Grandy Somehow Has Avoided The All-Star Team; No Such Luck in 2009

“Granderson, first of all, is the artisan — the only consistent artisan — of the most exciting play in baseball, the triple.”

Curtis Granderson will be an All-Star in 2009.

There — at least THAT’S out of the way.

May as well declare it now. No sense waiting till spring training, much less Opening Day. Put him on the ballot or don’t; one way or another, Grandy will be on the American League team. Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon, who will select the AL reserves, will have no choice in the matter. Granderson’s numbers will be too good to pass up.

I know — file this under the “Tell me something I DON’T know” category. My telling you that Granderson, the Tigers’ centerfielder, will be an AL All-Star this season is hardly earth-shattering news. It may not even be Detroit-shattering. But I wanted to be the first one to confirm it, some three months before they throw the first pitch that matters.

Granderson, first of all, is the artisan — the only consistent artisan — of the most exciting play in baseball, the triple. Getting a runner into scoring position is nice. But Granderson gets himself 90 feet away from home plate, and that is even better.

Yeah, he can go get it, too

He’s not Mr. Base Stealer, as you would hope for from a leadoff hitter. But why bother with a single and a stolen base, when you can cut through all that red tape and land yourself on third base with one swing of the bat?

There’s the defense, the just-right home run power. I don’t have to tell you.

But I bring this up because it’s amazing, to me, that Granderson has found himself on the outside looking in since 2006 when it comes to the All-Star team. His selection in 2009 will be his first. Hard to believe, but it’s true. Of course, the flip side is that it will hardly be his only one; look for consistent appearances from no. 28.

If there was an All-Star team based on accessibility, niceness, and overall goodwill, Granderson would be perennial. He’s one of the few players whose stellar play struggles to match his stellar persona. Usually it’s the other way around.

I just hope that the baseball fans in Detroit realize and appreciate what they have in centerfield. That piece of real estate should be Curtis Granderson’s, and his alone, for the next ten years. All-Star games and everything!

Millen, Unlike Vitale, Doesn’t Own Up To His Failure

“If there were other forces at work, then Millen, as the boss, certainly had the authority and wherewithall to eliminate them, or at least dilute them.”

Maybe it’s all going to come out in the book.

Wince if you will, but if former Lions president Matt Millen were to write a book about his experiences, the copies would fly off the shelves in metro Detroit.

A book might be in the works, because Millen isn’t saying much publicly.

He had a chance on NBC over the weekend, posing as a studio analyst, when he was hit with some queries about that 31-84 record the Lions posted under his watch.

He was about as revealing as an Amish belly dancer.

I won’t even bother to summarize the quotes; I’m sure you’ve read them. But they boil down to this: “I’m to blame.”

All together now — DUH!!

Millen hinted that other forces were in play, but that to reveal them would be like making excuses. Riiight.

Millen's cryptic remarks fall woefully short

There was another instance when a square peg failed in a round hole in Detroit, but that peg never shied away from telling us why he didn’t fit.

Dick Vitale pulled a reverse Millen — or rather, Millen pulled a reverse Vitale. Dickie was a coach and de facto GM, then became a TV blabbermouth. Matt Millen did it backwards from that, but both were unmitigated disasters.

You could almost argue that Vitale’s damage was greater in scope, simply because he was in charge of the Pistons for such a short period of time. Yet he set the franchise back a decade. No joke.

Dickie became coach in 1978, won a power struggle shortly thereafter with GM Bob Kauffman, then was, in essence, his own GM. Vitale made trades like you and I used to do with bubble gum cards. He was fired in November 1979, some 18 months after he was hired. In his wake, he left the Pistons talent-less, bereft of draft choices, and light years behind the Boston Celtics, thanks to his bad bubble gum trades.

But Vitale took his indictment like a man. A loud man, but a man nonetheless. He knew it wasn’t enough to simply blame himself. He expounded.

“I tried to do too much too soon,” Vitale has said in the past. And this: “I wasn’t patient. Mr. Davidson did me a favor by firing me. I might have killed myself.” Dickie was talking about his own physical well-being. And this: “Red Auerbach owes me a couple of those championship rings, I think.”

Point being, Vitale has gone on record many times about his failure in Detroit. He was a college coach who had no business being on an NBA sideline, much less in one of its front offices. And he knows it. He makes no bones about why he didn’t get the job done. He never made cryptic remarks about other forces or hinted that there was more to the story than met the eye.

Matt Millen had total control over everything football while he worked for the Lions. Like Vitale, he was left unsupervised, with no checks and balances whatsoever. To even suggest that there could be “other things” that were going on that contributed to his 31-84 record is absurd. If you’re the boss, then you’re the boss. The only thing that could fall under the category of “other” would be incessant butting in from owner Bill Ford Sr. And I find that highly suspect, save for a few “suggestions” here and there. You think that the reclusive Ford is, at the same time, the REAL wizard behind the curtain, pulling the knobs and pressing the buttons? Please.

If there were other forces at work, then Millen, as the boss, certainly had the authority and wherewithall to eliminate them, or at least dilute them. He had hiring and firing power. He could have tossed out any bad apples. But do you recall a bunch of firings during his tenure, aside from some coaches? Any scouting or personnel purges? Me neither.

So maybe Millen is, indeed, going to write a book about his time with the Lions.

The thing is, where will they place it? Fiction or non-fiction section?