Weird day in Detroit Sports

On a day with two playoff games, and the NFL lottery, at the end of teh day the Tigers were the positive story. The Wings set out to prove my prediction wrong and got behind 3-0 in the 2nd period. I didn't see the game, but from what I've read they played like crap.

The Pistons didn't show up, I'm not worried about them in the least. People say there is no such thing as a good loss, but if you have to find positive, this should wake teh Pistons up, and remind them they need to bring their "A" game every night. They gave up 124 points, I think that's the "C" or "D" game. I think maybe owner Bill Davidson asked them to lose teh game so that there will be one more home game at the Palace. Or maybe they just wanted to finish the series in front of their home crowd. Whatever the case may be it was an embarrassing loss, and hopefully they will make quick work of teh Bucks in the next two games.

I don't like what the Lions did in the draft. They wanted to draft a defensive player first, but the guy they wanted was taken by teh Raiders. So they took the next highest guy on the Defensive charts, passing on Matt Leinart, who had he come out last year would have been the number 1 pick. You can't pass on that with the tenth pick.(I bet Leinart is thrilled not to come to Detroit, a death sentence for top 10 picks) The guy they drafted is a undersized LB who has already sustained 5 concussions in his career. That sounds like a guy whose career will last a few years before headaches and confusion force him into early retirement.

If they are so confident that either Kitna or Cade McNown will lead this team for the next few years, they should have traded the pick, Sims was projected as early second round, so they probably could have gotten him with a later pick. I have a feeling in a few years we will look back and continue to hate Matt Millen.

In the one bit of good new the Tigers won 18-1- This following a 9-0 beating the night before. They are actually playing well, great pitching good hitting and winning some ball games. We've been to one game already this season and plan on going to a couple more if they continue to play competitive baseball.

Unfortunately this all happened on Shabbat, so I didnt get to see any of this happen.

Oh Ali, where are you?

I have a good friend, we'll call him Seth, one day he married a girl from another country (Let's call her Ali) Canada to be exact - Edmonton to be even more specific. I spoke with her last night before the Wings - Oilers game, and she was gloating a bit because her Oilers were up 2-1 in teh series. I told her that the Wings would win the game by at least two goal, she predicated the Oilers would would win a by slim 1 goal margin.

The Oilers scored first and not a minute later the phone rings, it's Ali calling to gloat. I told her it was still early, and I still held by my two goal prediction. As teh period rolled along the Wings scored a goal to tie it up. I held off my phone call, because it was just a tie game and I wanted to wait for the Wings to take teh lead before I call. A few minutes later the Wings sore again and I get on teh phone and make teh call. It rings and rings and rings until the answering machine picks up.

What happened to you guys, did you leave home and go out instead of going out, or perhaps did your phone stop working??? Final score Wings 4 Oilers 2. The 2 goal victory I predicted.

Since I'm doing so well with predictions here's another one: The Wings will win the next two games. The Oilers blew their best chance at taking the series. The Wings have been playing much better, and finally started getting production from their top players.

Gross

I don't mind Ketchup, I dip my fries in it, sometimes I put it on my hot dogs and hamburgers.
Jonah loves it, at times he will only eat a meal if it involves ketchup. This evening I gave a him an apple, he ate a slice and then disappeared into the kitchen, he returned a minute later with the ketchup bottle. And informed me that he wanted me to dip his apple in the ketchup. I had no choice, so I poured ketchup into his bowl and he happily ate the apple and ketchup. I think I threw a bit in my mouth.

Stupid Tigers

Once again the Tigers are playing an afternoon game, (3:30 start) and it isn't televised.

I think that's a brilliant marketing decision by whoever makes these decisions. The first time the Tigers have been playing good ball in 20 years, and they aren't televising games that kids can watch. Sure when the game starts at 10:00 pm the thing is on TV (not last of course, but at least the wings were on) This is a time when they can find younger fans who weren't alive the last time the tigers were relevant.

The Wings

I'm exhausted. I was up till about 2:15 watching the Red Wings lose in double OT. They seemed to outplay the Oilers for most of the extra period and a half, but just couldn't bury the puck.

There is nothing, in my opinion, like OT hockey. No commercial breaks, non stop action and teh game could end at any second. I flipped to teh OT of the Spurs/Kings game, and it was boring in comparison.

A few of my thoughts:

Have the wings ever had an easy first round of the playoffs? It seems no matter how well they play in the regular season they always play like crap come postseason. Had they won last night, both their wins would have come in double (or perhaps triple OT) I just don't see the Pistons having that problem with the Bucks. They are a superior team, and they should put away the lowest seed in the playoffs.

The TV angle blows. This isn't just a problem on FSN, I had the same issues n CBC (Canadian TV). When the team has control of the puck in the offensive zone you the angle they usually show doesn't include the top corners. So when the puck goes to the point guy, you can't see him. No idea if he's shooting or getting checked. Every other sport the camera follows the puck, except in Hockey. It could b that my TV is small, or if I had a widescreen TV this problem wouldn't exists. But I don't have a widescreen TV, and I didn't feel like getting out of bed to see a bigger TV. I just wanted the camera guy to either zoom out an inch or pan his camera to show the guy with the puck

Perhaps one of the worst aspects of the Wings losing to Edmonton is that would give a certain Edmontonian that I know a chance to gloat :(

lazy day

During football this morning I mentioned to one of the guys that the ideal day for me would be to get home watch teh WIngs at 1:00, the Tigers at 4:05 and teh Pistons to close out the day. I didn't think I would achieve this goal since we were planning on doing something with Jonah. But it seemed that god liked my idea so he made the weather lousy so we werent going out. And I got to see all the games, plus other random games during commercials.

So you don't think I'm a total bum, I did pull some weeds before teh Wings game, and I hung out with Jonah and his girlfriend on and off during my viewing.

My boy mooned the Tigers

Nat, Shev, Jonah and I went to Comerica Park his afternoon to watch some Tiger baseball. Unfortunately for us, the Tigers got smoked, despite Chris Shelton's league leading 9th homer, 10-2 by Cleveland. Jonah was amazingly well behaved, he sat on our laps most of the game and cheered and booed, he yell " Go Tigers" and "baseball" which made the people around us laugh.

Around teh 9th inning Jonah was so disgusted by the Tigers performance, or lack thereof that he drooped his pants and mooned the field. OK, that's not exactly what hapened, he needed a new diaper and neither Nat nor myself wanted to go top the bathroom and change him. So we went to teh top row and changed his diaper, and that's when he mooned the stadium.

All in all we had a fun time, and I expect that we'll make it down to the ball park a few more times this season. The only downside is its possible teh boy got a bit of a sunburn. This isn't saying we are bad parents, we repeatedly put a hat on his head but he thought it was fun to take off his hat. Hopefully he isn't burnt and just has a little red face.

Our Stupid Tree

In front of our house we have a stupid tree. There are numerous reason that I dislike the tree, for one it makes leaves and branches that fall off in the fall and I have to clean it up. It makes mowing the lawn a pain, since I have to mow around the it, and that tears up the lawn around the tree. The people who lived in our house before our loved red stones, and they put the stones around the tree, so I have little red rocks, and when I walk around the lawn without shoes there a good chance I will step on a rock and hurt my toe, additionally these rocks can't be good for my lawn mower. Finnaly, it takes away the front lawn, so Jonah can't run around and play in the front. These are all good reasons that don't like the tree, but it isn't what makes it a stupid tree.

For about two weeks or less out of a year the tree will bloom and have nice white flower buds that my wife insists are pretty. So far in the two years or so that we have lived there we haven't been home for the blooming. We moved into the house a few days after it stopped blooming, the next year we were in Pesach and now the dumb thing bloomed while we are spending the week at my parents.

Annoyd with the Tigers

I sit around the house on this wednesday afternoon, watching the Yankees and Royals play on ESPN. What makes this annoying is the Tigers are playing the White Sox right now, but it isn't televised. I can't even watch it online, even though there is no local broadcast, the game is still blacked out in Detroit.

How can I get excited about the Tigers if they arent going to put them on TV?

Opening day memories

Many years ago when I was in 5th 6th or 7th grade I had asked my parents for opening day tickets for my "afikomen" present. My parents responded " If you can find a way there, you can go. Then they went away on a cruise.

On opening day, I went to school like any other day, brought a little radio so I could hide it and listen to the game ( i was a huuuge baseball fan as a kid. My older brother came to school and signed me out of class. I asked what was going on, and he said I had a doctors appointment and my parents asked him to take me.

As we were driving to the doctors, I noticed we were going the wrong way, when I mentioned this, my bro responded "The doctors office moved, It's now on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull" Which for you non-Detroiters is where the old Tiger Stadium is.

I don't remember who won that game, or who they played but the importance of opening day was forever etched in my mind. I look forward to the day I can introduce teh tradituion to Jonah, make up a fake doctors appointment and take him out of school for opening day.

GO TIGERS

Opening day

I have watched baseball all day long (Mets vs Nats, Tigers vs KC and now SF vs SD - All have been on for Yankees A's game on later), and here some observations :

It's a bit sad that the commercials for the Tigers are saying "Come see the new manager" They have to have at least one marketable player.

Sticking to the sad stuff - I listened to a lot of sports radio this morning and on both stations they were predicting the Tiger win totals, and they seemed to agree that if the Tigers won 81 games the season would be considered a success. Perhaps I've been spoiled lately by the Pistons and Wings but is it to much to ask for that a pro team wins more games then they lose.

The Tigers have the best record in baseball for the first time since they won on opening day last year.

Chris Shelton is on pace to hit over 200 home runs this year, If he stays on pace he'll probably be suspected of doing drugs.

I like Barry Bonds, I'm more or less flipping between teh wings, NCAA championship game, and The giants game, just to see Bonds at bat. Although I doubt I'll watch his reality show.

I enjoyed watching teh games today, I don't care about the steriod controversy, I won't let it interfere with my enjoyment of the game. I hope to get to Comerica Park and watch some quality baseball, and if not, then I'll settle for the Tigers

Sort of cool

A few weeks ago, there was a meme going around about "4 Things" When I was done I tagged soem friends and as a joke, tagged Ben Roethlisberger (Steelers QB) and Mark Cuban (Owner of teh Dallas Mavs)

In his most recent post, Cuban responded to the tag, he didn't fill it out, but he did say they are a waste of time. Sadly he didnt give me the credit for tagging him, that would have been really cool.

Here's what he said

" Memes - Doing the Wave in the Blogosphere

Posted Mar 28, 2006, 3:59 PM ET
I got tagged with a meme a few weeks ago and I refused to do it.

If you have no idea what Im talking about, you are lucky. Memes can be defined in a lot of different ways depending on the context of their usage. In this case, a meme is a set of questions that are passed from person to person. You fill out the questions. Post them on your blog. Then you tag another blogger who is supposed to do the same thing. Its supposed to be “viral fun” . Yes, bloggers are that hard up for fun.

It has the same intellectual resonance as doing The Wave at an event. You are embarrased if you do it sober, beligerant to non wavers if you do it drunk.

Memes come in all shapes in sizes. The 4 Things meme is what is getting waved around now.

If you are tagged, you are asked 4 Things

- 4 Jobs I have had, 4 Movies I can watch over and over, 4 TV shows I watch, 4 places i have been on vacation

Can we all just disagree that this is pretty damn stupid ?

If you want to fillup a page on myspace or tagworld, meme away. But my goodness, real bloggers are answering memes. RSS feeds around the world are getting headlines with dumbass meme responses. Is this because of Bloggers Cramp ?

I dont know. The wave’s best days are behind it. We need to put question memes on the bench right next to it"

Embarrassing

Today's playoff game was a complete embarrassment, 53-24, wow that sucks just looking at it.

I woke up this morning thinking I was going to play a double header, second game was the championship game. Instead we got blown out by close to 30 points. I played probably my worst game of the season. 6 points, a 3 pointer in the first half, and then 3 point play when I got fouled hitting a layup in the middle of the second half.

One play that summed up our morning. AP grabbed an offensive rebound, had a clear look to the hoop, and one of our guys came around, got in his and actually blocked his shot, and traveling was called.

I don't like to blame the refs, I don't think they were the difference in the game (it was a close game for a while, towards the end of the game we didn't get back on D and they hit a bunch of easy lay ins and 3's)But it did seem that we were getting hammered on one end of the court, and not getting a call. Going the other way, Purple received many ticky tac calls, very frustrating.

We did receive trophy's for finishing in first place in our division, which probably made our blowout loss even more upsetting.