DTroppens

I'm officially preparing for the postseason now. I know I mentioned going to miss the regular season a few games ago, but there really isn't anything that can happen now but injuries. Let's just get to the postseason.

I saw Deleterious' post on the G-League First Team. Has anyone watched the G League games that fanduel has had on this season? I will generally put the game on but unless it's tight late in the game it's pretty much just background noise with an occasional two-minute watch followed by another 30 minutes of using it for background noise.

That was the season in one game. And with one point, they somehow still stay at least mathematically alive. It's like the least they could've done to keep the never-say-die Red Wing fan still keeping a miniscule amount of hope. Basically, get to 89 and hope Ottawa just gets four or worse. It's like hanging on a limb and that limb really can't support your body weight, but hasn't this been what it feels like to follow this team for about four seasons now? Well, Columbus obviously needs to lose again as well.

I have hundreds of blank cassette tapes. I'd love some of those games on cassette if that ever was possible. For a few years I used to tape Sports Final Edition on channel 4 figuring that was a good way to summarize at least the weekend if not a week of Detroit sports on a weekly basis. I got about a year or maybe two done but then quit with it. I don't have those tapes any more though.

It's doing these stories that makes me realize what a treasure our game threads are here on the site and on the past site. It would be so cool before writing an update to just come here and read the 2006 game thread. Or while I listened to a game, open that day's game thread and follow the posts with the game as close as I possibly can. That would be fun.

In recent years whenever we get to this time of year I'll select a year or a Tiger theme for a series of easy feature stories that I include as part of my sports coverage for our twice-a-week (mostly prep coverage) publication's sports section. Over the years I've done features on the 1968 and 1984 Tigers. I also did Mark Fidrych's 1976 season and the 1957 Lions. This year I'm selecting the 2006 Detroit Tigers. It's pretty easy for me because I still remember a lot about that season and I recorded probably 50 regular season games off the radio and another 30 off the television. And based on the names I see still here, I know a lot of you remember that year as well. I WISH we still had access to the old Motownsports site game threads. That would be awesome. But I was wondering what memories do you remember from 2006, especially the regular season. I think we all remember "gum time." I do, although I do need to gather what specific incident started it again. What games, what plays and just what cool memories do you remember about the season that we all talked about, but maybe some of us (mainly me) forgot. My stories roughly follow the actual date of the season with the date in our publication, especially during the summer. This time of year I typically fall behind fast due to the crazy amount of prep sports happening this time of year. I just don't have the extra space for these stories frequently. And when I do, it's limited. But I always catch up by the end of June and remain pretty much on target in July and then get ahead of pace in August realizing when fall sports happens again, I'm going to have limited space again. These stories are probably the ones I hear the most comments about. As people know, most newspaper readers are older, so our subscription base enjoys them. I was thinking about doing the 1945 Tigers, but figuring it's been 20 years since 2006, it made this an easy decision. Next year I'll probably do 1987. That will be a lot of fun as well. Don't hesitate to add anything. But, really, I'm looking for the regular season right now. I've already been listening to some of those old 2006 radio broadcasts. Oddly, the last two I listed to were losses.

Every time I see a Virginia Tech game, I think about Estrepe. Every time I think of the White Caps I think about Billy Ringo.

Just noticed many of those free over the air games on Michigan stations are weekday afternoon games. That's a bit lame.

I thought the Peacock game came out well. It was more natural for the Benetti and Dirks to engage in conversation, and I think Benetti understood that and tried to keep that from being an issue. I enjoyed the broadcast.

That is crazy, but sometimes it feels like the percentages could be even lower than that. It just doesn't happen at all it feels like.

The four-pitch walks by the bullpen are beyond maddening right now.

I kind of guessed that was the place. Believe it or not, I've been here 20 years and never been to the Machine Shop. I was thinking about the tribute band - seeing who that was. Jackyl comes there occasionally. It hasn't worked out where I could go any time they were there. They were the closest I came to going there. Weird that I haven't yet.

I think he feels like he needs to say something sometimes, and really doesn't know what he's going to say until he actually says it. And then it's just a bunch of words that don't really mean anything most of the time. I'm sure he knows baseball, but it doesn't come across that way. Knowing the sport and presenting it on a broadcast obviously aren't the same thing. But Al Kaline was horrible FOREVER! Then one day it seemed like he decided he was going to be more critical of the team and he got a lot better his final few seasons. It's too bad he didn't do that 15 years earlier. It cracked me up how Al's analysis of a few pitcher was just reading the stat line we saw on the TV screen while he just repeated those numbers.

That's probably fair. I don't hate him. Just most of the time he doesn't really add stuff. Or maybe with your point DanD should allow him to present those comments. DanD is supposed to be the play-by-play man after all. But, would he if DanD didn't make them? Maybe give him the chance.

That's kind of the line you hear right now. I don't know enough to know if it will happen or not, but it makes a ton of sense. Heck, he already has the same stadium as the Wings.

I'm in Fenton, not far. I'll have to do some research and find out who you are talking about. 🙂

Cool story, Biff! Isn't it cool when your favorite artists are still playing 40/50 years later? You figure as long as health issues don't hit any of the band members, they'll probably still be doing it 10 years from now as well. Really, it's super cool. Cooper will be playing until something health wise keeps him from doing it. He'll probably die on stage. We saw Motorhead's last show in Detroit. I'm guessing Lemmy about four months later. We had never seen Motorhead before until that night. Again, that was one of those groups that I probably would never go to see by themselves, but as part of a night's acts, why not. You know you are going to like them. And more often, when you see someone live, you like them about 40% more than before you saw them live.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the Pistons.

Right now, it's "my choice" so I can see that - getting irritated when it's not a choice. But, the few times it happens now, it hasn't been a big issue. Maybe with more games it will. I lived in Illinois for four years at the end of the 1990s (how I found the motownsports message board) and the early 2000s, so I only had the internet and the occasional game against either the White Sox or Cubs on WGN to enjoy. I pretty much never missed those games when I could help it. And that's kind of how it was as a kid. They had about 50 games on TV. It doesn't sound like a lot, that's more than 30% of the games so it wasn't like we were starved for games. But, when they were on TV, it was a big deal. You treated it special. We didn't take it "for granted." Even in 1984 with all the Game of the Weeks, the Monday Night Baseball games maybe 65 games were on TV? Seemingly, somehow many of the "highlight" games somehow ended up being a lot of those games. But I didn't feel deprived of TV games in 1984. When I am inside, I'm usually doing things and then turn around after I hear a play and watch the replay. I pay attention to the TV less than the radio actually. Well, that's not 100 percent true. With the pitch clock (the greatest thing that ever happened to baseball), I certainly focus on the game way more than I did four years ago. It's easier to watch knowing you will see a pitch about every 25 seconds. But, my attention to the radio is much better. By June I'll be out on a deck, maybe out with my parakeet and an old Sporting News folder of old newspapers and listening to the games. If they are on the west coast and the weather is nice, I may be out there in the dark until 1:30 a.m. You know what? I really enjoy the game that way. I even did this for a few playoff games. I'm not losing anything. I'll see the highlights later.

Cable is so much and I'm not the type of person to get a bunch of website services. I'm still seriously thinking about dropping cable just because how much it costs just to have it. And, I've been listening to games the last two seasons a ton for just that reason. I wrote out a list of games that will be on regular TV (network TV) at the start of the season, and wondered if we'd get a list of actual over the air local games eventually like we did late last season. I am so close to pulling the cable plug but what keeps me from doing it is the Pistons actually. Even when the Pistons are crap, I still really enjoy watching their games over the winter. And now that they are good, well, that's even better. But I really have zero issue with listening to Tigers games and Wings games for the most part. Even the Lions I've done it a few times the last three seasons. Gosh, when I was a kid almost every home game was blacked out so I was doing that with the Lions for almost half their games. The Tigers, I was doing it for two-thirds of the games. The Pistons and Wings - I think maybe they had 10 to 15 games on TV? Maybe it was 20. I probably saw More Maple Leaf games on TV through Hockey Night in Canada than I did Wings games. I really can convert back. And with a list of another nine games (I guess I missed the first one already) and what we can see after the game I could live with that. An average of a game a week on regular TV (make them all road games if they want) would be ideal. Or even just 20.

It'll be interesting to see how the Pistons play these games out. 60 wins would be nice, but it's window-dressing at this point. With the long layoff with the play-in tourney, you want to play people but you also don't want to get people hurt. It would be nice to be able to play Cade if he's okay (guessing he's not), but don't want to get him hurt again. I wonder if Cade does come back sometime in the first round or if they advance to the second how much his body can stand the rigors of the playoffs. Let's face it. He hasn't been the pilar of stable health during his career, and the playoffs are a different monster. He's already had issues this year, and it's not going to be easier in the playoffs.

When COVID hit, we actually had tickets to three Alice Cooper shows. All of them were cancelled, obviously. The first show we saw after COVID was in Toledo with Cooper and we were still under mask mandate for that concert. I think the second was Weird Al, but that was cancelled (think it Saginaw) due to him having COVID. I may be blurring this up with Weird Al. Maybe that was a year later. I think that it was like three months after AC though.

I am a huge Queensryche fan and Operation Mindcrime is probably my No. 2 most listened to album in terms of my vinyl albums, but I've never seen Tate or Queensryche before. He is doing Mindcrime for certain. Like you said, I don't know if he's doing it ever again. But I also hear he's adding some from 2 and 3 into it as well. Cheap Trick is the 30-min or 50-min act opener I've seen the most over the last 20 years. I would never go just to see Cheap Trick as the main act, but it's always great to see them in concert - at least the 50-min session. I always feel a little burned when they get the early opening act and you hear about five songs and it's pretty much over. They are way too good for that. If I saw them do a 90-min show, I'd enjoy it. I know they do tour occasionally by themselves (I think they did last summer or two summers ago), but I'd probably not pay the prices needed to see them as a closer by themselves. Now if they had Cooper opening for them, or if let's say Megadeth were opening for Cheap Trick (one of my wife's favs as well), we'd probably see their full show and I'd be super happy to see it. I hope that makes sense.

Dan D is a very comfortable listen. Out of anyone we have doing radio or TV for the Tigers, I'd consider him the most solid and consistent. And he doesn't dominate the airways. He lets whoever is in the booth with. Bobby Scales doesn't do anything for me. For a bit, I thought it was Bobby Higginson. I think their voices are reasonably similar if I remember correctly.

BINGO! I can deal probably with one of them on the booth because both like having fun. But when they are together, it just gets too crazy. The snowball keeps rolling and sometimes they seemingly forget there is a game going on four three innings. Sometimes I think they do this purposely when they are on droughts for weeks. But here's the problem. Let's say the snowball is rolling on a 1 out of a 100 at the end of a game (100 being never stopping the snowball). By the end of this game they may be a 10. They don't start the next game at a 1 or even drag it back to a 5. You feel like it's a season-long battle to keep one-upping the other and so they start the next game at a 10 and before you know it they are at 100 and it just gets too crazy. And their only way to break it up is by bringing the same special guest booth member they've already had 10 times during the season. 🙂 When I see Dirks in different scenarios when Benetti is gone, I think he has the right blend. That's even true with Benetti. He's still going to force some silly pop culture thing he wrote down four hours ago if it fits or not, but one or two of those are fine. I get the feeling if I personally new Benetti, I'd think he's a great guy. He probably is. But in the broadcast, it just taxes me. And Dan Petry still can't cope with it all. Petry probably needs someone there to carry the broadcast because he is kind of bland to say the least, and Benetti does do that. But even then he needs to do it in doses. When he says something and you get the feeling Petry is clueless about what he's talking about, it doesn't help Dan.