My Bottom Five Least Favorite Tigers #1

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that I was going to randomly count down my bottom five least favorite Tigers, starting with #2 Juan Gonzalez, this post is a continuation of that series so if you want read the criteria for selection or how it all began, scroll down a couple of posts, or...I guess I could link it....nah, just scroll down.

I know what your thinking, why would I reveal my #1 least favorite Tiger of all time before I revealed #5? This would be the equivalent of the Academy Awards announcing the winner for Best Picture before delivering the award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography, but only on a much grander scale (yes. I just compared this countdown to the largest award show of the year, and yes I know exaggerated self importance is a sign of a mental disorder along with disorganized speech, give paper floor me school bus hop....moving on). But in all honesty I couldn't think of a fifth Tiger I despised enough to add to the four I had originally come up with when I first sat down to write these posts. Also I didn't want to write some even more uninteresting post about a player I don't have the requisite antipathy for, it would just end up being empty and meaningless, like my relationship with you the reader. So if you were anxiously anticipating #5 i don't know what to tell you.....uh....deal with it. Will that make things easier? (Sorry that was rude, in all honesty Craig Paquette came the closest to making this list, but I couldnt write about him for some reason).

#1: Shane Halter: This is probably a bit of a letdown because, like Chad Kreuter, Halter had a brief, innocuous career as a backup/utility player during the bleakest time in Tigers history. However Shane is the one athlete that I came the closest to having a Ron Artest-like player coming into the stands and wailing on a nerdy kid with glasses with type of incident...kind of.

From the beginning Halter always kind of struck me as being somewhat of an ass. He seemed to have an unjustified sense of self worth and entitlement, (wait maybe the two of us did have something in common). For example one season Halter bragged that he would win a Gold Glove if he was able to start every day. This led the other Tigers to spray paint his glove a shiny, metallic gold, and this was on a team where everyone hated each other so its not like they were pulling a prank in jest. I think the other Tigers thought Halter was kind of an a-hole too. Anyways Halter had somewhat endeared himself to Tigers fans by being a sort of sideshow, (like that Jamaican guy with no arms or legs that went around rolling cigarettes with his mouth, you know Prince Randian), a jack of all trades, capable of playing all nine positions on the field, culminating in the last game of the 2000 season when he actually did play all nine positions in one contest, an entertaining 12-11 victory over the Minnesota Twins that was arguably the highlight of a somewhat forgettable season. Halter followed that season with a surprisingly successful 2001 campaign, his first season as a regular at the meat-falling-off-the-bone tender age of 31. 2002 was a disappointment as Halter came back to earth and by the 2003 season Halter was relegated back to his role as utility man extraordinaire for what would be the worst team in American League history. But enough of Shane Halters history and onto the story of how he earned the #1 spot on this prestigious list.

The 2003 season started off miserably for the Tigers and my friend T.J. and I were completely out of patience with them after the first week of the season. So the two of us decided that during the next home stand we would voice our increasing frustrations with the team through the powers of posterboard, xeroxed photos, and permanent markers, just like the beginning of every other major revolution. Anyways T.J. and I went to Meijer and bought the supplies and a case of Mountain Dew for a long night of brainstorming, and after hours of hard work came up with a sign that parodied the "Priceless" MasterCard commercials (I know how original). The sign gave the salaries of Dean Palmer, Bobby Higginson (see #3), and Dmitri Young, along with their photos and the punchline "Worthless". Pretty clever, huh.......not really. So the next morning the two of us packed our sign and headed to Comerica for an exciting tilt between the Tigers and D-Rays and hoping to get to the game before it sold out. Lucky for us we got there just in time before they sold the last 30,000 tickets. (Actually we didnt pay for the tickets, a couple of girls dumped there tickets off on us after their dad had dropped them off and they were going to some party instead). We took the tickets and anticipated some trouble getting the sign past security at the gate, seeing as how it was a little derogatory towards the "stars" of the team, but fortunately for us the guy working the gate laughed at our sign and showed it to another worker who seemed to get a kick out of it as well.

T.J. and I looked for our seats and much to our disbelief we were about ten rows behind the Tigers dugout in a section that was about 90% empty (memories like this are why I get irate over the fact that I cant get a ticket to Opening Day now......stupid bandwagon fans). We couldn't believe our good fortune and immediately settled in for a long day of jeering and heckling paid athletes because, as any columnist will tell you, having a ticket to a sporting event gives you the license to act like a jerk even though everybody on the field could have broke T.J. and I in half. Anyways, T.J. and I set our sign facing towards the field on the seats in front of us, adjusted ourselves and talked to a couple of fans sitting by us when we heard, coming from the direction of the field, someone shout, "Hey...pussies!". T.J. and I looked at one another and he said, "Wow, we are close to the field, you can really hear the chatter", and that's when we heard the same refrain again only this time louder. The two of us turned to the field, where the players had been warming up before the first pitch, and saw Halter leaning over the top of the dugout wall staring directly at us. "Hey, pussies, I'm talking to you, what's your sign say." We sat there surprised that a major league player was talking to us, I mean we were totally star-struck at the fact that future Hall-of-Famer Shane Halter, was talking to us. Not wanting to look like idiots, we had to respond with something clever, so I stammered out, "uh, it says you guys suck, and you're all overpaid losers...yeah." Halter did not seem amused by this and said "Hey Dean, look what these pussies, (that seemed to be the only cutdown he had in his vocabulary), have to say about you." That's when Dean Palmer with his bulging, roided up Popeye biceps came ambling up the dugout steps and turned around. Halter pointed in our direction, and Palmer squinted in an attempt to read our sign, when some ancient security guard grabbed my shoulder turned me around and confiscated our sign. I tried to protest, with Halter yelling "Kick them out of here" in the background, but the power tripping usher was having none of what I was trying to sell him, and he folded up the sign and walked away. T.J. and I were dumbfounded, then angry, then mildly happy, and finally completely irate. We sat and stewed for nine straight innings of terrible baseball that featured way to much Jesus Colome, and when the Tigers won we raced down to the bottom row and leaned over the railing to shout insults at Halter, pretty tame stuff like "You suck, Halter, I hate you, Booo!", and then some fat, disgusting, tubby, slob, of a harpy, just started shrieking at us, "Shut up! Shane Halter's great, you guys are the ones that suck" so I turned to her and tried to explain what had happened earlier that afternoon and she just kept shrieking and shrieking at me, then she lost a bunch of teeth, and I don't remember anything after that (I made up the last part...of course /nervous laughter/).

So thats how Shane Halter grabbed the title of Andrew Stout's Least Favorite Tiger of All-Time. Sure he never did anything to offend the fanbase as a whole, and wasn't hated 1/1,000th as much as Juan Gone, the man who kicked off this list at #2, but he is the only athlete I ever got into any kind of confrontation with, and he'll continue to hold that position until the day I get into some kind of "Beyond Thunderdome" stlye deathmatch with Jason Grilli, which will probably happen sometime this summer.

My Bottom Five Least Favorite Tigers #3

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that I was going to randomly count down my bottom five least favorite Tigers, starting with #2 Juan Gonzalez, this post is a continuation of that series so if you want read the criteria for selection or how it all began, scroll down a couple of posts, or...I guess I could link it....nah, just scroll down.

# 3: Bobby Higginson: Had I been creating this list in 2001 it would have been unthinkable that Higgy would have cracked the top 5. Just as recently as six years ago Higginson was the face of the franchise, granted it was the most downtrodden, terrible franchise in baseball and a complete laughingstock, but he was the star player nonetheless. Coming off a career year in 2000 when Bobby became the first Tiger to bat .300 and hit 30 homeruns in a season since Norm Cash corked his way to a similar feat 40 years earlier, Higgy seemed to be on the cusp of becoming a perennial all-star outfielder, on a team that had just had its most promising season in nearly a decade and appeared to be turning the corner under the stewardship of Phil Garner (haha, yeah right, Phil Garner was terrible, we weren't going anywhere with that jerk...yeah I said we...because I was on the team...or at least I pretended I was). Higginson had also cemented his status as team leader, having openly challenged public enemy #1 Juan Gonzalez who in turn fled town after a disastrous 2000 season, (You may notice that Gonzo came in at #2 on this list, what an enjoyable group of guys) and Higginson further endeared himself to fans by eschewing free agency, where he reportedly would have drawn interest from the Yankees and Braves, by signing a lucrative 4 year contract extension to stay in Detroit when free agents were avoiding area like the plague, and the team had trouble re-signing their own star players....you know...had they had any. Fresh off the Juan Gonzalez debacle, Luis Gonzalez becoming a star in Arizona after Randy Smith traded him for peanuts, (wait no, that's an insult to peanuts, they actually have value, even though you can buy hundreds of them from a homeless guy outside Comerica for a buck, all the Tigers got was Karim Garcia), the Higginson signing on the eve of Opening Day seemed to be a harbinger for change, a ray of hope, a reason for optimism, a....well you get the idea.

Of course all of this optimism was crushed in the first month of the season as the Tigers got off to an uninspired 8-15 start thanks in large part to a mediocre rotation anchored by a young Jeff Weaver, aging knuckleballer Steve Sparks, and Chris Holt....wait, seriously? Chris Holt? whatever. But I was undeterred in my optimism and in early May my friends Kevin and Mike and I decided to skip our Prom to go to Comerica for Bobby Higginson bobblehead night (Sure this was a conscious decision on our part to skip the game and had nothing to do with the fact that none of us could get dates, although my friend Kevin would vehemently deny this to this day, and if you hear him saying things like "maybe those losers couldn't get dates but I had 9 girls lined up and they were all clamoring to have sex with me.", don't believe him because he's full of shit. He used to by R. Kelly cd's so he "could have something to play for the ladies", and they would sit unopened in his backseat for months, before he tried to pass them off as birthday gifts....wait, this post isn't about how much I hate my friends, back to Higgy.) Anyways that game ended up being the greatest Tigers game I'd ever been too, we got our bobbleheads, moved down to kick ass seats behind the Angels dugout after a rain delay chased away most of the crowd and watched as Bobby Higginson ended the game with a walk off homerun in the bottom of the 11th.

O.k. I know what you're thinking, you are already two paragraphs in and I've said nothing but glowing things about Higginson, this is supposed to be about despising people, bitching, complaining, whining, moaning, all that noise. Well, you've been duped suckers, I just thought I would waste ten minutes of your life and alienate all of my readers, ha. Nah, I'm just kidding, however that Tigers-Angels prom game was the last positive memory I have of Bobby Higginson's era in Detroit. The 2001 season, which started with so much promise, ended up being another near 100 loss season, as Bobby saw a precipitous decline in his production. The next season saw Higginson battle injuries, namely a bad hamstring, which would become a recurring theme over his final four seasons in Detroit. Everything bottomed out in the 2003 season as the team nearly broke the all-time record for losses, and Higginson had career lows across the board, while making an astounding 11 MILLION DOLLARS that season (yes, all caps were necessary to emphasize the fact he made 11 MILLION DOLLARS...sorry that is annoying). Higginson became overly critical of teammates without including himself, openly lobbied for a trade, had an inflated sense of self worth, and fans began to blame Higginson for the franchises woes as the most visible and least productive member of a group of several overpaid underachieving veterans, such as Dean Palmer, Steve Sparks, Matt Anderson, Craig Paquette, and Damion Easley. Higgy's Corner, the #4 themed concession stand in left field closed for the summer, and he was roundly booed during nearly every plate appearance. 2004 was yet another disappointing season, and heading into spring training 2005 Higginson's spot on the roster was tenuous at best as productive minor leaguer Marcus Thames challenged Higgy for the final outfield spot. Higgy struggled immensely in spring training but to the surprise of everyone, including most of the team, he made the final roster. I believe this was the decision that began to undermine Trammell's authority as many of the veterans were outspoken in wondering if Trammell really made the decision in the best interest of the team. Higginson wound up getting only 26 at bats, managing a mere two singles, or 4.425 million per hit, before going on the disabled list for the season. After the season ended Higginson was granted free agency where he only generated interest in various recreational slo-pitch softball church leagues.

To recap Higginson spent 11 years in Detroit, all of which were losing seasons, and collected over 52 million dollars. His ultimate legacy was being the hideous, grotesque, twisted, gnarled, face of the franchise (figuratively speaking, in all honesty he was a very handsome man.....or so I've been told) during the most dark, depressing, bleak, era in the one hundred plus year history of the Detroit Tigers, a stinking rotting corpse of a reminder of all that was wrong with the Randy Smith regime, (I know it's some beautiful imagery, what can I say, I have a gift for painting a nice picture.) Now Higginson owns a limousine rental service in Clarkston, where he reportedly takes some limos out for a spin as a way to "unwind"/use tips for booze money that in turn will get some high school girls drunk on Mad Dog after their Prom Dance, and "hey did I tell you pretty young ladies that I used to play baseball." Oh well, maybe they should have went to a game instead.

My Bottom Five Least Favorite Tigers #4

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that I was going to randomly count down my bottom five least favorite Tigers, starting with #2 Juan Gonzalez, this post is a continuation of that series so if you want read the criteria for selection or how it all began, scroll down a couple of posts, or...I guess I could link it....nah, just scroll down.

# 4: Chad Kreuter: Kreuter may seem like a strange pick, seeing as how he was a journeyman back-up catcher who only spent three years in Detroit. But in that short period of time he managed to earn a spot on this list and receive a lifetime of scorn and hatred from me. As I mentioned before, this list is completely arbitrary and one would be hard pressed to find a reason for someone to detest a rather innocuous reserve catcher, especially since its an interchangeable and mostly anonymous position on a team. I mean, unless you've found John Flaherty in bed with your wife or Raul Casanova stealing your newspaper every morning, these guys don't play enough to despise. However Kreuter is the exception that proves this rule, (yeah its a rule, as a matter of fact I think it's after Newton's second law of motion, so you can look it up if you don't believe me you jerks...shit, stop insulting your readers Andrew.)

Let me set the scene, in the summer of 1993 I was nine and my interest in baseball was reaching its highest point, namely because of one standout player whom I emulated my Little League game after, idolized on a personal level, and would later name my website after...Joe Boever...wait.... no, I mean Mickey Tettleton. I briefly went over my love affair with Tettleton as a young child...(wait that sounded pedophilic, that's not what I intended, let me try again /clears throat/). In a recent post I went over how much I admired Tettleton as a player and how much of an influence he had on my development as a Tigers fan, even though I can't think of any one reason why I developed such a strong attachment to him, it's not like the two of us ever shared a Mean Joe Greene Coke commercial moment or anything, but as I've written several times before, I became a catcher in Little League because it was the position Tettleton played, (although I did try to make snap throws from my knees like Benito Santiago), hit tape measure homeruns like Tettleton...that's a lie I actually I terrible at hitting and was buried in the 8 spot of the lineup between the two "special needs" kids...but whatever, the point is I tried. Now even though I was a big Tigers fan, it was hard for my family to get to Tiger Stadium during the season, For one, we lived about 90 minutes away from the stadium, and second, my dad is a lawyer and seemed to work about a 70 hours a week when I was growing up, (don't worry this isn't like some "Cats in the Cradle" nonsense, I knew even back then I would probably be leeching off him until I was in my mid-20's so he needed to work, just kidding I'm not that spoiled but I was a very unambitious child), which made it impossible to go to weekday games, so the two or three trips we made to Tiger Stadium a year were huge for me.


Anyways the 1993 season started and my family and I planned to make a trip down to old Tiger Stadium early in the schedule, and I was psyched. So my dad ordered the tickets and I circled the date on my Tigers Humane Society calendar, (which for some reason I had every year and featured photos like Tony Clark with his two cats "Marilyn and DiMaggio"), counting down the days before going to the ball park. After much anticipation and bated breath the weekend of the game finally rolled around and we drove the hour and a half to Detroit, which scared the hell out of me as a nine year old, because my only exposure to the city was via the opening scenes of Beverly Hills Cop and Peter Weller getting shot to hell in Robocop (yes, both movies are entirely appropriate for a nine year old and only makes you the coolest fucking parents ever if your kids get to watch them), so I was expecting a lawless city of drug addicts and burned out cars patrolled by Robocops, and now that I live here I know those movies were spot on....minus the robots of course, but I digress. (Also I actually live in Detroit, so if your going to leave a comment saying, "You say you live in Detroit but your probably living in Royal Oak...poseur", save your time, and if you don't believe me let me redirect your questions to the homeless guy singing "Wu Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta F' Wit" in the bustop outside my window.)


So we arrived to Tiger Stadium and took our seats just in time for the announcement of the starting lineups and I'm eager as hell to see Mickey behind the plate for nine innings, and that's when I see #19 come strolling out of the dugout with the catchers gear strapped on. I start looking around in despair, thinking "Who's this asshole?", got my program out, flipped through it, saw Kreuters face and was devastated. Not only was Kreuter playing catcher that day but Tettleton wasnt even in the lineup as DH, and for this I blamed Kreuter. Sure he had no say in the decision, was playing great at the time and was helping Mickey rest his sore knees, but this didn't matter, I drove 90 minutes to see Mickey Tettleton and NOT this Chad Kreuter bum. I still enjoyed the game and when it was over I couldn't wait to go back but at the same time I couldn't help being shaken a little, kind of like when you see an ex-girlfriend for the first time with her new boyfriend, who kind of resembles a white trash Abraham Lincoln, it's like your satisfied that she's dating someone worse than you, but at the same time your thinking, "Really?...Him?". Anyways Kreuter went on to start the majority of games at catcher for the Tigers that year, which also happened to be the same year my interest in catching waned, and I was moved to the position of "kid in batting helmet that stands by the coach whose pitching", which is where Little Leaguers usually go to die. Once again I irrationally blamed Kretuer for this downturn in my young life. Kreuter ended up leaving the Tigers and faded into obscurity, until one day he made headlines for grabbing a guy that stole his hat while playing at Wrigley, a moment I took some satisfaction in because I thought it finally proved to everyone else what an asshole that guy was, but no one I talked to, or knew, really cared. Anyways (I've started every sentence with "Anyways", but only because I'm tired and lazy) to this day I still hold a grudge against Kreuter for that one ruined afternoon in 1993 and I'm still petty enough to remove him from the lineup in R.B.I. 4 on the Genesis when my friend T.J. and I play, even if it means using the vastly inferior Skeeter Barnes in his place....but 14 years later I just can't bring myself to play with that jerk.

(Update: For those of you who read this site and don't know the death scene in Robocop that I mentioned above, I can't believe you made it this far because we obviously have nothing in common, but here it is courtesy of YouTube and somewhere my copyright professor is shaking his head in shame.)

Wanted: One Hype Man

I may have sat next to you at a Tigers game, waited in line behind you at the bank, ate at the table next to yours in a restaurant, or sat next to you in class while you were reading my site and I was writing for it and you had no idea who I was even though my name is displayed at the bottom of this page....wait, wait , wait, that was a terrible introduction, it read well in my head but the execution was horrific. It sounded like a commercial for the American Heart Association where they would reveal a person dressed like a high cholesterol food item, stalking a healthy looking man, or possibly the trailer for one of the several outrageously lame horror movies that get churned out on a bi-weekly basis and always star at least one girl from either CW or WB (although I am generally in favor of anything that results in more Kristen Bell and/or Sophia Bush, and if you think I only mentioned those two by name to justify a gratuitous photo of one of them you've been reading this site for a while) running from some generic, maniacal, madman and screaming/begging for mercy. Actually there is probably someone who works for a second rate horror movie production company reading this, nodding his head yes, and trying to see where I am going with this, hell everyone is probably wondering where I'm going with this, but trust me, there is a point to this rambling nonsense.....sort of.

I hardly ever write anything personal on this site and prefer to be a faceless narrator of the area's sporting events, as if the letters that appeared on your screen had been written by God himself, only with wittier insight and better grammar, but in order to properly set up this post I must describe a little bit of my personality. I'm so bashful and inoffensive that it's like I'm invisible, like one of those lame ass lo-fi emo bands whose music you hear but you don't really listen to, and afterward you say was that Dashboard Confessional? Taking Back Sunday? Does it matter? Anyways this type of anonymity can be good, especially when it allows me to duck in and out of class with the professors wondering if I'm even enrolled, but at times it can be irritating, and for the past few days I've been trying to figure out a way to change this, trying to find a way to get noticed, so that when I go out with friends people remember that I was there, and during this time of deep thought, the perfect idea finally dawned on me. I need to hire a hype man to follow me around. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a hype man is let me explain. He's the guy at hip-hop shows who walks around the stage and is responsible for getting the crowd involved in the show and taking over chorus parts of hip-hop songs so the lead performer can catch his breath without interrupting the flow of the song. An example of a hype man outside of the context of a hip-hop show is Duke Tango, the immensely annoying emcee from those late night And 1 Tour shows that air on ESPN2 and which my roommate and I followed closely due to our joint insomnia-induced boredom. Most of the time the hype man just yells out commands to the audience, repeats every other word the main attraction says, and strings together random, nonsensical, boastful ramblings, which is exactly what I need to get noticed.

The way I have it planned out is I would supply the microphone to my hype man only require that he would be dressed like Ice Cube on the cover of AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted. My hype man would then follow me around to class and when I was answering questions correctly, he would make noises like "Ho......uh.....uh.....ho" and after I nailed a question he would wave a towel at me, yelling out "He's Hot!! Class dismissed" before bearhugging me and walking me out of the classroom, or if we went to the gas station he could say things like, "Uh, uh, uhhh, here he is Big A Killah, AKA Chicken Fried John Goodman, AKA Hot Bananas, AKA Atticus Ness, crack-i-lackin' da twanky foe's, the hottest shit out of the Belcrest Apartments since that one girl, (you know the one that looked like a skinny Natasha Bedingfield, and always wore the cute matching hat and gloves in the winter and you said hi to her in the parking lot when you saw her but was always too shy to actually start a conversation with......uh disregard this last sentence he wouldn't know me that well...), moved out this fall, Andrew Stout!!!" Sure none of what my hype man says makes any sense and it would be so over the top and ludicrous that no one would take it seriously, but they would certainly remember I was there and that's what's important..........nah....not really but it would be cool as hell.

My Bottom Five Least Favorite Tigers #2

As I'm posting this I'm sitting in Secured Transactions, and I have no idea what the professor is talking about, nor do I care. So instead of paying attention, (there is currently a slide on the projector with a code on whether timber can be used as collateral, which may be the most boring, pointless slide in the history of mankind, and the people in the class are riveted, on the edge of their seats taking notes, I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone), I'm going to list my bottom five least favorite Tigers in a series of posts in random order, because for some reason it just seems to make the most sense to do it this way. I got the idea to write these posts after reading John Paul Morosi's article a few days ago in which Dombrowski and the Tigers refuted a report that the team was interested in re-signing former Tigers-Fan Enemy #1 Juan Gonzalez to a minor league deal. Also these postings are a flip of the one I wrote a couple of weeks ago in which I listed my Top Five Favorite Tigers, so the same rules apply and all decisions are completely arbitrary, and not based on any rational reasoning, sentimentality, statistics, nor multiple regression analyses.....well maybe a couple. I would just sit down and write all five but I don't have the time because class is ending in a little bit and I don't want to miss those amazing slides on secured interests in farm equipment and produce....ugh, why am I here again?

#2: Juan Gonzalez: I remember the day the Tigers traded for Juan Gonzalez in the winter of 1999. I was in 10th grade that November and logged onto AOL one last time before heading off to bed, when I saw the headline that instantly grabbed my attention. Tigers Trade for 2-Time MVP Gonzalez. I couldn't believe it, and that's not just some lazy throw away description of my astonishment, I actually couldnt believe the news. So I calmly went to the phone and called my friend Kevin at about 10:30 P.M., which doesnt seem that late...but you don't know Kevin's parents. I think everyone has a friend like Kevin when they are growing up. He's the really nice, affable, gregarious kind of guy, who has completely insane, overbearing, strict, irrational parents, who will only be able to rest after crushing the spirit, the very soul, of their child by demanding absolute perfection via draconian measures. I had witnessed Kevin get grounded for letting a screen door close behind him instead of pulling it shut, leaning against his dad's car, and for making errors on his mom's tax return, his house was like the surreal landlords home in The People Under the Stairs minus the compassion and with more gimp suits.

So even though calling Kevin's house would probably result in him having to break rocks for 2 weeks I had to verify that Gonzalez was actually a Tiger. I dialed his number and listened for half a ring before Kevin answered with a meek "Hello?". I dove right in, "Kevin, I know I called your house after the sun went down, which is a big no-no and your parents will treat me as if I had tried to sell you heroin instead of disturbing the deafening silence in your house, but this is important. My computer screen said the Tigers had traded for Juan Gone and I can't believe this so I need you to go online and see if your computer says the same thing." Kevin was stunned too, and amid shrieks of "Who is it?" from his step-father, set the phone down, logged online came back and said, "It's true, the Tigers trad....". That's all I needed to hear the darkness started in my peripheral vision and moved across my eyes until I landed in a heap on the floor with the stupidest grin plastered across my face.

When I regained consciousness it all started to make sense, the Tigers for the first time that I could remember were going to be relevant and contend. The excitement was palpable, the Tigers were moving into the newly minted, cavernous, Comerica Park with a legitimately dangerous lineup, featuring Palmer, Clark, Higgy, Easley, and now a two time MVP, perennial all-star, future Hall-of-Famer, who was still in his prime, and all for the cost of...who? Justin Thompson? Sure he's promising but he's no JUAN GONZALEZ, maybe wunderkind Randy Smith isn't a completely incompetent jackass after all, what could go wrong? Everything. The always mercurial Gonzalez, who once refused to play a game because his pants didnt fit right, immediately soured at the prospect of playing in Detroit and went so far as to turn down an 8 YEAR $140 MILLION extension to stay in Detroit. Juan started the season slowly, complained about the cold April weather, the spacious Comerica, clashed with team mates, had an entourage that overwhelmed the locker room and front office, openly bitched in a Sports Illustrated cover story, and most telling watched a bench clearing brawl between the Tigers and White Sox as a disinterested observer 50 feet away from everyone. The Tigers realizing they made a mistake tried to unload Juan Gone on the Yankees for Drew Henson, a deal that ultimately fell apart shortly before the deadline, and with the Tigers trying to stay above .500 and in the Wild Card race in August, Juan missed a key stretch of games as the Tigers tumbled in the standings. Gonzalez walked as a free agent at the end of a season, signed with division rival Cleveland and had an explosive bounce back season in which he doubled his stats from his season with the Tigers. He then returned to Texas for two injury plagued seasons, milked 4 million from the Royals for another injury plagued season, and then 600k from Cleveland before getting hurt for the season in his only at-bat. Now Juan is a vagabond, ex-Independent League player, who left about 100 MILLION on the table after everything is said and done (had Juan signed that 8 year deal it would have hands down been the worst contract in the history of pro sports, think about it, Juan would be making 20 million this season, there would be no Pudge, no Maggs, no playoffs, no World Series, the Tigers would've been buried by that deal, even Royals fans would be saying, "sure we overpaid for Gil Meche but it's not like he's Juan Gonzalez", and probably relocating to Portland Oregon after 7 straight 120 loss seasons) and looking to deceive one of his former employers into thinking that he still can offer something, anything, before ultimately being exposed as a complete fraud when he retires with the first career ending ingrown hair.


If I were Ilitch I would pick up the phone and say, "Hey Juan, I feel terrible about how things have turned out, how about 3 years 30 million and a guaranteed roster spot......(long pause)......nah just fuckin' with you man, see you in hell.....(short pause)....no I'm not there yet I only look like a corpse, asshole." Or, better yet, have Dombrowski meet with Juan's agents like the Tigers are serious, and when exchanging numbers have Dombrowski counter with a two-year contract, for $6.55 an hour delivering greasy-ass Little Caesar's Hot N'Ready Pizzas with a Ford Festiva, with the parties going dutch on gas.....nevermind, I don't think Juan's worth that much either.

Changes

So, if you are one of my four regular readers you may notice that the format here at The Mickey Tettleton Memorial Overpass has changed. I don't know if I like it better then the previous set-up, (especially the fact that the links and previous posts have been moved to the bottom of the page) and I normally fear change, but I'm willing to give this a try, so let me know what you think, and if the feedback is positive, or existent, then I'll go from there.

Detroit Pistons Mid-Season Report Card

O.k, so my Radiohead-esque (where they go to the brink of irrelevancy, keep their fans on edge by constantly hinting that they are quitting, before releasing an album every fifth year and having critics and fans fawn over them and hail them as the greatest band since Jesus Christ's 3 year stint in The Kingston Trio,) approach to posting has not been very well received and I've been justifiably called out in the comments section for being lazy, and I have no excuse. I promised at the beginning of the new year to dedicate myself to posting more often and expanding the scope of my blog, and then spent the first month of 2007 ignoring this site, and posting more sporadically then ever. Anyways my new goal is to get back to the level I was at before my three month hiatus, to be linked to consistently on Deadspin, and get my readership back over two hundred people a day, and if I fail, mark my words, I will burn the city of Clio to the ground. Anyways to get the ball rolling I've decided to break out my favorite over-used, gimmicky, oh-my-god-Chris-McCosky-handed-in-a-drunken-half-assed-Pistons-report-card-instead-of-writing-a-real-column, ploy by handing out grades for the Pistons. Wait, wasn't I just making fun of writers for doing this exact same thing, that doesn't make sense. Well you know what? It doesn't have to because I'm beautiful, and I'm wearing a tie. On to the grades.

Chauncey Billups: O.k. after watching Flip Murray as point guard/abomination during the eight games Chauncey missed with a calf strain, I don't think anyone would argue with the assertion that Chauncey is hands down the most integral and valuable player on the Pistons team. Not that anyone was arguing with me other then some schizophrenic Jamaican guy at the gas station on Palmer and Woodward, (I know I've said this before, but if there is something funnier then alcoholic dementia I haven't seen it) and he made an intriguing case for Adrian Dantley.....but I digress. Anyways Mr. Davidson needs to give Chauncey a blank check after this season, because as hard as it was to see Ben Wallace leave, the prospect of seeing Billups in a Bucks jersey would be as disturbing as that time I saw Louie Anderson naked. Grade: A-

Rip Hamilton: Rip is having a typical Rip-like season, and has been the teams most consistent scoring threat including scoring 20+ in eleven straight games. He's also giving Tayshaun Prince a run for his money for the most poorly acted T.V. commercial by a local athlete. Those two could really learn something from Joel Zumaya, "Now that's fast !!!". Grade B+

Tayshaun Prince: I'll admit it, I've never really warmed to Tayshaun. He's probably my least favorite of the four mainstays, and I don't know why. Maybe it's because my friend's and I attended a game 2 season's ago, where we sat in front of two teenage girls who sat there and screamed Tay-tay, tay-tay, tay-tay, tay-tay, over and over again for 48 straight minutes and were probably disappointed that Tayshaun didnt take them to a hotel room to get them drunk and try to sleep with them even though my friends and I were trying to offer the same thing, and no I'm not bitter. Oh well, Tayshauns game has improved this year and he'll probably continue to do so as the season progresses. Grade A-

Rasheed Wallace: Sheed's been mailing it in like crazy this season, averaging his lowest point total since his rookie season, and openly chafing at Flip Saunders. However off the court he's been having another fantastic season from confronting the pasty, whiny, annoying, Chris Sheridan at practice (I hate Chris Sheridan with a passion, he makes me long for the sensual Chad Ford), to making the surreal Jingle Bells Christmas video that can be found on Need4Sheed. Grade On Court: B- Off Court: A+

Chris Webber: I still can't believe C-Webb plays for the Pistons. Sure he can't move laterally, and he's replaced Ken Griffey Jr. as the athlete whose aged horribly and makes me feel really, really old. I remember going to games at Crisler Arena as a kid to watch the Fab Five and seeing a young, spry C-Webb run the floor, rebound, and play above the rim, and now 15 years later he's a baggy-eyed, one-legged, shell of his former self. Wait 15 years?!? Holy hell, I am old....I need to go lay down....O.k. I'm back, but seriously, C-Webb in Detroit, for nothing, I think they are paying him minimum wage plus tips from the estate of Ed Martin, and he's going to put us over the top in the Eastern Conference...man I love Billy King. Hopefully he'll continue to trade for bad contracts, buy them out after a few months, and allow them to sign as free agents for the Pistons. Grade: I (he hasn't played enough, never mind I'm too excited about this) A.

Antonio McDyess: McDyess has easily had his worst season in his three years stint with the Pistons, but his play seems to have picked up over the last two weeks or so. I've always been a big McDyess fan dating back to his mini-mutiny against that hideous, Leather Monster Dan Issel nearly seven years ago. The only thing I ask for in a sixth man is consistency, nothing drives me crazier then a wildly inconsistent bench players (I'm looking at you Flip), and McDyess is about as solid as it gets, similar to what Big Nasty gave the Pistons during their title season. Grade B+.

Lindsey Hunter: Lindsey Hunter is in the midst of his 14th season as a regular rotation player in the NBA, and he's only shot over 40% four times in his career, and he hasnt been over 37% in four years. I find this incredible. The biggest knock on players coming out of college is that they can't shoot, yet the league is flooded w/ backups who struggle to make more then 2/5ths of their shots. I'm not trying to rip Lindsey because I like him......kind of....as a person, not so much as a player though. I think backup point guard is the one area that the Pistons could really stand to improve before the trade deadline. Grade: C

Carlos Delfino: I expected big things from Carlos heading into this season, and thought his role would expand immensely as the first SG/SF off the bench, but it hasnt panned out that way so far with that worthless bastard Flip Murray getting an ass ton of minutes for some preposterous reason that I'm not even going to pretend to understand (I know that's the third time I've ripped Murray in this post, but I really loathe the guy, I've become hostile towards his mere presence on the television screen). His numbers are pretty much in line with his rookie season and he hasn't turned into the Mini-Manu I thought he was going to become. Oh well there is still time for him to redeem himself. Grade: C+

Flip Murray: Wow, I don't even know where to begin with this. Flip Murray may be the worst point guard in the history of basketball....at any level....ever. Those 8 games he started in place of Chauncey were 8 separate 3 hour horrific nightmares. I don't want to pile on but I think I could do a better job of setting up the offense and quarterbacking the team then Flip, and I can hardly dribble with my left hand. The rumors of course are that Flip will be traded, released or banished back to the ninth circle of hell from which he came. Grade: F-

Nazr Mohammed: Speaking of people likely to get traded, Nazr has seen his minutes disappear with the signing of C-Webb. Before the season I compared him favorably to Ben Wallace, and I thought he had played well during his first couple of months, but for some reason he fell out of favor with the coaching staff. I also liked his high and tight haircut w/ the moustache, which looked like Play from House Party, (since Nazr's been racking up DNP's lately, I think they should make a Kid n' Nazr movie during one of the games, someone get a Wayans brother on this) but, alas, it looks like he's on his way out. This really hasnt been one of Dumars' more impressive free agent classes. Grade: B-

Will Blalock: Well he certainly isn't making anyone forget the immortal Alex Acker. Umm, Blalock, Blalock, does anyone care what I have to say about the Pistons second round, rookie, 3rd string point guard......probably not. Grade: D, who cares, this grade is completely arbitrary and capricious.

Dale Davis: Ol' Crazy Eyes is currently wrestling with Nazr for the title of Piston most likely to be traded, because of his expiring contract and sheer worthlessness to the current rotation. I've never really understood D squared's role with the Pistons in his 1 and a half seasons in Detroit, but he must be good at his job, whatever that is. Besides, I was talking to Elden Campbell the other day while he was working at Long John Silver's and he said he could give the Pistons what Davis does for the veterans minimum, so the Pistons have options. Grade: B-

Amir Johnson: Amir has only played in 4 games this season for the Pistons but has been a dominant force in the NBDL, an has GM's blowing up Dumars' phone line in an effort to pry him away from the Pistons. Reportedly the Pistons have deemed him untouchable although there is always the possibility that Danny Ainge would offer Paul Pierce, and the Celtics unprotected first round pick for Johnson straight up. Or Billy King would give up Iguodala and seven number ones for him. Seriously if I were Dumars I would shop him and try to fleece one of the 27 illiterate, backward, incompetent GM's that run teams in the NBA, i.e. Ainge, King, Knight, Mullin, McHale, etc. Grade: I

Ronald Dupree: Apparently Dupree has appeared in 13 games this season and I can't remember one of them. However, I did run into him about a week before Christmas while shopping at Somerset. I turned the corner and saw a congregation of people and knew immediately it had to be an athlete, and sure enough there were about 10 people surrounding Rip and asking for his autograph, and standing off to the side about 3 feet away, loaded down with gift bags and boxes, and standing by himself was Ronald Dupree. I don't know if he was with Rip or just trying to get his autograph too, but I felt sorry him and said "Merry Christmas Dup", and he sort of glared at me. Jerk. Grade D

My Top 5: Favorite Tigers

In lieu of starting this semester off on the right foot and getting a head start on the thousands of pages of reading that will be assigned over the course of the next thirteen weeks I'm going to write a post that I've been meaning to get to since I started this site but have neglected due to sheer laziness. I'm going to count down my five favorite players ever to don the Olde English D. This list is not based on performance, character, standing in the community or any other rational basis of judgment but rather a completely arbitrary decision by me, where something as small as a fleeting glance or a bat of the eyelashes means as much as a powerful homerun or overwhelming fastball. This list could just as likely include Raul Casanova (not bloody likely) as much as it would Cecil Fielder. I'll try to keep the sappy sentimentality crap to a minimum because I am an emotionless robot confused and irritated by this feeling you call "love". Enough...........on to the list.

Honorable mention: Rob Deer, Nook Logan: Deer almost makes the list for obvious reasons. 1: The absolute apex of the white trash look for baseball players (rivaled only by fellow Tiger Dan Gladden) with his mullet flowing from under his batting helmet and his infamous wispy moustache that made women swoon and bloggers name their sites after it. 2: He harkens back to the simpler times before sabermetric robots like Rob Neyer made stats like OBP important, and guys like Deer and Steve Balboni could justify their .192 BA's and 180 K's w/ 25 homeruns and be considered power threats instead of swirling black vortexes of lineup production, (sigh).

Logan would have had real chance of cracking the top 3 had his stay in Detroit lasted longer then half a season. I loved how fast he was around the bases, how he broke his hat off as far as possible, the bunt singles, his name, his laid back demeanor, everything. Also his robbing two homers in a game against the Orioles might be my most memorable and enjoyable Tigers moment ever before last season's playoff run. He's already my favorite Washington National, (sorry Mathew LeCroy) and if you read any of my blog entries from two years ago you'll see why I now have to stay 500 feet away from Nook at all times.

5: Deivi Cruz: During the 1999, 2000 seasons I would argue passionately with anyone who would listen, (my dog, my grandfather, a parrot, etc.) that Deivi Cruz deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as the other elite A.L. shortstops of the time (A-Rod, Jeter, Nomar, and Tejada), a position that was completely indefensible and insane, but I stood by it. I always thought he looked as though he was made out of plastic like a Starting Lineup and his rigid movement seemed to support this belief as he was a machine at grounding into double plays and had a range at shortstop that was one step to his right and zero steps to his left. A friend of a friend of mind nicknamed him "Shufflebutt", which I thought was the most appropriate nickname for any athlete.........ever. I was beside myself when the Tigers non-tendered him and let him walk as a free agent believing he would turn into the next Luis Gonzalez as a former Tiger who flourished after leaving Detroit, and as in many instances when I let my emotions get in the way I was dead wrong. Regardless I enjoyed the Deivi era enough for him to crack number 5 on the list.

4: Steve Sparks: I remember when Sparks came out of nowhere in a rather forgettable 2000 season as a 34 year old journeyman knuckleballer to go 5-1 in the month of August which was good enough to establish himself as the de facto "ace" of the staff. Sparks had the kind of persona that one would envision a journeyman knuckleballer to have, a kind of laid back, sarcastic sense of humor, (unlike that womanizing, alcoholic prick Hoyt Wilhelm) with a "I can't believe I'm pitching in the big leagues with a fastball that wouldn't break a pane of glass" giddyness. He also scored bonus points for nearly ending his career by injuring his shoulder while trying to rip a phone book in half, a feat of stupidity that sounds like something my roommate and I would try in a fit of late night boredom. After he signed an extension to stay in Detroit I seriously considered buying an authentic Steve Sparks jersey but didn't because apparently purchasing jerseys involves a monetary transaction, which was beyond my means at the time, and was fortuitous as Sparks struggled and was eventually released.

3: Curtis Granderson: He's quickly moving his way up the list and if he has a few more stellar seasons could pose a real threat to knock off the long reigning No: 1. I wanted to hate Granderson this season because I thought he usurped the centerfield position from the aforementioned Nook Logan. However Granderson was stellar from the start and Nook slowly faded from my memory leading to the inevitable emotional demise of me and Nook's relationship, (you knew what this was Nook). I like Granderson's style, personality, and he seems like a guy I could hang out with and go to Talib Kweli concerts in a vain attempt to not look like a nerdy white guy. As the season progressed I found myself doodling his name on my book covers, signing documents as Mrs. Andrew Granderson, and hanging pictures of him in my locker, and one day he actually said my name when I was outside his apartment, either that or "Hey you behind the bushes", whatever.

2: Matt Anderson: Anderson may be one of the biggest draft busts ever but he comes in at No. 2 on this list. The thing I like most about Anderson was his style, (like I said this list isnt based on any important facts/statistics), if I were a baseball player I would probably have a similar style to Anderson, ill fitting jersey from being tall and insanely skinny, with a three quarter length sleeve cutoff sweatshirt underneath, long hair, lackadaisical approach, (it's never a good sign when a closer has the same reaction to a 100mph strikeout as he does a walk off grand slam), although I might have slightly more movement on my fastball, ( this may be true because I have grotesquely long fingers, like a mortician in a Disney cartoon, if only I could throw hard, locate and develop a second pitch I would be thhiiiiiiisssssssss close). Also for the past five years I've wore my hair long and it's because of Anderson. In the summer of 2001 I vowed not to cut my long, flowing, beautiful locks until the next time Anderson blew a save, which I figured would be a matter of hours if not minutes. Of course he didnt blow a save until late September by which time I looked like disheveled homeless man, a look that I still wear to this day to as much success with women as Anderson was having in the Mexican Slo-Pitch Softball League this past season.

1: Mickey Tettleton: No one person had a bigger influence on my childhood then Mickey Tettleton. I was completely obsessed with him and emulated his mannerisms as much as I could. Froot Loops became my breakfast cereal of choice, I held my bat at hip level much to the consternation of my Little League coaches, I played catcher, was snubbed by the Little League All-Star team and exclusively chewed Red Man Brand Tobacco in 3rd grade. I developed an immense hatred for Chad Kreuter that continues to this day, sent Tettleton autograph requests on a daily basis none of which he ever returned, but that still wasn't enough to dissuade me from liking him. I still own nearly 10,000 of his baseball cards including this really creepy Leaf Studio card that frightened me so much I went and buried it in the back yard. Nearly fifteen years after he left I can still recall all of his statistics and when I decided to start this blog two seasons ago there was no question about who it would be named after. So there you have it you didn't ask for it but you received it.

The King Returns....

Uh-uh-uh, Uh-uh-uh onnn, uh-uh onnn uh uh-uh onnn, I.I.I.I.I. can't believe I'm back up in this shit. After weeks of not writing and thousands of e-mails clamoring for my return, I've decided to put down Guitar Hero II for fifteen minutes so papa bird can regurgitate some garbage into the mouths of his whiny, if not loyal, starving minions. Let's see what's in the news today? The Lions are terrible, of course. Central Michigan wins the Motor City Bowl against a team that may or may not even be Division 1, or exist for that matter, who cares. The Pistons are staking their yearly claim as the most dominant team in the Eastern Conference defeating the Nets tonight in a close game that wasn't very thrilling. So their you have it, enjoy this, I'll be back to feed all of you in five weeks, and stop bothering me.....

Ok, ok, sorry about the false sense of bravado in the introductory paragraph, it was tongue-in-cheek and could have been conveyed in a sentence or two but was strung out into several, which means that my bad writing habits have stuck with me throughout my long lay-off, along with several new ones I've picked up after taking my law school finals over these past two weeks, including my inability to properly use a comma or writing incomprehensible run-on sentences such as the one I'm typing right now, but I digress. I am back though (although no one e-mailed me during my absence, seriously, I couldve been buried under a stack of newspapers from a tipped over trashcan and no one would have known......jerks), and ready to post on a regular basis again and hopefully, if I can ever get my life organized into a semi-decent schedule (you may notice that this post is getting submitted at around 5 A.M.), expand the scope of this blog to things beyond sports, to include movies, music, video games, and long, incoherent, rambling posts with no capital letters or periods about how evil women are while listening to "West End Girls", painting my face and trying to overdose on Advil. O.k. maybe not so much the last one but hopefully the other subjects will come to fruition. At the very least whoever reads this blog going forward will get a first hand account of how law school is accelerating my downward spiral into schizophrenia and towards waiting tables at Halo Burger even though they never "officially" hired me, and that should be very entertaining. Oh shit, mental health is still part of the state bar character fitness requirement.........umm disregard that last statement, and lets go back to discussing what a mentally sound, virile young man I am (/hearty slap on the back/).

Well that's all I've got for tonight, and I hope it makes some sense, in all honesty I'm looking forward to having the time to write again and being done with studying for exams and watching hours of late night MTV, (seriously if I see "Wind It Up", "Fergilicious", or "How to Save a Life", I'll go completely mad), and I hope everyone is having a very happy holiday season.

Verlander wins A.L. RoY.

Congratulations to Justin Verlander on being the first Tiger pitcher since Mawhk Fidrych in 1976 to win the American League Rookie of the Year award. Writing that last sentence was a little unnerving given how Fidrych's career turned out after his rookie year, with all the arm trouble and being finished in the majors by the time he was 25. Hopefully if there is a tragic figure from this years rookie class its Francisco Liriano. Not that I dislike Liriano, I really enjoy watching him pitch and wish him the best in his recovery, I just don;t like the idea of the Tigers having to compete against a divisional foe that would have perennial Cy Young contenders as their top two starters, but I digress. The A.L. Rookie of the Years is typically a harbinger for future big league success as exemplified by the long, prestigious careers of previous winners Angel Berrora, Ben Grieve, Bob Hamelin, Pat Listach, errr........and others. O.K. O.K. I'll stop being so negative about Verlander winning. It's a great honor and I'm just thrilled that the Tigers are being considered for major post season awards for the first time in years, (although I think Jose Macias finished 974th in the 2000 RoY voting) and by all accounts Jim Leyland will win A.L. Manager of the Year barring some kind of Chicago style voting results, with Ozzie Guillen receiving 1st place votes from dead baseball writers like Ring Lardner,(by the way that's a photo of Lardner on the right battling gas) Tim Murnane, and Fred Lieb, (and if you don't think it I took 15 minutes looking up those names on Wikipedia, you don't know me.)

Finally I'm surprised that Joel Zumaya and Curtis Granderson didn't get at least 1 vote. I would say that Zumaya was just as important and dominant over the course of the season as Papelbon was in Boston, and Papelbon isn't half the actor that Zumaya is for whatever that's worth, and Granderson was stellar this season leading off and playing some spectacular centerfield. I'm not saying that Zumaya and Granderson deserved to finish second and third I'm just saying it would have been nice if they got as many votes as Ian Kinsler. I don't even know who the hell that is. I thought their second baseman was still Doug Strange.

Explanation

I know I haven't updated in a long time and I have my reasons. Here they are.

1: I am an extremely lazy individual. I can't stress this enough. Hours/days/weeks slip by without me knowing. Not only am I shiftless, I'm also very inefficient. What people normally do in a matter of minutes, I drag out into hours. For example these first two paragraphs would have taken a normal person about 5 minutes to type. Me, it has taken 2 hours, and not because I'm struggling or having writers block but because I take breaks between every two words to watch the Bears-Giants game, make macaroni and cheese, watch Family Guy, and check my fantasy basketball team.

2: The Tigers post-season drained me. It was thrilling and ultimately, painfully disappointing. I'm still not ready to talk about the World Series. Anyways after updating following the conclusion of every playoff game and providing previews to each round I've exhausted my funny bone. It's wore out, I was recycling recycled jokes, stealing Simpsons references and jokes that I had already stolen for previous posts and such. Plus sports is in a bit of a lull for me now. I've never been a big Wings fan, (except for a short while when I was about 10 and played NHL '93 18 hours a day) the Pistons are off to an uninspired start, the Lions are frustrating, terrible, and not worth watching let alone writing about, and although I'm thrilled about Michigan football I havent wrote about it because of reason #1.

3: Finally I'm beginning to get swamped with law school work, (what you didnt know I was in law school, I only mention it in every other post.) Exams are coming up in less then a month and I have to, HAVE TO, rock the asses off those bluebooks, because I need to find an internship for next summer so I can kill time and blog from a place other then my apartment. Right now this is what my job interview will be like.

Interviewer: "So let me get this straight, you have a mediocre GPA, you are not a member of any organizations or societys, you havent had a haircut in 8 months, you are wearing an ill fitting suit that you've owned since your senior picture in high school, and under accomplishments on your resume you wrote 'writing a blog about the Tigers, and salvaging Charles Rogers career on Madden 2007'. You havent given me one good reason to hire you. You have 30 seconds to defend, not only your presence here, but your existence."

Me: "Well......umm.......I brought my memory card so if you have a ps2 and Madden I could personally show you how impressive my Madden franchise real........"

Interviewer: "Get off our property."

I don't want that to happen, you don't want that to happen, (unless your a jerk), so over the next few weeks my updates on this site will be erratic at best. But keep checking back for updates please, and wish me luck.

Andy

Detroit Pistons Season Preview

With the Tigers extended, post-season run lasting into the final week of October, (and no I havent been avoiding writing about the Tigers resounding thud in the World Series, its just been a series of technical problems, first with Blogger and then my desktop crashed and now I'm writing on a newly purchased laptop,) I almost completely forgot about the upcoming NBA season. Normally by the middle of September I begin to turn my attention away from the Tigers and towards other sports, namely college football and the NFL, (although I gave up on the NFL this year after one week, I love football but the Lions have completely killed my interest in the League.), and eventually the Pistons. And for all you people who have begun to read this site during the Tigers playoff run don't forget about me now that baseball is over, I keep updating throughout the year and try to write frequently about the Pistons, just think of this site as The Terry Mills Memorial Overpass between November and April. I know this is a bit late as the Pistons started the season tonight with a loss at home to the Bucks. IRREGARDLESS, (I know that's not a word but it sounds so much more authoritative, like a word you would yell out before breathing fire), here is a player by player breakdown of what I expect from every Piston for the remainder of the season.

Chauncey Billups: Billups had a career year last season and I got so worked up about him that I wrote an impassioned post about how he should have been the League MVP. I had no stats to back up my argument (He led the NBA in assist to turnover ration people.) so I tried to appeal to people's sense of emotion over reason. Kind of like those early 20th century socialists in New York that thought they were printing the new Common Sense when instead they were churning out poorly written, completely insane pamphlets and not being taken serious by anyone, that was me. But I digress. I think Chauncey will have an even better season then last year followed by him driving an armored car up to Bill Davidson's house and filling it with cash after he opts out of his contract after this season, purchasing a jewel encrusted crown and wearing it in place of a headband for the rest of his career.

Rip: I think Rip will continue to do what Rip does, o.k. defense, excellent jump shooting, and constantly moving and wearing out the opposing defender, while also adding an improved three point shot. I miss the braids though, I think he should have given us one game of Giant Afro-Rip before shaving his head. Also I wonder in Rip stole "Yessir" from Pharrell or vice versa, also is pronounced Pha-rel or like feral cats? My head hurts.

Tayshaun: There's nothing I can write about Tayshaun that I havent already written............wait I've never written about Tayshaun !?! Hmmm......I also think he will continue to improve and become more consistent. The fact that we are paying Tayshaun the same amount that Mike Dunlevey is making in Golden State means that either Joe Dumars is the best GM in basketball or Chris Mullin is the worst. Probably a little bit of both.

Rasheed: I guarantee that Rasheed Wallace will break the record for most technicals in one season. A record currently held by.........Rasheed Wallace. I'll take it a step further and say he breaks this record by Christmas. You know every ref in the League has a vendetta against him because of all the times he's showed them up over the years. He picked up 2 in the first 23 minutes of the season, and he wasnt even that demonstrative. This is going to get ugly.

Nazr: Player A makes 6 million a year, and will average 14 points, 9 boards, 1 block, and shoot 52% from the floor and be capable of hitting an open 12 footer. Player B. Wallace.......no to obvious, lets call him Ben W., (yes I steal 90% of my jokes from the Simpsons, so what) makes 15 million will average 8 points, 11 boards, 1.8 blocks, and shoot 45 %, drags ass back to the offensive end and has range limited to 18 inches from the rim. Hmm, so how does losing Ben make us a 45 win team? Am I missing something? Did you see Ben get torched by Dwight Howard tonight, he's not the same player he was 3-5 years ago, and he's not gonna be that way when he's 36. Also I love the fact that we have a guy named Nas-e.

Lindsey Hunter: I love Lindsey as a person, and I love the energy he gives us defensively for 10-15 minutes, but I'd be lying if I said I was thrilled that he and his 35% shooting was back this season as Chaunceys lone backup. Sorry.

Will Blalock: Introducing your Roanoke Dazzle starting point guard. Surely the latest 2nd round pick who sticks around for a season before falling off the face of the earth into oblivion. I picture Lou Roe, Ricky Paulding and Alex Acker floating around silently in space.

Dale Davis: I wonder what the look on his face is when he opens a check for $200,000 every two weeks. Jesus I wish I was 7 feet tall. Wait what's that tingling I'm feeling in my legs? Could I be growing? No it's just a rash.

Carlos Delfino: I still maintain that he looks like Gael Garcia Bernal in drag or at least with heavy mascara. Or he kind of looks like John Travolta in that one movie from the 70's with the cult that melts peoples faces. Whatever. I'm glad that Delfino is getting a bigger role this season. Ive always been intrigued by him and hopes he turns into a poor mans Manu Ginobili. However he'll probably plat well off the bench this season and next, before getting a boatload of cash to sign with the Nuggets, a la how the Pistons lost Mehmet.

Ronald Dupree: Ronald's back. I thought we got rid of him twice already. Does he just keep showing up under assumed names and tricking the coaching staff. I can see Flip turning to an assistant and asking, "Where did this Donald Rupee guy come from again, he's quite the leaper." Or at the end of camp Dupree rips off a fake mustache after making the team and say "The man you thought was Phineus J. Farnsworth is me Ronald Dupree.", as Flip throws the clipboard down.

Amir Johnson: I like Amir and Im looking forward to an array of garbage time dunks but I feel threatened that there is someone in the NBA whose 4 years younger then me. I feel old, I'm gonna go lay down.

Jason Maxiell: Maxiell is mesmerizing because I can't believe someone that fat can be so nimble and athletic. I really think that he will turn into a defensive presence as the season progresses helping the Pistons replace some of the defensive intimidation that Ben helped provide. I could also see him turning into a slow, depressing, fat man who can barely move up and down the court, like Tractor Traylor.

Antonio McDyess: Antonio looks like he's from another era of history, or more appropriately every era. He looks like a guy who would be in a group like the Spinners, as the freakishly tall guy with the deep voice, or he could've been a super-cool soul brother with a long leather coat and houndstooth fedora, like Richard Roundtree, but he doesnt look like a 21st century basketball player. If Nike did a series of commercials with McDyess, like The LeBrons, Antonio would win an Oscar.

Flip Murray: I'm tired.

So what do I think the Pistons will do this year? I think they will tail off a little from last years 64 win pace, but will still be good for 55 wins and the Central Division title. I also think that they can win the East and play in their 3rd Finals in 4 years but so many things can change between now and April with injuries (God No.), trades, and signings, (Jalen Rose anyone?) that I won't predict an NBA title, but I do think they are one of 5 or 6 teams that have a legitimate shot at it.

Congratulations St. Louis

I know this post is about 48 late but I've been having issues with Blogger and wasn't able to post Friday or Saturday. Still, I don't feel like talking about this yet.

Game 4 Re-Cap

I've always prided myself on never becoming so emotionally invested in a team to the point that their performance on the field would directly effect my mood/personality/well being. I've watched the Pistons lose a NBA Finals Game 7, seen numerous Michigan losses to Notre Dame, Ohio State, Iowa, etc., watched the Lions.....well the Lions have never played a game I expected them to win so forget that example, and I've never let it effect me to the point of ruining my day. Sure I'll be disappointed with the result, I might throw my hands up in the air and curse, but usually within 30 minutes or so I've calmed down, realized there was nothing I could do that would change the outcome, and moved along. This Tigers team and the World Series has been different though. Here it is 2 hours after an extremely frustrating Game 4 loss and I'm still stewing and I don't see myself calming down any time soon. I've tried to relax but it isnt possible. I tried to play Madden but barely held off the Colts, (o.k. I won 42-10 but that's a close game) and only took a small amount of satisfaction in ending Peyton Mannings season at the hands of a vicious Boss Bailey blitz. But I couldn't enjoy it because I was thinking of Fernando Rodney's ridiculous throwing error that allowed two runs to score. I tried to watch Puppet Master on AMC's Monstervision, (terrible, terrible movie by the way, I can't believe I used to be scared of this as a child), and could only think of how I wish Blade was killing David Eckstein in the elevator instead of that psychic woman. I sat down and listened to Sister Christian on ITunes and could only see Curtis Granderson slipping and getting turned around in centerfield. AHHHHHH!!!!!! I can't escape tonight's game. The Tigers should have tied this Series tonight, but they blew way to many opportunities (8 guys left on base), and their sloppy play was compounded by the fact that they had incredible bad luck, (4 straight games with a fielding error by a pitcher, has that ever happened before? Anywhere at any level? If I were the Cardinals I would bunt back to the mound every at bat and take my chances..........I'm only half joking about that).

I know I shouldn't be complaining because at the beginning of the season no one thought the Tigers would be playing in the World Series, its been a magical season, I should be grateful, blah, blah, blah, and all that noise. I'll concede that for the most part this is true, it's been great following this team, October baseball in Detroit has been amazing, it's great to see the city embrace this team, and Maggs Game 4 ALCS homerun was one of the most exciting moments of my life, but I would be lying if I said I wouldn't be disappointed if they lost this World Series. I want them to finish the deal, I want the Tigers to turn this season from a memorable season into a magical, historical, three years removed from the depths of hell, TV movie, telling my grandchildren sitting on my knee, type of season. That's why I'm holding out hope that the Tigers can come back and take three games in a row to win this Series. Are things bleak? Absolutely. Do I think they can do it? Not really. Only 6 teams have ever come back from being down 3-1 in World Series history and one of them was the 1968 Tigers against who? The Cardinals. Does that have anything to do with these two teams? No. Am I grasping for anything to hang my hat on? Yes. Am I asking myself to many questions? No doubt. But all I/we can do is hold out hope that they win tomorrow night and bring this Series back to Detroit. Go Tigers.