History

History is a funny word. Sometimes it means something is done or finished (that book is history), or maybe that it's outdated or old. Other times, it refers to something, usually a bad something.

For an example of the latter, I quote Bill James, one of the greatest statistical minds baseball has ever known, from his 1988 Baseball Abstract. Note that he uses "past", but it means the same thing.

The problem is that you acquire a past. In the beginning, what needs to be done is so clear, so obvious. When you have no players you must acquire the best young players that you can find. When they are ready you put them in the lineup because the people who were there before them are just a holding action, just waiting until the future is warm. When you have no past you have no loyalties, no debts. You know exactly where you are in the cycle. You have a memory of no yesterday's dreams which still might flower tomorrow, and thus there is no confusion of tomorrow with yesterday, plans with dreams or what is right with what is best for the team. On September 20 of 1987 the Toronto Blue Jays had a clean slate. They never will again.¹

He is referring to the 1987 season, when Toronto and Detroit fought for the AL East division title for most of the season. Toronto took the first three games of a four-games series against Detroit in Toronto, September 24-26, and led by 3.5 games with 7 games to play for them and 8 for Detroit. Detroit won the final game of the series in Toronto, split four games with Baltimore and swept Toronto in three one-run games. Toronto was swept by Milwaukee before the Detroit series, and as a result, the Tigers clinched a tie for the division on Saturday and won the title on Sunday.

According to coolstandings.com, Toronto had an 89.9% chance to win the division as things stood on the 26th, taking into account their remaining schedule, Detroit's remaining schedule, and other factors. (The site explains it in slightly more detail.) It was the 25th-biggest collapse in MLB history, at least prior to this season.

Prior to 2003, the Tigers already had a long history: one of the eight original American League clubs that began play in 1901, one of only four to have played in the same city the entire time (Boston, Chicago, and Cleveland the others), the first AL team to win three straight pennants (and the first team to lose three straight World Series), a team that went 52 seasons before first losing 100 games and finishing last ... but with only four World Series titles and no pennants since '84, Detroit's history was mostly history.

In 2003, they lost 119 games. That's not good. But they rebounded the next year to win 72, and then two years later, they won 95 games and stormed through the AL playoffs to capture their first pennant in 22 years before losing to St. Louis in five games in the Series. (One of the biggest jokes in history: David Eckstein getting the Series MVP.)

But wait: Detroit didn't win the division in 2006, even though on August 22, they had a 93.1% chance of winning the division (7.5 games up). They had a 78.3% chance of winning the division on the final day, but lost their fifth straight game, all at home, to fall into the wild-card spot instead.

In 2007, it was different, oh yes. On July 19th, they had an 88.7% chance of making the playoffs. This time, the collapse was bigger, and by the last week of the season, the Tigers were completely out of the race. That was collapse #28.

This year, on September 30, Detroit had an amazing 96% chance to win the division. They were in the midst of a four-game series in Detroit against the Twins, having arrived with a two-game lead with seven to play. With a magic number of 6, all Detroit needed was three of the four games to clinch. They lost the first game (the first half of a day-night doubleheader forced by a rainout on Monday), but won the next two, and when October arrived, all they needed was 2: 2 Tigers wins, 2 Twins losses, or one of each, and with a game left between the two, they could do it all at once.

But they didn't. I got no birthday present. Minnesota went on to sweep Kansas City, Detroit stumbled against Chicago, winning only the final game of a three-game series to force a playoff, and then you know what happened next.

The problem wasn't whether or not Leyland should have given Porcello the hook for Zach Miner (probably; Porcello was already overthrowing a bit) or whether he should have made Rodney the designated finish-up guy (probably not; no sense in killing your pen with a possible game tomorrow, but you do have to win for that game tomorrow to be yours) or whatever, but rather that the Tigers couldn't consistently beat Kansas City or Chicago. They went 9-9 against each team while the Twins went 12-6 against each team. That, my friends, is the problem. The Tigers made themselves have to win in the last week, and with a history of collapsing, they couldn't do it.

Sure, there are a number of franchises with a longer drought than Detroit has (the Cubs, obviously, but the Rangers came into the league as Senators II in 1961 and haven't won ever; the Indians haven't won since 1948 ...), but at some point there isn't too much difference between them. All you know is that you didn't win this year, you didn't win last year, and you can't feel like you can win next year.

However, the Tigers do have some good young players, and they have made a run at the playoffs three of the last four seasons. And at some point this will pass, and the Tigers will win again, and everything will be all right.

But right now it sucks.

¹James, Bill, The 1988 Bill James Baseball Abstract, p.84.

Baseball and feeble discipline

Buster Olney has a column (subscription required) about the activity between Boston and Detroit this week, and sadly I don't mean the actual baseball that was played. I mean the stupid "you hit my guy, I hit yours" crap that has been "part of the game" for far too long.

Of course, MLB likes to crack down on this by suspending the offending pitchers, well, pretty much never, unless they're rookies. (Got another explanation for Porcello's suspension? Me neither.) So it keeps going, which isn't really a surprise, because somehow baseball has this stupid-ass policy that if you're suspended, you can appeal right away, and then not serve the suspension for weeks, until your team is in New York so your appeal can be heard. Unless you're playing Washington or Pittsburgh or someone, and then you can suddenly drop your appeal and start serving it. Of course, most appeals go through, and then a 7-game suspension becomes 3, or some crap like that.

Anyway, Olney's point is that Bob Watson, the head of MLB "discipline", should have a consistent set of rules to apply. That part he gets right. What he doesn't say is what really needs to happen.

First, you need to start enforcing the batter's box. (What?) Yes, the batter's box. You know, that chalk line that is painstakingly marked before every game and then immediately removed by the first batter on each side of the plate. (What a joke. Can you imagine this in any other sport? Besides NASCAR, that is.) Touch the line, you're out. (There are actually already rules on the books that cover most of this, and of course they are not enforced, because umpires don't do that. They make their own rules.)

So now hitters don't stand on the plate and glare menacingly at the mound, so there's no need to brush them off the plate. Now you can start penalizing pitchers for hitting batters. Something that takes into account a certain lack of control, but also the danger involved in hitting a guy. (Like the first one in a game is free, a second one gets you the day off, and then exceeding X in a season brings suspensions ... hitting someone in the head is an automatic 7 games ... that kind of thing.)

Now the good stuff. Charge the mound, you're out for 30 games. Do it again the same season, you're out for a year. Don't like being hit? Nobody does, that's why there are rules about it. But try to take things into your own hands and you're done.

Bench-clearing brawls? Be creative. Maybe fine each team 1% of its payroll, cumulative during the season (four brawls means you're paying 10% of your payroll).

It's stupid, it's not part of the game, and it needs to go. MLB is a joke for not protecting the players and not taking the crap out of the game, and the MLBPA is just as liable for doing whatever they can to prevent discipline. (Ever notice how players' associations don't represent everyone, only the superstars and the ones in trouble? Funny, I thought the victims were members too.)

Circus baseball

Watching the Angels-Red Sox game, hoping Josh Beckett can put up some fantasy points for me.

Bottom of the first, runner at second, one out. Abreu calls time, for some reason the home plate ump grants time as Beckett is in his motion, so Abreu backs up and the ump signals time ... but Beckett has nowhere to go, and ends up throwing pretty close to Abreu's head. (Which is, in part, because hitters have been setting up on the plate for the last 20 years and not one umpire has ever taken the initiative to enforce the batter's box rule.)

So of course Abreu cries, Beckett walks toward him to explain something, or to tell him to suck it, or whatever, and of course the benches empty, because baseball players are more than willing to avoid being disrepected as long as it doesn't involve actually fighting.

And the umps separate them.

And then as they are separated and sent to their respective dugouts, someone on the Angels starts yapping again, and the benches clear again ... and then there is more yapping ... and more yapping ... and then Torii Hunter is ejected (although that was by Joe West, so it could have been for looking at him funny) ... and then there is more yapping, and finally everyone has been sent back to their dugouts, and we can play again.

Doubtless this would happen much less often if umpires actually enforced rules pertaining to the batter's box, which tends to lead to a lot of these root causes, or possibly if they would have better rules for calling time ... but it's like a basketball game where you start seeing a lot of hard fouls. That usually happens when players get away with a couple of early ones (either uncalled fouls or flagrant/intentional fouls that are not called as such) and the refs suddenly realize what happens when you decide to ignore things in the rulebook.

At least all the Angels doing the ump-directed yapping were ejected (Scioscia, the hitting coach, Speier, and Hunter). I mean, it wasn't like Beckett threw at Abreu with no extenuating circumstances. (That's another thing that needs to be changed, once they fix the Charley Lau syndrome: no more Pedros. Hitting a batter should be the equivalent of a card. Hit one, you're at least warned. Hit two, or one in the head or certain other ways, you're gone, no questions asked. Make a habit of it, and you'll earn some time on your own.)

sigh. Baseball could be much better, except that the commish is a dumb owner, the umps pretty much refuse to improve (although they're better than they were), and the players are still kind of the same group that were responsible for the Roid Days.

XM

Today, I got another reminder of why satellite radio has a dim future, at least under its current providers. (Usually, I think about things like DJs who WON'T. SHUT. UP. Because, you know, that's what we loved most about terrestrial radio, so we really need that on XM/Sirius. Or combining forces to save money and then still being unable to provide a full lineup.)

I was heading out to feed Evil Cat and trying to listen to the Tigers' pregame show on XM. Unfortunately, the wires they set up to pick up the Detroit feed must have been crossed, because I couldn't clearly hear the people talking ... there was a hard-rock station playing in the background. When the game started, they must have got that fixed, because it wasn't a problem.

Sometime in the bottom of the second, though, the signal just went dead. I checked the other stations - no problem, so it must be the feed. Of course, XM/Sirius just puts on a few extra commercials for their own stuff, just seeing if we notice. (Yes, we do.)

Eventually, after 5 minutes or so (when we should already have been in the third inning), they change the text to read "Tech Difficulties." (Another thing I don't like: they never use more than half of the text area on my display.) o rly?

In the bottom of the third, the signal comes back ... well, not really. It's the Rangers' feed. Okay, whatever. (Obviously, it would be smart to do what DirecTV does, and carry both home and away feeds, particularly when you think about all the channels they have and what they're not using. So they don't.)

Then, in the top of the fourth, we finally get the Tigers' feed back. Except that when they break for station identification, XM/Sirius plays the clip of Ron Washington telling us we're listening to the Rangers' radio network on XM.

When my contract expires in October, I'm renewing for the shortest possible amount of time. Hopefully whatever replaces XM/Sirius will work with what's in my car.

Denial, thy name is Fehr

Fehr rejects drug-use suspicion talk.

Well, then it must not exist.

On one level, this isn't as dumb as the NHLPA vigorously supporting the "rights" of players like Chris Simon or about half of the Flyers organization. However, you can at least make the argument that there isn't a cry for severe suspensions in hockey. (There is still a substantial percentage of the hockey community that believes that all these incidents would disappear if the NHL would simply remove the instigator penalty. The number of players with 300+ PIM in that era would lead most people to think that this "self-policing" didn't work, but whatever.)

There isn't much of a cry to clean up baseball, and honestly, that is Fehr's real problem. So many prominent players have tested positive that it's beginning to look like track and field or cycling, where you have two groups of athletes: those who've tested positive and those who haven't tested positive yet. The time for fighting suspicion is long past; Fehr should either take steps to clean up the sport or step aside so someone else can. (Wait a minute, a pro union leader acting in the best interests of the entire group. Who am I kidding?)

True, not all runners or cyclists are doping. In fact, many might not be. It's just hard to believe when you see a number of stars following the same pattern ...

• I would never use drugs, that's completely wrong and I'm totally against it.
• I don't know where these allegations came from. I will fight them until the very end.
• I don't know how that happened, but I'll take as many tests as they want to prove it was a bad test.
• I was young and didn't know what I was doing. I made a mistake. Most of all, I regret not being honest with myself.

See, guys like Fehr don't understand because they don't want to. They don't see that every guy on that list – McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, Bonds, Rodriguez, Giambi ... – takes more of our confidence away. Eventually it doesn't matter any more. We'll just assume any spectacular performance is the product of drugs.

Keep it up, Donald. You're doing a heckuva job.

A word means just what I choose it to mean

You might have noticed last night that the Angels no-hit the Dodgers and lost. It's pretty rare. Only four other times in history has a team given up no hits and failed to win.

• Red Sox-Indians, April 12, 1992


• Yankees-White Sox, July 1, 1990 (four runs on no hits???)


• Orioles-Tigers, April 30, 1967


• Astros-Reds, April 23, 1964

Unfortunately, baseball-reference.com only has data for individual games back through 1956, so I can't show you any more. (Also, the link is to the Play Index that returns fewest hits allowed by a team, so if you don't subscribe – and I recommend you do – then you won't be able to see the whole table.)

More, you say? But you showed four.

Ah yes, and there's the rub. You see, one of the things Mr. Small-Market Man has done in his infinite wisdom is to decree that a no-hitter is no longer a no-hitter unless it was at least a nine-inning game.

But wait, you say. The Dodgers and Angels played nine innings.

Ah, well, that doesn't count, you see, because the Angels didn't pitch nine innings. See how that works?

Me either. Look, regardless of what Mr. [expletive deleted] thinks, a no-hitter is a game in which one team allows no hits to the other team throughout the entire game. That's it. I really don't understand what put this idea in his tiny little brain in the first place, or why he felt like this was an important thing to do, rather than something else like, say, punishing steroid users or un-juicing the balls ...

The worst part about it is that now Retrosheet no longer tracks no-hitters of less than nine innings, so if you want to find out about David Palmer's five-inning perfect game in 1984 or the Andy Hawkins 4-0 loss mentioned above, you have to hope they happened since 1956, or else you have to dig them out by hand.

Worse yet, notable performances like Ernie Shore's 27-out "perfect" relief performance and Harvey Haddix's amazing 12 perfect innings against Milwaukee (retiring Mathews, Aaron, and Adcock FOUR TIMES IN A ROW - you'll never see a game like this ever again) are pretty much lost to the common eye. In the old days, these were listed along with actual no-hit games because of the nature of the performance. (Amazingly enough, Haddix's game score was "only" 107. Just eight strikeouts ...)

It's amazing what Selig has done to baseball during his tenure, and I do not mean that in a good way. I mean it in the same way as I'd describe what Bank of America has done to banking or what Comcast has done to the cable industry.

Today at BWW

I almost forgot. There was a Clapping Guy at BWW today.

I'm sure you've seen one if you've ever been to a sports bar. A Clapping Guy is a guy who insists on celebrating everything his team does: in football, it's the guy who claps when his team scores, forces a punt, gets a first down ... sometimes even when they catch a pass. What makes them noticeable is that they do this when rooting for a team that no one else likes, or when watching a game that no one else cares about, or both. (Don't confuse this with Drinking Guy, who celebrates only because he can actually tell what's happening at that point in the game. Be very careful not to confuse this with Gambling Guy, who celebrates whenever his money does something well. Gambling Guy can be very dangerous, especially if he has bet against your team. Know him, respect him, fear him.)

Today, Clapping Guy was celebrating when the Sox (his team) drew a walk. Hey, I know Sox-Cubs is a big rivalry, but you know what? It's a 162-game season. You're an American League fan. A walk is insignificant in the context of the game.

Also, it's 4:30, and no one else in here cares. Clap for a grand slam. For a walk, sit down and shut up.

Fortunately, once the Sox had a big lead, Clapping Guy either left for good or disappeared until his friends showed up so he can drink for real.

Renteria is what?

I know, I know, fish in a barrel, but anyway, apparently Lynn Henning of the News thinks that Renteria is beginning to look like an utter liability at shortstop.

My understanding is that the Tigers signed him to improve on Guillen's performance, not to be Omar Vizquel, and in that respect, he has succeeded. You name it, Renteria's improved it: fielding percentage, range factor, zone rating, revised zone rating. A better criticism would have been to suggest that Renteria's performance at the plate has not been what the Tigers hoped to get from him.

Certainly, there's an argument that facing AL pitching will drop the average NLer's numbers, and Renteria is 33, not 23, so he's not likely to improve (nor even maintain, not necessarily), but nonetheless, Renteria's RC/27 is 3.48, below Sean Casey's 2007 level of 5.09 (remember, the idea was to put Renteria at SS so Guillen could play 1B with Cabrera coming in). Even Inge posted a 4.10 RC/27 last season, so hold off on commenting that Guillen is actually replacing Inge at 3B ...

Anyway, the biggest problem the Tigers have had is not defense at SS, but pitching, and Renteria isn't going to be taking the mound soon. If you're going to be criticizing an acquisition, it should be Willis (or maybe Jacque Jones, but of course he's already gone), not Renteria.

Fixing baseball

If I were commissioner for a day, and by "commissioner" I mean the position in these hypothetical questions that has absolute power and can write decrees that will take effect permanently even after I leave office (because really, if that weren't the case, then how dumb does the question become?), this is what I would do.

I would fix scheduling.

Yes, scheduling. Ignore the DH for now, skip the idiocy that is homefield advantage in the World Series (novel idea: do what every other sport does and decide it by the record of the competing teams), and focus on baseball's main problems.

That's right, problems. I can kill two large birds with one well-placed stone.

The first problem is unfair scheduling. Most franchises realize it and very few columnists seem to understand it (Google "unfair baseball schedule" and see what happens). The idiots who figured that three-division teams would be a good idea didn't bother to consider the problems with an uneven number of teams, either within or between divisions. (If it's a 24- or 36-team organization, you're fine. You need the same number of teams in each division for fairness and an even number of teams in each league for scheduling.) We know wild-card competitors won't play the same schedules, but when division rivals don't play similar schedules, there's a problem. (Look back at the 28-team NFL, when a fifth-place team would make a run at a division title the next season, and you'll see what I mean.)

The second problem is unbalanced leagues. Of course, with 30 teams, you have to have unbalanced leagues. 15 and 15 means interleague play all season long, and no one's dumb enough to buy into that. No, really, not even Bud.

So here's how to fix it.

Expand to 32 teams. I know, I'm not really a proponent of expansion, but we need to divide by 4 (you see where this is going?) and if you think you are going to contract by 2, good luck with that.

Besides, there are population areas that could probably sustain major-league teams no worse than, say, Miami does. The two largest MSAs without teams are Portland (2.1 million) and San Antonio (just under 2 million). Both already support major-league teams in other sports and do so rather well (except when the Blazers' owners are total morons).

Note that the greater Montreal area has 3.6 million people and the Vancouver area has 2.25 million people. From a population perspective, these would naturally be the expansion markets you'd want; as a bonus, you'd have three Canadian teams in the American League (ha ha, joke's on us) and Seattle would finally have a local rival. (Well, they'd have that with Portland as well, but anyway ...) Montreal did sustain a baseball team, just not one run by a guy who has no idea how to do it. Funny how the same thing's happening in Miami. Think MLB realizes Loria's a franchise-wrecking jackass? Nope, me either.

Anyway, we'll look at both concepts.

Realign into four eight-team divisions. Yep, we're getting rid of the Central divisions. It doesn't work now and it gets into the stupid wild-card thing.

How do we do this? Well, we go back to the old-school alignment from 1993, but keep teams in the leagues where they are now, and add the two expansion teams to the AL. We will have to shuffle teams around, of course, to get to eight per division ...

(Sorry, but I'm linking to my Google doc. Hand-typing HTML tables isn't my thing.)

So take a look at my solutions and then follow along.

Option A: US expansion.

1. The two new teams are Western teams, so they go to the AL West.
2. The easternmost team in the West, Chicago, moves to the East.
3. As in the real-life three-division alignment, Chicago and St. Louis move out of the East and Atlanta and Cincinnati move into the East.

The AL was pretty much set anyway, and Chicago could play in either division (and will, as you'll see below). In the NL, we keep geography in mind, moving the Reds and Braves where they belong. (St. Louis has to play in the West, and it will be easier to convince them if the Cubs move as well.)

Option B: Canadian expansion.

1. The two new teams are on opposite sides of Canada, so they fit perfectly into the existing seven-team divisions.
2. Again, the NL realigns by switching Chicago and St. Louis with Atlanta and Cincinnati.

One benefit of this option is that Montreal and Toronto are now divisional rivals, and if you're a hockey fan, you now have five of the Original Six cities represented in the AL East. (Chicago really does belong in the West here.) Vancouver fits geographically with Seattle, and the NL realignment keeps teams separately fairly well between east and west.

Now, the final touch:
End interleague play. It's a joke anyway. Sure, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago fans love it, but really, aside from those rivalries, nothing else really has the same ring to it, and we don't need any more Detroit-Arizona games.

Simple, regular scheduling. Fourteen games against each divisional opponent, eight games against each opponent in the other division. Divisional play dominates the schedule again, and everyone in the division has the same schedule.

You really should take just the division winners in this scenario. I suppose you could take the two next-best records if you wanted, but that's up to you.

Will it ever happen? Only if you're playing Out Of The Park. In the real world, no chance in hell. MLB doesn't do intelligent things. Not any more.

Sports apocalypse

Joe Paterno makes sense. In fact, more sense than most who speak out on this issue, and JoePa is 137 years old, so that should tell you something right there. (No, not that he's senile.)

The Celtics lost the Eastern Conference Finals. Well, okay, they only lost Game 2, but they can't win on the road, and Doc Rivers is still their coach. Bet on them if you like. I'll keep watching hockey myself - hopefully one Detroit team will wipe out its opponent quickly so I can focus on the other.

The Yankees are still in last place. Of course, the Red Sox are now in first, but so what? You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

Dude!

Holy cow.

So the Tigers want to win big, and win now. I love it.

I saw rumors about the deal this afternoon. When ESPN ran the story from Gammons that it was all but done, I nearly broke off my workout to go home and write about it. (Then I remembered that I'm 25 pounds overweight and really don't need to be ditching cardio work.)

Left field isn't set yet, at least the PAs that Sheffield won't use when he's not DH/1B with Guillen, but aside from that, Detroit now has

1B Guillen (123 OPS+ in 2006)
2B Polanco (122 OPS+ - yep, that's right)
3B Cabrera (150 OPS+)
SS Renteria (125)
LF Jones (87)
CF Granderson (136)
RF Ordonez (167)
DH Sheffield (120)
C Rodriguez (85)

(Yeah, I forgot the acquisition of Jacque Jones. My bad.)

Pudge may remain below-average, LF might be another below-average bat, and a couple others may drop as well, but right now, that's one solid lineup. I may head over to WIS to see if I can test it against some other current teams ....

SP Verlander (ERA+ 125, WHIP 1.23)
SP Willis (ERA+ 83, WHIP 1.60)
SP Bonderman (ERA+ 91, WHIP 1.38)
SP Rogers (ERA+ 103, WHIP 1.43)
SP Robertson (ERA+ 96, WHIP 1.48)

More questions in the rotation, of course: can Willis regain his form, is Bonderman going to be healthy, is Rogers going to be healthy/clean/not cheating ... anyway, the rotation should be stable, at least, which it hasn't been in a long time.

RP Rodney (ERA+ 107, WHIP 1.32)
RP Jones (ERA+ 107, WHIP 1.42)
???

The bullpen has some work to do, with Zumaya likely out for the year. Byrdak and Seay posted some good numbers, and the new guy might help as well, but the Tigers will need consistency from the pen. Not much more, though. If the lineup lives up to its billing, the pitching will be fine.

Dear Bud,

I wanted to let you and your fellow idiots know that I canceled my Extra Innings package. It's getting to the point where your ineptness is too difficult to ignore. For years and years, you've insisted upon changing baseball to be more like other sports, when in fact it's the very things you changed that were attracting fans to the sport. In case you hadn't noticed, matched up head-to-head, baseball will lose to virtually every other sport.

But this is really too much. You may not be aware that the NFL's insistence on working only with DirecTV in the US has been hotly debated, and that millions of NFL fans are furious about it, but (for now) powerless to change it. (We won't even mention Gary Bettman's attempts to hide the NHL completely.) If you're going to copy another sport's televising plans, I'd recommend the NBA. David Stern knows a lot more about how to manage a sport internationally.

Furthermore, you're looking to the wrong group for examples on what to do when you're caught doing something really stupid. Politicians generally a) lie, b) blame others, c) ignore questions, d) insist it was in the past, and e) grudgingly admit only what's rubbed in their face, usually in that order, and usually at the media equivalent of gunpoint. While you wallow in your stupidity, more baseball fans will be unable to watch their favorite teams (or most teams, for that matter), and at the same time, they'll be able to watch the NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs, NFL and NCAA football regular seasons. Great move.

If you'd step down prior to ruining what's left of the national pastime, I'd appreciate it.

Cheater, cheater

23.5 percent.

Less than one-quarter of the Hall of Fame voters put Mark McGwire on their ballots.

For someone who crushed pitching for five years thanks to juicing a remarkable workout regimen, McGwire certainly didn't get many votes.

Then again, he was a mostly-average first baseman with a lot of power for five or six seasons. That, in and of itself, doesn't seem like enough to get anyone elected. Maybe people looked at his overall career and realized that it didn't merit consideration.

Or maybe they looked at what happened starting in 1993 and realized that there really aren't a lot of players who suddenly get their power stroke midway through their careers.

Gossage didn't get in? That's a surprise. Jim Rice didn't get in? What does he have to do, put on a Yankees cap?

Albert Belle got 19 votes. Paul O'Neill 12. Jay Buhner 1. These people realize that this is the national Hall of Fame, right? Sportswriters wonder why players seem to have such a low opinion of them ...

I hope McGwire gets 4.9% of the vote next year. Then he can spend the rest of his days not explaining how he feels about missing out on the Hall of Fame, just like he doesn't explain why he didn't have anything to say about the past when he testified - strange behavior for someone who volunteered to speak out about drug use. (Maybe he thought he was being asked to recommend it.)

Sorry, Mark, but I have your '88 Topps card. You were 24. You weighed 220. You looked about like I did at 24 (well, much taller, but you know what I mean). And you want us to believe that it was all natural. What did you do at USC, get other people to carry your books?

Evened up!

Well, I feel a lot better now, although I thought for a minute I was going to cry on the bar. Todd Jones has to be the shakiest closer in AL postseason history. I would have left Rogers in myself, which is what I've learned from all my experience managing in the bigs.

Basically, the Tigers played pretty well, and the Cardinals didn't play well until the ninth. The one thing Detroit can improve upon is getting runners home. They stranded five runners in two innings - getting a key hit in either inning would have blown the game open and got them even deeper into the Cardinals' pen.

Oh well, at least the Series is even. A nothing-to-lose Game 3 on Tuesday facing the Cardinals' ace, and I bet that's how Leyland puts it to his team. We'll see if the oddsmakers still favor the Tigers.

coolstandings.com is back to picking the Tigers by quite a bit. After Game 1, the Cards had a slight edge, but now, the three most likely scenarios favor Detroit. (It's worth noting that they have the odds about 3 to 1 that the Series will come back to Comerica.)

In 1990, Detroit had home-court advantage in the NBA Finals, but split the first two games with Portland. Much was made about the fact that the Pistons hadn't won there in something like 17 years (although it was only 14 games or so - at one point, I guess you didn't necessarily play home-and-home against every team in the other conference), and some people were predicting a three-game sweep to end the series. Well, they were right ... but it was the Pistons who took three, not the Blazers.

I'm not saying the Tigers will win three in St. Louis.

But I wouldn't bet against it.

Off to a bad start

Well, I guess the best thing about Game 1 was that it wasn't one little mistake that cost the Tigers the game. They made enough mistakes to give the Cardinals an advantage if St. Louis had played poorly, and St. Louis did enough things well to win without Tigers mistakes.

Verlander got too many pitches high in the zone, the defense wasn't particularly good, and even though the Tigers were more patient than maybe any other game so far in the playoffs, they didn't hit enough balls on the ground. Reyes kept the Cardinals' bullpen idle until the 9th, negating much of the advantage Detroit had from its six-day layoff.

But the good news is that Rogers is pitching tomorrow, and coming from behind is nothing new to this team. If you believe in omens, the '68 team fell behind 3 games to 1 and still won the Series.

In addition to that, Sparky, the only manager to win the Series in both leagues, recorded his AL title nine years after an NL title.

Nine years ago, Leyland's Marlins won the Series.

(Yes, I know, the last Reds title was in '76, not '75, but see, this is how TV shapes statistics for their story.)

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

Seven down, four to go. It's 2:15 in the morning, I have an eleven-hour drive tomorrow, and Magglio Ordoñez is worth every penny.

By the way, Dayn Perry thinks Chris Shelton should be on the WS roster. He's a fool (Perry, not Shelton). I'd write him and let him know that a) Shelton hasn't hit well since April and b) part of the reason the Tigers traded for Casey is that Shelton's defense isn't that good either, but I can't, because Fox doesn't want you to contact their writers. Whatever.

I'm not sure if I'd rather see the Tigers shell Jeff Weaver and the Cardinals, or watch them beat the Mets and burn up the other half of the "Subway Series". Either way, I'm busy the 21st, 22nd, 24th, and 25th, and possibly the 26th, 28th, and 29th.

I say Tigers over the Cardinals in five. I'd almost rather see it go six, so that the Tigers can celebrate in Comerica one more time, but I'd rather not lose two games. Either NL team can definitely cause problems for Detroit, but if they keep playing like this, Bud Selig will be shaking hands with Mike Ilitch in late October.

Two games to none!

Despite having an automatic out in the lineup, the Tigers take Game 2 from the A's, 8-5. Todd Jones gets the save by bringing the winning run to the plate and then getting him to fly out to center. I believe my heart has started beating again.

This is a very good position for the Tigers. It's definitely possible to blow this lead, but not very likely. If they can take Game 3, they'll be in great shape.

No off day! I want a Thursday night game. :)

LCS Game 1 in the books

Now that was the way to start a series. I wonder if Leyland is trying the tennis trick, putting his #4 starter in the #1 spot and hoping for an upset that will give him an advantage the rest of the way through the rotation. If so, it worked like a charm. It was great to watch the Tigers knock Zito out early. If they can get to him, they can get to anyone in the A's rotation. Of course, the trick is to get to everyone in the rotation ... stealing a game on the road doesn't help if you lose one at home.

Game 2 tomorrow (well, tonight), with a lot of pressure on Oakland. Win this and they're in good shape; lose and they have to take at least two in Detroit, with Rogers and Bonderman in games 3 and 4.

My only real concern at this point is with Casey. If the Mayor isn't able to play, they'll miss his bat in the lineup, and perhaps his glove at first - the error by Guillen was a tough one, almost looked like he didn't look the ball into his glove.

Go Tigers!

How sweet it is!

Wow, how time flies. I still haven't caught up with last week's NFL roundup ... anyway, what a finish! There's nothing like crushing a heavily-favored opponent. Sometimes you don't even feel the full impact right away, like when the Pistons whacked the Lakers in 2004. It's so unexpected that it doesn't really sink in until later.

This is different, though, in part because it's only the division series. The Tigers have four more wins before they even get to play for the real thing ... still, knocking out the Yankees, and better yet, maybe even getting Joe Torre fired? Amazing!

Classic overreaction by Steinbrenner as well, although I do like this quote:

I want to congratulate the Detroit Tigers organization and wish them well.

I love it!

It'll be an interesting weekend. I'm not sure I'll be in front of a TV for very long ... hopefully the first two games go well enough that I don't need to glue myself to the set.

2 games to 1!

Wow! What a start by Rogers! The Tigers have been steadily improving with each game, and I think it's safe to say that the Yankees have been declining each game. However, it's still up in the air. The thing about a five-game series is that every game is important. Detroit can't afford to lose tomorrow - you don't want to have to win two road games, even if you had the best road record in baseball.

I nearly had a very embarrassing thing happen. I was at BWW watching the game, and at some point in the third or fourth inning, after a big hit, a Yankees fan kind of stood up on the rungs of his bar stool and shouted. No words, just a noise. The first time, I wasn't expecting it (he was four seats down from me). The second time, I figured it was because he was an obnoxious Yankees fan.

Later in the game, another regular and his date sat down between me and the Yankees fan. Between innings, the regular turns to this guy and waves at him or something. I'm playing trivia, so this is out of the corner of my eye. The regular turns back to his date and says, "He is deaf. I thought so from the sounds he was making." (He had been signing to the guy - the regular used to be an interpreter.)

:o

I'm glad I didn't stand up and cheer, or point, or anything like that.

:o

(I didn't. I'd just thought about it.)

This is why I keep my mouth shut, for the most part, when I get mad. Almost without fail, when I'm mad at something, it's for the wrong reason.

Game 4 tomorrow afternoon. I'm busy. Don't call me.

Hopefully I'll be free on Sunday. :)