IdahoBert

The Lions had enough time for one last sack.

LaPorta!

I am here, because I am a believer, and I couldn’t leave her if I tried.

God bless the existence of worse teams than thine own.

Is Rogers using a corked bat? Maybe they should give him a blood test between innings?

!!!!!

Just as an aside, I have just noticed that the Atlanta Braves are nearly averaging 6 runs a game. 5.84. You’re welcome.

Reading over this thread reminds me why I love you folks, even though I’ve only ever met a handful of you face-to-face. There’s a lot of what Lincoln would call our “better angels“ coming to the fore in this thread. It says a lot about us, regardless of how small a tribe this has become, or how meager my participation has been as I’ve aged.

This is a sad moment. Jim Price is family. Period.

In the early 80s when I was recovering from a motorcycle accident, I visited my sister for a couple weeks in Nashua New Hampshire and went to a bunch of games at Holman stadium. It was a Pirates AA affiliate then and I saw eight games there. It was a long homestand and the home team won all 8 games either as a walk off in the bottom of the ninth or coming from behind and sealing it by the seventh or eighth inning. It was without a doubt, the most exciting string of games I’ve ever seen. I saw Ted Kluszewski there. He was a scout.

I can’t remember if it was last year in the Tour or the Spanish La Vuelta when he got injured and had to leave. I hope no downtown areas in Canada are burned down by rioting celebrators tonight.

Woodsy won stage 9 of the Tour de France today! 36 years old! He beat the kid from Idaho, but I still don’t feel bad about it because, Goddammit, it’s Woodsy! “We are the world. We are the children…”

With MLB contracting the minor leagues Boise, Idaho lost its long time NWL short season team and my kids that still live in town took me to a game tonight for Father’s Day. All the players look older and bigger than the players I remember from the last 30 plus years when the team was affiliated with the Angels, the Cubs, and the Rockies. I was hoping there might be some career minor leaguers who were released from AA or AAA, but the league will not accept anyone who’s had more than three years of professional experience. I saw very few pitches above 86 mph, although a couple reached 91 or 92. There were no home runs tonight. There is a pitch clock and the home team won and the game took 2:25. SWEET! If the game is tied, they have some dumb kind of home run derby that I just couldn’t take the time to figure out when I was reading about it. The fielding seemed pretty decent compared to the 19-21 age guys I am used to seeing, and the outfielders had some pretty strong arms. There were some real lasers from right field to home plate that were quite exciting. There were a couple completed double plays too. You’re never going to see a Ken Griffey a Dontrelle Willis, Gleyber Torres, or Kyle Schwarber come through town again. Rickey Henderson started his career here in 1976 playing on a high school field for the Athletics’ rookie league team. But it surprised me how entertaining it was and in some respects, how little different from what I was used to seeing - with some exceptions - compared to short season Class A. I have to say, though, when he was 17 Gleyber Torres already looked like a major leaguer. i’m going to miss those moments. But I will definitely come back. Ticket prices are definitely lower. The food, however is just as expensive. But still, if I could hang the people from lamp posts who contracted the minor leagues and took away genuine major league prospects from smaller cities all over America, I would do it I’m kidding…

Having been out of commission most of this year, I watched a game a while back and the stands were pretty full and C-Mo was talking about how great the clubhouse was and how the team really believed in itself and having heard this so many times before I thought we were right on the edge of it being like kittens shot by snipers and that’s what it’s become. I still love this team as much as I did when I was nine years old and my heart still beats for them in the same way, but this is really hard to endure.

I watched this game on Peacock and having Gibby without everyone else we usually get was a pretty good broadcast team. Yeah, and Luis Gonzalez was very entertaining when he explained how he just figured out some things when he left Detroit and went to Arizona to hit 57 home runs once during the ‘roids era.

Awww…

I have been off the grid in terms of my interest level in this team this season — and all sports related passions — but from a distance I have enjoyed this latest run. My son who just turned 21 a few weeks ago has now become a true Tigers fan, a man of the cloth, whose young heart is bursting with love for this team, and he’s talking about the playoffs with an endearing sincerity that makes me fear for his sanity and well-being. He listens to all the games on his phone and he’ll call me and tell me passionately about all the good things that have happened as of late. Having been there myself, I have no right to tell him that he’s kind of like the school nerd who’s trying to get the hottest cheerleader in school to date him and that the results will be humiliating. Right now he’s excited that the MLB free game of the day on Friday will be the Tigers against the Mariners and he wants to watch it with me and I told him that it will most likely be blacked out because we live in the Mariners TV area and he doesn’t believe me because he can’t believe MLB would be that mean. He’s that sincere. He’s like a bumpkin who’s in Paris for the first time in the 1880s to hang out with the Impressionist painters and when he sees the pretty prostitutes on the Rue des Lorettes he thinks they’re just nice girls who honestly like him and want to have a good time. I want to tell him “been there done that and learned my lesson” but it’s something he just has to learn for himself. Cheers to you all.

I haven’t been around here in quite a while because I don’t have much positive to say and I don’t want to be like the trolls I used to enjoy banning. But the negative comment I do have to share is that I was wondering how the Ilitch family cannot feel ashamed at what they’ve done to this team and I realize that as really really really rich kids they probably have a pretty thick skin about being disliked. I suppose that Mike as complicated and unsaint like as he most likely was, was at least capable of shame which made him care two shits instead of none.

At least they avoided the ignominy of a No-hitter.

I have a hard time being positive about this upcoming season and I just have a feeling they are shuffling around deck chairs on the titanic.

When can I order my Donny Sands bobble-head?

When we read our New Year’s predictions from last year at dinner today I predicted that the Tigers would win at least 86 games in 2022. Out of my 12 predictions the only one I got right was predicting that Keith Richards would still be alive which is sort of like cheating because we all know he’s deathless.

I don’t have anything against the players making a lot of money but it seems insane and all the money that’s floating around just makes it feel kind of like the end times and that this whole society needs to be sacked and destroyed by the Goths or Genghis Khan or Pol Pot. Billionaires are seeking to own the other planets of the solar system. It’s getting harder and harder to care about all this stuff. It’s like I’d rather just see us tear down all the idols, melt the gold down and give the money away and become hobbits or something.