Bleacher Report - Articles by J. Conrad Guest

MLB and Postseason Video Review: Don't Do It!

J. Conrad Guest — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:57:01 -0400

Game five of last night’s ALCS game between the Yankees and Angels was fascinating not just because Los Angeles staved off elimination, doing it in comeback fashion late.

During the middle innings, when it looked as if the Yanks were in control of the game, Fox Sports announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver talked about use of video review in major league baseball. Each stated, and I agree, that the umpires in this series have had, for whatever reason, a difficult time getting calls right.

Buck and McCarver’s discussion got started when Johnny Damon was called out on a close play at first base. Instant replay showed that Damon was clearly safe.

McCarver admitted that, had he been asked a week ago whether he was in favor of video review, he’d have said no. Last night he reneged, the result of several missed calls by the umpiring staff throughout this Angels-Yankees series.

The stakes in the post season are just too high, McCarver claimed, to not get the call right, especially with the technology available. He also stated that baseball is losing credibility with its fan base when calls like the one last night aren’t overturned. I don’t agree with McCarver’s last sentiment.

If you’ve read my profile, you already know I’m a self-professed purist of the game, but you don’t have to be a purist to know that video review in baseball is just wrong. They already review balls hit near the top of the outfield wall to determine whether it was a homerun or a ball still in play.

This summer, twice in one game, I had to endure the umpire leaving the field to head to the clubhouse to review the play in order to make a call on such fly balls. With the technology available today, you’d think the umpire could simply receive a text message from an official in a press box and never leave the field. Fans wouldn’t even have to know the play was under review.

But now Buck and McCarver are trying to sell me, and Major League Baseball, on the importance of getting the calls right, especially this time of year. They referred to the NFL and their use of video review, calling it a success.

The big difference between the NFL and postseason play in baseball is that in the NFL they don’t play a seven-game series. A team has one chance to advance to the next round. It’s more important in the NFL to get the call right because a missed call can result in the losing team heading for the golf course.

In baseball, a missed call rarely determines the outcome of an entire series. In baseball, a missed call is part of the game. The home team may get the shaft one night, but they’re often the recipient of an errant call the next night. In this year’s ALCS, the bad calls have pretty much been evenly distributed between both teams.

Consider also that video review will take manager ejections out of the game entirely. No longer will we see Lou Piniella sprint from the dugout to turn purple as he argues a call, spittle flying. You might as well take fighting out of hockey. With video review, a manager will casually stroll out to simply ask the home plate umpire for a review.

And where do you draw the line with video reviews? Do you call balls and strikes from the centerfield camera?

The strike zone arguably changes from umpire to umpire, from pitcher to pitcher. How many times do we hear an announcer say that if a pitcher showed better control he’d get the close pitches? All hitters want is consistently, which is what I want. If Justin Verlander isn’t getting the outside strike, Zack Greinke better not be.

Do you include fan interference plays? How about foul tips? A batsman who claims he was hit by a pitch and the umpire can find no evidence of shoe polish on the ball? Checked swings?

You could argue that a runner called out at first who is safe kills a potential rally. You could point out that a bad call on a sliding play at second or third base could change the outcome of the game for either team; that a runner safe at home but called out takes a run off the scoreboard.

The truth of the matter is that baseball is a kid’s game, no matter the stakes in October. How often does an official scorer score a hit for the home team on an opposing infielder’s error, if only to benefit his batting average?

There is, and there should remain, a human element to officiating in baseball. Players slump; why shouldn’t an umpire be allowed an off day?

I’m not arrogant enough to think Major League Baseball, or commissioner Bud Selig, reads my articles here at Bleacher Report , but if they should, consider this: If you’re considering use of video review for postseason play next year, or any future year—please don’t! Not if you value the integrity of the game.

Coming to a Bookstore Near You: Backstop

J. Conrad Guest — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:44:11 -0400

In early 2008, I completed Backstop: A Baseball Love Story In Nine Innings. Backstop is my fourth novel and now second to be published. This year, Second Wind Publishing, an independent press entering their second year, offered to add it to their growing list of titles.

You know Backstop. He plays the catcher’s position for any team in any city in America with a major league ball club. You cheer him when he delivers and boo him when he doesn’t.

I chose to relate the story in first person, from the perspective of the protagonist known only as Backstop. In what could be his last game after 14 years in the major leagues—the seventh and deciding game of the World Series—Backstop chronicles his rookie season, takes the reader to Chicago, where he finds romance and reveals the heartbreak he endured in the aftermath of his one indiscretion.

After making his dream to play in the major leagues come true, Backstop is driven to succeed, to prove himself to his father, who passed away the year before the Tigers drafted him. In his first season in the big leagues, he meets and falls in love with Darlene, a former lawyer turned business owner in Chicago.

After a season-long courtship, they wed, and 12 years of happy marriage ensue. However, when the Tigers make the playoffs for the first time in Backstop’s career, he goes out on the town to celebrate with several team mates and falls prey to the seductive overtures of a predatory younger woman.

Thereafter, his world comes crashing down when Darlene asks for time apart to consider their future together. Backstop plays the following season, leading the Tigers to the World Series, while trying to win back both Darlene’s trust as well as her heart.

Fellow Michigan writer and author of Landscape with Fragmented Figures Jeff Vande Zande writes of Backstop: “J. Conrad Guest offers an entertaining and instructive journey into both major league baseball and major league matters of the heart.”

Look for Backstop: A Baseball Love Story In Nine Innings in November, from Second Wind Publishing.

I hope you'll check it out.

Ernie Harwell: One Helluva Season

J. Conrad Guest — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:16:51 -0400

I heard the news last night, just prior to the Tigers-Rays game in Tampa: Ernie Harwell was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. As cancers go, I understand this is one of nastiest. Inoperable.

I was in the kitchen pouring myself a beer when I heard Tigers play-by-play announcer Mario Impemba announce the news. I stopped in disbelief, fighting back tears. No, not Ernie.

Ernie Harwell was a childhood buddy of mine. Not really, but I grew up listening to him call Tigers games on my transistor radio. Quite simply, Ernie was the best.

Late at night, my earplug nestled into my ear so my parents wouldn’t know I was awake, I’d listen to those west coast games when the Angels played for the entire state of California and not just Anaheim. I rarely made it past the second inning before falling asleep, but listening to Ernie call a Tigers game is one of the fonder memories of my youth.

No one calls a strikeout the way Ernie did: “Strike three called, he stood there like the house by the side of the road.”

Ernie hasn’t called a game for the Tigers in eighteen years ─ former Tigers owner Tom Monaghan fired him and I haven’t had a Dominoes pizza since. I learned much later that WJR radio boss Jim Long claimed it was his decision to let Ernie go. But I had other reasons for disliking Monaghan, who once called Tigers fans the worst in baseball. You don’t fire a hall of fame announcer, a legend of the game.

I still occasionally see Ernie on baseball telecasts, usually during the post season when he sits in the booth talking, what else but baseball? It always warms my heart to hear his voice, easily one of the most recognizable in sports, that soft, Georgian accent.

Ernie Harwell once interviewed Ty Cobb shortly before Cobb’s death.

He tells the story of meeting Ruth when he was just a boy, asking the mighty Babe for an autograph. “Well, son,” the Babe said, “you don’t have anything for me to sign.” With that, Ernie handed him one of his shoes to sign.

Regrettably, today Ernie has no idea what happened to that shoe. I suspect it no longer exists, but Ernie holds on to the youthful belief that someone someplace has that shoe in their possession.

Ernie didn’t just call a game, he called baseball history. He made the game more than a game, more than just players with names and numbers on their backs pitching, hitting and chasing a little white ball around in a park.

My dad taught me to throw and swing a bat, took me, age seven, to my first Tigers game at what Ernie used to call “the corner of Michigan and Trumbull,” but it should come as no revelation today that Ernie taught me to love the game of baseball, even as I had no idea at the time that that was what he was doing.

I attended Ernie Harwell day at Comerica Park a few years ago. The Tigers were losing 100 games a year and I’d stopped paying to see their product, but I laid down my money that day, to honor Ernie. The Tigers lost that day, playing abysmally. But it was a rush to see Ernie down on the field, being honored.

The Tigers are planning a celebration for the 25^th anniversary of the 1984 Detroit Tigers championship team. Ernie was to attend the September 28 event, but it looks as if he won’t be able to.

“Each day that goes by, I get weaker and weaker,” Harwell said. “And so there is less chance of going. But I think that night belongs to the players, and it might be too much attention on me. I don’t want to take away from the glory those players deserve.” And he finished by saying, with a laugh, “I want them to remember me the way I was when I was in better shape ─ when I had hair.”

It’s rare in today’s modern era to see a player play the game of baseball the way it was meant to be played, with adolescent joy. Ernie lived his life with adolescent joy.

At 91 years of age, he’s too young to be taken from us, the generations of baseball fans who grew up listening to him.

Frankly, I always thought he would outlive me.

Why Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker Deserve to be in the Hall of Fame

J. Conrad Guest — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:03:40 -0400

I read the other day that Cal Ripken, Jr. said that Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker deserve to be in the Hall Fame as a tandem.

I watched these two kids play their entire careers in Detroit. You might argue that their numbers aren’t Hall of Fame worthy. After all, Trammell hit only .285 over a 19-year big league career, with only 185 homeruns and 2,365 hits.

Lou Whitaker batted .276, hit 244 career homeruns and amassed 2,369 hits.

“Sweet Lou” and “Tram” came up together in late 1977. In 1979, when Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson took over managing the Tigers, he called them lightweights and didn’t expect them to last long in the major leagues.

And all they did for the next 18 years was hit, field, turn double plays and, oh yes, hit some more.

Sometimes career statistics can be misleading.

Consider that in 1984, the season Detroit started 35-5, Trammell battled tendonitis to finish fifth in the AL batting race with a .314 batting average. In the American League Championship Series that year, against the Kansas City Royals, Trammell hit .364 with one homerun and three RBI; while in the World Series he was 9-for-20 against the San Diego Padres, including a pair of two-run homeruns that accounted for all of the Tigers’ runs in a Game 4 win. Trammell was named World Series MVP.

In 1985, Trammell became only the second player in Detroit history to hit 20 homeruns and steal 20 bases. Kirk Gibson, Trammell’s team mate during those years, was the other. Curtis Granderson has since become the third.

In 1987, Sparky Anderson moved Tram to the cleanup position in the lineup and he responded with perhaps his best season. In September, he batted .416 with six homers and 17 RBIs, putting together an 18-game hitting streak in which he hit a .457 while helping the Tigers to an AL East title, won by two games on the last day of the season.

He became the first Tiger to collect 200 hits and 100 RBI in the same season since Al Kaline did it 32 years earlier.

He also appeared amongst the league leaders in most AL offensive categories: third in batting average (.343), tenth in RBI (105), third in hits (205), tied for fifth in runs (109), fourth in total bases (329), fifth in on base percentage (.402), eighth in slugging percentage (.551), and tied for fifth in game-winning RBI (16).

Despite those numbers, Trammell finished second to Toronto’s George Bell in the MVP voting (332-311). After the season finale, Whitaker gave him second base, with the inscription: To Alan Trammell, 1987 AL MVP. From Lou Whitaker.

Trammell is a six-time All Star, four-time Gold Glove winner (twice with Whitaker), three-time Top ten MVP, twice had hitting streaks of more than 20 games, twice appeared on the Sporting News AL Silver Slugger Team, and, with Whitaker, holds the AL record for number of games played together (1,918). They still hold the major league record for turning more double plays than any other shortstop-second baseman combination.

The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract rated Trammell as the ninth best shortstop of all time, ahead of 14 Hall of Fame shortstops.

Sadly, Trammell has never gotten more than 18.2% of the votes necessary to be enshrined. His name will next appear on the ballot in 2010.

As for Whitaker, he won rookie of the year honors in 1978, hitting .285 with 71 runs, and a .361 on base percentage.

In his best season, 1983, he hit .320 with 12 homeruns, 72 runs batted in, and 94 runs, and appeared in his first of five consecutive All Star games.

In 1985, Whitaker set a record for Detroit second basemen with 21 home runs, and the following season was a member of a Tigers infield in which every member hit at least 20 home runs.

He hit a career-best 28 homers in 1989, one of four times he reached the 20-plus plateau.

Whitaker reached two career milestones in 1992, recording both his 2,000th hit and his 200th home run. He is ranked in the top three of all time second baseman.

Whitaker is also only one of a select handful of players to ever hit a ball over the roof of old Tiger Stadium and, until Granderson hit his 20^th, held the Tigers record for most career homeruns from the leadoff spot.

Whitaker did not receive the necessary five percent of the votes in his first year of eligibility in 2001, and therefore will not be eligible again until 2015.

It’s a sham and a shame that these two kids remain on the outside looking in because… Because why? The only reasons I can think of is that they both played in a less popular baseball market and neither played their position in spectacular fashion. Trammell didn’t have a particularly strong arm, but he had range, soft hands and made accurate throws. Both went about their games in workmanlike fashion, which in a blue collar town like Detroit, the fans love.

Consider Baseball’s Sad Lexicon:

These are the saddest of possible words:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,

Tinker and Evers and Chance.

Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,

Making a Giant hit in a double—

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:

“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

Written by Franklin Pierce Adams from the perspective of a Giants’ fan and first published in the New York Evening Mail in the early part of the 20^th century, Baseball’s Sad Lexicon references the Chicago Cubs’ infield of shortstop Joe Tinker, second baseman Johnny Evers, and first baseman Frank Chance.

It has been speculated that these three made it into the Hall in large part the result of Adam’s poem. And if one looks at their career statistics, one can only wonder why Trammell and Whitaker continue to be ignored.

ESPN analyst Jayson Stark wrote of Whitaker in 2003: “His career numbers look attractive by second-base standards. But it’s hard to remember any period when (Lou) Whitaker was looked upon as the greatest second baseman of his era. ‘Just’ a very good player. There’s no shame in that.”

To which I respond: I can’t recall any period when a better keystone combination existed than Trammell and Whitaker. The greater shame is that you don’t recognize that.

Yes, I know, I’m a diehard Tigers fan, always have been, always will be. Loved For Love of the Game, feel connected to Tom Selleck even though we’ve never met.

So maybe I’m not the guy to pen a logical argument to get these two into the Hall.

But I’d say Cal Ripken, Jr. just might be.

NASCAR: Here's the Answer to Preventing Another Daytona Debacle

J. Conrad Guest — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:26:57 -0400

It’s been a week since the last lap fiasco at the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway. If you missed it, here’s how it played out:

Kyle Busch sailed past Tony Stewart on the next to last lap. Tony stayed on Kyle’s bumper down the backstretch and through turns three and four, trying to take the air off his rear spoiler to get him loose.

This is an acceptable practice in NASCAR racing, and it almost worked for Stewart, as viewers saw Busch wiggle once or twice; but he stayed in the gas and kept his line.

Once out of turn four, Stewart, with momentum, feigned left but when Busch blocked, also an acceptable practice in NASCAR, Stewart moved right and got a bumper alongside Busch.

At this point, either on his own or at the urging of his spotter, Busch darted right, cutting across Stewart’s hood and all hell broke loose. Busch ended up in the wall and several other drivers were caught up in the ensuing melee.

After the race, Stewart was rather subdued about the win, stating that that was not the way he intended to win.

Busch declined to comment, which indicates he blamed Stewart for the incident.

Other drivers gave the cliché response that that is just restrictor plate racing.

For the uninitiated, NASCAR mandates a restrictor plate be placed on the carburetors at super speedways like Daytona and Talladega to limit the amount of fuel and thereby slowing the top speed. As a result, drivers never have to lift their foot off the accelerator, and if they do, they lose precious momentum, which takes a half-lap or more to regain.

In May, at Talladega, fans were treated to a similar finish in which Carl Edwards wound up in the catch fence at the finish line. Fortunately, like Busch, Edwards walked away from a horrendous wreck and, more importantly, no spectators were injured.

After that race we also saw drivers shaking their heads and saying, “That’s restrictor plate racing.”

NASCAR is at a loss for how to correct this situation, and given the fans’ reaction to these last lap crashes—fireworks more spectacular than those launched above the Daytona Speedway in celebration of the Fourth of July and Stewart’s victory—I’m not sure they want to correct it.

Fans of Busch (and he has precious few) jeered Stewart, while Stewart fans cheered. And Joe Gibbs Racing, owner of Busch’s car, and several other teams ended up with junked race cars after 400 miles of racing.

Truthfully, Tony Stewart did nothing wrong. And under the current rules, neither did Kyle Busch.

Hence, if NASCAR is serious about finding a solution to this issue, a simple rule change is in order: make it illegal to block.

The Indy Racing League has such a rule in effect. If a driver intentionally blocks another driver, he is given a warning. If he blocks again he is black-flagged.

I’ve long thought blocking in NASCAR was unfair, akin to cheating. Anyone can hold onto a lead by blocking another competitor.

NASCAR already has a rule in effect at several tracks that prohibits a driver from improving his position by dropping below the yellow line at the apron of the track. Amend this rule by making it illegal to block, or at least limiting it to just one block.

The current rules allow drivers to dart back and forth to block, which, as we've seen many times on the tracks at Daytona and Talladega, is a recipe for disaster.

Unfortunately, I don’t see NASCAR taking such action. Not until a driver is seriously injured, or worse, a portion of a car ends up in the grandstand killing and seriously injuring several hundred spectators.

What a shame that it will take a disaster of this magnitude to force NASCAR to do something so simple.

Why Ty Cobb is the Greatest Ballplayer─Ever

J. Conrad Guest — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:58:24 -0400

Several years ago my ex-girlfriend (who at that time wasn’t sporting the “ex” prefix) asked me who I thought was the greatest ballplayer of all time.

No great sports fan herself, it came as no surprise when, in response to my answer, she raised her eyebrows and said, “Ty Cobb? Never heard of him.”

I told her that was because Cobb had started his illustrious career before my father was born─ my father was eight years old when Cobb hung up his spikes for the last time.

“How can you consider him the greatest of all time if you’ve never seen him play?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “You didn’t ask me who was the greatest ballplayer I’ve ever seen. That would be Kaline─the last Tiger elected to the Hall of Fame and the first to have his number retired.”

“If Cobb was so great, why didn’t he have his number retired?”

“Players didn’t wear numbers in Cobb’s time.”

“Oh. So what makes him the greatest?”

“Well,” I said, “for starters, he set no fewer than ninety major league records, several still stand today, including highest career batting average (.367) and most batting titles (eleven, nine of them consecutively). Those two records alone will likely never be bested. He stole home fifty-four times, and four times, after reaching first base, he stole second, third and home on successive attempts, often after telling the battery of his intention.

I went on to tell her that Cobb once scored from second base on a sacrifice bunt and from first base on a routine single to right field.

Cobb was a field general, endeavoring to force the opposition to make a play by doing the unexpected. He once stole home while the third baseman and pitcher were discussing a defensive alignment. This was before timeouts were called between pitches.

In 1909 he led the league with nine homeruns (remember, Cobb played in the dead ball era)─all inside the park, becoming the only player to lead his league in homeruns for a season without hitting a ball over the fence.

He revolutionized base stealing as an offensive weapon, perfecting the hook slide and, yes, sharpening his spikes before games; he was as apt to hook slide as put a defender in the hospital.

He reviled Ruth and the homerun, saying his sister could hit homeruns in Yankee Stadium, with its 297-foot right field fence. The Babe may have called his shot, but Cobb once announced that for the next two games he would hit only for power. In the first game he went six for six, hitting three homeruns, driving in seven runs, scoring four and amassing sixteen total bases. In the next game Cobb went three for four and hit two more homeruns.

In 1936 he was the first player elected to the Hall of Fame, amassing 98.2 percent of the votes. That, too, was a record, until Tom Seaver received 98.8 percent of the vote in 1992.

The Sporting News in 1998 ranked Cobb as the third greatest ballplayer of all time, behind Ruth and Mays respectively, which in my mind is a sham. Ruth may have been more popular with the fans and Mays’ skills better than Cobb’s, but no one has had a greater impact on the game than Cobb. He forever changed the way the game is played and could win a game by himself, coaxing a walk, stealing first, second and home, to beat a team 1-0.

Shortly after this discussion with my then girlfriend, we watched Cobb, Ron Shelton’s 1994 film starring Tommy Lee Jones based on the Al Stump biography. The film depicts Ty Cobb as mean-spirited and racist. Make no mistake, racism of any sort is wrong, but consider that Cobb was born a mere twenty years after the Civil War. He grew up working alongside blacks on his father’s farm in Georgia.

While the Civil War won freedom for blacks, blacks still had, in Cobb’s time, a long way to go before winning any semblance of equality. Cobb’s perception of blacks as inferior, while inarguably wrong, was common in his era.

The truth is Cobb had many run-ins with a lot of people─black and white─whom he perceived as “uppity.”

Major league baseball was, in Cobb’s time, segregated, and Cobb was the first player from the south ever to play in the bigs. A Baptist with a southern accent, he was estranged, viewed as an outsider, hazed mercilessly by his own team mates, who sawed his bats in half, locked him out of hotel bathrooms, cut up his clothes, put horse manure in his shoes, and threw at his feet during batting practice.

In Cobb’s own words: “These old-timers turned me into a snarling wildcat.”

Cobb was also not a good father or husband. His wife divorced him over repeated abuse and his children wanted little to do with him.

He once pistol-whipped to death a man in an alley who, so Cobb claimed, tried to rob him.

Yes, Cobb was a monster both on and off the field, a monster in part created by his team mates as well as by the fans who accepted his behavior in deference to his talent, driven by many demons, not the least of which was the supposedly accidental shooting death of his father by his mother. It was rumored that his father suspected his wife of an affair and that she shot him when she had been caught with her lover. She claimed her husband was away on business that night, and that she thought he was an intruder. A jury found her not guilty of manslaughter.

Cobb’s father never approved of Ty playing baseball, and when it became apparent that he could not influence his son to pursue a more respectable career, he told Ty not to come home a failure.

Cobb’s father was killed a week before the Tigers called up Cobb to the big leagues, and so he never got to see his son play, a fact Ty lamented: “He never got to see me play. Not one game, not an inning. But I knew he was watching me... and I never let him down. Never.”

It’s true, what Ernest Hemingway, who for a time hung out with Cobb in the 1930s, wrote of Cobb: “The greatest of all ballplayers, and an absolute sh-t.”

So when my girlfriend, after having watched the movie with me, turned to me and asked, “So why is this terrible human being in the Hall of Fame?” I could only say: “Sometimes greatness has little to do with goodness.”

Detroit Tigers on Precipice, But to What?

J. Conrad Guest — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:15:41 -0400

With all the scuffling the Tigers have been doing this season, I was startled to learn that as of this final weekend in June they sport the third best record in the majors, behind only Boston in the AL East and Los Angeles in the NL West.

As I write these words, Detroit holds a five-game lead over Minnesota in the Central, with the White Sox and Royals, each having spent some time at the top of the Central, not far behind. Only Cleveland, 12 games back, seems out of the hunt.

All in all, Detroit’s record in the Central is much improved over a year ago.

Last weekend the Tigers swept the Milwaukee Brewers, a team that came to town having scored thirty runs in a three-game sweep of the Indians. Detroit won the series largely on good pitching and timely hitting.

The Cubs came to town after the Brewers left and again the Tigers got out the brooms to take a three-game set in one of the more tightly contested series at Comerica all season, winning the first game on a walk-off homerun in the bottom of the ninth and coming from behind in game three.

Offensively the Tigers have run hot and cold. Only Cabrera, who hit .700 the first week of the season, has maintained any consistency, despite suffering a strained hamstring earlier this month. His batting average is currently among the leaders in the AL.

Carlos Guillen has yet to find his rhythm, a sore shoulder finally landing him on the DL in late May.

Magglio Ordonez struggled so much at the plate, that Manager Jim Leyland sat him for several games to get him away from the game. Prior to Wednesday’s game against the Cubs, his second game back, he cut his shoulder-length hair and promptly went two for four and hit the game-winning homerun Thursday afternoon.

Placido Polanco, the most underrated second baseman in the game, has yet to show his best stuff at the plate, while center fielder Curtis Granderson has alternated between the leadoff spot and deeper in the lineup. His average is down but he is hitting for more power.

Brandon Inge worked hard in the offseason to improve his hitting and it’s showed. His average is up, he leads the club in RBI production, and he is tied with Granderson for most homeruns.

Thames came off the DL to hit .300 for a time; but he isn’t expected to hit for average. All this guy continues to do is hit a homerun every twelve or fourteen trips to the plate─among the best in the majors.

Detroit has been getting great contributions from some of their role-players, kids up from AAA, like Don Kelly and Dusty Ryan. Josh Anderson, Adam Everett and Gerald Laird were fine acquisitions during the off season, and each has contributed, if not consistently. Anderson’s speed has given Leyland more options at playing small ball, and Laird has more than admirably filled Rodriquez’s spot behind the plate.

Guillen is expected back in mid-July, and if he can regain his hitting stride, along with Ordonez and Polanco, then Granderson, Cabrera and Thames will only become more dangerous.

Pitching has, at least for the last month, improved. Armando Galarraga, after starting the season 3-0, improved only today to 4-7.

Justin Verlander, who struggled most of last season, opened this year slowly, but after a chat with Royals’ right-hander Zack Greinke, Verlander has been lights out in all but one of his starts the last two months. With two more strong starts, he may make an appearance at the All Star game in St. Louis next month.

Edwin Jackson has been as good as Verlander. With more run support he could easily be 8-2 instead of 6-4.

The biggest surprise has been twenty-year-old Rick Porcello. His record at 8-4, this kid is the real deal. In a year or two, he could combine with Verlander and Jackson to become the best threesome in baseball.

Dontrelle Willis started the season on the DL but got a handful of starts in late May and early June, but was sporadic. Willis was placed on the 15-day disabled list retroactive to June 15 for what has been termed an anxiety disorder.

Zach Miner has been solid, pitching mostly long relief─he has a great sinker ball that induces a lot of groundballs─with an occasional spot start.

Brandon Lyon, acquired from Arizona primarily as the heir apparent to Todd Jones as closer, was suspect early, as many pitchers are coming from the NL; but he’s starting to show promise.

Ryan Perry, the twenty-year-old fire-baller, pitched his way onto the staff in spring training, but currently is pitching in AAA to get more seasoning. While up with the big club, he’s pitched well and I expect he will be back before season’s end.

Bobby Seay, sporting a 3.52 ERA in thirty-three appearances, has perhaps been the most consistent reliever to date.

Joel Zumaya finally returned to form after shoulder surgery more than a year ago and a series of other injuries. He touched 104 mph on the gun the other night, which seems to have put to rest any doubt that he’d ever regain his form from 2006

Fernando Rodney is a perfect 14-14 in save situations, 17-17 going back to last season. And yet it’s never easy for him. He’s as apt to send down the side 1-2-3 in the ninth as he is to walk the first two hitters before pitching out of a jam.

The season is still young and a lot can happen between now and October, but Detroit has at times looked to be the team to beat in the Central, while at other times they look the team that finished in the cellar last season.

It’s been an on and off season thus far for the Tigers, but most nights they play entertaining baseball, with Leyland managing like he did in 2006, having successfully called for the squeeze twice already and usually doing the unexpected, which is key to winning ballgames.

Still, on their worst nights, they’re a far better club than they were four years ago, when they were losing 100 games.

MLB and Replay Review: Strange Keystone Combination

J. Conrad Guest — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:33:29 -0400

I was treated, twice in one game, to my first instances of umpire review of replays in a major league ballgame.

The Tigers were playing the Brewers at Comerica Park when Miguel Cabrera launched what obviously was a two-run homerun into the bullpen in left field. Imagine my surprise when the umpires ruled it in play and Cabrera stopped at first base for a long run-scoring single.

Everyone in the stadium knew it was gone, even the Brewer left fielder, who barehanded the ball when it bounced back into the field of play, knew it had been hit over the wall.

The umpires huddled for a time before, unable to come to consensus, heading off the field to review the play on replay before coming back to signal that Cabrera had indeed hit a homerun. Somehow it seemed anticlimactic to watch him circle the base paths from first base, where he’d been standing during this delay.

Two innings later Dusty Ryan hit what appeared to be a two-run homerun to left field and again the umpires huddled before heading off to watch a replay. The replays we viewers saw showed the ball had hit the yellow stripe atop the padding along the wall, which by rule is considered in play, so I suspected this homerun would be overturned, and so it was.

It could be argued that instant replay had allowed the umpires to make the right calls this night. So why does an old baseball purist like me feel sickened by baseball’s embrace of modern technology to get the right call?

The NFL has had instant replay for years and I’ve seen plenty of calls reversed; most go unturned, the call entrusted to the official on the field. I’ve been against instant replay in football from day one.

The truth is, in sports calls are missed. It’s part of the game. As a fan of one team or the other, you understand that fact, and you hope that the call that goes against your team at the end of the first half will be followed by a call in your team’s favor in the second half. They even out─unless your team happens to be the Detroit Lions.

In baseball calls are missed every night of the season. I see pitches on an inning-by-inning basis called strikes that look to be balls and pitches called balls that look to be strikes. As a spectator, I’ve learned to accept this fact and look, as the players do, only for consistency─that the visiting team isn’t getting that outside strike while the home team doesn’t.

When will major league baseball decide to call balls and strikes from the perspective of the center field camera?

In the case of Cabrera’s homerun, as I sit typing these words, I’m still aghast that four umpires could miss the trajectory of a ball that clearly was hit out of the park only to bounce back onto the field of play. I’ve seen umpires huddle to discuss similar situations, and I applaud that. Sometimes the best view isn’t the view closest the ball. Most of the time, after a brief confab, they get it right, without benefit of watching a replay.

Tonight I’m left to wonder, during the rain delay at the Copa with the Tigers leading the Brew-Crew 7-4, when instant replay will be used to get the right call in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the World Series on a close play at the plate.

Right now instant replay can’t be used in such instances, but really, those are the calls that are most often missed. The umpire watches the base runner touch the plate and misses the instant the catcher makes the tag; or he watches for the tag and misses the instant in which the base runner touches the plate. He is often left to guess. I’ve seen as many slow motion instant replays that show the umpire missed the call as I have seen the umpire making the right call.

It’s part of the game.

It’s part of the game’s beauty.

Review of a slow motion replay is a blight to that beauty.

Farewell Metrodome, and Good Riddance

J. Conrad Guest — Sun, 17 May 2009 10:09:07 -0400

The Minnesota Twins will open the 2010 baseball campaign at Target Field, and no one could be happier, other than the Detroit Tigers, than me to say farewell to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.

If the Twins were to play 162 games within the confines of the Metrodome, I’m convinced they’d set a new record for regular season wins. Playing on the road, the Twins are just another ballclub; but at home they are nearly invincible. In football, the home crowd is considered the twelfth man. For the Twins, the Metrodome surely is the tenth man.

How else can you figure that the Twins lost the first two games of a weekend series against the Yankees at the new Yankee Stadium, scoring only eight runs, after sweeping the Tigers, at home, while surrendering seventeen runs over three games? The week before, the Twins split a two-game series in Detroit, losing the second game 9-0.

The players come and go, but over the last twenty years the Twins at home have been a bane to most visiting teams. Playing under a roof on an artificial surface makes for a different brand of baseball and the Twins build their teams on defense and speed. On most nights they’ll beat you with small ball. But with the M & M boys (Mauer and Morneau), they can beat you with power, too.

Yet their pitching, too, is good enough on most nights to keep it close, until the offense gets it going.

Low-scoring affairs are a rarity at the Metrodome, and no lead, no matter how large, is safe. The Twins can win 1-0 the result of good pitching; yet when they don’t get pitching, they’re as likely to win 14-10, as they did last Wednesday against Detroit.

It’s true that playing under a dome and on artificial turf is a disadvantage to the visiting team ─ the harder surface allows for a much faster game, while the fly ball can hide itself against the dome from the uninitiated defender.

I for one have never appreciated baseball played indoors, and I’m pleased new stadiums are going back to playing under God’s blue sky and on His green grass, the way the game is meant to be played, even if it means facing the elements, which leaves neither team advantaged.

It’s true that April temperatures in Minnesota can drop into the thirties, and that snow is still a threat, but if that means a more level playing field when the Tigers visit Minnesota, then so be it. May the better team win, without the benefit of a tenth man.

Farewell to the Metrodome, and good riddance.

Which is More Important: Baseball Skills or Athleticism?

J. Conrad Guest — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:32:24 -0400

I was watching the Tigers and Twins last night on the tube and I heard Rod Allen talking about how the Twins organization prefers to go after ballplayers rather than the better athletes. Initially, the comment puzzled me. I mean, in order to be a ballplayer, doesn’t one need to be a good athlete?

After a moment, as I waited for the finish of my Samuel Adams BlackberryWitbier to placate my palate, I realized Allen was right. Brandon Inge is, without a doubt, the best athlete on the Tigers roster—dammit, he just looks like a ballplayer. If anyone doubts his athleticism, just watch him play third base. He gets to balls at which most third basemen only manage to wave as it passes them. If he has four errors this early in the season, it’s because that athleticism enables him to get to balls others can’t—or don’t in an effort to avoid misplaying a ball.

Yet, much as I like Inge, he is far from being the best ballplayer on the roster, as evidenced by his anemic numbers at the plate the past two years—low .200s. Granted, this year he’s worked hard, changed his stance, has a new approach at the dish, and he’s being rewarded: he’s been hitting above .300 since the season began. Whether opposing pitchers can figure out how to get him out, and whether he can make the appropriate adjustments to remain effective, remains to be seen. He has the potential to be a better than average ballplayer, if he can maintain his offensive output.

On the other side, you have Miguel Cabrera, who looks anything but like a ballplayer, who lacks foot speed and possesses little of the grace of a natural athlete. Yet this kid can hit not only for power (which is his forte), but for average, too. He was hitting over .700 the first week of the season. Opposing pitchers can only hope to contain him for a game; it’s rare that he’s ineffective for an entire series. He’s scuffling a bit now, but he carried Detroitfor most of last season, after a slow April as he learned American League pitching, but he’s quick to figure out what pitchers are doing and make adjustments. He’s also made some spectacular plays at first base but still has a lot to learn when it comes to letting second baseman Placido Polanco make the play in the hole instead of relying on the pitcher to cover the bag while he makes the play.

And speaking of Polanco, he’s another ballplayer who exhibits little athleticism but who almost always gets the barrel of the bat on the ball. He can hit behind the runner almost at will and sprays the ball to all fields. He’ll never hit twenty homeruns, but he can hit with occasional pop. Defensively, he’s solid—went more than a season without committing an error in 2007-08. Polanco, in my mind, is a ballplayer.

All of which led me to consider which is more important when assembling a major league team: ballplayers or athletes? Personally, I think you need a little of both, but frankly, I think I’d lean toward assembling a greater number of ballplayers. I look at a team like the Yankees and I see more gifted athletes than I do ballplayers, and they haven’t won a championship since 2000. Does that prove my point? I’m not sure. I think, with so many athletes on their team, Joe Torre was the best manager, and his loss, in my opinion, is costing them wins.

I’m curious: What do you think is more important—athleticism or baseball skills?

Mitch Albom: Formula for Success?

J. Conrad Guest — Sat, 02 May 2009 11:41:35 -0400

I’ve been following Mitch Albom since 1985, when he was hired to replace Mike Downey as lead sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Barely twenty-seven years old, Albom’s credentials were already impressive: he’d freelanced for Sports Illustrated, GEO, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. In 1983, he was hired as a full-time feature writer for The Fort Lauderdale News Sun Sentinel, eventually promoted to columnist. In 1985, he won the Associated Press Sports Editors award for best Sports News Story. During his tenure with the Freep he’s won many awards for his sports writing.

I liked him then ─ he was hungry, his columns had bite, he held athletes accountable, and I held to many of his opinions. It didn’t hurt that he was an accomplished jazz pianist. But as is often the case with success, something happened to Albom over the years, or maybe it’s just that I’ve grown more cynical, developed a more discerning eye, become envious. Or maybe it’s a little of all of the above.

One can’t, or perhaps shouldn’t, argue with success, and everything Albom touches turns to gold: he’s authored a number of anthologies, co-authored, with former Michigan Head Coach Bo Schembechler, Bo: Life, Laughs, and the Lessons of a College Football Legend (Warner Books), which became a New York Times bestseller. He appears regularly on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters, and has, since 1996, hosted an afternoon talk show on WJR. He has been honored by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters as the top afternoon talk show host, and was voted best talk show host in Detroit by Hour Detroit magazine. His books, including Tuesdays with Morrie (the bestselling memoir of all time), The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and For One More Day, have sold more than 26 million copies worldwide. He’s a playwright, having co-authored a stage version of Tuesdays, which ran off-Broadway in 2002, and two others that have been staged at Jeff Daniels’ Purple Rose Theater in Chelsea, Michigan. He performs with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band of writers composed of Dave Barry, Stephen King, Ridley Pearson, Amy Tan and Scott Turrow. Their annual performances raise funds for a variety of children’s literacy projects nationwide. Finally, he’s founded three charities in Detroit. He once spent a night in a homeless shelter and raised over $350,000 in less than two weeks.

And what follows will no doubt make me sound the envious wannabe.

As a talk show host, he berates callers who don’t agree with his politics. Sure, controversy sells, and maybe this is what WJR hired him to do, but not letting callers express their views is hardly what I’d call freedom of expression. He can be abrasive, downright nasty.

His books, as do many of his articles, all pretty much follow a formula perfected by Hallmark long before Mitch came along, designed to manipulate the reader to tears.

Notwithstanding that the Freepress briefly suspended Albom in 2005 for misreporting ─ he stated that two college basketball players were in the crowd at an NCAA tournament game when in fact they were not ─ Albom’s columns also have evolved into formula. Yes, sports often leaves itself open to cliché, but that doesn’t mean that writing about sports should be done in a cliché fashion. While this is perhaps what the majority of readers in my community want to read, it’s not what I wish to read. I don’t like having my feelings manipulated. I was moved by the passing of Bo Schembechler a few years ago; I didn’t need Albom’s words to make me feel the way I did. A reader should be free to relate to any text in his or her own way. In the Schembechler tribute, Albom made much of the article about himself, his own relationship with Bo. By the end of the piece I felt excluded.

Small potatoes? Maybe. Maybe, as one of what Nietzsche called “the bungled and the botched,” I’m envious of his success. It’s tough to make it in the publishing industry, even tougher to stay on top. And staying on top usually means “always leave them wanting more.” Reading between the lines that often translates to “more of the same.”

Photo courtesy of Aim Net Couple.

What's Up With Justin Verlander?

J. Conrad Guest — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:40:39 -0400

A lot of Tigers fans are, like me, frustrated over Verlander’s performance so far this young season, part of which is rooted in last season’s oh-fer April.

Despite a winning career record (46-36), he’s going in the wrong direction. A 17-9 record in 2006, the year the Tigers made it to the Fall Classic, was good enough to win him Rookie of the Year honors. He improved in 2007 to 18-6, tossing a no-hitter against the Brewers on June 12, and his future looked limitless. But last year he unraveled. Granted, the entire team struggled in April, with Curtis Granderson starting the season on the DL with a broken finger. Verlander managed to finish the season 11-17 after starting 0-7, but this season, although still young, his dismal stats dwarf last year’s numbers through the first month of the season.

What’s maddening is his lack of consistency. He’s as apt to go out and toss four innings of no-hit ball ─ as he did last week in Seattle ─ only to get rocked in the fifth, as he is apt to get rocked early, as he did in his next start in Anaheim, giving up seven runs on nine hits through five innings. That’s the only consistent part of his game: he willget hit; it’s just a matter of when and how hard. We fans learned long ago to not expect that he will be around beyond six innings. This kid has a high 90s fastball, one of the better change-ups in the majors and a good curveball; yet he routinely hits triple digit pitch counts by the middle innings, even in his good outings. High pitch counts are expected of strikeout artists, but Verlander’s high pitch counts can be the result of the base on balls as easily as the strikeout.

Manager Jim Leyland says he’s not concerned over Verlander’s slow start, saying only that Verlander is his own worst enemy: “Sometimes you just want something too much, too bad, and that’s the only thing going on with him right now. He just wants it so bad.”

Certainly the right thing for a manager to say to take the pressure off the guy who is supposed to be your ace, and it certainly seems to fit with what I’ve seen of Verlander this year. He can look confident, his mound presence dominant, his stuff unhittable; but give up a hit, walk a batter, and he seems to lose focus, come unglued. He seems to want to do too much, forgetting that he has eight other guys behind him who can help him get out of a jam. At twenty-six, he is approaching his prime and should know this. Attitude is what differentiates great pitchers from mediocre hurlers. Great pitchers go after hitters despite the situation. A true ace can forget that the bases are loaded and pitch as if the bases are empty, trusting his stuff and the guys behind him. It seems this is something Verlander has yet to master. Until he does, expect him to be stuck in this baseball rut, destined to be a mediocre pitcher who had unlimited potential.

Hall of Famer George Kell Dies: Long Live the Heroes of Yesteryear

J. Conrad Guest — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:15:02 -0400

I never had the pleasure of seeing George Kell play, but I know he played for my beloved Detroit Tigers between 1946 and 1952 and beat out Ted Williams for the batting title in 1949, going two for three in his final game while Williams went oh-fer. His average that season was .3429 to Williams’ .3427. A lesser player might’ve sat down for a pinch hitter in his last plate appearance rather than risk losing the title by recording an out—not Kell. No way was he going to win a batting title by default! He also holds the record for fewest strikeouts for a batting champion at thirteen—thirteen strikeouts for an entire season! His other Hall of Fame stats include a .306 lifetime batting average, eight consecutive .300 seasons, 10 All Star game appearances, twice leading the league in hits and doubles, and hitting for the cycle. He also held the record, for more than 20 years, for most consecutive games at third base without committing an error. Oh, yes, he also married his sixth-grade sweetheart and stayed married to her until her death in 1991. Kell finished his baseball career with the Orioles in 1957—the year after I was born.

I first heard the name George Kell when he brought his Hall of Fame play-by-play talent to Tigers' telecasts during the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Kell retired from the booth in 1996 out of embarrassment over having a “Hall of Famer” (Al Kaline, who’d joined Kell as the color commentator in 1975) “carry my bags to and from the hotels.”

To me, he was as good in the booth as I’d envisioned him on the field. Soft-spoken with that Arkansas dialect, he called a game like I recall my grandfather telling a favorite story about growing up in Pennsylvania. While Ernie Harwell opened his radio broadcasts with, “Hiya, Tiger fans,” Kell opened with “Good EVE-ning, everyone.”

He shared a wealth of baseball knowledge and lore with his viewers, and I recall his many colloquialisms with fondness—they were never forced or over the top—a high pitch up around the batter’s eyes was “up in his wheelhouse;” a hard hit homerun was “tommy-hawked” into the stands; a line drive to third base was “speared by Aurelio Rodriquez” on a “whale of a play!” And his homerun call: “Long drive… waay back… could be… and it is… a homerun!”

I recall him telling the story of having his jaw broken by a line drive off Joe DiMaggio’s bat, “I got up, made the play at third, then passed out.” Kell was colorful without trying—a rarity in today’s broadcast booth.

No sir, they don’t make ballplayers, or play-by-play announcers, like Kell anymore—a true hero on the diamond, in the booth, and in life.

While I’m saddened today to learn of the passing of this Hall of Famer and true hero, who led a Hall of Fame life, I’m pleased to learn that he’d been awarded an honorary lifetime membership to the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association.

Bless you, George. Baseball will miss you.

Detroit Tigers Scouting Report 2009

J. Conrad Guest — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:47:09 -0500

The Super Bowl is past and on February 2, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, so I’m assured of at least ten more weeks of hockey.

It’s forty degrees outside my window, the snow is melting (although to either side of my driveway it’s still knee deep), but Detroit Tigers’ pitchers reported to Lakeland, Florida last week, and position players report this week, and so my thoughts turned to baseball.

In Michigan we can expect much snow before the start of the baseball campaign, maybe more arctic temperatures; but they’ll be playing baseball in Florida later this month, and that, my friends, does my heart good.

Tigers fans are still puzzling over last season. With the addition of Miguel Cabrera, many experts picked the Tigers to not only contend for the Central Division, but win the Championship. But the wheels fell off early, with center fielder and sparkplug Curtis Granderson starting the season on the DL with a broken finger.

The bats, including the aforementioned Cabrera, didn’t warm up until May; yet no one in the Central was in command, and by the All Star break they were still close enough to make a run, despite having lost Jeremy Bonderman for the season with shoulder surgery. But the starting pitching never solidified, the bullpen was inconsistent, and the Tigers finished last in the Central.

Hope springs eternal this time of year, for fans of all clubs everywhere, and it’s no different here in Motown, despite all the questions that hopefully will be answered between now and April Fool’s Day.

The big question for Tigers fans remains pitching. Will Bonderman regain his early career form to become the more dominating pitcher we expected? It’s hard to say how long the blood clot that ended his season early last year was affecting his arm, but something seemed amiss with Bonderman even in 2007, the year after the Tigers appeared in the World Series.

Armando Galarraga was the lone bright spot among the starters last season. Can he continue to baffle opposing hitters this season, or will he suffer the sophomore jinx?

Zack Miner came out of the pen late last year to start a handful of games and did well enough to be given a look at a starting position this year, but his past record as a starter has been one of inconsistency.

Nate Robertson was benched for a time last season for an inability to get hitters out, and frankly, I’m surprised to see him still with the club.

Can Freddy Dolsi and Dontrelle Willis rebound from their injuries of a year ago? And will Justin Verlander finally grow up and become coachable?

The Tigers’ top prospect, Rick Porcello, turned 20 last year and the door is ajar as to whether he comes north with the big club for the home opener, or be relegated to pitching in Double-A. This kid led the Florida State League with a 2.66 ERA last year, and president and general manager Dave Dombrowski has promised that Porcello will take the mound every five days in spring training, indicating a place in the starting rotation might be his to win.

The bullpen needs to stay healthy. Last year, for the second straight season, Zumaya and Rodney seemed injury prone. Detroit acquired Brandon Lyon during the off season to fill the role of closer after Todd Jones’ injury and subsequent retirement, a role for which Rodney never seemed to have the stomach. He seemed as likely to pick up the win as choke in pressure situations.

The Tigers landed a new pitching coach, Rick Knapp, out of Minnesota’s minor league system, and it will be interesting to see what he can do with this staff. I’m excited to see him in a Tigers uniform. The Twins have had success for years on the strength of pitching, a mean feat considering they play in the Metrodome on artificial turf, a hitter’s paradise.

Defensively, the Tigers are without Pudge Rodriquez, whom they dealt to the Yankees before the trade deadline last year. Gerald Laird, acquired from Texas, was the guy on Dombrowski’s wish list to replace Pudge.

Brandon Inge will be the everyday third baseman. He’s a human highlight reel with a gold glove in his future. Still he needs to bump up his batting average fifty points.

Edgar Renteria is gone, leaving the shortstop position to Ramon Santiago. Placido Polanco will stay at second and Cabrera at first, leaving Carlos Guillen to play left field, with Granderson anchoring center and Magglio Ordonez in right.

This team was an offensive force last year, and this year should be no different. It remains to be seen, however, whether the pitching can improve to the point where this team won’t have to play from behind so often, as they did a year ago.

Play ball!

Lions achieve immortality through perfection

J. Conrad Guest — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 09:20:40 -0500

No NFL team has ever gone through an entire season without scoring a win. Until 2008.

Last season the New England Patriots finished their season a perfect 16-0 only to cap it off with a disappointing loss in the Super Bowl. Disappointing. The Lions record in futility is abysmal. Embarrassing. Sixteen games without a win. After going a perfect 4-0 in the preseason. Does a team have to work at that sort of ineffectiveness? You’d think, at some point during the season, the Lions would find a team against which it would match up well, a team with enough injuries to key players that they’d be susceptible to an upset, even a good team that might take the Lions lightly, looking past them to their game the following week against the team just ahead of them in the standings. But week after week the Lions managed to find ways to lose. Their trademark was to fall behind early, leaving the opposition to win going away. In those few games where they managed to mount a semblance of a comeback, as they did against Green Bay in the final game of the season as they strove to reach perfection, they only proved they couldn’t compete for a full sixty minutes. After falling behind to the Packers 14-0 early, they managed to tie the game early in the third quarter only to overcome two personal foul penalties in the second half (how does an 0-15 team get flagged for taunting?!) to close within three points after the Packers had gone ahead by ten. But the defense managed to overcome the momentum the offense had gained by allowing the Pack a quick score to counter.

Head coach Rod Marinelli has said, all season long, that he is proud of his team for never giving up, that they come prepared to practice and prepared to play on Sunday. But the truth is, a team does not win, cannot win, merely on attitude. The measuring stick against which a professional sports team is measured is wins and losses. Winning requires discipline, something this team has lacked for years, as well as skill. While quarterback Dan Orlovsky could start and win with other teams in the NFL, and wide receiver Calvin Johnson and running back Kevin Smith could be superstars on other teams, the truth is the Lions don’t have enough skill at the unskilled positions to compete ─ not against professional teams or against many top college teams.

Lions’ fans today, already looking ahead to next season, are perhaps gleeful that the Lions have the first pick in the first round of next year’s draft. But it’s not like this team hasn’t had first picks in the past. Who remembers Andre Ware? Barry Sanders holds all the records for running backs who ever played for the Lions and could’ve set the NFL record had he not given up on the Lions, and he alone couldn’t bring them to the Promised Land. In forty-five years under owner Clay Ford the Lions have won one playoff game, with Barry in the backfield. The most dependable player on the Lions’ roster the past ten years, since Sanders retired? Jason Hanson. The placekicker, and surely a future hall of famer.

When will the fans learn? The players come and go. Head coaches are hired and fired and never go on to coach elsewhere. General managers are hired and fired ─ and while other franchises build dynasties that crumble to dust only to be rebuilt, the Lions continue in their quest to achieve martyrdom through what can best be defined as less than mediocrity. And all the while, the believers continue to buy tickets to see this pathetic team perform, well, pathetically. Until this season. For the first time since I can recall, the last several home games failed to draw enough of a gate to allow them to be televised locally. For that I cheer the fans heartily. For while games at Ford Field continued to sell out, why would anything change? The fans deserve better. Hell, the NFL deserves better from one of the oldest teams in the league.

Futility? Before the Red Sox won the World Series a few years, they’d held the longest record for not winning a championship. The Cubs in Chicago are embraced by their faithful, but they at least compete, tease, have occasionally made the playoffs. The Lions merely show up on game day to embarrass themselves, their fans, ownership and the NFL. Whatever may be ailing the opposition on any given Sunday, they are assured of finding a remedy, however temporary, against the Lions.

Ownership needs to make changes beyond the hiring of a new head coach and a new GM. They’ve proven, since 1963, that a sports franchise can’t be run like an automobile company, with the owner making all the decisions. Hopefully the fans will no longer be appeased by the firing/hiring of a new head coach and GM, along with a number one pick. If ownership fails to adapt to the modern formula of other winning franchises, then it should sell the Lions to someone who not only cares about winning, but also knows how to run a franchise.

The Lions are one of the most storied franchises in the NFL: hall of famers Dutch Clark, Bill Dudley and Alex Wojciechowicz, Bobby Layne, Charlie Sanders, Joe Schmidt, Greg Landry, Billy Sims, Chris Spielman and Barry Sanders. On this day in 2008, they added a dismal chapter.

Major League Pitchers Need Help as Staffs Strain for Innings

J. Conrad Guest — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 05:14:20 -0400

I’m taken by the large number of pitchers who can’t seem to pitch beyond the sixth inning before being pulled due to a high pitch count this year, high being considered 100 pitches.

This contrasts sharply with bygone eras when starters routinely pitched in excess of 300 innings for a season; today, the starting pitcher who turns in 200 innings is considered a workhorse.

Today’s bullpen is highly specialized: We have long relievers, short relievers, setup men, and, of course, closers. Forty years ago, a manager chose his closer by committee―often by who was rested, and the manager often went on instinct or statistics, or who was best suited to get out the opposing hitter. This speaks only in part as to why managers are quick to hook a starter for a relief pitcher.

So why today are so few starting pitchers, superstars included, unable to go beyond the sixth inning? Are hitters so much improved, or are the growing number of fireballers who rely on a 95 mph fastball becoming too predictable? Any major-league hitter worth his resin can turn on a fastball straight down the center of the plate if he knows it’s coming.

Perhaps the shrinking strike zone can be held partially accountable―today, a high strike is considered belt-high as opposed to letter-high of the bygone era, even as the corner strike has expanded. Yet even pitchers with good command, who work in and out as well as up and down, are experiencing high pitch counts in short outings.

Given the aforementioned, I think it’s time Major League Baseball considers raising the pitcher’s mound at least five inches, preferably eight inches, to give some advantage back to the pitcher. If the high strike remains at the belt, a higher elevation will at least give the pitcher another, higher, dimension against which the hitter must contend.

Unfortunately, MLB, intent on achieving higher-scoring games to draw fans, will likely never consider this option.

Ted Williams: the Splendid Splinter

J. Conrad Guest — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:52:40 -0400

There will never be a hitter like Ted Williams. In his 21-year big league career, he twice won the American League MVP, led the league in batting six times, and twice won the Triple Crown (most home runs, most runs batted in, and highest batting average). He had a career batting average of .344, with 521 home runs, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966.

Also of note, Williams holds the highest career batting average of anyone with 500 or more home runs, and his record .551 on base percentage, set in 1941 (the same year he batted .406) stood for 61 years, bested by Barry Bonds in 2002. He is the last player in Major League Baseball to bat over .400 for a single season. Williams in 1949 set the record for reaching base for most consecutive games ─ 84 ─ and also holds the third longest such streak of 69, set in 1941. Williams successfully reached base in 16 consecutive plate appearances in 1957, a major-league record that still stands.

His .406 batting average, in my mind, is the most impressive accomplishment in any sport. Consider that today’s hitters spray the ball to all fields; yet Williams was a dead pull hitter, hitting consistently against the Williams Shift opposing defenses deployed against him. Consider also that the pitcher’s mound was 10 inches higher in Williams’s day, which gave an edge to pitchers. Had he been blessed with more speed, Williams felt he could have hit over .400 for at least one more season over his career (he did it three times).

In today’s game, power hitters opt for heavier bats to generate more pop; yet Williams used a lighter bat to generate more bat speed. An obsessive student of hitting, Williams often stepped out of the batter’s box whenever a cloud momentarily obscured the sun to ensure himself the best opportunity to see the ball.

Perhaps the only low spot in Williams’s career was his performance in the 1946 World Series (his only appearance in the Fall Classic) in which, playing with a sore elbow, he managed just five singles in 25 at-bats, with just one RBI, as the Red Sox lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games.

Williams hit a home run off Rip Sewell’s notorious eephus pitch (noted for its high arc and slow speed ─ usually under 60 mph) during the 1946 All-Star Game at Fenway Park. He twice challenged Sewell to throw the pitch ─ the first was a called strike, but Williams hit the second pitch for a home run.

In a climactic ending to his career, Williams hit a home run in his very last at bat on September 28, 1960.

In this modern era of baseball, it’s unlikely that any player will eclipse Williams’s prowess with the lumber, and for that reason, his .406 batting average is the most impressive accomplishment in any sport.

Detroit Tigers: A Puzzling Season

J. Conrad Guest — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:14:59 -0400

Before the 2008 campaign started, Motown fans had high hopes for our Tigers. Even when Curtis Granderson went on the DL with a broken finger, missing the first month of the season, no one predicted a 0-7 start. Granderson is the sparkplug for the offense ─ as goes Granderson, so go the Tigers. When he returned, our offense perked up, for a time, but now Curtis is batting in the mid-.200s, and he hasn’t yet been able to adjust to the pitchers who are now, instead of busting him inside, pitching him away. Still, watching him play center field is worth the price of admission.

When April ended with Granderson’s return I expected it would be only a matter of time before the offense caught fire. No one in the Central was running away from anyone, but now it’s June, the Tigers are a full 10 games back of Chicago, ahead of only Kansas City by a mere half-game, and I’m beginning to wonder not so much when they will catch fire, but if.

On paper, this Tigers team is one of the best in baseball; but games aren’t played on paper. Certainly they have more talent than they did two years ago when they made it to the fall classic. Yet something is missing, the magic is gone. Perhaps they paid too much heed to the preseason hype that they were the team to beat in the Central Division. Maybe Leyland’s tinkering with positional players is affecting plate appearances: Guillen and Cabrera have traded corners, Cabrera certainly adjusting better at first than Guillen ever did. Last night I saw Guillen in left field. Yet that doesn’t explain Polanco’s struggles at the plate. Even though he’s pulled his batting average up to .279, he’s a far cry from the hitting machine that could be depended on the last two years to advance or score runners from second base.

And pitching was supposed to be a strength. Truth be told, I’ve always felt our starters overrated. Robertson, who I like, has average stuff and pitches mostly with heart. Verlander certainly has pitched better than his 1-9 record shows despite a high era; in seven of his losses the offense has scored one or no runs. With a little support from his batting mates he could easily be at .500. Kenny Rogers has managed to even his record at 4-4, but he must reinvent himself each time he takes the mound. Perhaps the biggest puzzle on the starting staff is Jeremy Bonderman. At 25 years old, he is supposed to be the ace of the staff. After having his shoulder examined the other day, it is likely he will be put on the DL for a circulation problem in his shoulder, opening the door for Dontrelle Willis, who not long ago came off the DL. But Bonderman’s woes go back to last season, with his 6.+ era in the first inning alone. Consistency seems to be Bonderman’s worst enemy. At times he looks solid, sometimes nearly brilliant, but he can’t go six, seven or eight innings without giving up at least one big inning.

The bullpen started slow but gained momentum in May; yet the starters must get deeper into games or the bullpen will have nothing left come August and September. But by then it may not matter.

As a side note, it was interesting to see who the Tigers drafted the other day. I’m a proponent of taking the best available player rather than filling a specific need with a questionable prospect, but the Tigers took five pitchers through the first six rounds ─ which leaves me wondering how management feels about their current staff (although pitching, always a commodity in the big leagues, can be used as fodder for trades).

Right-hander Ryan Perry was their first pick. At 6’ 4” and 200 pounds, Perry has a high 90’s fastball, a change up and a slider. He’s pitched out of the pen, but it’ll be interesting to see if the Tigers try to make a starter out of him. If they sign him, look for Perry to appear with the big club later this season, probably out of the pen.

Detroit took Cody Satterwhite in the second round. Another right-hander, Satterwhite is a junior in college; at 6’ 4”, he purportedly has great stuff but needs to work on consistency with his slider.

Scott Green was Detroit’s third pick. Another right-hander, at 6’ 7” Green has a low-90’s fastball and a sub-par change. Oh, yes, he’s also had Tommy John surgery on his shoulder.

Brett Jacobson was taken in the fourth round, another big right-hander. At 6’ 6”, he has a mediocre fastball but supposedly a good curve ball and great deception.

Detroittook Tyler Stohr as their sixth pick, another right-hander who struggles as a starter but has had some success in relief.

Oh, and the fifth pick was Alexander Avila, a catcher whom the Tigers think can hit with power. Avila is the son of Tiger’s vice president and assistant GM.

Curious picks, in my mind. Are they building for the future, or is a shakeup likely should they finish 20 games under .500 and in last place in the Central? Only time will tell. Until then, what had started as a season of promise continues to deteriorate.

Backstop: A Baseball Love Story in Nine Innings

J. Conrad Guest — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:46:59 -0400

For the first time anywhere, an excerpt from my forthcoming novel, “Backstop: A Baseball Love Story in Nine Innings.”

As I dig into the batter’s box I can hear the chants of the home crowd — “Let’s go Tigers!” I’m charged, but I clear the sounds of the game from my head and look out to Fernando to try to gauge how he’s going to attack me this time. He got me on strikes back in the second, but he needed his entire arsenal to do it; and I tagged him for a single in the fifth when he relied on his heater. When he doesn’t shake-off the sign, I guess he’s starting me off with something off-speed. Sure enough I get an outside curve, which misses outside for ball one. The next pitch is a fastball inside — a purpose pitch to back me off the plate and set up what I guess will be another outside curveball. When Fernando doesn’t shake off Evans, I commit to jumping on the curve, which Fernando delivers, and I hit it hard, taking the ball the opposite way. I hear the crowd erupt in anticipation, but I’m not sure I’ve gotten enough of the ball to send it out. As I run down to first I watch the ball, its trajectory high, certain I’ve put too much air under it. Gallegos is back to the warning track, seemingly camped under the ball and I slow my pace, certain I’ve but hit a long out, but the upper deck porch that hangs out over the first row of the lower deck has robbed many a right fielder from making an easy putout, and tonight I’m fortunate that it gratefully accepts my gift. I watch the fan in the front row who catches the ball leap with joy, fists pumping. I round first base and the din of the home crowd grows deafening. Still, I show no emotion. I’ve certainly hit longer homeruns in my career, but none were as important as this one. I’ve always been careful not to show-up opposing pitchers, and this homerun, as important as it may be should we go on to win — we still have three more batters to face in the ninth — I treat no differently than the two-hundred-eighty-seven I’ve already hit in my career. I round second base, conscious of the hitch in my gait the result of my swollen and aching ankle, aware of my knees, who both seem to ask me, “how much longer are you going to ask this of us?” I pick up Preston, our third base coach, applauding with a big smile on his face, and it occurs to me then that this might be the last time I round these storied base paths, and so I resolve to enjoy the moment as best I can. Preston holds out his right hand and, rounding third base, I slap it and feel the sting of his left hand on my backside. All too soon I reach home, where McCandles is waiting for me, hand outstretched for me to slap, although he, too, is aware the game is far from over.

I head for the dugout and glance out to center field where Cobb once played — a silent acknowledgement of the greatest Tiger of all — and I recall the debate Darlene and I once had about whether a man’s evil nature can, or should, be forgiven for the good he contributes. Right or wrong, Cobb’s evil nature was set aside when the Hall of Fame recognized his contributions to the game of baseball. It hits me then, as I doff my cap to acknowledge the cheering fans, if a bad seed is capable of doing something good, then the obverse must certainly be true. I’ve tried to live my life according to a high set of standards, but I fell short, failing often where baseball was concerned — maybe also where my mother was concerned — and once miserably with Darlene. That failure resulted in my hurting the one woman who means the most to me, as well as disappointing myself and my mother; but my failures do not, by themselves, make me a bad person, nor should they take away from the good I’ve contributed, to baseball or to my marriage. In that moment I resolve not to give up my fight to win back Darlene.

The crowd is jumping, electric with anticipation as I head down the steps of the dugout, greeted by a series of high-fives and a host of encouraging comments. I touch all the hands but ignore the comments as I approach my spot on the bench next to Stewart, who is standing and all smiles. “Way to go, Backstop!” he shouts at me, clapping me on my back. “Don’t get cocky,” I tell him as I sit on the bench. “We’ve still got business to tend to.” Stewart falls silent and I immediately regret what I’ve said. He’s just a kid — earlier I’d told him to enjoy the moment because he might not ever get another just like it, and now I’ve placed the weight of this World Series game seven squarely on his shoulders.

A moment later he turns to me and asks, “We’ve got the top of their lineup to face in the ninth, how do you think we should attack them, Backstop?”

I look at Stewart, the seriousness etched on his face, and suddenly I know without a doubt, despite never before displaying any amount of prescience, that Darlene is watching tonight — that she’s watched every game since this series started nine days ago.

I don’t know which is funnier, the look on Stewart’s face or the question he’s just asked, and suddenly I burst out laughing, and I find I can’t stop. Stewart is looking at me as if I’ve just slipped into madness, which only fuels my laughter to greater heights.

I realize, with a one-run lead, this is our game to lose. In that moment I know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that, with Darlene watching, we will win this game and the World Series — the Tigers’ first championship since 1968, the same year I watched, as a kid, Denny McClain bloop a pitch for Mickey Mantle, the dreaded Yankee, to hit out of the park. Damn it, Dad, I think, glancing to my left nearly expecting to find him sitting alongside me as he did those many years ago, it was just a game!

Stewart continues to look at me for a moment longer before, not wanting to be left out of the joke, although he can’t possibly have a clue as to what the joke is, he joins my laughter. Finally, as my laughter subsides, I tell Stewart, elbowing him in the ribs, “You idiot! Just go out and do what you’ve been doing!”

Detroit Tigers: Opening Day

J. Conrad Guest — Sat, 03 May 2008 03:09:30 -0400

For, lo, the winter is past,

The rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth;

The time of the singing of birds is come,

And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.

-- Song of Solomon 2:11-12

Last night, as I listened to the sound of rain on my roof, sleep came to me but slowly. It was a Sunday night, just like any other, but different. Spring has been in the air these past few days, but only just – Mother Nature threw a curveball last week, calling for snow instead of sunshine; but I forgave her. The snow is today nearly melted.

I awake early, before the clock radio sounds its revelry; it’s pre-dawn, the rain has stopped but I hear the sound of water slow-dripping from the eaves outside my bedroom window. I head for the shower, forgoing my customary morning shave (I’ve got the day off from work and feel like a lad playing hooky from school).

From the bathroom to the kitchen, where I grind some beans, pour water and inhale the bitter fragrance of bourbon flavored coffee slowly brewing. I scratch morning stubble on my neck, open the window blinds: no flowers yet abloom in the neighbor’s yard, but there is beauty in this day nevertheless – the beauty of anticipation.

It’s been said birds sing not because they are happy, but instead are happy because they are singing. There is a song in my heart this damp Monday morning; I reach for the cream in the refrigerator door, admire the brauts on the top shelf in front of the chilled beer before I close the door.

Last night’s talking head on the TV told me that drizzle is in the forecast for the early afternoon (I’m fine with that even if she doesn’t assure me that it will taper off by mid-afternoon) and the temperature is expected to reach near 60 by 4:00.

Eggs are scrambling in my skillet, with onions and cheddar, while an English muffin toasts in my toaster oven. Man that coffee sure does taste good, and it tastes good every morning. But this morning is different.

I watch the neighbor’s car pull down the driveway; he’s off to work, but I’m just off. I’ve nothing to occupy my time for the next several hours: work the morning crossword; catch up on some reading – there’s that article in Cigar Magazine about where cigar boxes go when they die, and the morning Free Press sports section.

Enjoy the day off, the moment, this final day of March. The Super Bowl is two months past, hockey playoffs start in just over a week, but the boys of summer are due to take the field at Comerica Park in little more than four hours.

The game has changed since the boy I once was developed a love affair, nearly fifty years ago, with the game of baseball. The pitcher’s mound has been lowered to accommodate the hitters (and still no one can top Ted Williams’s 1941 average of .406 for a full season), the playoff format has been altered to accommodate three divisions in each league, and the athletes are better conditioned, stronger, faster, perhaps even more skilled. The salaries are higher, the egos bigger, and many more names seem to hail from South America, but those who don the English D of the Detroit Tigers play for my team, even if they don’t make their winter home in Michigan, or anywhere in the northern hemisphere.In a few hours I’ll get the brauts to grilling, pour a cold one, light a cigar and down a shot of bourbon – the good stuff – as the Tigers kick off their 2008 campaign in the American League Central.

There is no way to tell if the Tigers will be in the hunt for the gonfalon come September, but for today, they’re tied for the division lead heading into the month of April, and our expectations in the Motor City run high. We’ve talent and perhaps the best manager in the game: Jim Leyland understands players as well as how the game is played. Most of the buttons he pushes throughout the long season are the right buttons.

Win or lose, I expect a lot of exciting ballgames to be played by the home team over the next six months. There will be many highs and some lows – walk-off wins, heartbreaking losses, and unforeseen injuries. But such is life.

I’ve watched a lot of baseball in my life, including three World Series appearances by the Tigers (two championships) and have had the pleasure of seeing some of the greatest players ever to play the game – Hall of Famer Al Kaline (perhaps the greatest right fielder to ever play), Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker, the most enduring keystone combination ever to play their positions, and Jack Morris, who deserves a place in the Hall of Fame even if his mercenary ways took him away from Detroit. At age ten, I thrilled to watch 31-game winner Denny McLain serve up a pitch to an aged Mickey Mantle to hit over the fence in right field at Tiger Stadium. Robert Fick hit a rooftop shot to right field in the last game ever played at the corner of Michigan and Trumbell, and Reggie Jackson, the Yankee I loved to hate, hit the light tower in right field, estimated at 520 feet, in the 1971 All Star Game.

I have many fond memories of Tiger Stadium, where my dad introduced me to this grand old game, but I’m creating new ones at Comerica Park, already having hosted an All Star Game and a World Series during its seven-year infancy. Somehow this kid’s game I love so much makes the stress of every day life seem trivial. Sometimes it’s great being a kid, especially at age 51. Even if it’s only for a day.

Tomorrow when I head in to work, I’ll have on my game face, but terms like “contract amount,” “quota” and “win the business” will pale in comparison to the home plate umpire’s call to “Play ball!”

– JCG/March 31, 2008