked his ass in the brawl against Cleveland towards the end of the season it was almost embarrasing for Sheff. It became readily apparent that he's just a shell of what he once was because five years ago he would have torn Carmona's left arm off and used it to hit a game winning homerun in the ninth inning. Instead he got thrown into a head lock and worked over by Carmona and a couple other Indians. Afterwards Sheff made some badass threatening comments but they seemed like empty threats. It was almost like watching an old heavyweight get beat down by a young up and comer like Ali-Holmes or something. I'm lying though because the thought just crossed my mind that there is a .0000001 chance Sheffield might read this and it made me shudder. He's still terrifying. Grade: C-

Jacque Jones: Let the record show, and yes their is a record because I've spent the last few years tirelessly training a group of monkeys chained to typewriters to transcribe everything I say while I'm alone in my apartment, (the ones that were less than proficient than necessary were transferred to the knife fighting and aviation departments with middling success) sure it's meant that I've had to wade around my apartment shin deep in feces and mango rinds not to mention the numerous eviction notices I've had to fight from narrow-minded landlords but its times like this that make it worth it, but I said shortly after the Tigers traded for Jones during the offseason that it was irresponsible of the team to hand over the starting left fielder job to a Frenchman. I'm not trying to be stereotypical but if Jacque would have spent half as much time in the batting cage as he did chain smoking, eating frog legs stuffed with cheese and trading beaver pelts with Native Americans outside Fort Pontchartrain he probably would've hit higher than the anemic .165/.244/.253 he put up in 24 games before being released. Grade: F

Ramon Santiago: Well it looks like Santiago may be the starting shortstop heading into next season, which is fine by me and honestly I think it came a season to late. Look I'm as much a fan of sabermetrics as the next blogger and the fact that Ozzie Smith was a first ballot HOF'er while Trammell can't even get 30% of the vote gives me night terrors that result in me waking up screaming "But Ozzie's career OPS was only .665", a habit which usually scares the hell out of the prostitute I hired as she's going through my wallet. But a part of me has always liked the idea of having a good field no-hit shortstop. It just seems so old school, like harking back to the days of when starting Ray Oyler more than 100 times in a season not only didn't get you fired, it didnt get you institutionalized either. Even with that being said Santiago proved in his limited playing time this season that he's not the overmatched easy-out he was back at the beginning of his career. As much as I would like the Tigers to roll the dice and sign someone like Rafael Furcal or trade for a J.J. Hardy it wouldn't kill me to see them roll the dice on a season of Ramon, while the organization waited for Cale Iorg to get ready. Grade: B+

Ryan Raburn: I've got nothing on Raburn, not that my analysis on any of the previous players was insightful to begin with but I've honestly got no opinion on Raburn's play this season. I don't think he's as good as he played in '07 or as bad as he played in '08 so I guess that means he falls somewhere in between with his ability. It would be nice to see him get some more consistent playing time as he is pretty versatile in the field and seems to have decent pop in his bat. Like I said though I've really got nothing and I'm speaking in generalties here which is kind of boring. I'm going to use this opportunity to write about something I've been thinking a lot about lately. The election. Wait, no that's stupid I mean Steven Seagal/Van Damme movies. Awhile back I was at a sushi restaurant with a friend. We filled out the little order form and gave it to the waitress but when our food arrived it was nothing that we had ordered. I complained in vain to the waitress that she had messed up the order but she denied responsibilty. The manager came over listened to our story and inexplicably absolved the waitress without any evidence that she was correct (Our order had conveniently disappeared from her pad) and said we could complain to the chef if we wanted. This seemed illogical because the chef wasn't the problem but I considered complaining just for the sake of getting what I had ordered. Then I remembered Under Siege, as well as countless other Seagal/Van Damme movies, where the seemingly most harmless and or mundane jobs could probably and in fact ARE likely to be filled by ex-CIA operatives/Navy SEALS/underground martial arts tournament champions or all three. So I said it wouldn't be necessary to involve the chef, made it be known I wouldn't eat their again and sucked it up and ate some disgusting spicy roll because I didnt want to get my arm broken at the elbow and thrown through a glass window over a simple misunderstanding. I think this is an important lesson to take from these movies, either that or I'm a non-confrontational vagina. Either one. Grade: C-

Jeff Larish: I think if I were a kid today Jeff Larish would be my favorite player on this team. I always have had a soft spot in my heart for guys with unusual batting stances, hence the obsession with Mickey Tettleton and to a lesser extent Tony Phillips. If you have little to no athletic ability, as I did growing up, it's almost necessary to adopt a gimmicky batting stance fashioned after your favorite player. That way even if you dont hit like a major leaguer at least you look like one. Larish's batting stance is distinct because it's so silent, absolutely no movement after he settles into the box before unleashing a vicious two handed swing at the ball. Seeing as how I'm remarkably lazy, I endorse anything that involves limited movement so Larish's batting stance appeals to me immediately. Honestly if I had my choice I would've preferred to bat in Little League while laying on my futon with a team of mules to pull me around the bases if I ever made contact. Maybe my son can fufill this dream for me. Grade: C+

"Millen Fired"

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:14:00 +0000

I woke up this morning...wait who am I kidding, I mean this afternoon and instinctively groped around for my cellphone. I found it twisted around in my bed sheet in some impossible fashion where I could feel it and make out its shape but I couldn't find a way to actually touch it. Frustrated I aired out the sheet and watched as my phone shot out as if it had been fired from a cannon and smack against the wall with enough force to knock the backing off of it. A year ago beginning a day like this would have led to me flying into a fit of rage and spewing so many curse words that I would have made Richard Pryor sound like Bill Cosby hosting "Kids Say the Darndest Things."

But today I just didn't care. Not because I was in some euphoric state or because I had just rolled out of a bed full of naked and satisfied Victoria's Secret models. Quite the opposite in fact. Not literally of course, I'm not saying I was depressed and rolled out of a bed full of Jockey Men's underwear models, (although I'm not NOT saying that either). No, it's just that for the past couple of weeks (months, years, decades really who's counting) I've been depressed after being hit with the harsh reality that faces thousands of people my age every year. Being diagnosed with gonorrhea. But I'm not talking about that, I really meant to say entering the real world after being babied through seven years of college (There, I think I covered that up nicely, now I just have to burn all these bills from the clinic and vow to never sleep with hookers or anyone from Baltimore ever again).

I was under the impression that graduating from law school included receiving a diploma, a monocle, leather driving gloves, a trophy wife, a 100k job offer and enough henchmen to help get my fledgling law/super-villain practice off of the ground. Instead I've got a diploma, student loan debt, no job, no girlfriend and worst of all I think the two henchmen I hired out of pocket are using me more for crashing on my futon and playing my Wii instead of arching my nemesis. In short the lack of job offers in Detroit is leading me back to my hometown to work with my Dad, a fate I thought the last seven years of school would help me avoid. The only intriguing advantage of moving back home is the chance to purchase a wardrobe of nothing but white suits and try to bring the wild Besaw Boys running shine from their uncle's farm out on Dodge road to justice through a series of arm wrestling matches over poisonous cacti. Only problem is that instead of trying to get with their hot cousin Daisy I'll have to settle for some 300 pound lady with curly, greasy hair who drives a Pontiac Sunbird with a decal that says "I Like Big Bucks and Big Trucks" on the back window. Gross.

So by the time I put the casing back on my phone and turned the power on I was thoroughly depressed and was surprised to see that I had missed a number of phone calls, text messages and voicemails from friends of mine. With my present state of mind my thoughts naturally turned to the idea that something terrible had happened. Something along the lines of Mickey Tettleton releasing a statement to the press saying how disappointed he was to find out a website in named in His honor was run by such an insufferable douchebag. When I finally dared to open my text message inbox I read in the subject heading of my friend T.J.'s message the most glorious and uplifting words I had laid my eyes upon since reading that Scott Mitchell was injured for the remainder of the 1994 season.

It simply and succinctly read, "Millen Fired"

I would be overstating things if I said this was some life altering moment and from that point on my fortunes turned around for the remainder of the day until everything culminated with a nude Kate Beckinsale crashing through my apartment window while riding a unicorn and offering to take me away to her English castle where she would allow me to be the fatherly leader of a gang of quickwitted cockney pickpocket children. However the Lions as a franchise had personified and paralleled the hopelessness I had been feeling through my life recently.

Having the privilege (disfavor?) of going to nearly every Lions home game since I was about ten years old I've seen first hand the damage Millen instilled on an already tortured and frustrated fan base. It's unfathomable to think now but in the first days of Matt Millen's reign things started out promisingly. The first season was a disaster record wise but everyone knew the Lions were in full-on rebuilding mode and there was excitement over first round draft choice Joey Harrington fresh of a dominating season at Oregon where he led them to the Rose Bowl. I saw the excitement on peoples faces when Harrington showed some pluck in battling Brett Favre and the Packers in his first start. During that offseason the Lions jettisoned overwhelmed position coach masquerading as a a head coach (hmm...that sounds awfully familiar) Marty Mornhinweg in favor of a proven and successful coach and Michigan native Steve Mariucci. Marriucci's hiring along with the drafting of Saginaw native and Michigan State star Charlie Rogers led to a great deal of excitement heading into the season. I watched as the line outside the Team Store in Ford Field ran the entire length of the concourse as people eagerly waited for a chance to purchase local hero Charlie Rogers jersey after his impressive two touchdown debut. Even I, already a cynical Lions fan at the age of 20, talked excitedly with my Dad as we left the season opener against the Cardinal about the beginning of a dynamic young quarterback-receiver combo that might one day rival Montana-Rice and Manning-Harrison as one of the greatest of all time. Sure that was short-sighted and little did I know at the time that Charlie Rogers was probably smoking himself retarded at the same time I was praising him, but the excitement I felt for the first time since Barry Sanders retired was genuine. This season also coincided with heady days from a personal standpoint. I was acing all of my classes at MSU, I had a great girlfriend who really cared about me, and I had just killed the LSAT. I felt that my future was as bright as the Lions. Unfortunately that statement still turned out to be true.

Shortly after that game Rogers broke his clavicle in a bye week practice collision with cornerback Dre Bly. The team floundered and finished a disappointing 5-11 and the development of Harrington seemed to have stalled. Millen made what was arguably his only good draft decision swapping spots with the Browns to pick up two 1st round picks which he used on Roy Williams and Kevin Jones in an effort to create what many believed to be the makings of the most exciting young offense in the league. However, the season started off ominously when Rogers once again was lost for the year after breaking his clavicle for a second time on the seasons opening drive. Even though the team started 4-2 it quickly fell apart as the Lions lost 8 of their last ten games to finish a disappointing 6-10. I sat and watched as the fan base grew increasingly and justifiably frustrated as they watched a seemingly talented and expensive young team flounder under the leadership of an expensive veteran coach. (That's right when I go to games I sit and watch everything but the game, namely the expressions on peoples faces and the line to the team store. I'm just not a very good writer).

2005 was a crossroads year for many people in Detroit. Marriucci was feeling the pressure to win and live up to the money he was being paid and the excitement that surrounded his hiring. Jeff Garcia was brought in to challenge a stagnant Joey Harrington for the starters job. Chuck Rogers was trying to prove he wasn't injury prone and resurrect his dying career, Matt Millen was supposedly fighting for his own job and I was moving to the city to start law school. By December everything had fallen apart for all parties involved. Mooch was made the scapegoat and fired after an embarrassing Thanksgiving Day loss to the Falcons. Harrington was hated so venomously and vociferously that I took five seconds out of booing and cursing him from my seat to actually feel sorry for him. Rogers was suspended for drug abuse and watched as his NFL career flamed out. Millen made national news by ordering a fan with a Fire Millen sign to be physically kicked out of a game and watched as fans organized a march advocating his dismissal and I found out that I was unprepared and in over my head with my classes, essentially becoming the Marty Mornhinweg of law students. The fans were angry and frustrated with the franchise and voicing their opinion to any outlet available and I was overwhelmed and angry with my decision threatening to quit school at the next available opportunity.

After the season and my first semester I expected Millen to be fired and for me to have the courage to quit something I felt I hated deep down inside. Instead to the shock and dismay of the entire fanbase Millen received a five year extension and I begrudgingly decided to give class one more semester (nobody was shocked and dismayed by my decision...maybe my cat). During the next season Harrington and Rogers were unceremoniously dumped and the last remnants of all that excitement that I had felt just a view years earlier had faded away entirely. I watched as apathy set in among the fanbase and in my own personal life. The distinguishing moment for me as a fan came late in that season during another Lions home loss. During the game a fan in our section tried to start a "Fire Millen" chant and nobody joined in. He was persistent though, standing up and yelling it at the top of his lungs trying to encourage others to join him but was rewarded with silence. After another minute or so a second person yelled, "Stop chanting. The Ford's never listen to us anyways!" and the man who had been trying so valiantly to start this Fire Millen chant just stopped trying and sat down defeated. No truer words had ever been spoken at Ford Field. During this same time I had begun withdrawing from school, missing classes at an alarming rate receiving bad grades and feeling despondent.

As both the losses and poor grades mounted and the future that had once been so bright and promising became darker and more disenchanted a sense of abject hopelessness began to settle in the fanbase and in myself. Matt Millen would always be in charge of the hapless Lions and my destiny would be to remain in my hometown, take over the family business and watch dreams die. But maybe that changed today. Maybe things that seem to be written in stone can be changed. Sure the Lions may still suck for this year but maybe they'll finally hire the right person, draft the right players, sign the right free agents and a few years from now my Dad and I will be able to go to Ford Field and watch them win a home playoff game. Sure, I might have to go back home and work but maybe after a couple of years I'll make a name for myself, meet the right people, find the ambition and drive that propelled me through my first few years of college and get the hell out of there. Maybe I'll finally have the courage to abandon this whole lawyer thing and do something I really love. Or maybe nothing will ever change. Who knows but now there seems to be hope, for the first time in the last five years there seems to be a little bit of light peeking through the darkness. (Editor's note: I'm not some emotional douchebag who talks like this all the time. It's only like this 6 times a week or so.)

Also, I know some people have compared this to the French Revolution and credited Millen's firing to the fan's revolt of not buying tickets and vociferously denouncing the team. The parallel to the French Revolution would have been if the Millen Man March in 2005 would have been rolling around a portable guillotine and successfully captured and beheaded Millen and the Ford family as they tried to escape in a carriage in the shape of the Lombardi trophy. Then the fans went on to run the team as a democracy before being overun by a tiny man with an unquenchable thirst for power.....like Dan Snyder or Mark Cuban or someone. I think this feels more like a liberation. I feel like someone who has been beaten by and toiled for an oppressive, cruel and tyrannical despot only to be saved by a spoiled great-grandson of a billionaire bigot riding in on his white Mercury Mariner and begging his dad to listen to him for once. It's not really iconic imagery but it's still liberating nonetheless.

Finally, I may be in the minority here but I don't hate Matt Millen. As an executive yes but as a person he seemed likable. He kind of reminded me of a guy my Dad would be friends with, and I honestly believe he was trying as hard as he could to build a winner. A lot of people would have swallowed their pride and quit 3 or 4 years ago but Millen was willing to see this thing through until they drug him out of his office kicking and screaming and a part of me admires that. Ah what am I saying. Fuck Millen. Amen.

Detroit Tigers History Vol. 2: Li'l Rastus

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:26:00 +0000

A little over two months ago Detroit City Councilwoman Barbara Rose-Collins created a mini-controversy when she stated that she wasn't sympathetic towards the efforts to save Tiger Stadium because of her childhood memories of the racist history of baseball at large and more specifically the steadfast refusal of former team owner and horseless carriage magnate Walter Briggs to sign African-American baseball players. Briggs refusal resulted in the Tigers being the second to last team to integrate when they finally traded for Ozzie Virgil in 1958 over eleven years after Jackie Robinson had broke the color barrier after signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Of course Rose-Collins statements weren't nearly as big a controversy for her as when she fired a homosexual aide because she was afraid he might have AIDS. However her opinion on Tiger Stadium's fate did elicit a wide range of sentiments in defense of and opposed to her assertion. Of course everything devolved, as it usually does when the topic of race and Detroit is brought up, into an argument between people from the city blaming white suburbanites for being afraid and or reluctant to visit or work in the city and people from the suburbs blaming Coleman Young and the City's most recent administration for making them feel unwanted and unwelcome in the city. It seemed like the only thing the commenters could agree on was wanting to punch in the face all of the skinny-jeans and scarf-wearing Black Kids-listening Ann Arbor undergrad dildoes (dildos? dildi?) who felt compelled to interject with comments like "I visited Detroit once this summer and found the mixture of magnificent Art Deco buildings with abandonment and urban decay hauntingly beautiful." Pricks.

After reading through the array of comments, blog posts and op-ed pieces regarding Rose-Collins opinion it appeared that most people took an extreme position on the subject. They either dismissed racism as an unfortunate but ultimately irrelevant portion of the stadiums history which shouldn't impede the efforts to save the stadium while others supported the Councilwoman's views and wanted to put the racist past of former owner Briggs to the forefront of their advocacy to tear down the eyesore in Corktown. Since I'm constantly racked with indecision (you should see how I act when someone asks for my suggestion on where to get something to eat, it usually involves me suggesting everything from Barbecue to Mexican to Thai food then hemming and hawing until tears well up in my eyes and the person I'm with becomes so frustrated and annoyed with my antics that they end up not talking to me during dinner) and have a hard time choosing a side and making a strong argument for my position, which may end up being a problem after I become a lawyer. Naturally my opinion falls somewhere in between. As a student of history (and I hope that sounds as pretentious as I intended) I hate when people pick and choose what parts of history to remember. So under that flimsy line of reasoning I'm going to drag the story of L'il Rastus out from the annals of Tiger Stadium history. This isn't an indictment on the Stadium or the team or a show of my support for either side of the argument proposed by Rose-Collins, but rather an unbiased and agenda free look at a piece of history for both the Stadium and the team. It happened and right or wrong (definitely wrong unless the ghost of Nathan Bedford Forrest is reading this blog) we can't and shouldn't just forget about it because, well, that would make up no better than the Germans.

The story of L'il Rastus goes like this. In early July of the 1908 season the Tigers were battling through a horrible midseason slump. Allegedly Ty Cobb showed up to the Bennett Park and found a homeless black orphan who looked to be about ten years old hanging outside of ballyard. Throughout the history of the game baseball players, even the greatest ones, have been a superstitious lot. Ballplayers are either trying to maintain their good luck (i.e. lucky undershirt), change their bad luck (i.e. switch up the height of their socks), not upset the Baseball Gods (i.e. not stepping on the foul lines while going on or off the field), or in the case of Wade Boggs they are completely insane (i.e. eating chicken before every game, taking batting practice at 5:17 every day, claiming to hit better during games his mistress Margo Adams attended without underwear on, etc.). Ty Cobb was no different than any other player when it came to being hung up on irrational superstitions and with his team mired in a downswing Cobb decided to change his behavior in order to change his teams performance. So instead of running the young African-American orphan over in his brand new 1908 Chalmers Runabout as he was typically wont to do Cobb rather generously invited the young child into the Stadium to work as a clubhouse attendant.

The young attendant endeared himself to the team by running errands for the players and he quickly became the Tigers de facto batboy and mascot. Since the young man was in the clubhouse so often, even sleeping at the Stadium after games and while the team was out on road trips, the Tigers players brought him within the camaraderie found inside most pro sports teams locker rooms and christened him with a nickname. Since this was the early part of the 20th century and political correctness consisted of NOT getting blind drunk and burning down the haberdashery shop owned by a Polish immigrant, baseball nicknames weren't very sensitive (Yes, I only wrote the previous sentence so I would have an excuse to use the word haberdashery it doesn't make my point any less salient). For example nearly every player with Native American ancestry was given the nickname "Chief" and just about every uneducated player from the country was called "Rube". Worst of all in the first half of the twentieth century, before baseball became integrated, it was common for baseball players with dark complexions to be given the moniker "Nig". So it should come as no surprise that the Tigers gave their youthful orphan attendant the designation of L'il Rastus. Shortly thereafter the Tigers players took to rubbing their bats on L'il Rastus head for good luck a habit that was elegantly described by the Detroit News in July 1908 as such

"The Tigers had a pickaninny batboy with hair full of corkscrew kinks. When (Germany) Schaefer went to bat in the fourth he rubbed his bat in the darky's hair and then singled. Some of the rooters advised Cobb to try the same method but the pickaninny, knowing Ty's nativity, kept well out of his way."

Wait, instead of elegant I meant to write blatantly and overtly racist. Apparently the sports editor at the Detroit News doubled as the Grand Wizard of the Detroit Klan Chapter either that or he was my grandfather. Either way the News writer/editor was not only unabashedly racist they were also wrong regarding the relationship between Cobb and L'il Rastus as by most contemporary accounts Cobb and the young man were friendly with each other and L'il Rastus worked for Cobb at his home in Georgia during the offseason. (Although it should be noted that L'il Rastus did disappear from public view after working at Cobb's Georgia home following the '09 season, his true name and identity lost to history, so there is anywhere between a 1-100% chance that Cobb ate the child but I digress). But that's beside the point

For those readers who haven't travelled to the early 20th century or through parts of the present day Deep South there are at least a couple of things from the previous paragraphs that should jump out as patently offensive. First is the nickname itself. Rastus has been a highly offensive pejorative name for African-Americans dating back to the appearance of character of Brer Rastus in the first Uncle Remus book released in 1880. Uncle Remus books were a collection of stories and fables from the Deep South that were collected by Joel Chandler Harris and infamously put to film in the infamous Disney movie Song of the South (Hopefully Blogger isn't associated with Disney in anyway or else that last sentence I wrote will likely be replaced with the Mouse Ear logo or an advertisement for The Lion King 8: Rafiki's All Anal Adventure). However in the early 20th century Rastus became synonymous with the portrayal of any happy and naive African-American and commonly appeared in many different minstrel shows, books and popular songs. There were also a series of short comedy films produced with titular character Rastus that included such names as "How Rastus Got His Chicken," and "Rastus Among the Zulu's". Finally and most famously Rastus is the name of the character who appears in the Cream of Wheat logo that began in 1890 and continues to be used to this day.

The second racist gesture may be harder to pick up on as it has faded into relative obscurity but it was the act of rubbing L'il Rastus head for good luck. This used to be a relatively common practice and a way for whites to be disrespectful and/or condescending towards African-American's in a subtle and passive way. This practice fell to the wayside entirely by the late 70's early 80's as it became a much more common way for people to get their asses kicked then it was to subtly pass off as racism. Now that that's out of the way let's get back to the conclusion of the L'il Rastus story.

As the Tigers continued to win the team attributed their success to the presence of their batboy/mascot and rubbing their bats in L'il Rastus' hair, so naturally he started to accompany the team on the road. Beginning in September, however, the Tigers luck once again began to turn for the worse as they started to lose ground in the race for the A.L. pennant. Just as something can be deemed to be a good luck charm when things are going well it can just as easily be regarded as a jinx when things start to go poorly and in this regard L'il Rastus was discarded from the team and treated no differently than if he had been an old pair of lucky socks. The team believed there was such a negative hoodoo surrounding the child that during the 1908 World Series against the Cubs the Tigers banished their former batboy to sitting in the visitors dugout. In displaying their collective ignorance the Tigers may have in fact established the existence of the Baseball Gods as they watched the Cubs run roughshod over them en route to winning their second consecutive World Series over Detroit 4-1. In fact L'il Rastus proved so lucky that the Cubs have not won a World Series since he last graced their presence while sitting in their dugout. Great now some jerk from Chicago is probably going to dig up his bones and place them under Lou Pinella's seat on the bench. Forget I said anything.

I would quote sources but I'm so far removed from writing history papers in undergrad that I've forgotten how to make proper citations. So I'm just going to say that I got most of my information from the book Crazy '08 by Cait Murphy. This book is amazing so instead of giving you page numbers I recommend you just go out and buy it and read it cover to cover. You'll be a better baseball fan and person for it.

Detroit Tigers History Vol. 1: Charlie Bennett

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:01:00 +0000

As I'm sure I've written before and I suspect no one cares or remembers, about three years ago I received my undergraduate degree in history from Michigan State. It took all of two seconds after I received my diploma for me to realize I couldn't do dick with a bachelor's degree in history and the prospect of spending an additional six years pursuing my doctorate and researching in the libraries and archives on campus so I could write a 200 page dissertation on The Social Affects of Thomas Nast's Political Cartoons: Harper's Weekly Era 1865-1885 was slightly less appealing than being slowly disemboweled by a polar bear, or a shark, or some kind of indestructible polar bear/shark hybrid.

Of course I'm probably overstating things. I'm sure the usual channels of employment for liberal arts majors from state universities were available to me if I had bothered to look. For example I probably could have worked at Greenfield Village as a man hideously disfigured by smallpox who deceived and sold unsuspecting country girls from Ontario into brothels located near the rapidly expanding auto factories. Or rather I could have worked at the Ford Rouge Factory Tour as a Polish immigrant who was beaten and worked to death by Henry Ford's secret police after an unfounded rumor that I had led a meeting talking about unionizing with some fellow workers at the local Dom Polski in Hamtramck. Unfortunately these positions don't exist at Greenfield Village, because according to them all anybody did at the turn of the century was ride penny-farthing's and court girls carrying parasols before dying at the ripe age of 80 from diseases like happiness and contentness.

Finally there was always the option of stripping. But I don't think there is a market for historical strippers, although there may be as people have all sorts of strange fetishes such as my obsession with Omorashi. Regardless, I didn't want to show up for some bachelorette party and announce, "Hello ladies, did someone dial back back to 1857 and order James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States?" before taking off eight layers of frock coats and linen shirts while lecturing about Bleeding Kansas only to reveal a body so scrawny and translucent that I would look more like some street urchin dying of tuberculosis rather than some stately president. Long story short I ended up doing what the vast majority of people in my position do. I panicked and enrolled in law school. Now here I am three years later, tens of thousands of dollars in debt, countless more grey hairs on my head and after finishing near the bottom of my class still looking for a job as a stripper but this time with an all new angle. "Order, order, Judge Brandeis holds that this party isn't sexy enough!!!!"

Well at least during my summer long layoff from blogging (studying for bar exam), I didn't forget how to write long rambling introductions. In case you fell asleep while reading this post my main point is that ever since I read about the demolition of Tiger Stadium in the Detroit Free Press a couple of months ago my interest in history has once again been piqued. I'm not going to get into the political debate of whether to save or destroy the stadium but rather I'm going to look at some of the interesting and I think overlooked aspects of Detroit Tigers history. This stuff is probably already familiar to hardcore Tigers fans to which I say, "Get a life", but may not be known to the casual fan. The first, and if my history for updating this site holds likely the last, entry is about Charlie Bennett.

Bennett joined the Detroit Wolverines of the National League in 1881 after playing sparingly over the course of a few seasons with the Milwaukee Grays and Worcester Rubylegs, which, if I may digress, sounds like the name of a company softball team at an all gay steel mill rather than a professional baseball team but apparently that's just how things were in the late 19th century. Extremely gay. However, following the 1880 season Bennett lwft Worcester and followed his manager, Frank Bancroft, to the more ferociously named Detroit Wolverines where he would begin his tenure as one of the most popular athletes in 19th century Detroit.

Bennett became the starting catcher for the Wolverines during his first season west and quickly established himself as one of the best hitting catchers in baseball batting .301 and slugging seven home runs which was good for second place in the National League. Of course the low home run total was normal during this early era of baseball, when the ball used was much softer, which made it more difficult to hit long distances and the mere fact that a baseball player wasn't dying from cholera, dysentery or Black Lung by the age of 18 was the modern day equivalent of an athlete injecting a barrel full of horse steroids into their bodies.

By all accounts, namely Bill James who, in full disclosure, is the only account I bothered to look up Bennett was also an amazing defensive catcher. This was doubly important during the deadball era because the style of play, i.e. more bunting and base stealing, meant several more defensive chances a game than the modern catcher. What makes Bennett's play behind the plate even more astounding is the fact that Bennett fielded his position using less protection than I use when I'm sleeping with the prostitutes I pick up on Cass Ave. Essentially nothing! Hobbes may have been talking about the career of a deadball era catcher when he said life is "poor, nasty, brutish and short", either that or he was talking about Hugo Grotius' momma. Whatever. (If I make a time capsule of the saddest moments of my life it would have to include right now when I'm writing a blog at 4:30 A.M. wearing only a bed sheet and making jokes about 17th century philosophers who probably didn't even know each other along with everything that happened in my life ages 13-24). Catching equipment in the late 19th century was rudimentary at best. The catcher's mask wasn't invented until 1878 when somebody finally became annoyed enough with having their teeth smashed in by foul tips that they finally sat down and designed one. (This seems like common sense to me. If someone would have asked me to catch a game back in the early 1870's my first question would have been "O.k. but what am I going to use to cover my face with?" but that may be because I'm so vain and handsome. You know I have an insurance policy for my face in case of some horribly disfiguring accident. A modern Douglas Fairbanks the ladies call me). Also catchers mitts appeared to be of the same quality as those cheap work gloves you can buy at ACO for $1.99 that inevitably get crusted to the bottom of your wheelbarrow during the winter, and Bennett (or rather his wife) is credited with creating the first chest protector, even though he was razzed by opponents and teammates alike for wearing one, which is the equivalent of a junkie giving another addict shit for insisting on using a clean needle. Or not like that at all. I don't know.

This post is bogging down slightly so I'll get back to Bennett. Bennett remained a potent hitter and popular player in Detroit over the next several seasons and in 1887 Detroiters were able to witness their Wolverines tear through the National League and win the pennant by 3.5 games. After the season the Wolverines challenged the St. Louis Browns of the rival American Association to a best of fifteen series of exhibition games throughout the U.S. The Wolverines won this precursor to the World Series 10-5 and brought home the first professional title ever to the city of Detroit, and from the looks of that team photo it appears the Wolverines would have more then held their own in a World Series of Moustaches contest, although I'm sure the French and German squads would have something to say about that. However by the 1887 season the years behind the plate had begun to wear considerably on Bennett and his hitting skills began to decline rapidly as he split most of the playing time behind the plate with a young catcher named Charlie Ganzel. Despite their success the Wolverines would fold after the 1888 season mainly because the city was still populated mostly by farmers, lumberjacks, actual wolverines and a young Henry Ford still trying to figure out what to do with his burgeoning genius and anti-semitism.

After the Detroit franchise folded Bennett moved on to play five more seasons with the Boston Beaneaters until tragedy struck (Duh-duh-duh). In early 1894 Bennett was returning from a hunting trip when he got off the train to talk to a friend and presumably brag about all the quail he had shot or all the boars he had strangled to death with his bear hands (I know its supposed to be bare but I misspelled it and bear hands sounds way more badass so its staying). As Bennett was telling his story his train started to pull away and Bennett raced to catch up with it. He leaped while trying to reboard and slipped falling underneath the tracks. Unfortunately Bennett wasn't wearing the leg protectors his wife had sewn for him for just such an occasion as he had succumbed to the peer pressure and razzing of his fellow hunters. There is a lesson in there for you kids.

As it turns out nothing ends a baseball career faster than having two wooden legs, even for a catcher who seemingly could catch every inning of every game without having to worry about getting tired. Alas, artificial limb technology in the late 19th century wasn't what it was before or since that time so Bennett spent most of the remainder of his life confined to a big scary wheelchair that looked like the kind found in the basement of a mental asylum in some Nightmare on Elm Street sequel. (Seriously, in the 1500 and 1600's armorers made artificial limbs for knights and soldiers out of iron and as you can see from the photo on the right they looked ultra badass, like something a villain would wear in a Beastmaster or Conan movie. Apparently practicality is more important then looking cool when one has an artificial limb so wooden limbs became common for obvious reasons). After his accident Bennett returned to Detroit where he had remained quite popular, and opened up a candy/tobacco/newspaper/elixir/snake oil store across the street from the minor league ballpark located at Michigan and Trumbull. Shortly after his arrival in Detroit the minor league team, that would eventually become the Tigers, held a Charlie Bennett Day where they presented the former catcher with a wheelbarrow full of silver dollars, which if you adjusted for today's inflation would be the equivalent of giving him 4.7 billion dollars. In 1896 a new ballpark was built at the location that was to become famously known locally as "The Corner" and the fans voted to name the teams new digs Bennett Park a name that barely, and fortunately, beat out the push for corporate sponsorship from Bayer Brand Heroin and Lloyd's Cocaine Toothache Drops. Bennett himself caught the first pitch ever thrown at the park named in his honor an event that became an opening day tradition that would last for 30 years until Bennett's death in 1927 at the age of 72.

Rothbury Music Festival

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:51:00 +0000

This weekend over 50,000 hippies will invade the small town of Rothbury MI, for the beginning of a week-long music festival headlined by big name acts like Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer as well as several other musicians whom feature the "crunchy groove" sound that so greatly appeals to the unwashed masses. Free loving spirits from across the country have hit up their lawyer dads for gas money, charged $250 a ticket to their mom's credit card and loaded up their Jetta's to make the trek to the sleepy western Michigan town for a once in a lifetime chance to spend a weekend camping, dancing in place with their arms swaying wildly, trying to score with girls wearing long skirts, (all of whom feel the need to argue, with no one really, that Jose Ortega y Gasset is the most underrated American philosopher when you really just want to scream "To bad he's from Spain you dumb, pretentious harpy" but you want to see her boobs so bad that you just nod your head in agreement. Yes, I may be talking from personal experience here) and praying their AT&T wi-fi connect cards get service out in the woods because they need to update their blog so all their co-op farmer friends in Boise can read about how "organic" the festival is even though its located on the same land as a resort golf course and a family friendly indoor water park. Local officials estimate the scent of patchouli and pretense will more than likely suffocate the local population and may be smelled at distances as far away as Lansing, Ludington and Grand Rapids. Lucky for those of you, like myself, who are to busy selling your soul to faceless corporations or going to law school to get a degree in fascist pig-ism and don't feel like spending your Fourth of July weekend spending a couple of hundred bucks to lay in a hammock and eat rice the Detroit News has sent their music writer Adam Graham to cover the festivities for you.

O.k. maybe I'm being pretty harsh on these festival goers....maybe. To each their own, right? Sure, it might be fun to get a group of friends together, travel around the country and hit up various festivals, especially if you are really into music, which I'm not (I'm pretty sure buying Grave Dancer's Union by Soul Asylum in fifth grade pretty much disqualified me from ever reaching music aficionado status, but I digress). For example my idea of a dream road trip would be to head out with some friends and hit up as many major league baseball stadiums as we could, which if you don't like sports probably sounds like a colossal waste of money and time. So before I judge these festival goers to harshly and paint all of those in attendence to broadly with the same brush let me read what the first report from Rothbury has to say. Oh no.
-
"The first-year factor was also part of the allure for Nathan Straight, who came to Rothbury with four friends from Winchester, Va. "
We're breaking it in for everyone," says Straight, 19, while his friend Chelsea Witte cooked a pot of rice over a portable grill. "We're pioneers, really. Like Thomas Jefferson or something.'"

Fuck. You.

Seriously. Hold on, I have to go walk around the room to calm down about this

...

...

...

O.k. I'm back but I'm still angry. Maybe I shouldn't be though. Maybe this kid is just joking or he's mentally handicapped or he's just been misquoted or something. However there is probably something like a fifty percent chance he is being dead serious and I, relatively anonymous blogger and defender of Thomas Jefferson's honor, just can't let him get away with that. Why? Because I dealt with too many assholes in my history classes at MSU, namely guys who wore ponchos with sandals, drank coffee from the same moldy ass Beaner's mug everyday, treated completing the State News crossword puzzle as if they had just done the Sunday New York Times Puzzle, described everything as "pragmatic" and took contrarian bullshit stances against the professor just for the sake of being non-conformist to not call this kid on it. Since this is post is getting much longer than I anticipated I'm going to give an abbreviated list of everything Thomas Jefferson accomplished in his 83 years.

-Delegate to Continental Congress
-Drafted Declaration of Independence, which could have led to him being executed for treason.
-State Legislator
-Governor of Virginia
-Founder of the University of Virginia
-Minister to France
-Secretary of State
-Vice President
-2-Term President
-Father to dozens of slave children...o.k. maybe this last item isn't so great but impressive nonetheless.

Noticeably absent from this list. Attending music festivals. I don't know though because Jefferson did take a year off from politics in 1794, which he very well could've spent backpacking across Europe with Ben Franklin and John Jay hitting up music festivals, experimenting with his sexuality and just fucking finding himself....man.

I don't think our friend Nicholas used the word pioneer correctly either. Jefferson was a political pioneer and I don't think the Rothbury Festival is breaking any kind of new political ground. I don't think Widespread Panic are going to introduce a new form of government in between 20 minute long jam sessions and Jefferson was way to cosmopolitan to be one of those soil of the earth American pioneers like Daniel Boone or som.........you know what this is stupid. If I wrote a blog post about every stupid uninformed hippie opinion that gets published in a paper I would be here all fucking day. So if you'll excuse me I'm going to get back to selling out.

Seriously though, this bar exam review shit is killing me. I'll post whenever I have time again.

Dontrelle Willis...

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:00:00 +0000

meet Steve Blass.

Opening The Vault Part I: Matt Millen

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:43:00 +0000

A couple of months ago I wrote that Sports Illustrated had put their entire archives online for free at SI.com. This was fantastic news for all the shut-in sports history buffs who would rather spend their Friday nights reading twenty-three year old articles about Dwight Gooden and Todd Marinovich instead of doing something frightening like talk to girls or leave my cat Scrambles at home by herself for more then an hour. Actually this isn't true. I don't want to play into the tired yet popular notion that all bloggers are basement dwelling losers who are afraid of human contact (In all honesty I don't see what's so great about human contact. Like the other day I was riding the bus and had no less than ten guys "accidentally" poked me with their boners. I know I'm a handsome man and people always tell me I look like James Spader in Stargate but I don't deserve that kind of treatment? It's not like I'm a woman).

Anyways in an effort to give full disclosure I thought I would get rid of the cloak of anonymity on this website and reveal my true identity. The name beefshower is an alias. I am really the spirit of Swami Vivekananda and whenever I get bored of travelling through India spreading the enlightening philosophies of the Hindu religion to the pure of heart I take some time out to blog about what's happening with sports in Detroit and breathlessly jack it to Paramore videos. Now that that's out of the way I thought I would put all those hours I've wasted going through SI's archives to good use by wasting even more time writing about those articles so that you the reader could waste your time reading my opinions of events that happened months, years even decades ago. It's a beautiful cycle really. Kind of like the circle of life only with a slower and more painful death.

I'm not going to be critical of the actual writing because my own writing sucks shit but rather I'm going to focus on the things that are funny or painful now that we look back on them with some historical perspective. I was thinking about writing something on the Tigers but they are so terrible and depressing right now that I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't end up with me in tears or cursing a lot...or both. Instead I'm going to focus on this dandy that Peter King wrote during the summer of 2001 shortly after the Lions hired a man who would become famous for being worse at his job then anybody else is at their job anywhere in the country. Even worse then the guy at McDonalds on Woodward that gave me the Fish Filet value meal when I clearly ordered the ten piece McNugget meal. Seriously who requests barbecue sauce with a fish sandwich. Assholes. Anyways this isn't about the dumbass at McDonalds but for those of you who haven't figured it out yet and need me to spell out everything for them I'm talking about Matt Millen.

Matt Millen stood, soaking wet, outside the 226-year-old stone house he owns in eastern Pennsylvania. It was late May. A steady rain was falling on the 150-acre estate, and that made Millen happy. The rain was feeding his wife's endless flower beds and filling the property's cistern....

I know I said I wouldn't be critical of the writing because for the most part the writing in Sports Illustrated is top-notch but I'm going to nit-pick here. King goes on for nearly four paragraphs about some old cistern on Millen's property. Way to know your audience Mr. King. Although if any Quakers passing by from the 19th century happened by a news stand and picked up this issue hoping to find the latest in cistern news and advances in irrigation they would be in luck. Maybe later in the article he'll wite about James Polk's dealings with the British during the Oregon Territory dispute or maybe he'll provide the most humane method to kill an elderly relative suffering from typhoid fever. I consider myself a football fan as well as a pretty intelligent guy, as my rejection letter from the Everest Institute would indicate, and I had no idea what a cistern was until I looked it up on Wikipedia. Anyways if you want to read the rest of this cistern talk feel free to go to the article and read it. I'll just be sitting here waiting impatiently for you to return.

Millen recently began another rocky renovation project. This one, the reconstruction of the Detroit Lions, promises to be tougher than relining a 200-year-old cistern. The Lions last won an NFL title in 1957 and have won only one playoff game in the 44 years since. The previous regime tried to narrow the talent gap between Detroit and the league's elite by throwing huge money at players with slightly-above-average talent at best—running back James Stewart, quarterback Charlie Batch, defensive tackle James Jones, for example—thus creating major salary-cap problems for the new administration.

Mercifully thats the last of the cistern talk. At least Millen stopped the embarrassing habit of throwing large amounts of money at slightly above average talent. Instead he seems to have taken the radical approach of throwing big cash at old, washed up and way below average free agents such as Todd Lyght, Fernando Bryant, Damien Woody, Kenoy Kennedy, Marcus Pollard, Bill Schroeder, etc. I would continue to list the free agent busts but this post is already going to be about a million words long so I don't want to add another few thousand words by just naming names.

When Lions owner William Clay Ford handed the CEO and president job to Millen last Jan. 9, the hiring marked the first time since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 that the day-to-day operations of a team had been turned over to someone with no coaching, scouting or front-office experience. Millen played linebacker in the NFL for 12 seasons—with the Raiders (in Oakland and L.A.), the San Francisco 49ers and the Washington Redskins—and won four Super Bowl rings, but for the past nine years his association with the game has been limited to working as a broadcaster for CBS and Fox.

Transcript of Millen interview:

Ford: "Matt, you will be in charge of a team that is moving into a wonderful state of the art stadium in downtown Detroit. You will be in charge of ridding the franchise of a culture of losing that has permeated the team following a half century of sucking shit through a straw. You will be in charge of evaluating current players and handing out tens of millions of dollars in contracts a year to free agents. You will also have to spend countless hours scouting college talent in an attempt to land high impact first round picks as well as starters and positional depth in the later rounds. You will be in charge of assembling a roster with a payroll in excess of $100 million with players from diverse backgrounds. You will also have to hire a coaching staff that will develop these players and try to get the absolute most out of their ability, while also holding players accountable for their behavior on and off the field. You will also need to surround yourself with front office employees who will help you run an efficient workplace environment and assist you in handling the day to day business operations and decisions that are associated with running a multi-million dollar entity. What kind of experience do you have in this field?"

MM: "None"

Ford: "None. Why the hell should I hire you then?"

MM: "Because I was a slightly above average linebacker on three Super Bowl teams, all of which were supremely talented and brilliantly coached and could have won world titles without my contribution. I was pretty good at tackling people. That's about it."

Ford: "Wow. You're hired. Hell I'll even let you work out of your home. I heard you have a lovely cistern there."

"Matt came to see me at my home in Florida, and after 10 minutes with him I was charged up," Ford recalls about a late December meeting. "He convinced me there's little difference between our team and the great teams."

Ford went on to add, "He also revealed that he had evidence that my grandfather Henry Ford stole his idea for the automobile from a Jewish co-worker named Lowenstein while the two were employed at the Edison Illuminating Company. Grandpappy lured him over for lunch and Grandma Clara poisoned him with an arsenic laced bagel. Before disposing of the body Grandpa used the sack of gold tied around Lowensteins neck to start the Ford Motor Company and the Lowenstein Quadricycle became what is known today as the Model T. Matt also had pictures of my boy Billy fellating the Princeton lacrosse team during his time there."

This quote doesn't actually appear in the article but it should have because it would finally shed light on how Millen has been able to keep his job despite a 31-81 record as a G.M. Also legally I should point out this is all parody and that in all honesty Henry Ford is one of my favorite historical icons. Anybody who had their own secret police is a certifiable badass.

Hardly the executive type, Millen showed up for his introductory news conference wearing a wrinkled, seven-year-old blue blazer, sneakers that had belonged to Redskins linebacker LaVar Arrington and a tie borrowed from broadcast partner Dick Stockton.

I might be wrong on this but I'm pretty sure the NFL is the most profitable business entity in all of professional sports. According to Forbes the Detroit Lions alone are worth 870 million dollars, which is more than the entire GDP of Zimbabwe. An NFL team could presumably hire some of the most intelligent and accomplished businessmen in the country to run their franchise but instead the Lions hired a man that doesnt even own a fucking tie. Although I probably shouldn't criticize somebody for their wardrobe or lack there of since I just pulled off the rare trifecta of wearing the same suit to my high school, college and law school graduation. But at least I was switching up my ties.

His office decor is best characterized by a pair of framed Three Stooges pictures that hang on the wall. He rides a Harley to work. In Millen's world every day is casual Friday, his typical attire being polo shirt, jeans, sneakers and a ball cap that reads DO IT ONCE—DO IT RIGHT. When Mike Holmgren, the Seattle Seahawks' executive vice president and coach, saw Millen scouting on the Michigan campus in March, he quipped, "Team president, CEO, general manager—and he looks like a schmo." Even the 43-year-old Millen admits, "I am an experiment."

So the first thing Millen does when he gets hired is throw some Three Stooges posters up on the wall? If I went to Midas to get my brakes fixed and I looked into the managers office and saw some Three Stooges posters on the wall I would just leave. Maybe that says more about me then it does Millen. Maybe this exposes me as some pretentious comedy snob who only finds stuff funny if they are shrouded in several levels of irony and who reads Steve Martin's autobiography while hi-lighting passages that discuss different comedic philosophies, but I just don't think the Three Stooges are funny. No, I'm really not that snobby because if I were I wouldn't rate Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure as one of the funniest movies I've ever seen but there is something about the Three Stooges that drives me nuts and now is not the time or place to explain why because I don't even know the reasons myself. I'm sorry.

Secondly I wouldn't hire a guy to run an NFL team that wore a hat with a cheesy slogan like "Do It Once - Do It Right" on it. Maybe if I were hiring a coach for a high school girls softball team I would allow it. Then he could print up sweatshirts that said things like "Hard Work Beats Talent When Talent Doesn't Work Hard." with cutesy girl nicknames like Short Stuf and half numbers on the back. On the other hand I don't think I would hire Millen to even run a high school girl's team. Not because he's so inept but because with his kind of moustache he looks like the kind of guy who would be the lead story on the 11 o'clock news after getting fired because he bought some chubby girls on the team wine coolers in exchange for them massaging his thighs in the dugout.

Finally if Mike Holmgren who looks more like an obese walrus than most obese walruses do says that some guy is a slob it might be time to re-evaluate things.

Millen's initial personnel moves were uninspiring. After firing coach Gary Moeller, Millen replaced him with Marty Mornhinweg, who had previously labored as an assistant deep in the shadows of Holmgren in Green Bay and Steve Mariucci in San Francisco. Millen loves Mornhinweg's football mind, his variation of the West Coast offense and his ability to deal with change in this era of extensive player movement. Millen impressed no one with his veteran free-agent pickups—(Brendan) Stai, cornerback Todd Lyght, tight end Pete Mitchell, utility back Amp Lee and backup quarterback Jim Harbaugh. On the other hand, the combined 2001 cap value of those five players ($3.95 million) is about the same as what the Lions would have had to pay next season to retain free-agent guard Jeff Hartings, who signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers. "We'll plug Stai in for Hartings," says Millen, "and not lose much."

Wrong. Hartings went on to be a two time All-Pro with the Steelers and helped them win a Super Bowl during his final season. His ability to play both center and guard at a high level helped the Steelers have one of the most consistently good rushing offenses this decade. Brendan Stai sucked ass-barf for one season in Detroit before he was traded to the Redskins for a draft pick that was probably wasted on a lineman who sucked equally as bad, such as Kelly Butler or someone. I like this line of thinking by Millen though and I wonder if he applies in it other real life situations. For example if he went to a car dealer with the intention of buying a new Mercedes and the dealer said something like, "Sure that Mercedes is nice but for the same price I can sell you seven 1985 Mercury Topazes and you really wouldnt be losing that much in performance." would he take that deal? I'm leaning towards yes.

As for Hasselbeck, a source close to the Seahawks' front office says Millen tried to acquire him before the April 21 draft in a three-way deal that would have sent a high draft choice from Detroit to Jacksonville, with Jaguars quarterback Mark Brunell going to Seattle and Hasselbeck, whom the Seahawks had gotten from the Packers in March, moving to the Lions. "How can I make this work?" Millen asked the Seahawks, according to the source. "I want Matt Hasselbeck." Holmgren, though, would not part with his former Green Bay protégé, and Detroit will stick with the cap-heavy and injury-prone Batch.

There is no way this paragraph is true because that deal actually makes sense. I wonder if Millen and the Lions fortunes would have been different had they traded for Hasselbeck or if the Lions aura of suckitude and overwhelming history of shitty quarterbacking would have ruined Hasselbeck's career. It's a pretty amazing What-if? scenario. Well, not really. I'm so pessimistic about the Lions that I honestly believe that if Hasselbeck had ended up playing in Detroit his career would have been ruined. I bet Hasselbeck wakes up screaming at night after having a recurring nightmare where he has to repeatedly check down to Aveion Cason as Dominic Raiola helplessly flails his short little T-Rex arms at a blitzing Lance Briggs.

Millen consulted confidant and former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler, who'd recruited Millen as a Pennsylvania all-state linebacker. (Millen signed with Penn State.)

Bo Schembechler was a great football coach but I wouldn't take advice from him on how to be a good executive. I loved the guy and he was a legend in Ann Arbor but his season as Tigers President was an unmitigated disaster. Dude fired Ernie Harwell for Chrissakes.

Millen will have to hope he hits the lottery with the draft and free agent signings. He saved the Lions another $2.5 million on this year's cap by persuading Jones and linebacker Allen Aldridge to take substantial pay cuts.

This paragraph isnt really that important other than the fact that I don't think Allen Aldridge ever actually existed. I've been a Lions fan my whole life and have been going to games for the past 15 years or so and I have no fucking clue who Allen Aldridge is. Though somehow he was making enough money to take a million dollar plus paycut. God I hate the Lions.

The Lions have a long-term question at quarterback: Can Batch stay healthy and become a consistent and accurate passer?

No. Also the Lions still have a long term question at quarterback for going on the fiftieth season. Is Erik Kramer available b/c he's still the best quarterback the Lions have had in my lifetime.

Strolling his property, Millen acknowledged the obstacles he faces, but he was undaunted. "Look at that house," he said. "In its day it was a great house, probably the finest in the area. But it fell out of repair and had to be rebuilt. Same with the Lions. Champs of the league long ago, but the franchise fell down. We need to bring it back to greatness. That's the only reason I'm in this."

Well if the Lions were an old house and Millen's been in charge of the renovations for the past seven years the house is a disaster. What he's done to the Lions would be the equivalent of driving a bulldozer through the side of the house, setting the ruins on fire, using the fire to light a big fat cigar and then pissing all over the flames to put them out while all the while Mr. Ford claps his hand gleefully and pays Millen with giant sacks of money with dollar signs on them.

He Gone

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:24:00 +0000

Over/under on ERA at Coors Field: 16.00

New Content Coming Soon....

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:31:00 +0000

I'm in the middle of exams right now and I think Bill is in his 1,248th straight hour of Warcraft. Once I'm done with finals I will post content until I can think of a different reason to ignore this site.

That's More Like It

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:20:00 +0000

I'm yo pusha....I'm yo pusha.....

Tonight the Tigers were able to roll out their complete lineup for the first time all season. O.k. so they were missing the desecrated corpse of Gary Sheffield and Polanco's wonky back held him out of action again, but with Granderson available for the first time this year (for those of you just waking up from a coma Grandy had missed the first 21 games after breaking his hand during spring training and a hip shark with sunglasses named Zak has become president) and hitting atop the order the lineup finally felt complete. During the Tigers offensive struggles at the beginning of the season, when they were shut out four times in their first fourteen games, I, along with everybody else was extremely disappointed by this offense that was projected to score well over 800 runs.

Not as disappointed as I was when I got a set of Walkie Talkies for my birthday when I was a child and soon found out that they had a range of about ten feet. Man did that suck. I think every kid had dreams about having walkie talkies and going on adventures like the Hardy Boys. Well at least all the lame kids like my friends and I had those kinds of dreams. When I first got them I envisioned giving one of them to my best friend Greg and the two of us would go searching through the wooded areas by our houses hoping to stumble across a dead body that had a briefcase laying next to it with millions of dollars inside. Instead we usually came across high school kids with mopeds and bb guns smoking weed and when we desperately tried to radio for help before getting our asses kicked we discovered just how bad the range on the walkie talkies sucked and that's the story of how I never learned to get my hopes up for anything.

Wait. That's not what I was writing about. Hold on and let me get my thoughts back on track.....hmmm. Oh yeah, Granderson. Anyways, I wondered whether the problem was not just a team pressing to live up to unreasonable expectations but rather the fact that the team was missing its catalyst at the top of the lineup. Nothing against Clete Thomas, who did a remarkable job of filling in and hopefully will avoid contracting Brent Clevlen Syndrome (usually afflicting impressive outfielders during their cups of coffee in the majors who completely lose their ability to hit after returning to the minors and are never heard from again) during his stint in Toledo, but the team just didn't seem to have that same energy it does when Granderson is rocking the top spot. The Tigers seemed so lethargic, old and slow during the first few weeks of the season, seemingly grounding into double plays every time someone came to bat with a man on first. However tonight everything seemed different. It looked like everyone was flying around the basepaths, being aggressive with their baserunning and most importantly having fun.

Look I know as much as the guy sitting next to me....wait. Why is there a guy sitting next to me? I live alone in my apartment. Excuse me sir but can I help you? Uh huh....O.k....understood....thank you. Turns out his name is Reginald and he plans on robbing and kidnapping me but is going to be polite enough to let me finish my post. Now that that matter is cleared up I was saying that I'm not so dumb as to suggest that the Tigers were playing poorly because Clete Thomas doesn't laugh at Edgar Renteria's jokes about the differences between people from Barranquilla and people from Cartagena (for example "Have you ever noticed that drug lords in Barranquilla murder people with machetes and yellow bandanas while arms dealers in Cartagena murder people with machine guns and purple ski masks?" LOL). But when you watch a team day in and day out and they become such an important and interwoven part of your life that you find yourself pretend talking to Marcus Thames on your cell phone and empathizing with his lack of at-bats its hard not to let subjectivity and irrationality creep in. I find myself perceiving things out on the field that aren't really there. Things such as chemistry and energy and hustle and that little demonic badger that crawls out of Chuck Hernandez's mouth and screams at me in German to set the Domino's down the street on fire. I know that if I asked Leyland for his opinion on the improved chemistry or higher energy level after Granderson's return he would just curse at me and then put his cigarette out on my face. Also I know that it's just one game back for Granderson and the Tigers could get shut out tomorrow or that they will continue to be inconsistent until the starting rotation starts to pitch more effectively and deeper into games, but the return of Granderson coupled with a nineteen run outburst made tonight feel like the beginning of what we've all been waiting for. Now if you'll excuse me ich brauche zu Beginn eines Brandes. (That German is horrible, it's been 3 years since I slept through every German class I took over a two year period at MSU so for my one reader in Berlin I apologize. Also I know I forgot to call back to the joke about the guy robbing my apartment but it was kind of lame so I'll just let it die a slow death.)

Law School Advice

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:37:00 +0000

This post is a response to Grillicheese's question in the comments section of the previous post so if you are interested in attending Wayne State's Law School you might be interested in this. If you are looking for Tigers content skip this and I'll post something later.

Here is my advice regarding law school. Don't go. Not just to Wayne, don't go anywhere. It's a nightmare. Well, let me amend that by saying don't go unless being a lawyer or a judge or a politician is absolutely, positively, 100% what you really, really, really, really want to do with your career. It's a lot of work and a lot of money and a full time commitment for three years of the prime of your life. On top that the market for lawyers sucks in Michigan, like every other part of the states economy, so unless you know someone who is already a lawyer or you graduate in the top 10-20% of your class job prospects are dismal, and you'll likely be clerking at some firm in Southfield for $20 an hour your first year out of school until they fire you to hire some other first year clerk on the cheap, which is the fate about 50% of the people I'm graduating with are going through.
Maybe I'm being cynical but if I could have met my present self three years ago when I was considering law school I might have changed my mind and tried to do something I really loved instead of falling into law school. (My first mistake was getting a history degree, which was worthless). Anyways I've got no beef with Wayne, even if their Career Services office is more poorly run than the Lions front office. Seriously, there is one person in charge of the whole school's job placement program and if you aren't near the top of your class they have no interest in helping you. I've sent e-mails to them that have gone unanswered and half way through my third and final year they sent me an e-mail to me with the heading "Getting to Know You" and asking what my interests were and that if I found work after graduating to report it to them so their numbers would go up, as if anybody there had any hand in helping me find work.

As for classes you are assigned your classes and teachers based on what section you are in your first year, something you don't have control of. I was assigned to the group that had Mogk, Browne and Findlater as professors and all three of them were excellent (as was Moran but he's leaving this year to teach at Ann Arbor). I liked Browne so much that I took a couple of employment law classes during my second and third year that he taught just because I enjoyed him. If you are into environmental law or administrative law, Prof. Hall is a great teacher. He's young, easy-going and funny and more importantly a fair grader (i.e. lots of A's). If you are into IP law take the classes that Bambauer teaches, he has similar qualities to Hall. Now that I think about it I can't think of anything negative about any of the faculty as they were all knowledgable and relatively friendly. The only class I absolutely hated was Secured Transactions but that was more because of the subject matter than anything else.

Finally my advice for things to do while at school is to move to Detroit. Move close to Comerica and go to a ton of Tigers games, find restaurants in Detroit that you like, go to concerts at the Magic Stick and other music venues. Living in Detroit has been tits to say the least. When you get to law school you will quickly find that 90% or more of your fellow classmates are insufferable douchebags that you would never associate with outside of school. Any girl who is remotely attractive is already married or engaged and will spend every minute in class browsing theknot.com and or talking about their wedding. It's awful. I was fortunate to identify the few really cool people I go to school with early on, namely the aforementioned Matt from the previous post, and have spent most of my time in school hanging out and talking with him. I'm also painfully shy, awkward and possibly paranoid so take my advice about making friends with a grain of salt.

Anyways if you have any more questions just send me an e-mail and I will gladly answer them for you as best as I can.

The Best Things In Life Are Free

noreply@blogger.com (beefshower) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:16:00 +0000

Today was a good day. The Tigers offense routed Sabathia with both Cabrera and Renteria contributing 5 R.B.I.'s. Armando Galarraga pitched great in his Tigers debut, throwing strikes and retiring 17 in a row after a first inning homerun to Dave Dellucci. Jason Grilli came in and didn't blow a ten run lead, only allowing one inherited baserunner to score in two hits over 2 1/3 innings of relief. The game ended within minutes of the new episode of South Park starting, which made for a seamless transition of laziness as I didn't have to spend a few minutes surfing channels, wasting time and fighting off a nagging feeling of guilt for neglecting my studies as final exams rapidly approach. South Park was hilarious. Then my friend Matt, who was over to watch the game and South Park, and I went to Burger King because we were both starving our faces off. While we were placing our orders a homeless guy approached my car and waited patiently for us to finish our order before asking us for money. But instead of just asking for cash he fidgeted around in his pocket and for a split second I thought, "Jesus Christ I think this dangerous minority is going to pull a gun or knife out of his pocket and rob me as I try to order Chicken Tenders. I never thought I would go out this way. I always imagined it would be at a White Castle." (Wait was that racist? Can I use it as an excuse that I'm typing this at 5:41 A.M. and that the brain filter that keeps me from writing stupid things might not be functioning at full capacity. I think even Mother Teresa would be capable of saying something offensive if she were as sleep deprived as I am right now. Seriously, I've seen meth heads who look more refreshed and alive than I do right now......rimshot followed by silence...maybe a cough or two). Instead the homeless guy pulled out a pocket full of baseball cards that he offered to sell me so that he could buy a Whopper. Being a dorky white kid who blows cash on all kinds of stupid shit that could be classified under the loose tag of collectibles I eagerly accepted. Had the guy opened up a book bag full of ALF pogs I probably would've traded him my car for them. I told him to meet me after the drive-thru window and I would give him the cash for the cards. I paid for Matt and I's food with a $20 and should have got $5 back in change but the lady working the window made a mistake and handed me back $15. Since I'm a total cheapass I didnt alert her to her mistake and pocketed the extra ten bucks. We got all the food we ordered, which is a minor miracle when dealing with the fast food restaurants in Detroit, and feeling generous I gave the homeless guy with the baseball cards $5. I pulled out of BK and hit every green light on the way back to my apartment. When I got back to my apartment I inspected the cards I had just received and, as I expected, they all sucked with the highlights being an '88 Topps Floyd Youmans and Rick Rhoden and a '91 Score Rondell White Draft Pick card. Matt joked that with all the good things that had happened to me throughout the day karma was going to rear its ugly head and have something terrible beset me. I thought about what he said for a moment and responded that maybe I had already died and this was my version of heaven.

He called me gay.

I deserved it.