Don't Make Me Title This...

It's about time I stopped neglecting CV. So, you will see, on an almost daily basis, posts from me here.

This page is loaded every time I open Firefox, so as long as I don't want to be reminded of how much I suck at updating, I'll update it. I mean, not like it's extremely difficult.

Anyway, the big news today is (obviously) the Miguel Cabrera/Dontrelle Willis trade. Which is good. Miguel Cabrera is like a ten-years younger version of A-Rod, and most likely cheaper. Dontrelle Willis won Rookie of the Year in 2003, the year the Marlins won the World Series - and has had a 22 win season already (he's 24). However, his ERA was huge last year, and yet I hear people arguing that he was victimized by poor defense (which he won't be in Detroit) - he could be awesomely bad, or just awesome.

Anyway, we just got two more all-stars. Cabrera has been to the midsummer classic all four years of his career, and Dontrelle went in 2005.

That gives us...Maggs, Polanco, Sheff, Pudge, Rogers, Verlander, Guillen, Cabrera, Willis (am I missing anyone?) I mean, seriously. Wow.

Of course, we didn't get all this talent for free. We gave up our two top prospects in Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin, along with Mike Rabelo, Dallas Trahern (arguably our most promising minor league SP), Burke Badenhop and Eulogio De La Cruz. Wow. However, if you ignore the last four guys and just take for a moment Miller and Maybin - you have to agree that trading a pitcher like Miller for Willis (the winningest pither under 25 - he has 68) who is already MLB-ready and has proven he can perform well under pressure was a good thing, and the same goes for Maybin. Sure, the kid might be a great in a few years, but why not trade him for a guy who's great NOW?

Exactly.

This leaves Brandon Inge, who would have been our everyday 3rd basemen, on the bench. Or, he's the most expensive super-sub anyone has - the 6 million dollar man. Or, he's traded for some more middle relief.

Hmmm...

2.5 Games...How Many is That, Really?

I'm writing this now basically for my own benefit.

Anyone who reads my blog...ever...knows that I like to riff on the Detroit Tigers, seeing as I watch every game and notice a lot of things. Things I like to make note of for my future self to look back on.

The Tigers are 2.5 games back of the Yankees in the Wild Card.

At this point in the season, there are 12 games left. In two weeks, whatever I write about here will already have happened. The Tigers will have won the amount of games they're going to win, and so will have the Yankees.

Whether or not that means postseasons for either of them is completely out of my hands.

With 12 games left, the Tigers could finish 83-79, 95-67, or somewhere in between there. My guess is the last one. At this point in the season, the Tigers have lost the same amount of games they lost last year (a last year that included a 5 game losing streak to end the season). The Yankees could finish 85-77, 98-64, or somewhere between there. Last year's Yankees won 97 games. This year's Yankees can only lose one more game if they are to match the total number of losses they had last year.

What I wanted to do was look at the remaining schedules for both teams and see what the Tigers would have to do to overtake the infernal Yanks.

Realistically, the Yankees will probably win 8 of their last 13 games. That's a winning percentage of .615, which is basically on point for the way they've been playing in the second half.

Let's assume the [Yanks] are going to lose at least one (they have one more game to play than the Tigers, so let's assume they lose the last game of the season)game. Ok? The Tigers are essentially 2 games back. With this 12 game run, and the Yankees winning 8 of those, the Tigers have to win 10 of 12 to tie. That sounds almost impossible, doesn't it?

Well, yeah. Kinda. But, the Tigers HAVE just won 10 of 12.

Let's say the kitties win 9 of 12? The Yanks have to then go 7 and 6 - Still fairly possible.

Tigers win 8 of 12? Yankees have to have a losing record this last push, and go 6 and 7.

Honestly, I don't see that happening.

HOWEVER.

The Yankees have won 9 of their last 11, and are bound to fall back just a little. They have two series left against the Orioles, against whom they're only 4-8 this year. The other two teams they face, the Blue Jays and Devil Rays, are both basically .500 against the Bombers this season. Statistically, the Yankees are a favorite to come out of the push with a losing record, based on their performance earlier this year.

The Tigers have won 10 of their last 12, and you could assume they're due to fall back to Earth as well. Here's my exception to that. The Yankees have the best record in baseball in the 2007 season's second half. The Tigers are 2 games under .500 since the All-Star break. They've only started playing exceptionally well in the past two or so weeks. If anyone tells you winning streaks can be tiring, they're right - unless you had a block of losing streaks right before one.

The Tigers are tired of losing.

The Tigers lost for 12 straight seasons until last year. They only just guaranteed their second winning season in the past 14 years yesterday, with win 82.

The Tigers are tired of losing.

Every player on our team will play his heart out to get to October, will give his all just for the opportunity to MAYBE have a chance in two weeks. The Yankees have all but considered themselves shoe-ins, and are already looking past the season, past the playoffs, to the World Series (which could bring Roger Clemens' return season to a miracle close).

The Yankees know they can lose a few.

The Tigers know they can't lose any.

It's going to be interesting.

But all I can tell anyone is that the Yankees are going to have to catch the ball before they can run with it.

Just Say Oh

Oh dear.

Oh my dear gosh gollykins!

I'm an angry, angry boy. And I'm not even going to get into how the Tigers blew a six run lead with only 4 innings left to play. That's small potatoes. Big small potatoes.

I actually had a decent time playing Ultimate frisbee today. There were like thirty people so we had four groups of six or seven (so not thirty people, but a lot) and we played round robin style - three games so that you had to play every other team at least once.

We won the first game but got beaten badly in the next two. It was fun. Made some new kind of friends. Not as in a new kind of friend, but a new friend, kind of. Jeez, I'm going to shut up. Here's your post, just for post's sake.

Click.

FIRST!

I just have to quickly say that if you hadn't noticed, now you can notice.

The Detroit Tigers are in first place in the Major League.

FIRST.

Out of ALL THE TEAMS.

That is all.

No, no...YES!

Last year at the end of the year, after the Tigers had gone to the World Series and lost, a little sports collector opened up shop in the local mall. One day, I made my dad go in there with me, since sports collectors are hands on with their customers, and excuse me but I was a bit nervous about being the only one in there looking around.

Anyway, what we were looking at were baseball cards. A bunch of nice Tigers cards, and what I remember the most about that day was that the guy reached down into the case and took out a card he obviously already valued. A Justin Verlander rookie card.



Now, I'm not saying it was the same card. I honestly don't remember. All I remember saying was "Wow, he doesn't even look like Justin Verlander. He looks really old in that picture." Which, actually, makes me believe this card has nothing to do with the card I actually saw. But it works.

The strange thing about this day was that the guy was trying hardcore to get me interested in buying the Verlander card. And it was like twenty bucks or something. Not bad. Of course, I wasn't really looking to buy anything, but I seriously considered getting it. I mean, he'd already won Rookie of the Year, and having the rookie card of a Rookie of the Year...I mean, come on. It's a good thing. Then, I thought..."But it's only been a year. If I buy this card, that means I'm banking on Verlander actually being great throughout his career." I guess I didn't want to bank on that. So we walked out of there without it.

A season later, and Justin Verlander has just thrown his first no-hitter, the first no-hitter in Tigers history since Jack Morris did it in 1984 - the year we won it all.

I watched every pitch of this no-hitter, and I have to have a record of it because I'm 20, and this is the first time this has happened for the Tigers since I've been alive. That's how big this is.

I have to remember some things. Like the fact that in the second inning, I actually thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if he pitched a no-hitter?" Of course, the second inning is too early, and at that point it's pretty ridiculous to even think about something like that, but I want it recorded that I thought it. However, right after I thought that I thought, "Haha. Like that's going to happen."

Well, then all of a sudden it was the fifth inning. And I noticed he was still dealing, and I told my dad to come in and watch, because Verlander was pitching a no-hitter. He laughed. And then yelled at me for jinxing it if it actually was happening. And then didn't come watch.

So I kept watching. The Tigers scored in the sixth, making their lead 3 to 0, but I almost didn't care. I wanted to see Verlander pitch. And sure enough, he still had the no-no at the end of six. And at the end of seven. I started to realize just how crazy this was, just how impossible. I logged in to MLB.com and read the headline: "Justin case you hadn't noticed, No-No in progress." I got chills.

I watched a hard-hit ball shot to right field, and I held my breath. But Magglio knew what was at stake, and put his body on the line to make a very pretty sliding catch.

I watched Neifi Perez scoop an outfield-bound ground ball and shovel it behind his back to Placido Polanco who tagged the bag and whipped around to throw Gross out at first for the inning-ending double play. I watched and I screamed, and I promise I won't say anything bad about Neifi Perez for at least a month, even if he loses us ten games.

And then the eighth was over, and there were three outs to go. "He's going to do it. He's going to do it." I called my parents up to watch, and we all sat holding our breaths as the final three batters came up to face Justin. He struck out the first two easily, as they looked ridiculously lost at the plate. It took his strike-out total to 12, four more than his career high.

Then came the last batter, J.J. Hardy. The Magglio Ordonez of the Brewers.

Hardy stared at a first pitch fastball, coming in at 102 miles per hour - Verlander's 110th pitch of the night, and faster than any that had come before. Right on the outside corner for a strike, with the movement of a snake. The crowd was on their feet, and so was I, and when the next pitch came and Hardy fouled it off, I was elated - Verlander was one strike away from a no-hitter.

Then the ball was off the bat. Justin immediately pumped his fist, and I knew he had it...when the ball went into Magglio's glove for the final out, the crowd went wild. I went wild. My parents went wild. My dad had tears in his eyes, and so did I.

I still can't believe I got to watch it all. This has to be the pinnacle moment of my career as a Tiger fan. It was more exciting, more invigorating, and more satisfying than a hundred Magglio walk-off home runs to go to the World Series.

And I really wish I'd bought that freaking card.

Things The Tigers Lead The League In

This is just incredibly cool to me.

As of today, the Tigers lead the (major) league in batting average (.287 - with Seattle in second at .285), slugging percentage (.479 - with Cleveland in second at .447), total bases touched (968 - with Florida in second at 910), RBIs (327 with Cleveland in second at 309), triples (18, tied with Kansas City and Florida), doubles (141 with Florida in second at 130), hits (599, with the Angels in second at 575), runs (340, with Cleveland in second at 318), OPS (on base plus slugging - .827 with Boston in second at .804) and XBH (extra base hits - 232 with Florida in second at 215).

That's a lot.

Individually, the Tigers have some stuff going on as well.

Curtis Granderson has the most triples with 10, Gary Sheffield has the most runs scored with 53 (I think), Maggs has the most RBIs (54), highest average (.362), doubles (29), and total bases (147). I just love it.

Of course, it took me a long time to compile all this, like an hour, so I'm going to post it and hope that all of these things don't stop being true.

Okay? Have a great night.

Jahshaka!!!!

So, I'm about to start editing my first sketch for my first sketch comedy group, Happy Street Crisis Team (MySpace page pending...) and I'm like, "You know what? I'm tired of Windows Movie Maker." So I go online and type in "free alternative to movie maker" and up comes this website.

Jahshaka.

From the Features panel:

"Imagine if you could...

Edit with flexibility and speed
Create Effects in real time
Animate with unlimited features
Paint and design on moving video
Create music with all the tools the pros use
Work in any format at any resolution

...all while sharing files, projects and clips with users on your network or around the world

All using a single, open source application where the code is yours… that runs on practically any workstation…

Jahshaka v3.0 will let you do this, and much more."


Best part of it is, it's open source, and therefore free. As for open source programs, they rock. Just check out SourceForge. I'm going to be up learning this program all night perhaps.

Oh, and the Tigers won 12-5, powered by Pudge's grand slam in the first, the Tigers' third this season (they only had two all last season). Fun stuff. Also, Guillen almost had a grand slam in the eighth...it ended up just being a three-plater wall-bouncer-offer double. Ah well, can't have it all, can we? 12 runs on 10 hits...gotta love those Gary Sheffield walks.

Why I Am Ashamed...

To be a Tigers fan (and Dutch):

To be a Lions fan:

Remember, the only way to wear a baseball hat is with nothing on it. If you're black, leave the shiny MLB sticker on under the bill. But please, PLEASE!! Don't put a flag of your heritage on a baseball hat. EVER! That's like wearing the US flag as a shirt, or using a rosary as a necklace...(not like I care about either of those things.) And if you do happen to do this thing, DON'T TELL ANYONE ELSE TO DO IT!

Uh...as always. Thank you eBay...thank you Jesus? Dear God...

Hey Tigers...

Hey. Tigers are on again tonight.

Game 2 of the the ALDS at 7 P.M. FSN Detroit.

I'm gonna watch it and do homework and stuff. Going to eat first though.

Love ya's!