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Saw this and laughed...

My favorite Goldwater quote

For people who fall for the troll. https://youtu.be/z_brpPpjZ5I?si=gwJWHbB90mWO8jVH

God bless you, my brother! I was worried I would have to do this, which I didn’t particularly want to do. But if you need to take a vacation sometime and it’s hard for you to work this in, message me, and I’ll do whatever I can to pick up the slack. The game thread has been one of those constants in the various iterations of our family, and I’m glad that you’re holding up your end of this tradition.

you all know i’ve only done this before for the 2000 election to protest on behalf of Bush. I’m pretty emotional right now. This feels right.

The nice thing about this game being a night game after yesterday’s day game is that the Padres can restabilize the RF corner wall that McGonigle nearly knocked down in his 2nd PA.

No picture today. Pictures are for winners.

Not a chance! You think I'm gonna risk fate by adding him to be collection of star Tigers? Fate'll take on look at that go: Nope! Too soon my friend, and then he'll have a career ending injury. You think I want that on my head? No way. 5 years from now? Sure... but not now. I used to collect Bobbleheads for Lions and Tigers... but I started running into two problems: First, they didn't always make bobbleheads of the players I wanted, especially old star players. Second, and more importantly: They started getting SUPER expensive! Like $40-$60 for some of them. It just got hard to mentally justify dropping that on something that just sits on my shelf, ya know? So I really had to think about what I wanted to do going forward. Around this time I'd also gotten a 3D printer so I was sorta thinking about whether there was something I could do with that... maybe print little plastic jerseys or something... but I just couldn't find anything that I thought would be cool looking or interesting, and I certainly wasn't good enough to digitally sculpt anything, so I sort dismissed this. I honestly was in a bit of a funk thinking about what I was going to do. I mean, I know it's stupid to get depressed about something like sports "statues" and it's not like I was majorly depressed, but I was a little bummed Literally two days after coming to the decision that I was going to have to give up bobbleheads and being bummed about it, I was scrolling through youtube and saw a video on a piece of software called HueForge... and it all clicked together. So now once or twice a year I add a new "statue" by finding a good picture, cutting it out in inkscape, manipulate it a bit, create a 3D model with HueForge and make my own memorabilia. Much cheaper, and as long as I can find a decent picture I can do it of whatever player I want.

Kenley Jansen sounds like the name of a hot sorority girl, but in this case, nope.

6, of course.

I wouldn't compare Trump to Hans Solo. He's more a combination of President Skroob and Pizza The Hut from Spaceballs.

If Ivey scored 17PPG, shot 40% from three, and played a little defense, he would still be employed.

The most fitting Donald legacy leaves the East Wing as a heap of rubble.

The Red Wings could learn a lot about heart and consistency from the Pistons

ABS is already hilarious.

Well, for starters, you're missing that he doesn't K a lot, and his contact rate is elite.

Mazur has been called up!!

swing and miss? as a 19 year old, his K rate was 19.2% across low A and high A as a 20 year old, his K rate was 16.9% across high A and AA as a 21 year old, he is at AAA and its very likely he gets at least gets a cup of coffee in the majors, if not more he may not be a superstar but just about everyone ranks him as the #1 OF prospect is baseball for a reason geez. tough crowd

How about just call him McGonigle? If he develops a nickname naturally, that's fine. No forced nicknames.

McGonigle has already been animed.

What a glorious thread to see HAPPY NEW YEAR ! Here's a Tigers-Padres moment from history

PER A SEARCH ON THE INTERNET- On Thursday, March 26, 2026, Jason is scheduled to call the prime-time matchup between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers at 8:00 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock. Because of this national assignment, Dan Dickerson is expected to handle the play-by-play for the Tigers' season opener against the San Diego Padres earlier that afternoon.

Hard at work

Lucky for all of the "no respect" people the NBA has a mechanism for teams to earn respect. It starts in 2 1/2 weeks.

Oh for the love of all that's Holy. JV was terrible. Paul Skenes was worse. Anyone giving up on Skenesy? No JV is 43. He's going to look it at times. He might need a longer ramp. The team's fortune are not riding on starer #4 or 5. The fortunes are riding on the hope that the rookie isn't your best hitter (by a mile) 14 Ks yesterday. Inexcusable. To call JV a flop based on one start is beyond ridiculous. I'm hungry, let's get a taco.

I'm glad I didn't walk around in my 20's with a video camera in my pocket.

If Mauigoa is there, you turn in the card before they're back from commercial and piss off Goodell again. It's looking like he'll be the first or second tackle off the board though. But you never know, it just takes two or three teams to project him as a guard and he slips a little bit. That said, I'm starting to think the Lions won't leave without drafting one of Monroe Freeling or Max Iheanachor. Both of them are very strong candidates to be solid future OTs. Freeling has played more LT and Iheanachor has played more RT. Both are athletic freaks, with the two highest RAS scores for offensive linemen this cycle. Freeling was 2nd all time at the position and Iheanachor was 23rd. Both are also a little flawed and need coaching (obviously, or they'd be sure-fire top ten picks). Freeling is a bit better in space, on runs to the outside and screen passes, which makes sense given his athletic profile. He's also a little better handling speed rushers on the outside (e.g., Micah Parsons?). But he lacks power at the point of attack (i.e., goal line situations). Iheanachor OTOH is a nasty run blocker, but still very raw in pass protection. He started in JUCO and has only played football for five years, and has struggled against elite speed rushers on the outside. But his rapid improvement at ASU has caught the eye of scouts and it's not crazy to think that with his trajectory his ceiling is the highest of any OT prospect in this draft. The tea leaves have them both there at #17, but neither there at #50. Ideally you could trade with a team like the Texans, drop from #17 to #28, pick up #69, and take one of them. It takes two to tango though and Holmes has shown a willingness to take his guy, even if it's a little early. Alternatively you take Faulk at #17, wait until one of them goes (probably Freeling), then try to move up in the 2nd round by dangling next year's 3rd. Faulk & Iheanachor would be a really good two-day haul and probably worth sacrificing a pick in 2027 for.

We are long overdue for a Bruce Springsteen appreciation thread. I am not even the biggest fan of his tunes but hes been a strong, working champion for all the right causes for decades. Cheers to The Boss.

I hope they eventually change the challenge thing to an elctronic strike zone on every pitch. If the challenges are accurate, why not just do it automatically? If they are not accurate don't use it at all. Why make a game of timing the challenges?

No, but I do it in game threads

I’m not a fan of Carpenter leading off. I get why Hinch likes that, but Carp is so aggressive at the dish and having him lead off just always seems like he’s in HR or Bust mode. Carp is at his best when he works a count a little bit and waits for the mistake.

I spoke to a woman for over an hour whose dad was an Air Force officer and she and i were fixated on how the system used to have rules. You abided by them and you could have a career even if you were a Dominican Republic immigrant as her dad was. Spoke to a buckeye fan and commiserated about the angst we had on the day of The Game and how we felt that way all the time now but in a bad way. Spoke to a bunch of vets. Had another long chat with a dude about Andor (see the Nemik quote poster above “Opression is the mask of fear”)

Secretary of small excursions

The TV graphic said the Tigers had 1 error after the inning was over. Just checked the box score online and it says they have 0 errors, so maybe it was just a mistake. Or they changed it already.

The Party is on a ride-or-die journey with Trump, because they are never going to be what people thought they were before, ever again. Not in my lifetime, anyway, and not in yours, either.

I wonder what our resident Trump supporter makes of this? 🤔 I’ve been thinking about the Republican betrayal of the party’s own tradition because of a comment about my work by Glenn Loury, the conservative Black economist. When I was on The Glenn Show in December, he criticized my new book American Contradiction because of my “apparent disregard for the positive contributions of conservative thought and policy to American life.” Loury and I could probably agree about many historical contributions of principled conservatism, including respect for America’s constitutional tradition and rule of law, skepticism about concentrated governmental power, and support for the independence of civil society and private initiative. I’m sure we’d agree about the importance of patriotism, civility, tolerance, and other values that have been part of a democratic conservatism—democratic in the sense of upholding the democratic “rules of the game,” including free speech and fair elections. But as Trump has acted with reckless disregard for those principles, Republican leaders, major donors, and corporate supporters have either fallen silent or actively enabled his lawlessness and corruption. That complicity makes you wonder: Were they ever serious about those conservative principles? And since they don’t speak up for them now, what do they stand for? Since when, for example, was it a conservative principle to concentrate all federal power in the president and deny Congress its constitutional role? How does a party that ostensibly opposes centralized state power square that opposition with the centralization of power in one man? ... HOW DID REPUBLICANS COME TO BETRAY their own philosophy? A key factor has been the party’s weakness, the fear that it was only getting weaker, and a consequent openness to desperate measures that could enable it to entrench itself in power while it could. In his 2017 book Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, Daniel Ziblatt argues that the strength of conservative parties in the 19th and early 20th centuries determined whether a country followed a stable, settled path to democracy or an unsettled path with authoritarian reversals. Britain’s history is an example of the first; Italy’s, the second. Although Ziblatt’s book is about Europe, the political process he identifies seems to be playing out now in the United States. “Strong conservative political parties,” Ziblatt argues, “led to a stable long-run path of democratization” for several reasons. Conservatives had “a realistic basis for assuming electoral success” and “the resources that allowed them to sideline their own radicals.” They accepted the “rules of the game” in a democracy because they believed they could win that game or at least keep radicals on the left out of power. But when conservative parties saw themselves as likely to lose, they often turned against democracy. That has been the story of recent American politics. In this case, Republicans have also turned against their old leadership and many of the defining elements in the conservative tradition. ... In every election in which Trump has run, he has warned that this is Americans’ last chance and that they won’t have a country unless they elect him. If you’ve agreed that America is in extreme danger, it has made perfect sense to repudiate a conservatism that didn’t just fail to prevent the dire trends wrecking the country but contributed to them through its support of pro-immigration and free-trade measures. Republican elites haven’t cared all that much about Trump’s betrayal of conservatism because of what he hasn’t betrayed: the party’s corporate and class allegiances. Trump’s populism is all in the rhetoric and the scapegoating, not the substance of government. His tax legislation in 2017 and again in 2025 has redistributed income upward; his government appointees side with corporations over workers. Pro-business policy is what many Republicans mean by free-market policy. They are not bothered if the “invisible hand” is replaced by a “conspicuous fist,” as long as that fist generally comes down on their enemies. Republicans go along with the betrayal of conservatism also because they care more about results than rules, whether those are the rule of law, the rules-based international order, or the rules of civility and decency that Trump routinely flouts. They admire that Trump gets things done and look the other way at how he does it. Although they must know he is corrupt, because he hardly makes a secret of it, he is also delivering the result that matters most to them: power for “us” over “them.” What Stephen Miller famously said about international politics—“we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power”—reflects the mentality now dominating the Republican Party. Some analysts make the mistake of intellectualizing Trump and taking seriously the ideas of the various schools of right-wing thought that compete to provide fig leaves for the worship of power. But as Jan-Werner Müeller has suggested, it’s an error to assume that right-wing political leaders today are “inspired by comprehensive worldviews” or “that far-right parties succeed because voters find their philosophies attractive,” when the leaders are opportunistic and self-interested and “most citizens have no clue” about what right-wing intellectuals are saying. The driving impulses on the right are old and primitive. As Never Trump conservative intellectuals discovered to their horror, ideas and principles don’t much matter in the party that Trump took over. It’s a world where, as Miller says, strength governs, power governs, force governs—and conservative thought is expected to be loyal and submit.

I think the biggest problem is here is that Holmes did so good in his first few years with players who were star level almost right from the get go that anything else looks bad by comparison.

This is a lot more fun than the first game in LA last year.

I said this after last season, but I think Torkelson is going to have a huge year just because they won’t be able to call him out on BS strikes this year.

I think Hegseth is far worse than an infant. Infants can't hurt you. Hegseth strikes me as being more like a grade schooler off his ADHD meds.

Go Tigers!

Indeed. Its like Christmas and my birthday and a baseball had a baby.

I like opening out west. Get a game on after I'm done working, then some later games on the weekend. And my wife is going out of town.

Bert—will call you in a few so we can stay up for hours speculating about how the game will go. No sleep for us!

Is this really happening?!?! Must win, amirite?