RandyMarsh

I'm officially old now that I'm 40 so I just think you guys are ancient! 😀

Yeah my Dad would get tickets from a client some 20 times a year in that era, they were like 3 rows behind the visitors on deck circle so awesome seats but they were right where the netting stopped so it was impossible to get a foul ball so me and my brothers would change seats throughout the park every inning. Never did get a ball but it was a fun experience wandering the park and getting different vantage points throughout the stadium. I don't recall an usher ever saying anything to us.

To an extent thats how I was with the Lions, NFL was the last league I really got into as a kid so my first year following the Lions was the year they went to the NFC Championship. Little did I know that some 30 years later that was still going to be the high water mark of my fandom.

Nice to see him hit any kinda pitch but looking at the pitchers profile and he is only averaging 92 mph on his FB this year so the FB likely was just a BP fastball by big league standards, still a little encouraging but I won't be satisfied until I see him hit some big league quality pitches.

Yeah for sure. Thankfully back then TBS played the Braves like 4 of 5 times a week and WGN the Cubs like everyday so I remember watching alot of them in my teens in the mid to late 90s when the Tigers were terrible. I never really became a fan of either but I just appreciated the good baseball particularly with the Braves.

Being born in 81 my first real Tiger fandom was those Cecil Fielder teams of the early 90s, I was a "fan" before but I was of the age that I didn't really care all that much, I was more of a fan of baseball in general than the Tigers at that point. I remember rooting for the A's in the late 80s just because that was my little league team and I basically treated my little league team like they were the lowest level farm team for the A's.lol But by 1990 when Cecil came here and had that magical 51 HR season I became attached to the Tigers. Even though they weren't great those early 90s teams were fun to watch even as a pretty young kid. It wasn't until the mid to late 90s where everything went to shit.

For me it's 1) Lions winning a Super Bowl Big Gap 2) Tigers World Series Small Gap 3) Pistons NBA Championship small gap 4) Michigan Natty Big Gap 5) Red Wings Cup Not that I wouldn't take a Wings Cup particularly at this day and age with Detroit sports but not being a huge hockey fan I wouldn't be as invested as I would be the other teams. Also about 10 years ago I would've had Michigan higher but for some reason the older I get the less I care about college sports. The Tigers and Pistons could essentially be interchangeable but I put the Tigers ahead since I was only 3 when they won in 84 so I never really experienced them winning a championship unlike the Pistons.

Some good news, hopefully everything goes well and he'll be back here by the end of the month.

Crappy performance across the board aside if there is any truth to Javy's quote then Coolbaugh and Co. should be fired for that alone. Yeah a good hitting coach isn't going to turn a nobody into Ted Williams but what the good ones can do is identify what a player is doing wrong and correct it. Just like a PGA Instructor isn't going to turn somebody into prime Tiger Woods but those Instructor's usually can fix or identify what the player is doing wrong and maximize their abilities. By the sound of things Coolbaugh and Co. aren't doing anything of that nature. I get the sense that their "coaching" consists of a 1 size fits all tutorial or thought process and isn't catered to a specific players needs or problems. Of course I'm not in the clubhouse so it may be unfair for me to make that accusation but between that Javy quote and seeing virtually every player under his watch get worse with no real signs of progress makes that a pretty fair assumption until proven otherwise.

NBA to retire the number 6 in honor of Bill Russell. There were some people online a few weeks ago vouching for the NBA to retire Kobe's numbers and I didn't agree with that but I have no problem with doing it for somebody like Russell.

Cy Plesac K's the side in order on 14 pitches. Another hot start for the boys.

I agree about getting out of his head but I disagree about him not losing any bat speed, to me he clearly has. Aside from the fact he will be late on FBs in FB count his barrels just aren't going as hard as they were clocked at before. He crushed the one ball in KC off a breaking ball but aside from that he hasn't hit anything close to his 70 grade power that most of the scouting reports had him at when he was a prospect. If the bat speed was still there you'd think he atleast run into a few moonshots or 115+ mph lasers even if by accident but he hasn't.

This is so cool!

I agree that he didn't have to but I do think it was a nice gesture and showed respect to a long time veteran. The situations aren't exactly similar but what if a guy we drafted in 2002 wanted to wear number 20? Would it be disrespectful for him to wear it without asking Barry first? I know Barry didn't ask to be traded but he was no longer part of the team.

My teenage self did think Juan Encarnacion was going to be Andruw Jones or Gary Sheffield back in 1999.

I also think just the overall state of the organization could be attractive to a potential GM. Here me out, yeah we have been a disappointment and our system is ranked in the bottom 3rd by most pundits but if you don't believe Tork is broken you have two potential young studs in him and Greene. Got a young frontline starter in Skubal, are a year away from freeing up 30 million dollars and overall are in a fine shape salary wise and are likely going to get a top 5 pick again this year. Its not a complete barren wasteland despite Avila's best efforts to try to make it that.

I would have to look around the rest of the league and see in general how the ex scout fairs in the GM role before coming to the conclusion that you need to go a different avenue. Just cause Avila was a putz doesn't mean they all are.

While that last part is true and not a good look I think the fact that the owner also gave the previous guy over 7 years of destruction before finally firing him offsets that. It has to be attractive to a new GM that you're not going to get canned at the first sign of adversity or if you make a couple mistakes.

I think right now my top choice would be Randy Flores scouting director of the Cardinals. I like the fact he comes from a winning organization, is a former MLB player with obvious scouting experience but also has a Masters of Science degree and is extremely tech and analytic savvy. Of course he doesnt have GM experience and there are certain skills that takes that he hasnt shown yet but from what I read about him and from what I seen of him when he did TV work I think he could handle and hopefully excel at the job.

I'll be honest, I kinda forgotten about Austin Meadows and his rehab assignment. For some reason I was thinking he was shut down or something.

Jobe with a decent line tonight. Went 6 innings of 2 run baseball(both runs off solo shots) with 6Ks and 1BB. Sucks to see him give up a couple homers but nice to see him navigate through 6 innings with just those 2 runs being the only blemishes against him. Would like to know how his actual stuff looks though.

Up against a guy with a 6+ ERA and one time through the order thus far our offense has broken more bats than balls hit to the OF and of course have no base runners.

Is Chris just throwing Al under the bus or did we wrongly assume all these years that it was Chris that didn't want to pay the salaries which essentially forced Al to trade them away?

Gotta admit this definitely caught me off guard, I had a feeling he was on borrowed time but I figured they were just going to wait till the offseason but I'm glad they did it now and can get a bit of a head start on the search.

Jameson Williams is going to wear Staff's old number 9, he supposedly called Stafford ahead and Matt gave him his approval. Its going to be a little weird seeing somebody else wearing that number, especially a WR.