Update

I have been a bad Tigers fan this season........there I admitted it. I ve only been to one game at Comerica and have not been able to watch every game on television this season. I don't have an explanation for why I haven't been watching, its not like I have work/girlfriends/distractions that prevent me from watching........I just don't. I think its a part of getting older, or just the feeling that I should be doing more important things, like its no longer acceptable to devote five nights a week to sitting alone in my house and watching a three hour long baseball game. But enough about that I have watched a fair amount of games, and the reliable and always scary Danny Knobler has kept me informed of the happenings within the organization and locker room. So with this information in hand I will now give a quarterly report on the entire Tigers roster, a task whose scope is so large that I will find it necessary to sleep until at least 4 oclock tomorrow afternoon just to recover, well actually I am sure I would be sleeping in tomorrow regardless but at least I now have a legitimate excuse, well at least its legitimate for me........

Jeremy Bonderman: I cant believe I almost got this prediction right, I thought I was being ridiculously optimistic in my predictions for his season but so far so good, and now if I've completely jinxed him you can put 100 percent of the blame on me. I haven't really been able to see him pitch much this season, but when I have hes been electric. He still reminds me of a bird or a fat toad, nevermind I cant say fat toad because that nickname already belongs to the immortal Hideki Irabu. I was concerned as I think nearly every Tigers fan was, when Bonderman missed that one start with dead arm. Luckily it was just a passing thing.........I think. Speaking of dead arms the Carlos Zambrano injury that he got from typing online too much must be one of the most absurd injuries in awhile. I can relate to Carlos because I myself have experienced dead arm from spending too much time online, however for an entirely different reason, usually on weekday nights when my room mate in college was staying at his girlfriends apartment. Also I believe I am close enough to Carlos that I can refer to him on a first name basis, this is based solely on the fact that he has been on my fantasy baseball team each year that he has been in the major leagues.

Mike Maroth: I also have gotten this one right so far. I thought Maroth would end up with about a .500 record and an ERA in the mid 4's based solely on the fact that its Mike Maroth and this is what he does every year. Im not really sure if I've seen him pitch more than a couple of innings this year but Im assuming its still the same bland soft tossing lefty stuff hes been doing for over three years. Mike Maroth is my candidate for the potential Willie Blair/Kent Bottenfield season, a season in which none of Maroths stats are any better except for his won-loss record, a season in which he'll get insane run support in his starts, which will in turn result in a season where he goes 18-8. I only remember Bottenfield because I may be the only person to have drafted him in fantasy sports the following season. I always have a penchant for making ridiculous sleeper picks, because my arrogance about my baseball knowledge leads me to believe I can win the title with a lineup that contains nearly no household names. In an unrelated story I have never won my fantasy baseball league, and Bottenfield sucked with the Angels.........of course.

Nate Robertson: Robertson worries me in the fact that he now throws as hard as Maroth, but with no control. Robertson sports an ERA of 2.96 which is misleading because ten of his runs are unearned including five in one game against the Angels. However that Angels game was the one game I attended and let me tell you he was pitching like feces. However it did not help that the Tigers, inexplicably, could not turn a double play to save their lives in that game which resulted in all the unearned runs, but Robertson was still throwing BP fastballs and everything the Los Angeles of Anaheim of Orange County of the Great Golden State of California of the United States Of America hit was hit hard. However I do like Robertson because he wears goggles and I think that if I were a professional athlete I would also wear goggles even though I wear contacts in every day life. I would especially wear them if I played football, I always though Eric Dickerson looked badass in goggles, however Horace Grant was an asshole so I may have to rethink my position on this very important matter. Also I have no evidence that Horace Grant was an asshole but he seemed like he would be.

Jason Johnson: Johnson started off kind of slow, well actually he threw a shutout in his first start but it was against the Royals so that really shouldnt count, but he was also getting rocked in spring training and after his nightmare game against the Twins I was ready to designate him for assignment, but this is why I am not a GM nor will I ever be one. Since that Twins start he has pitched good and has his ERA in the mid 3's or a full two runs lower than I thought it would be, but he has a tendency to tire as the season wears on so we'll see how he does from here on out.

Fredo Ledezma: Ugh, I expected big things from him and so far he is off to a pretty rough start. Im not ready to give up on him of course because its only a quarter of the way through the season and that would be absurd. However I did expect better than this, watching him against the Yankees the other night was rough, they were absolutely teeing off on him. Oh well he will still be solid in the future and will come back and get his revenge against the Yankees. Also I wonder if Wil is the most prominent person to ever attend Ciudad Jardin University. I need some one to research this, I would try but I don't know Spanish and thats what there whole website is in. Also if Wil was born in 1981 and has been playing professional baseball for at least five years how old was he when he first started going to University. Something doesnt seem to add up, I smell a potential Deivi Cruz situation where one day I ll wake up to find that Wil is actually 32, a revelation which will throw me off for an entire day, as I try to come to grips with the fact that I may have actually slept for 8 years a feat that is surely not a question of if it will happen but when.

Team Analog

That last post could only be described as a diatribe, I don't know how it got where it did, and it went on quite a bit longer than I expected it would. Also I dont like to make it look like I relish making obscure references and feel the need to point them out. After reading that I felt like whoever wrote that must be a pretentious asshole who ought to be punched in the face, so if anyone who has ever read this sees me walking down the street they get one free punch on me but not in the stomach I don't feel like dying Houdini style.

I got to watch tonights Tiger game on FSN Detroit for two reasons,
1: because it was actually being aired, and
2: there was no Pistons game on to rival it.

However there is not a more boring team to watch than the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. I have never heard of any of the guys on their team, and the ones I have heard of are pretty depressing in the fact that you know they are at the end of the road guys like Charles Johnson,Hideo Nomo, and Casey Fossum, who was a key part of the trade that brought Curt Schilling to Boston................somehow. They also have the immortal Trever Miller, I believe I own about 500 1991 Topps Trever Miller draft pick baseball cards. A card that made me hope that one day Trever Miller would someday become a superstar, I mean if Topps picked him to be on a card so early in his career he must be good, because Topps had an eye for talent back then, making similar cards for Steve Searcy, and Hensley Meulens............nevermind. I'll run through the D-Rays roster really quick:

Danys Baez: Seemed like he was a big deal when he first arrived on the raft from Cuba, was with the Indians during the end of their AL Central Salad Days, always seemed to disappoint as a starter, and somehow ended up being traded to the D-Rays, also Ive never known how to properly say his first name is the S at the end silent?

Lance Carter: Brother of Aaron and Nick Carter, who gave up pursuit of celebrity in favor of a baseball career......well I made that up but Im sure its far more interesting than anything he has ever actually done in real life, although he may be the worst All-Star representative........ever.

Jesus Colome: I know nothing about this guy, but I like his name, possibly a stage name and my future porn movie name, although Im leaning towards Zesty Alvarado if and when I choose that path.

Lets just run through the rest of the pitchers, Ive already mentioned Fossum, I dont know who Travis Harper, John Switzer, or Doug Waechter are, or if they really exist, Mark Hendrickson used to play basketball with the Spurs I think, Scott Kazmir is supposed to be good, but Im still coming to grips with the fact that there are professional athletes younger than I am, and he is, so I dont like him. Seth McClung is a tall red headed guy, and thats about it. Now outside of Kazmir how many of these guys would even be on another teams roster, or if they made the roster be more than a 11th 12th man in the pen. None of them, and Dewon Brazelton sucks too so no help there.

The bats are just as bad, Toby Hall, it seems like hes been talked about as a big up and comer for years, but now hes nearly thirty years old, so I dont think hes going to be getting any better, not only that but I bought into his hype three years ago and drafted him for my fantasy team, thinking he would be the ultimate sleeper pick, but he killed my roto team for about three weeks before i dropped him, so I have a reason to dislike him. Apparently Eduardo Perez still plays, Julio Lugo is effective when hes not beating his wife in the parking lot after games, Alex Gonzalez is one of the 27 Alex Gonzalezes playing in the league, and they may or may not all be the same person. Actually I think it is a MLB rule that each team must be carrying at least one Alex Gonzalez on their roster at all times. And Jorge Cantu, I mean nothing can prepare you for the Jorge Cantu closeup on the TV screen. Anyways by now you get my point The D Rays suck, I mean Carl Crawford should be good, and Baldelli, as well as Delmon Young, and possibly BJ Upton if he ever learns to play defense, but thats years away and those guys arent sure things, and I dont think they have any pitching in their system.

Also is there anyone in Tampa who actual watches or cares about this team, are there such things as die hard D-Ray fans, why would there be?, and who? The team has only one more than 70 games once since their inception, at least Arizona the D-Rays sister expansion team, (why is it never brother when comparing things like this) have won a World Series and had some excitement. Oh well, and also my heart goes out to Rod Allen because tonight he got put in his place by an emailer who asked if any of Rods 11 career big league hits came off good pitchers. Ouch. You know that had to hurt him too, because he talks as though he were an integral member of the 84 championship team. At first it sounded like he was going to dispute the facts, but he knew deep down the guy was right. I bet he flipped over the production fan for forwarding that question through as well as punish Impembas asshole tonight for reading it on air. Well at least now we know Mike Flanagan and Frank Viola share the ignominy of allowing a hit to Rod Allen, when this was relayed to Viola he responded by saying "Who the fuck is Ron Allen?"

Team Digital

I can never think of any creative titles for my posts so I have to dip into obscure references from old Nickelodeon game shows, this one (obviously?) from Get The Picture, which, thanks to the emergence of Nick GAS, quite possibly the greatest network of all time, allows me, no wait, all of us to enjoy the antics of Mike O'Malley once again. Speaking of Mike O'Malley, he now plays an integral part of my daily routine, my night usually winds down around the time of the aforementioned Get the Picture, and of course GUTS, and my night officially ends when I laugh at one of Mike O'Malleys jokes on his respective shows, which clearly shows me my lack of sleep is making me delusional.

However, and this is the last thing I will write about Mike O'Malley, possibly ever, but he was much funnier on a childrens game show that aired over a decade ago, then he is on his current TV gig, Yes Dear. Yes Dear may possibly be the worst show in the history of television, I mean ever. If I had to wait to laugh at that show before I went to bed it wouldn't happen, I would never get to sleep, I would die from exhaustion, even if towards the end of the second week of waiting to laugh when a person would normally start to laugh uncontrollably because of delirium, I still wouldnt laugh. That is how powerfully unfunny Yes Dear is. I hate CBS and all of their sitcoms. Thank God that Everybody Loves Raymond came to an end. I never in my life willingly watched that show, I have had the unpleasant experience of viewing that show several times because my room mate LOVED it. King of Queens is equally bad.

I remember CBS sucking throughout the early part of my life, I believe it was the original home of Diagnosis Murder and Walker Texas Ranger, and I avoided CBS like the plague, I couldn't even tell you what channel it was on. It was during this time the people in control of CBS came up with a brilliant idea, women constitute over fifty percent of the U.S. population, so CBS, beginning with Raymond, catered to the female audience, by creating a show with a domineering woman and a totally submissive and pussy whipped husband. And it worked, women loved it and watched in massive numbers, however as an added bonus, these women, I am assuming encouraged by Patricia Heatons character, became the dominant partner in their relationship, and forced their pussy-whipped boyfriends/husbands to watch this new brand of sitcoms with them. Following the success of Raymond, the unwatchable King of Queens was spawned, I will save King of Queens for another post for I could not possibly do justice to the hate, HATE, I feel for this show in the rest of this post. (I will mention that this show was responsible with giving the world Kevin James in shorts, a sight so obscene it should not be allowed on network television).

Also spawning from Raymond was Yes Dear. Oh god how I hate Yes Dear, the lead actor on that show is the most insufferable whiny character ever, whole episodes are revolved around the fathers fragile ego, and how his sons run to their uncle instead of him when scared during a thunderstorm (I wonder why they see him as such a weak man, when all they ever witness from him is incessant bitching and crying). Somehow these shows make it to syndication where a whole new generation of young lovers is introduced to them, people like my room mate and his girlfriend. They watch these shows and because of this fresh, new, possibly cutting edge comedies and animated shows are cancelled, because the viewership that they so desperately need, mostly from young male audiences is sucked away, timidly laughing with their significant other as Keri emasculates Doug in front of his friends and co-workers. These negative male stereotypes are being re-enforced while shows like Family Guy, Futurama, and Arrested Development teeter on the edge of cancellation. So when society and civilization come crashing down in the near future and a New World Order of women takes control, we can look forward to one day driving our children to the new national monument, a redefined Mount Rushmore where future generation can celebrate the contributions that Leah Remini, Patricia Heaton, and Kevin James made to this new hell on earth.

Misc. Word Salad

Once again I have been over ambitious, well only for my standards, most people would be quite capable of sitting down and updating a running journal of the Tigers season for 30 minutes a day, however the difference between me and those people is that they have lives. Its been over a month since my last entry but I am determined to make this work, and I have been busy so LAY OFF ME. I am also going to expand the scope of my blog, (I still havent thought of a synonym for that word, which I refuse to type again). Anyways since my last post the Tigers two big free agent signings from this past winter have blown up. First off Magglio Ordonez started off the season batting 0-10, came down with the Ebola virus, and is now going to miss the next 3 or 4 months with a hernia, wait no, it isnt a hernia, or is it, better go see three more specialists, ok it is a hernia. See I am not a doctor, but I think the one injury I could probably diagnose myself would be a hernia. I did take anatomy in high school and have seen pictures, not to mention my grandpa after his hernia operation, an event that I don't think Im ready to talk about yet but am sure to be telling a therapist in twenty years, and I know that if all of my intestines have fallen into my sac I probably have a hernia. So who the hell knows when Magglio will be back and ready to be effective. I do know that if we did have him we would not be a game under .500.

Also Troy Percival has made his annual trip to the DL, with a torn muscle in his forearm, which ironically is known to be great for closers in their mid 30's who have been experiencing a drop in velocity and strikeout totals..........so Ugueth is back to closing for the next month and a half or so.

The biggest story, well not the biggest but most enjoyable for me, in the five weeks of the season has been the stellar play of Nook Logan. I have been a Nook fan since last season when I first laid eyes on the tall, beanpole, Southerner with his hat cocked sideways and laid atop his afro which poked out at the sides not to be confined to the constraints of a rigid baseball cap..............Im sorry about that I was obviously trying to channel the ghost of George Plimpton with that last sentence, wait no, that sentence was written much too generically for someone like George Plimpton, so I was channeling the ghost of Dean Howe a man who may or may not still be alive but only recognizable by the ghostly viasge that adorns the top of his Flint Journal column.

Nook Logan must be the type of player Oscar Gamble pictured himself as being if he could play in the twenty first century, only without power and Nook is not a cyborg. This is not to say that I dont hope that the game of baseball will develop into a game similar to BaseWars for Nintendo, a game where ties dont go to the runner but to whichever robot survives the impromptu death match that occurs on the bag. I also dont think that Nook will ever hit a homerun in his career, or at least one that makes it into the stands. One last thing about Nook Logan, Karl Ravech needs to stop calling him "Nuke" Logan, its Nook, as in the place where Mr. Ravech eats his Oreo cookies off of John Kruk's stomach before heading to work in the morning.

Speaking of ESPN its sad to see what has happened to their NHL guys. E.j. Hradek who writes for the Magazine has been relegated to covering obscure horse racing stories that everyone who gets the mag is going to skip over, unless its the only magazine they have on a trans-atlantic flight, even then it will probably be used more as a gum wrapper page when the in flight meal comes, replacing Dan Le Betards column as least readable article. Let me guess what its about, a jockey overcomes drug/alcohol/spousal abuse/car accident/shooting/forest fire, which derails once promising career, (as if there is such a thing as a promising jockey career), re-establishes himself at local track, falls for some domineering giant of a woman, gets to ride potential Kentucky Derby winner, gains redemption. Touching, but Ive read it before, about 133 times. Meanwhile John Buccigross is manning the graveyard shift ESPNEWZ chair, where he is so out of his element hes making obscure Foo Fighter references while hoping he can earn enough money he needs to buy the bullet that can end this hellish non-NHL world for him. However Steve Levy apparently showed enough range in Fever Pitch to earn a spot on Sportcenter, either that or he was the only guy in Bristol who would work with Stuart Scott and his puffy eyed multiple step handshakes. Barry Melrose is AWOL, and Im going to bed.