Charles Rogers

"Rogers will get 'extensive' time in final exhibition".

That was the headline in yesterdays Detroit News. Apparently they meant extensive time riding the exercise bike, or extensive time chatting to Mike Williams 10 yards away from the rest of the team on the sideline. As I am writing this there is 9:52 remaining in the fourth quarter and Charles Rogers was on the field for one series catching one hitch pass for a total of 3 yards. Apparently this was enough for the completely incompetent Lions organization to make a decisive decision about the future of the former Number 2 overall pick who is scheduled to make millions of dollars this year, or, in the more likely event that he is released Saturday, eat up millions more in salary cap space over the next three years. Meanwhile Glenn Martinez gets a ton of playing time and drops about 25 passes and will more then likely make the team because he practices hard. It doesn't matter that he sucks, has no real upside, and that him playing at 110% is slightly worse then Charlie Rogers at 50%, at least he practices hard and even though that doesn't translate into any wins on Sunday it's the attitude we need........for whatever the hell thats worth.

In the effort of full disclosure I have to say that I've been a Chuck Rogers fan since high school. I grew up in Clio, which is about 25 miles south of Saginaw and 10 miles north of Flint. The two cities schools play each other in the Saginaw Valley Conference, and whenever you have an all-world athlete come out of the area he's usually rabidlly covered by the local media, namely the Flint Journal. This was the case with Cleaves, MoPete, Jason Richardson, Lamar Woodley and scores of others. But I would argue that none of the aforementioned athletes over the past 15 years were as highly touted as Charles Rogers. I remember when it was front page news when the mother of one of his 19 children (all with variations of his name, I think one of them was name Charmander) stabbed him in the lung with a fork at a party and put his status for the upcoming week into question. I followed him to State and was in the stands with my friend Mike when the wildly overmatched Jeremy LeSuerer gave up trying to defend him by halftime and racked up about 5 pass interference/personal fouls over the course State's last second victory. I was estatic when the Lions took him second overall to help out Joey Harrington, a move which the Sporting News referred to as the new Manning/Harrison combo that would dominate the NFL for the next decade. And it all seemed true in that first game against the Arizona Cardinals where I had a goal line seat to the first two touchdown catches of what was sure to be a Hall of Fame worthy career.

And it was all downhill from there, with the injury to close out his rookie season, followed by his second season being wiped out after one series with the same broken collarbone, which the Lions had replaced with adamantium. Then he came in the next year on the second team, a demotion he received only for being injured, before he fucked up and got suspended four games for smoking weed non-stop. This year he came into camp fighting to maintain a roster spot he never got a chance to keep, playing only 14 of 48 possible games before the Lions thought he was worthless. A decision they reached in a much quicker time then the 50 games it took the Lions brass to finally realize that Joey Jo-Jo sucked. I don't think I'm alone in believing as I think Rogers has become a sympathetic character to many Lions fans, who are frustrated over an organization that gave Joey every opportunity to succeed and watch him fall flat on his face over and over again for four years, while Rogers got a handful of starts and 36 catches before getting cut loose. As a matter of fact I think that Lions fans could do a better job making decisions for the team then the people in charge. If you hooked up those Americas Funniest Home Videos voting devices and let Lions fans chose plays they might win 10 games this season instead of the 3-13 record they are destined for.

As the game progressed I was finding myself becoming increasingly irate over the idea that Rogers couldn't get on the field for a fair evaluation in a COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS pre-season game, so I called my sister to complain, a conversation that started something like this.

Me: "Lions-doodly, Rogers-diddly, no chance-a-diddly-doodly, Lions hate, go hell!"

Sister: "You're acting crazy, calm down, it'll be better if he leaves this incompetent organization, gets a fresh start somewhere else, flourishes and makes the Lions look like idiots.......again. And you just have to stop caring about them."

Me: "You're right."

Sister: "That you're crazy?"

Me (flinging whiskey bottle against wall): "About Everything Dammit!!!!!"

O.K. so it wasn't that dramatic, that dialogue read like a Tennessee Williams play rewritten by 4th graders, but she raises a couple of good points. 1: I just have to stop caring about the Lions, as long as Millen is in charge and hiring functionally retarded coaches. Just Stop Caring. I'll follow the NFL by rooting for the players on my fantasy team and just expect the Lions to win five games a year......if they are lucky. 2: I do hope Rogers gets released. Sure it will end his days as a Lion the team I foolishly choose to follow, although he'll still be my No.1 receiver on my Madden Lions, a team which I follow closer then the real franchise anyway. And I don't think he'll be out of work long. I'm sure a team desperate for a receiver will pick him up, hopefully Minnesota, where he'll practice, Brad Childress will turn to his staff and go "Why did the Lions let him go?" and his assistant will say "Because Matt Millen's retarded sir." And they'll high five. Rogers will come into Ford Field and torch the Lions twice a year and I'll be sitting in my seat by the goal line, smiling, and wearing my Chuck Rogers Viking jersey. God I hate the Lions.

Back To School

I've got some bad news. Yesterday I started my second year of law school. Which means that my posting will become increasingly erratic over the next couple of weeks as I try to make time from the hundreds of thousands of millions of pages of reading that will be assigned early in the semester. I'm sure by the end of September I will have quit trying to keep up with my studies and be posting about the Tigers clinching the Central Division (fingers crossed). To commemorate my return to school I was going to list all of the different people and things that I hate about law school but to do so would would take too long and fill too many libraries with material. Anyways I'm sure I'll hear people say "slippery slope" 1,840,609 times between now and the first week of December, watch on in amazement as people nod their heads in agreement with EVERYTHING the professor says over the course of two hours, and turn my brain off when someone raises their hands, (99% of the time fat, older women) and say "I've got a question that will stir the pot a little and get some discussion started." And then they'll ask about some hot button issue from 15-30 years ago, i.e. prayer in school, gender equality, or the pros and cons of Prohibition. Ugh. No, lady, stop. Put your ham hock down and stop asking questions. Please. The only thing that will allow me to keep a modicum of sanity is I'm taking a Sports and the Law class which seems generally interesting because there are case names like Rose v. Giamatti and Boston Celtics v. Brian Shaw instead of U.S. v. Public Utilities Commission. So hopefully I'll find time to update this site in the next few days andd not get completely bogged down in reading.

Top Five Sports Video Game Countdown # 4

My Madden '07 playing has been curtailed lately due to a catastrophic injury I suffered when I burned my left thumb by inadvertently placing it on a piping hot George Foreman Grill. Burning your left thumb is the equivalent of a torn ACL when it comes to video game playing as its nearly impossible to control the direction of my players or effectively run the ball. So while recuperating I thought I would take the time to continue my countdown of the top 5 sports video game of all time. Continuing with...........

#4 PGA Tour Golf II Sega Genesis.

I know when I began this countdown I said I was only going to limit it to games from the major pro sports and not include fringe games dealing with beach volleyball, cliff diving, or martial arts tournaments being held in alternate universes, that being said I am going to include golf........grudgingly. Personally I hate golf.....loathe it. I've never been good at it and never cared enough about it to try to get better. The two things that hinder me the most while attempting to play golf are 1: a complete lack of coordination, and 2: an equally lacking sense of focus and concentration. My swing is an absolute nightmare to watch and my old roommate Mike, who owns/works at a golf course, has attempted to help me work on my swing in an attempt to help me embrace the game of golf but he usually quits in frustration after about five minutes. Even if I do get a halfway decent swing going, in the time between starting my backswing and making contact with the ball I'm already so bored with the game that I either top the ball/slice the hell out of it/or most commonly fail to make contact at all.

The only thing more boring then playing golf is watching it on television. 98% of professional golfers are 5'6 135 pound conservative, boring douchebags, the kind of people who would find Rick Reilly funny and would have no chance of playing any other sport with the possible exception of men's gymnastics or figure skating. The other 2% are foreigners ranging from the freakishly tall and boyish South Africans (Els, Goosen) to the obese and surly Englishmen (Montgomerie). So one might ask, if you hate golf so much how could you possibly enjoy a video game simulating golf? Because PGA Tour Golf II achieves the impossible, it actually makes the sport fun.

I was introduced to this game about ten years after it came out while playing it a friend of mines apartment. Like all games that make this list, the first time I played it quickly devolved into a 12 hour marathon that didn't end until after the sun had come up the next morning. The penultimate moment of that first marathon session was when my roommate Mike and friend Bill were wrapping up a 72 hole tournament, from which I had long been eliminated, and heading into the final hole tied. Mike had the honors and hit a full power shot down the middle of the fairway about 300 yards, which led to much bragging and yelling on Mike's part. Bill followed with a solid drive and they were both on the green in two shots facing long birdie putts. Mike lined up his putt from about 45 feet and places it within a few feet of the cup for an easy par and potential playoff. Bill then lined his putt up from about 42 feet out on a green that was going up and down and breaking right and left and stroked it. As soon as it left the putter you knew it was good and thats when Bill delivered this dagger to Mike's heart. With no change in emotion and in a voice calm enough to creep out Hannibal Lecter he said, "Drive for show, putt for dough." as the ball dropped into the cup on its final turn and as Mike sat there more stunned then Greg Norman at the 1997 Masters. Easily the greatest shit talking moment witnessed during my lifetime.

This game also gets major bonus points for helping get me through numerous classes while attending State thanks to the gift of emulation as well as featuring hints and tips on how to best approach the upcoming hole from horribly pixelated (?) images of golfers such as a confused looking Walrus named Craig Stadler a smug and satisfied Fred Couples and a completely irrelevant Tommy Armour III. They would always point out the most obvious things about the course such as, "watch out for the sandtraps to the right of the green" an area that encompassed nearly 3/4 of the screen, or "winds can make this whole tricky" as a hurricane force gale wind would be blowing across the course. The great gameplay and numerous other quirks are what makes PGA Tour Golf II the best golf game and # 4 sports game ever.

Tiger's To Reward Loyal Fan Base

Dateline Detroit: Impish Pizza baron Mike Ilitch emerged from his cave today after years of self imposed seclusion during the summer months over the embarrassment and shame he felt in overseeing the disintegration of one of baseball's proudest franchises into a laughingstock during his 14 year reign as the franchises principal owner. With his team relevant for the first time since Whitney Houston's infectious smash hit "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" provided a perfect soundtrack for a magical Tigers team that featured Tiger icons Alan Trammell, Jack Morris and Dave Bergman some 19 seasons ago, Mr. Ilitch scheduled a press conference for Wednesday afternoon to be held at Comerica Park.

From a conference room inside Comerica, with the shades drawn to prevent Mr. Ilitch from bursting into flames from exposure to sunlight. The cloistered elderly Tigers owner entered the room to the sounds of complete silence. The temperature in the conference room dropped several degrees and became overwhelmed with the pungent scent of grease and pepperoni as Mr. Caesar himself strode toward the podium, cleared his throat for over 12 minutes before speaking in a voice barely above a breathless whisper.

"As you may know The Tigers have been slightly below average over the past two decades." Mr. Ilitch said. "However the fans in Detroit are some of the best fans in the world, as exemplified by their blind devotion to the Detroit Lions, owned by my close friend and fellow vampire/Republican/industry magnate Bill Ford and I would like to reward them for their undeserved support."

Mr. Ilitch paused and motioned for a young, gangly, yet strikingly handsome man named Andrew to join him onstage.

"This is Andrew, a college student with an irregular heartbeat caused by my pizzas, thousands of dollars in student loan debt, and barely enough money to dress respectably, as shown by him wearing a t-shirt today that illustrates a shark eating a kitten..........(mmm, I havent eaten a kitten in awhile), who filled my coffers attending games during a 119 loss season, purchased $8 beers in an attempt to get drunk enough to enjoy a day at the park with my often inept Detroit Nines playing a game of Rounders, and spent $25 on T-shirt jersey's of "stars" like Matt Anderson, Damion Easley, and Rondell White. For him and all the fans like him, I want to reward them by not increasing the price of Tigers tickets if they reach the post-season." Ilitch stated.

The crowd was stunned as Mr. Ilitch showed generosity for the first time since his revolutionary announcement of a $5 Hot & Ready pizza. Andrew stood dumbfounded searching for something to say.

"And," Mr. Ilitch continued, "I'm going to present the first two tickets to my young, handsome, (did I mention I.....he's handsome) friend here."

The owner dug into his pocket and instead of producing tickets brandished a fork. "Ahhhhhh!!!!" a shrill, feminine cry was heard and Andrew fell to the ground with the fork protruding from his eye. With the quickness of a cat Mr. Ilitch lept over Andrew's body and procured his wallet, emptying its contents into his own pockets. BOOM!! The room was rocked as a strategically timed smoke bomb exploded, disorienting the crowd, as Ilitch was whisked away to his lair by devoted underling Randy Smith. Banners then unfolded from the ceiling revealing a pricing plan that had increased playoff ticket prices fivefold as mandated by the Supreme Overlord of baseball himself Bud Selig, before stormtroopers orderly marched in and dispersed the crowd.

O.K. I'm not going to pretend to know where that came from although I might have been influenced by Ken Burns documentary on Baseball, part of which I watched this evening, and none of these events happened.........obviously other than the announcement of the ticket increases, which I learned about in the Detroit News via Deadspin. The increase is just another example of Major League Baseball's need to suck the fun and goodwill out of their sport and attempt to further alienate an already disenchanted fan base. God I hate MLB.

Top Five Sports Video Game Countdown # 5

I'm going to begin this post with another apology. I'm sorry for the lack of updates over the past week but I've been very busy with getting prepared for school, attending to birthdays, and my closest friend Kevin, whom I've known since I was 6, step-father passed away this week. All of these events made it nearly impossible for me to find the time to write a post, (also sleeping in until 3 P.M. and acquiring and watching the entire Simpsons Season 8 DVD's didn't help either.) and for this I apologize to the one person who reads this site.

Every red-blooded, virile, American male born since 1980 eagerly awaits with bated breath and sweaty palms for the end of August. Why? A hysterical woman might ask. For the Montrose, Michigan Annual Blueberry Festival? Certainly not. Rather the excitement is over the release of the latest installment of EA Sports Madden NFL Football. An event so magnificent that it nearly balances out the soul crushing experience of having to go back to school the following week. And if you can't relate to the reverential terms I'm using to describe the Madden series, well.....I just don't know who you are anymore. Anyways to honor/celebrate the release of the new Madden game and to shatter any idea that I have/had any semblance of a social life I'm going to count down my Top 5 favorite sports video games of all-time, (and to avoid talking about the suddenly free falling Tigers, but I'm not going to panic........ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod). I'm limiting this list to the major pro sports, so if you have an e-mail or comment about how great Ivan "Ironman" Stewarts Off-Road was or how I overlooked the brilliance of Kings of the Beach save it. So without further adieu The List.

#5 NHLPA '93 Sega Genesis

My first memory of playing NHL '93 was when I was ten years old and staying the night at my friend Greg's house. Greg's stepdad had made the trip to the local video store and rented a game to prevent a couple of energetic ten year olds from interfering with his plans of getting blind drunk and watching Mrs. Doubtfire. Needless to say it worked as Greg and I played the game for the next 12 hours matching the Detroit Red Wings v. The Chicago Blackhawks in a best of 165 series. To say that this was a transcendent game, which appealed to everyone regardless of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation would be a gross understatement. For example my friend Greg, whom I spent my first several hours playing this game with grew up to be a homosexual Wiccan, (I only wish I were joking about that), and when I've run into him over the years during......... I mean between, rave party orgies and brushing up on his Book of Shadows studies, he still talks about the game in hushed tones.

Anyways enough about my introduction to the brilliance of NHL '93, the key question is what made the game so great and since I'm no good at writing transition sentences, I'm going to list them numerically beginning with.......

1: The opening music which was so shrill and grating that it made your ears bleed and you were forced to listen to it for at least 10 seconds as the game scrolled through a list of programmers and producers. It's impossible to describe how horrendous this music was but I'll try. Imagine if John Tesh's magnificent NBA on NBC theme was played by deaf retarded chimps on synthesizers, and produced by Satan, Pol Pot, and Ty Cobb, then multiply that by 100x and your almost there.

2: The unstoppable force of Jeremy Roenick. Some guys are so ridiculously good in a video game that playing with them isnt even a challenge, such as Michael Vick in any Madden game, Terry Pendelton in RBI '93 and David Fulcher in Tecmo Super Bowl. Jeremy Roenick is better than all of them. He's nearly impossible to knock down, lays devastating checks, is the fastest guy on the game, and if you really make him mad he'll beat the hell out of you. He was so devastating that my friends imposed a temporary ban on the Blackhawks to keep the game competitive.

3: The Deke Move. Approach the goal hit left right left and plant the puck top shelf. My friend T.J. has mastered this move to a point that elite goalies like Ed Belfour and Patrick Roy look like run of the mill Peter Sidorkiewiczs'. The one man in Saskatoon with internet access is nodding his head knowingly at that last statement.

4. Fighting and blood on the ice. The NHL didn't approve of this aspect of the game and it disappeared from the NHL series for the next several years even though it was arguably the most exciting part of the game. My friends and I have vivid memories of some of the most classic fights including the complete destruction of Bob Probert (played by my friend Kevin) at the hands of Bob Bassen (me) a fight that quickly turned into the final scene of Rocky IV and had real life implications cementing my friend Kevin's status as a pretty boy. The fighting also allowed the player to administer some frontier justice as nothing was more satisfying than seeing Theo Fleury sliding on his back towards the boards as blood spilled out of his skull, especially after he had lit you up for a triple hat trick and you were losing 11-3 and you were so goddamn frustrated that you thought your head was going to EXP........ok, ok I'm calmed down.

Are You Ready For Some Foot........Not Yet....Oh, O.K.

I'm hitting the wall. For the first time in the fifteen years that I've been a diehard sports fan and took a personal interest in how teams and players were doing instead of just rooting for whoever my dad was cheering for the Tigers are relevant in August instead of being buried in April. Of course this means that the Tigers will be commanding my interest heading into football season, which in past seasons was about the time my interest in the Tigers would begin to wane dramatically. So that means that I and a lot of other fans will have a lot on my plate as a Detroit fan over the next few months between the Tigers playoff race, Michigan and Lions football, and the beginning of what should be another promising Pistons season. Hello Academic Probation.

Speaking of the Lions my dad has been a season ticket holder since 1981 and for all that money he's spent over the years he's got to see one playoff victory and that was fifteen years ago. But everyone knows about this franchises inaptitude and I've had the privilege (?) to attend nearly 90% of the Lions games over the past fifteen years, although I did miss the playoff game, ranging from the cold/bleak/depressing, Silver Dome to the state-of-the-art Ford Field where the team has won barely 25% of their games since the place opened. I got a sideline view of the brilliance that was Barry Sanders and suffered through.........well everything but Barry Sanders. Tonight was the Pre-season opener for the Lions and once again I was in attendance with my Dad ready to kickoff my sixteenth season of disappointment and wasted Sunday afternoons. My dad and I were far from interested in this meaningless preseason game wishing instead to watch the Tigers and Justin Verlander take on the ChiSox on the South Side but we couldn't even give the tickets away. We would have probably had an easier time giving away syphilis then finding someone who wanted to attend a Friday night Lions exhibition game. (Speaking of not having a life, not only did I attend the Friday night game with my dad, I'm also spending the same Friday night blogging about it on a site no one reads. *Sobbing*) O.K. I'm rambling so I'll get to the point. Here are five observations from inside tonights game.

1. I noticed immediately that Glenn Martinez, the practice squad receiver, who supposedly developed a rapport with Joey Harrington last season which led to his appearance in a few games wearing #12 last season was wearing #84 tonight, which means one of two things. A: He received a traditional receiver number because he has a legitimate chance of making the team, or B: He stumbled across an old Herman Moore jersey at the Salvation Army and paid the twenty dollars to have his name screened on the back. Both equally likely scenarios.

2. Josh McCown, who bears a frightening resemblance to Ivan Drago, (or an overmuscled and less gay Tab Hunter, whichever your more comfortable with) made his Lions debut in the beginning of the third quarter and they posted his statistics from last season as having 9 TDS and 110 INT's!!!!! 110 INT's welcome to Detroit Mr. McCown we always try to make the players look good. Hopefully that was a typographical error and not a bit of foreshadowing on the part of the Lions JumboTron, which has been known for such things. Like who can forget last season when it famously showed the video of my future demise, (Ninja Attack......no surprise there), and when it showed the day robots will rule the earth a la Terminator-2, but I digress.

3. With tickets being ridiculously expensive ($70 dollars, preseason, yeah thats justifiable) and pricier and harder to get than when the Lions ruled the Silver Dome the rowdy whitetrash that used to patrol the Upper Level has been priced out of the action. Personally I missed them, there was nothing more exciting then seeing a bare knuckle brawl involving 4 balding mullet coiffed guys wearing faded Chris Spielman jerseys. Now you get 30 something guys and their bimbo wives/girlfriends/mistresses, screaming at inappropriate times. Although tonight I got to sit next to an old-school Silver Dome fan wearing a Stephen Boyd jersey and a permanent Kool-Aid moustache and it was fun unfortunately rare. It was like getting to watch a game with Paleolithic Man.

4. One of the highlights of the night was watching the game with my dad, and not for your typical sappy reason. My dad always goes to bed early usually falling asleep on the couch at about 9 an almost always out cold by 10:30. So as the night went on he became increasingly disheveled and incoherent. His shirt came untucked, his hair frazzled, he was mispronouncing names and coming up with new ones. He was calling Tatum Bell, Taco Bell and laughing to himself for minutes afterwards. By the time we left he probably would have failed a sobriety test, AND HE DIDN'T EVEN DRINK A BEER. An all-around excellent performance on his part tonight.

5. Chuckles Rogers looked faster and sleeker then he ever has. Sure he only had 1 catch for 7 yards on a little screen pass that was straight out of the Michigan playbook. He also had that ridiculous false start where he tried to maintain his balance before falling off to the side like he was having a seizure. This of course got him lustily booed and probably deservedly. But personally, I don't think he deserved the booing. I'm pulling for Charlie Rogers. Like I've written before I was in high school when he was dominating the Saginaw Valley Conference in High School and was at State when he had his incredible season, so I've been able to follow his career since he was about 16. I like Rogers because he seems like a generally nice guy, he's just stupid. I know thats harsh but its true and I'm glad to see it looks like he finally got his stuff together enough to get in the best shape of his life and start over with the new staff, which is more then what fatass petulant Mike Williams has done. So here's hoping Rogers makes it, even if he won't ever be a superstar at lest as a serviceable receiver. And I know this is going to look really dumb when he gets his year long weed suspension in Week 6.

Tigers Win.............Again

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine and he asked whether it was easier or harder to maintain a blog about the Tigers during a wildly successful season, and the answer I gave was it's harder, much, much harder. It's been infinitely more exciting/enjoyable to watch a team thats winning nearly 68% of their games and are on pace for 108 victories, BUT at the same time it's nearly impossible to write anything new about their sustained success through the first 2/3rds of their schedule. There has been no controversy, no major injuries, no heartbreak, and no disappointment. (I know I just jinxed the team by writing that last sentence, tomorrow Pudge will probably demand a permanent move to first base, Verlander and Guillen will go down with catastrophic injuries and they'll lose a nine game Central Division lead in three days. Sorry.) I just can't find myself getting worked up over the little bits of news that are coming out of the team since I last posted. Verlander misses a start as a way to limit his innings. Makes sense. Chris Shelton gets demoted to the minors to work out the kinks and to re-work his contract with the devil and have another hot streak for the last two months of the season. Justified. Even potentially sticky situations have worked out swimmingly. Dmitri Young comes out of re-hab and steps right into the lineup as a productive bat/defensive monster. Kenny Rogers turns in a months worth of poor starts and has Lynn Henning calling for his spot in the rotation to be replaced by has-been/never-was Chad Durbin because Willie Blair,(whose autograph actually decreases the value of that card from 5 to 3 cents) wasn't available and then Rogers comes out and delivers a solid start in yesterdays game against the Indians. Verlander misses his turn and Wil Ledezma turns in a stellar performance shutting a powerful Indians team out in his first big league start in over a year (remember I once compared Wil Ledezma to a young Pedro Martinez before the start of last season, which proves that I have no business writing about sports.) Even Jason Grilli.......wait no, Grilli still sucks, but you get my point.

Anyways this weekend the Tigers swept the Indians, the 11th time this season that they've accomplished such a feat, and it seemed as if they were toying with the Indians, seeing how far they could push themselves to the brink of losing and still come through triumphant. Friday night they fell behind big early before clawing back and winning in their last at-bat as Craig Monroe hit a two run homerun, which made my friend T.J. who doubles as the president of the Craig Monroe fan club even more insufferable. Saturday night Rogers got knocked around in the first inning putting the Tigers behind 3-0 before they even got a chance to bat before Pudge hit another 2-run homer to win with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. Followed by Ledezma and a gaggle of relievers combining for a 1-0 shutout today the 13th time this season that the Tigers have shut the opposition out and opening up a nine game lead over the White Sox, who won 2 of 3 against the Blue Jays this weekend and still lost ground. Ho-Hum. Now the Tigers enter a tough ten game stretch where they play nine games against the Twins, White Sox and Red Sox, which should be interesting as we face three teams contending for a playoff spot including two from our own division but probably won't be very interesting because I continue to expect them to do well regardless of the doom and decline that many naysayers still predict even though this team has proven itself through the first 110 games of the year. This is just a long way of explaining why I havent been posting much lately, I need poor play, and idiotic moves to build up the necessary amount of indignation to sit down and write/complain on this site or to make fun of a player/team. But I wouldnt trade this season for anything, it's great to not have anything to complain about with the team and not have any gripes with the performance of the players.......( not so fast Mr. Grilli. ) and if that comes at the expense of having nothing to write about so be it. And there is always Lions season.