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Yet Jimmy Carter had to give up control of his farm and Billy had to stop selling beer

By May 15, 1976 I was a pretty passive baseball fan. I was 11 years old I went to a few games with my dad. I collected baseball cards, but I really wasn't that into it. On that cloudy, cool Saturday my dad took me to a hardware store. Not a chain store, a really small and crowded store on Van Dyke south of 14 Mile Road. My dad was one of those guys that would want to talk shop with the hardware guy. Pretty boring for me. But while he was doing that, I stayed at the front of the store, where they had a little black and white TV. The Tiger game was on. There was this kid I'd never heard of pitching. Skinny and tall. All arms and legs and he was just kind of goofy-looking. Circling the mound after every out, getting down on his knee to pat down the mound. The catcher would throw the ball back to him and the next pitch would come right back. No pitch clock needed with this kid. One little, Two little, Nine little Indians made one out after another. I think my dad finally got done with the hardware guy and we left in the 5th inning. We lived 3 miles away. He made one quick stop at the store. I got home and turned on the TV and there was only two outs to go. The game was already over and that goofy kid was still pitching. Six weeks later the rest of the country was introduced to Mark Fidrych on Monday Night Baseball. In just six weeks the Tigers were selling out games he started and after that Monday night game - FIdrych was selling out road games too. He didn't even really know who Babe Ruth was. He was an instant Superstar, but he was genuine. It was innocence. It was real. He is the reason I fell in love with baseball. That Summer was wild. We had 3 All Stars (Fidrych, ,Ron LeFlore, Rusty Staub). The Bird started the game in Philly. I'll never forget the stats 19-9, 2.34. We thought it would last forever but it was over in less than 4 years. But I will never forget that Saturday - 50 years ago today - that changed my life. I'll never get tired of watching this clip. Here's the box score from that game. Wow 50 years man. Where the hell did it go? https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET197605150.shtml

So us taxpayers, that are already suffering enough under this administration, are now going to pay for a slush fund for insurrectionists??? ****. This. ****.

SlickNickShady?

Sorry, I'm not buying "that's just how it is", because it's actually not how it is. If it was, this wouldn't be the first time in league history. Compound that with the fact that the Pistons attack the paint and the Cavs shoot threes and it's even worse. Jarrett Allen. A Center. A guy who's boxing out Duren and fighting in the paint all game. He got his first foul in the 4th quarter. In the middle of the 2nd quarter the Cavs were whistled for their second foul of the entire game. Their second foul. The same thing happened in the last game when the Cavs where whistled for their first foul at the end of the 1st quarter. Meanwhile, they're grabbing and holding just as much as the Pistons on every screen and every drive. Sorry, that's not legitimate. Let's be real here. The Pistons are playing with one hand tied behind their backs. Could they have won anyway. Yup. Should they have to be 15 pts better than their opponent to win a game? No. Not in a real league that isn't bowing to the almighty the gambling dollar.

I have long thought that range is one of the most underated things in baseball. Range is to run prevention what getting on base is to run scoring.

I’ve been in Taiwan and Japan the last week and I believe the Tigers have gone 1 for Asia while I’ve been here. But one pleasure has been the all-night indoor batting cage a 5 minute walk from our Shinjuku hotel. $3 for 25 balls. Baseball not fastball or softball, unlike the cages near me back home. It is humbling to see how stiff my swing looks on video though.

As someone that moved to Detroit last year (four years in Ann Arbor previously, and many years in the burbs prior to that), this makes me happy. I’ve loved my neighborhood so far, and there’s so much to do in the city these days.

This is fun, and funny.

Harden puts his off arm up into opponents chests every time he drives with the ball. It should be a foul every single time. I don't think he's been called for it all series. But he constantly flops his head back and gets multiple calls per game. I have ZERO problem with any Piston showing him what a REAL foul feels like. A Rick Mahorn-Bill Laimbeer foul. He wants to play...punish his sorry as*.

This is pretty cool.

The only good thing about a Vegas cup win is Marner taking the cup back to Toronto

Precisely. People tend to misconstrue the defensive value of a player based on the loud plays they make, such as diving stops and scooping errant throws. But loud plays have lower value than the everyday plays that good range gets you to, and you miss 100% of the plays you can’t get to.

The cavs have two guys who are foul-getting machines: harden and mitchell. those guys get respect and consequently get foul calls. a majority of which they do not deserve (how many times can harden be allowed to run right into someone, throw back his head in a ridiculous fashion, and then get a call? or kick out his feet on a jumper and get a call?). the pistons have one superstar and one wanna be. cade can get calls but doesnt sell it like harden/mitchell and consequently doesnt get as many BS calls as they do. he also eschews contact at the basket sometimes (that said, he should be getting MORE calls for sure). duren is supposed to be superstar #2 but as weve all pointed out, he isnt that and has been useless and gets no respect from officials. the pistons are also very physical on defense. sometimes too much so. the league isnt cheating for cleveland, its cheating for mitchell/harden. like it always has for superstars. which - again - is another reason why the pistons need another star next to cade. duren is not that player.

Nice to have an adult in charge

That pedestrian bridge over 75 - there was a building on the other side of it. It was called Superior Color - a printing company and my dad worked there. During Summer Vacation from school, when the Tigers had a day game, he'd come home for lunch, pick up me and my friends and go back to his job and give us a $20 and we'd go to the game. The game would usually let out about the time he was done with his work day and he'd be waiting for us to drive us home. His company printed the gameday programs and would just drop them off. The ushers at that gate knew my dad, so if one of them recognized me, he'd just let me and my friends in the game for free. Even when we did buy the bleacher tickets - with the tickets, the hot dogs, peanuts and soda - for 3 of us - we'd have change for my dad. They also used to print some of the yearbooks. During the winter, when I was sick with pneumonia and missing 2 weeks of school, he came home with the 1977 year book (before it was published) and he hands me the yearbook with a roll of postage stamps and a stack of envelopes and he told me the addresses for every team are in the back of the yearbook and I should write a letter to each team asking for a pocket schedule. He knew I needed something to do while I was sick. Most of the teams sent stuff back. I would say all but 3 or 4 teams. The Mets sent a huge enevelope stuffed with schedules, stickers, special baseball cards, refridgerator magnets - so I really liked the Mets after that. (Plus I liked the orange and blue uniforms).

And just like that, it disappeared

Looking at defensive stats in Fangraphs: The 2024 Tigers were a legitimately elite defensive team. Last year we were by most measures barely above average. In 2026 we're on pace to be one of the worst defensive teams in the league. The projected OAA of -87 would be historically bad. Even accounting for small-sample noise at six weeks in, the direction is unmistakable. This is more of a range problem, than an error problem. The fielding percentage has dropped some (.986 → .986 → .983), and errors are on pace for a normal season (~99), so we're not making dramatically more mistakes on batted balls we get to. We're simply not getting to as many batted balls. Team zone rating (RZR) for 2026 is .795, down significantly from last year (.815) and 2024 (.804). Where the collapse is coming from: Tork is the single biggest culprit, -4.7 Def, -3 OAA, -7 DRS in 358 innings. First base is supposed to be a defensive non-event, but Tork continues to actively cost us runs there. Wenceel in RF has flipped from a plus defender (+2.7 Def in 2025) to a significant negative (-4.6 Def, -4 OAA) in 2026 Riley in LF has been a consistent negative (-3.9 Def, -2 OAA) and his numbers have been poor for two years now, so this isn't new. But it does factor in. Kevin at SS and 3B is a combined -2.0 in Def across 355 innings. He's a rookie finding his defensive footing, and the metrics reflect it, although we all know he won't long-term at shortstop anyway. Carpenter in RF has been poor in limited time (-3.5 Def, -3 OAA in 150 innings). Hao-Yu Lee at 2B and 3B is a combined -2.3 Def, also a young player. There are some bright spots: Dingler behind the plate continues to be excellent (+5.9 Def, +6 DRS, +5 FRV in 272 innings), on pace for another elite defensive season. Gleyber Torres had been a genuine surprise at 2B (+0.9 Def, +2 OAA, +2 FRV) before going out, and was better than expected from a player not known for his glove. Matt Vierling in CF (+1.2 Def, +2 OAA) and Parker Meadows in CF (+1.0 Def, +1 OAA) have been fine in their center field work. The story is that our defensive identity was built around our infield athleticism and outfield range, and both have deteriorated, partly through personnel changes, partly through young players who haven't found their footing yet, and partly through positional mismatches. The 2024 team was exceptional—this one is looking like a genuine defensive liability, which matters a lot for a pitching staff that relies heavily on ground balls.

His goal is not to contain China, but to make sure he gets his when they carve up the entire world three ways.

This is the only thing Trump promised that he ever even cared about. That whole affordability nonsense was to get votes from rubes who live in deep rural areas away from demographic groups they're are scared of, but who ultimately just live their lives out accepting whatever happens happens. He doesn't care about rubes like that. He cares about people who will take action and smash and grab things on his behalf. He's going to need those people back to help him later.

In a dominant foreign policy victory the President of the United states sold some boeing jets maybe Jet salesman

Mitch Marner with 18 pts to lead the NHL in playoff scoring this spring. If the Leafs are back in playoff position at next season’s deadline, they may wish to trade for him, as a proven playoff performer could help the Leafs get far.

Not until late October. See what I did there?

He’s going to use that money to turn the J6 thugs into his own personal army so they can defend his underground bunker when the time comes.

I posted that and the page refreshed and there were five new clips from the game!

I'm not sure how to just link the video, so here's a link to the post on Reddit. KMart coming at Duren hard.

I promise @Jason_R and I are different people

This made me happy to see.

Man he just looks.... unreal these playoffs. The Wolves have tried to get him off his game too but he keeps standing tall.

Angine de Poitrine are fantastic. As someone who has been drumming for a little less than a year I'm always in awe of the drummer's time keeping especially with all the signature changes. And of course the other brother playing both guitar and bass is insanely impressive. I could watch live videos of them all day.

Yep, he wants to turn them all into millionaires and use them again to try to gut the elections in '26 and '28 (with help this time from the Supreme Court) Not to mention having us pay for his folly into Iraq, his Billion Dollar Tomb, as well as other gold plated monuments, rising fuel and grocery prices....

The leagues last two minute report said the no call on Allen was the correct call. Here is their reasoning.

Another game?! Will they never stop?! 😳

MEH MEH MEH

Is it really too much to ask that outfield walls be designed so you don't need a review to determine whether or not a ball left the park?

Please don't even speak a Nurse to Detroit possibility into the ether we don't want that

I wish they weren’t here.

Not Paul Reed

Incidental contact with nobody in possession isn't a foul, right?