Osgood Ready To Go — i.e., Ready To Bounce Back (Again)

“Osgood, I believe, will be named the starting goalie when the playoff drama begins in April. And, I think he will once again bounce back and keep that job, for as long as the Red Wings survive.”

It’s not like Chris Osgood hasn’t been down this path before.

There was 1994, when as a 21-year-old rookie, playing in the playoffs only because of the incompetence of veteran Bob Essensa, Osgood sat in front of his locker and weeped, after his blunder cost the Red Wings Game 7 of their series against the heavily-underdogged San Jose Sharks. He bounced back.

There was the debacle of the 1996 playoffs, when the league-leading, record-setting Red Wings struggled in every series and eventually lost in the Conference Finals to the Colorado Avalanche, with Osgood and Mike Vernon both unable to stop pucks consistently. Osgood bounced back.

There was the tragic-comedy of the 1998 Stanley Cup run, when Osgood had the propensity for letting in shots from the blue line and beyond. After each occurrence, Osgood bounced back. The Wings won the Cup.

There was the stripping of his Wings when the team went and acquired Hall of Famer Dominik Hasek in 2001. Osgood was banished to the New York Islanders, of all places, and ended up with the St. Louis Blues, wallowing with mediocre teams and playing almost with the same level of mediocrity. Osgood bounced back.

There was the return to the Red Wings in 2005, only to have to sit and watch helplessly as Manny Legace gagged terribly in the 2006 playoffs. Osgood bounced back.

There was the relegation to backup goalie to Hasek in 2008, who was in his third tour of duty with the Red Wings. Then Osgood was called upon to jump in, cold, after Hasek stumbled through the first four games of the first round. Osgood responded, big time, and the Red Wings advanced to the Cup Finals.

There was the huge disappointment of allowing a game-tying goal with less than 30 seconds remaining in Game 5 of the Finals, the Stanley Cup polished and waiting in a nearby hallway. Osgood bounced back and played brilliantly in the clinching Game 6.

Now there’s this — battling regular season demons to the tune of being among the worst goalies, statistically, in the entire NHL. The playoffs fast approaching. A very public and potentially humiliating ten-day “break” having been served. Questions, again, surrounding the Red Wings’ goalie situation. The ever-popular backup goalie — this time it’s Ty Conklin — waiting in the wings, just in case. The familiar cry to “put HIM in, instead!”

Osgood, it says here, will respond. Again. Just like he always has.

“I just needed some time to figure things out,” Ozzie told the papers this morning as he prepared to return to game action. “I feel real good now. I feel like I’m ready to go.”

Probably is.

A couple weeks ago, Osgood shrugged off his struggles. He pointed to his resume.

“The thing is,” he said firmly, “is that I know how to win playoff games.”

That he does.

Osgood, I believe, will be named the starting goalie when the playoff drama begins in April. And, I think he will once again bounce back and keep that job, for as long as the Red Wings survive. It’s been his trademark — to rise like a Phoenix. They’ve been writing Chris Osgood off for years. Let ‘em keep writing.

Osgood is coming back to the Red Wings after his “break”. He says he feels fine. He reminds us that he knows how to win playoff games.

I think we should probably believe him. He’s earned that.

Defense At The Expense Of Offense? That’s OK, When It Comes To Inge And Everett

“Me? I’m willing to take my chances with the gloves of Inge and Everett and put more pressure on the other seven hitters in the lineup to produce.”

It’s an old baseball adage: that the third out, often times, is the toughest one to get, in any given inning.

No disagreements here. I’ve seen many a rally linger and fester, all with two outs already in the books. It is, indeed, difficult to get that third out on occasion.

So you can imagine how hard it is to get four outs.

Yet that’s what the Tigers’ pitchers were forced to do on too many occasions last season — get four outs in an inning that only requires three.

The culprit, of course, was the overall team defense, which was far too leaky to qualify the Tigers as legitimate playoff contenders. And they weren’t; they finished in last place.

The left side of the infield was a top offender. Third base was initially manned by Miguel Cabrera, but he never found a comfort zone. Carlos Guillen gave it a shot, and he wasn’t all that much better. It wasn’t until Brandon Inge found some adequate playing time at 3B that those problems at third leveled off. At shortstop? Well, let’s just say that Edgar Renteria is the Giants’ problem now.

The outfielders were OK, but not great. But most of the fourth outs were courtesy of the Tigers infielders. Make no mistake.

This year, Inge is shackled to third base, and that’s a good thing. No more catching for Brandon, with Gerald Laird and Matt Treanor around. At shortstop, it’s Adam Everett, slick with the glove.

Ah, but here’s the rub — the trade-off, if you will. Will the defense of Inge and Everett — with their ability to eliminate a lot of fourth outs — be enough to offset their demonstrated weakness at the plate?

That is the question, indeed.

Me? I’m willing to take my chances with the gloves of Inge and Everett and put more pressure on the other seven hitters in the lineup to produce. Clearly, last year’s arrangement didn’t work. And it’s not like Renteria made up for his lack of range with his bat, anyway.

There will be much talk, as there should be, about the Tigers’ pitching — both the starters and the bullpen. There’s no question that if the Tigers don’t pitch, they won’t win. But let’s say the pitchers DO pitch, and those guys who were either hurt or underachieved, or both, bounce back and have decent seasons (see Verlander, Justin and Zumaya, Joel). Then the focus will be right back on the defense — specifically the infield defense and its success rate at preventing the dreaded fourth out from being necessary.

The Tigers need Brandon Inge and Adam Everett to run a tight ship left of second base. They can make like Eddie Brinkman with the bat, as far as I’m concerned, as long as they channel Steady Eddie with the glove, too.

It’s True: Iverson Not Championship-Worthy

“The only way I can see Iverson hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy over his head is if he does so as an aging, journeyman benchwarmer whose playing time was incidental, his contribution minimal and in spurts.”

They’ve said it about some of the greatest players in team sports. Sometimes it’s been whispered, other times it’s been blared, in bullhorn fashion. The accusation, fair or not, has dogged some of the biggest names in sporting history.

(Insert name here) cannot win.

It was used against Wilt Chamberlain in his head-to-head battles with Bill Russell. Though Wilt did win a championship. But not nearly enough of them to silence the critics. So Chamberlain, forever, was banished to being less of a player than Russell.

They said it about John Elway, until Elway filled their mouths with dirt and turf in Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII. They said it about Danny Marino.

Locally, it was even said about Steve Yzerman — if you can imagine such a thing now.

The Pistons are finding out now, in the only way possible — that being the hard way — that what they’ve long said about Allen Iverson is, unfortunately, true.

Allen Iverson cannot win. Thus, you cannot win with Allen Iverson.

I’m afraid to report that it’s true. It really is. I was a proponent of the Chauncey Billups-for-Iverson trade, when it happened in November. I thought that it was about damn time that the Pistons have a ball-hogging, take-the-big-shot guy on their roster. I wrote that the old way of doing things in Pistons-land — the way that says there is no true superstar — was proven to be the wrong and futile way. So I pumped the Iverson trade as not only coming around to the reality of the NBA, but doing so in one of the grandest ways possible — with Iverson, a sure-fire Hall of Famer who was hungry for his first ring.

I was wrong. And all those folks who warned against acquiring a famously selfish player — and selfish isn’t always a bad thing in the NBA, by the way — like Iverson, who said that you cannot win with AI, were absolutely, spot-on correct.

You really cannot win with Allen Iverson, after all.

Actually, AI, it’s been “thumbs down” on your Pistons Era

There are many culpable folks whose hands are bloody during this God-awful Pistons season — one that appears to careening out of control at the speed of sound. But I’m sorry — it comes down to the moment Iverson arrived in Detroit.

The Pistons were 4-0, don’t forget, when Iverson joined the Pistons. They are 23-28 since.

Instead of Iverson being the spark plug, being the missing ingredient, being, ahem, “The Answer”, he instead was the first domino whose fall knocked down a bunch of other dominoes. Which led to the Pistons’ freefall.

Iverson’s arrival changed the way the Pistons played, but that was hardly a surprise. But in addition, it changed the way rookie coach Michael Curry substituted, strategized, and ultimately, his starting lineup and his bench people. And none of it for the good, really.

You cannot win with Allen Iverson. It’s official.

Iverson came to Detroit beaming, telling everyone that this was the most talented roster he’s ever played with, and that a championship was all that was left to, in his mind, validate his career. He couldn’t wait to get started.

Oh, he got started alright. Iverson slowly, methodically, soiled the Pistons with the very things that I had exulted about him: his ball-hogging, his out-of-control way of providing offense, and, to my chagrin, his failing to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to sacrificing in order to win a title. That was a good one, a real knee slapper.

You cannot win with Allen Iverson. Spread the word. It’s true.

The only way I can see Iverson hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy over his head is if he does so as an aging, journeyman benchwarmer whose playing time was incidental, his contribution minimal and in spurts. The announcers will say, “Well, AI finally got his ring,” but it will be in an almost charitable way.

The Pistons have a decision to make on Iverson. He’s in the last year of his fat contract — a nice, juicy, fat contract that will come off the Pistons’ books this summer, should they choose to part ways with him. I have a feeling that that decision has already been made.

You cannot win with Allen Iverson. Pass it on.

The DH: A Bad Idea Then, A Bad Idea Now

“Sure, pitchers were weaker hitters, but so what? Kickers are poor tacklers; do they run off the field in football so that a “designated gunner” can run on and inflict extra punishment?”

Roric Harrison’s mark on the game of baseball is, I’m afraid, totally safe. Barring something highly unusual, that is.

Harrison was the last American League pitcher to hit a home run in a game featuring two AL teams. He did it on October 3, 1972, while playing for the Baltimore Orioles in Cleveland. The dreadful Designated Hitter Rule arrived the next year.

The DH was originally intended to be a three-year trial. The traditionalists held out hope that after the trial, the mucky-mucks in MLB would realize the error of their ways and abolish it, forever. An experiment gone horribly wrong.

No such luck.

The DH was ratified for good beginning with the 1976 season. It was the end of baseball as we knew it.

If you ever want get a rousing game of “Yes, it is/no, it isn’t” going, there are few, if any, hot button topics in baseball that are better stimuli than “Is the DH good for baseball?”

No it isn’t, by the way.

Roric “Home Run” Harrison

I guess I look at it this way. What did baseball ever do to the stuffed suits that caused them to so drastically change the way the game is played? Was there a crusade for the elimination of the pitcher actually stepping to the plate?

I feel where the stuffed suits were coming from, I really do, when they unleashed this wacky rule change on baseball in ‘73. MLB was coming off a decade — the 1960s — in which pitchers dominated. The first try to stem this tide came in 1969, when baseball lowered the pitcher’s mound, on the heels of Denny McLain’s 31-win year, and Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA season in 1968.

But that wasn’t enough, apparently.

A player designated as the “hitter” for the pitcher!

Why?

For over 100 years, baseball seemed to be humming along just nicely with nine guys fielding, nine guys hitting. Sure, pitchers were weaker hitters, but so what? Kickers are poor tacklers; do they run off the field in football so that a “designated gunner” can run on and inflict extra punishment? No — because that’s one of the natural quirks of the game. Kickers don’t work on their tackling, and they’re physically smaller. Pitchers don’t work on their hitting.

You’ve heard the rest of the arguments before — whether you agree with me or not. The DH’s removal of a significant amount of strategy, for one. The lack of discretion for the AL manager when it comes to waving pitchers in from the bullpen, since they have no place in the batting order.

Has the DH been handy, even convenient? Sure. In the matter of the aging, the hurt, the infirm. And it has, granted, enabled some players to display their hitting acumen for us longer than had the DH not been an option. Agreed. But some good coming from a bad idea doesn’t make it a good idea.

I’m unashamed and unabashed in my dislike of the DH. It’s just not the way the game was meant to be played. And the change was uncalled for to begin with.

Oh, and to those who crow that the DH saves them from witnessing the pitcher coming up to the plate to simply strike out and walk back to the dugout?

Close your eyes.

Tiger’s Almost Back — And So Is The PGA

“Woods was holding the PGA hostage while he recovered from his injuries, but he didn’t do it with any malice. It was just the way it was.”

Do they still hold pro golf tournaments? Is the PGA still in business, or did it take a hiatus?

Answers: They’re about to again, and, yes — it’s on hiatus.

You remember the PGA, don’t you? The Professional Golfers Association? In case you were wondering, the PGA hasn’t dissolved. It hasn’t held a massive auction on eBay to get rid of all of its tees and flags and “Shhhh” signs.

But there haven’t been any tournaments lately. Not for quite some time. If the PGA was a retail outlet, it would have a sign out front that reads, “Closed for remodeling.”

Yet there is hope, for the golf fan. The PGA is about to re-open — but there might not be all that much new to see.

Tiger Woods, they say, is getting closer and closer to returning, following knee surgery and the birth of another child, for which he showed his fatherly support.

The PGA is back in business.

Think I’m being facetious and smarmy?

Quick — name me some PGA tour winners over the past six months or so.

Woods is just about back, and so is golf.

I’m sorry, but Tiger Woods IS the PGA. There — it’s about time someone said it. The PGA, minus Woods, is like one of those inflatable characters you see on front lawns during the Christmas season, but deflated. You’ve seen how pathetic and sad those things look when there is no air being pumped into them? Face first on the grass; splayed out. But now here comes Tiger Woods. The inflatable PGA is about to be plugged in again. The air is about to be flowing through it again.

Why argue this? Why bother trying to purport that there is actually genuine interest in any golfer other than Woods? Why should there be, anyway?

Tiger Woods is pro golf. Has been for years. Will be for many more. And there’s no shame in that.

Sorry, Phil Mickelsen fans. Hate to break it to you, Vijay Singh enthusiasts. All you Davis Love the Third zealots and Corey Pavin rooters from the old school, give it up.

Tiger is the man, and that’s just the way it is.

I’ve long said that it’s OK for golf, or tennis, or any individual sport, to have a dominant figure. The proof is in the excising of that individual.

Was golf on your radar while Woods convalesced?

All you die-hard fans — the ones who’ll golf no matter what — all you folks take a step backward. I’m speaking now to the casual-to-moderate fan. The ones who wonder what golf would be like without Woods to preside over it.

Well, wonder no longer.

Woods was holding the PGA hostage while he recovered from his injuries, but he didn’t do it with any malice. It was just the way it was.

So soon we can all get back to watching Woods dominate and wonder if any of the other poor saps can give him a run for his money for any length of time. There’s also the curiosity factor re: Woods’s repaired leg and whether it will allow him to continue to keep all the Lilliputian golfers at arm’s length from him. But I’d bet that the answer to that question will be a resounding YES, and will be proven in short order. Like maybe with the first major in which Woods appears.

Tiger Woods is just about back. Golf has been re-inflated.

Leyland Anything But Lame, No Matter What You Read

“I wrote that Jimmy Leyland should, instead, have thanked his lucky stars that he still had a job, much less crab that his contract was too short.”

The next person to call Walter Alston a lame duck will be the first. And the last, for Walt’s ghost won’t have any of that nonsense.

Alston was the longtime manager of the first Brooklyn, then Los Angeles Dodgers, from 1954 to 1976. For twenty-three seasons, Alston ruled the roost, wearing Dodger Blue. He won 2,040 games filling out lineup cards and signaling for the hit-and-run and summoning that guy from the bullpen. But it’s the calling card of the length of the baseball season that Alston also managed to lose 1,613 games – proof that the lineup and the hit-and-run and that guy in the bullpen didn’t always work the way Walt thought.

But he was no lame duck.

Here’s how Alston’s arrangement with the Dodgers went. He’d manage the season. Sometimes the Dodgers went to the World Series, sometimes they didn’t. Regardless, Alston put in his year’s work and then waited for his contract for the next season to arrive in his mailbox, sometime that winter. He’d sign it and mail it back, then presumably head back for the golf course, or the nearest billiards hall.

That was it. For twenty-three straight years.

But he was no lame duck.

You’re going to hear that terribly misplaced and overused term, “lame duck”, in reference to Tigers manager Jim Leyland. A lot. Some of the ink-stained wretches in town just can’t seem to use it enough to suit them.

Jim Leyland, lame duck. Get used to it.

It’s also a bunch of baloney.

Apparently, you can’t have a coach or a manager who’s not signed beyond the current season without also having a lame duck coach or manager. That’s what those miscreant ink-stained wretches would have you believe.

They’ll tell you – over and over, trust me – that Leyland is the dreaded lame duck because the Tigers have the audacity to send him off to battle without a contract beyond the 2009 season.

Lame duck!!

Their “reasoning” goes like this. Since the Tigers players know that the manager has no pact for 2010 and beyond, then he is, in a baseball sort of way, a eunuch. Emasculated, because his arrangement to manage potentially ends with the final pitch of the ’09 campaign. In other words, why should the players listen to and respect and obey a man who isn’t signed long-term?

My goodness, are the Tigers that fragile?

If they lose a few, are they really going to look at Leyland, twirl their mustaches, and “Muwah-ha-ha” in some sort of group effort to undermine him?

Funny, but no one did that to Alston – he of the twenty-three straight one-year contracts.

It should be added here that it was Alston, not the Dodgers, who insisted on the year-by-year thing. His logic? If I don’t do a good job, then I shouldn’t be asked back. If I do a good job, there’ll be another contract for me in my mailbox this winter.

And you would argue with that?

The ink-stained wretches screaming “lame duck!” sure would seem to find issue with such impenetrable reasoning.

Leyland, within the past month, summoned Alston’s words.

“If I do a good job, I’ll keep my job,” he said. “If I don’t, I won’t. Simple as that.”

Indeed.

But it was Leyland himself who needed to come around before channeling Alston.

Shortly after the dreadful 2008 season had mercifully ended – the Tigers a hugely disappointing 74-88 – it was revealed that the front office wasn’t going to extend Leyland’s contract beyond its current length, which was through 2009.

The manager whined and pouted about it.

Leyland went to the papers and told the ink-stained wretches all they needed in order to place the “lame duck” tag on him. He publicly, and foolishly, I believed, called out owner Mike Ilitch, complaining that he – Leyland – had done enough since becoming Tigers manager to warrant some faith and trust. Jim Leyland wanted to be signed past 2009 – but putting his owner on the spot in the newspapers was a funny way of showing it, I thought.

Leyland, it says here, will be ranting on the Tigers’ behalf next year and beyond

Besides, Leyland didn’t earn a look past 2009. Other managers have found themselves in the unemployment line after presiding over the unexpected diarrhea that was the Tigers’ 2008 season. I wrote that Jimmy Leyland should, instead, have thanked his lucky stars that he still had a job, much less crab that his contract was too short.

The ink-stained wretches took another tack.

They endorsed an extension for Leyland – sort of. They went for the “pee or get off the pot” approach: if you want Leyland, sign him past 2009. If you don’t, fire him – forthwith.

Sheesh!

I went on the Internet and told anyone who cared to know, all about Walter Alston and his twenty-three consecutive one-year contracts. I pointed to the Dodgers’ record from 1954 to 1976 and safely argued, I thought, that the franchise had enjoyed a pretty darn good run with Alston receiving contracts in his mailbox each winter.

If it was good enough for a Hall of Fame manager like Walt Alston, then it should be good enough for Jim Leyland. Right? Wrong, according to the Chicken Little sportswriters in town.

Lame duck!!

I was disappointed in Leyland, when he fed into this horsepucky with his public boo-hoo act last fall. I thought he was better than that.

But he seems to have gotten it out of his system.

Leyland won’t talk about his contract anymore, except to say that he’s confident that it will all work out in the end. And he’s absolutely right.

The Tigers, I say, will prove that 2008 was nothing more than a bad dream. With players dotting the roster who are destined to have better years, whether because of good health or otherwise, it’s hard for me to believe that the team won’t be vastly improved.

Which means Jim Leyland will get his precious extension, after all. Probably before the season is much more than halfway old. And no more lame duck talk.

Not that he was one to begin with.

Right, Walt?

25th Best Team In Baseball? The Tigers Are Loads Better Than That

“…the Tigers had an awful lot of bad happen to them in 2008. It was borderline ridiculous. So to look at them and place them 25th out of 30 teams makes me seriously question the credibility of such an assessment.”

With apologies to Neil Armstrong, here’s a possible scenario for the Tigers.

2008 was a small step back, and 2009 will be a giant leap ahead.

It’s a nice thought, anyway.

One thing is for certain, though. Those goof balls at Fox Sports have got it all wrong.

They came out with their Power Rankings this week, and you have to keep scrolling down, down, until you come across the Tigers — at no. 25. Out of 30 teams.

Does Fox really think that the Tigers are better than only five other teams in baseball?

My goodness, there are five teams who barely belong in the big leagues, let alone who should be ranked at all.

It all goes to show that the expectations, nationally, for the Tigers after 2008’s disaster are exceedingly low. USA Today has the Tigers no better than 9th in the American League and fourth in the AL Central.

Well, here’s someone who has quite high expectations: Me.

The Tigers have a ton of players who have “bounce back” written all over them. In fact, the Tigers have more bounce back potential than a room full of super balls.

It all adds up, I figure, to a 90+ win season. That should place them a tad higher than 25th overall, I believe.

Here’s a quick look at the super balls:

1. Justin Verlander: the kid’s too good NOT to bounce back. 2008’s debacle (11-17, 4.84 ERA) might be good for him, in the long haul. I bet that he’s back to form in ‘09.

2. Gary Sheffield: Sheff says he’s healthy, and that’s good enough for me. Sheff is not known to say things that he doesn’t really mean. At age 40, he feels he has something to prove. That makes me smile — a lot.

3. Carlos Guillen. Another one who should be healthier in 2009. Guillen didn’t play after late August due to a pinched nerve. The team’s new left fielder shouldn’t have as much wear and tear on his body this year.

4. Joel Zumaya. Again, healthy. Says he feels great, and a part of the team again. Manager Jim Leyland is also duly impressed thus far. I shouldn’t have to tell you what THAT can mean to the Tigers.

5. Dontrelle Willis. I’m putting my faith into the notion that 2008 was a grotesque blip on Willis’s screen and nothing more. Admittedly, this is the crossroads season for him — he’s either nearing the end, or last year was a fluke. I’m banking on the latter.

6. Nate Robertson. I’d like to think that Robertson is better than the 6.00+ ERA guy he was in 2008. History says so. Maybe it was more of a mechanics thing.

Lest us not forget that the Tigers pitchers might get a boost from new pitching coach Rick Knapp. Another bounce. Oh, and the arrival of closer Brandon Lyon won’t hurt, either.

Will ALL of the above-mentioned players have terrific seasons? I don’t know. But the point being, the Tigers had an awful lot of bad happen to them in 2008. It was borderline ridiculous. So to look at them and place them 25th out of 30 teams makes me seriously question the credibility of such an assessment.

The Tigers just might win their division in 2009. Think I’m nuts? Place their roster against those of their competitors. Do you see a measurable difference?

The Detroit Tigers, 25th-best team in baseball? Maybe at the end of last year. But this isn’t last year. Somebody ought to change the calendars over at Fox.

Dumars: The Pistons’ Landlord Who Should Live In His Own Mess For A While

“I just have this gut feeling that if Dumars were to take over, the Pistons would be a better basketball team. It’s not like he hasn’t given the other way a fair shot.”

In the movie “The Super”, Joe Pesci played an unscrupulous slumlord named Louie Kritski who was, by the courts, sentenced to live in the squalor that he had overseen with such arrogance and callousness.

Joe Dumars is not arrogant. He’s not callous, that I know of. But right now he’s a bad landlord.

It’s tempting to call for the ziggying of rookie coach Michael Curry, with the Pistons 27-26 and an unsightly 14-15 at home, including 2-10 in their last twelve at The Palace. It makes sense, in a way, to look at the arrival of Curry and the onset of the Pistons’ decline and figure that it’s more than just a coincidence. And it might be. This was never an easy bunch to coach to begin with, and when you place “rookie” in front of the title “coach”, it’s that much tougher.

But it’s Dumars who placed Curry in this position. And it’s Dumars who has given him this roster and said, “Have at it.”

It says here that Dumars should, indeed, can Curry, but with one caveat: that Dumars himself take over as coach. He should be the Pistons’ Louie Kritski.

It would be both a sentence of judgement levied against Dumars, as well as the satisfying of a curiosity that I have: whether Joe Dumars is the only coach out there who can truly coach the Pistons for longer than the usual two-to-three seasons.

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is considered one of the best in the game, and with good reason. In fact, he’s so good and has accomplished so much as a coach that it’s easy to forget that during the 1996-97 season, Popovich was a President/GM like Dumars, before he decided to fire his coach, Bob Hill, and take over on the sidelines himself. Popovich continues to hold the dual title of coach/President of Basketball Operations. He’s won four NBA titles as coach.

Dumars should give that tactic a try in Detroit.

Dumars might be the best coach out there; only one way to find out

Since taking over in 2000, Dumars has hired and fired four coaches. Curry is number five. That’s an unusually high number of coaches, considering the Pistons’ current (and soon to end) streak of appearing in six straight conference finals. So it can be argued that Joe D’s fetish for changing coaches has worked, to a degree. This is the first real dropoff in performance the Pistons have encountered since the 2000-01 season.

It doesn’t appear that Curry, with just one year as an assistant under his belt, has the acumen to be a successful NBA head coach. Perhaps that’s an inaccurate assessment, but we don’t have much to go on, do we?

Dumars should give it a whirl. Coaching, I mean.

Frankly, I’d love to see it, but more out of eagerness than out of a desire to punish. Everyone knows that Dumars might lean toward the micro-managing style of GM-ing. There’s been a sneaking suspicion for several years (at least with Flip Saunders) that Dumars has more influence than most GMs over who plays and who doesn’t. So why not give Dumars the coach’s seat, too, and see how he fares?

Dumars might be the only one to possess the ingredients that he never seems to find in his coaches. There’s always something missing with somebody. Usually, it’s been accountability –whether for the coach (Larry Brown Era), or the players (Saunders Era). Sometimes it’s toughness (Saunders) or compassion (Rick Carlisle).

I just have this gut feeling that if Dumars were to take over, the Pistons would be a better basketball team. It’s not like he hasn’t given the other way a fair shot. You might disagree with all the coaching changes, as it doesn’t provide for consistency, but you can’t say that if Dumars were to make himself coach, that he’d be doing so impetuously. He’s been the top dog in the front office for nine years now.

Of course, the only person who can truly do that, aside from owner Bill Davidson, is Dumars himself. And if he hasn’t done it by now, then maybe he doesn’t have such a move in him.

But it sure would be fun to see.

The Pistons are coming upon a crossroad in their journey back to the NBA Finals. That elite free agent class of 2010 is sure to send shockwaves throughout the league. Dumars is sure to be a big player at that table.

It’s another unsolicited opinion from another bottom feeding blogger and ink-stained wretch, but here it is: let Curry finish this season, give him maybe half of next, and if there’s still no improvement, Dumars should ask the coach to step aside and say, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, I guess.”

Joe Dumars — the next Gregg Popovich?

I’d love to see it.

Stafford’s High School Irrelevant, But Don’t Tell That To Lions Fans

“Fantastic — as if the kid needs anymore pressure; now they’d heap this Curse Breaker status on him? Just because of the high school he attended?”

 

It’s come down, now, to a reliance on some sort of spiritual hope of fait accomplit.

That’s what Lions’ fans are reduced to, when it comes to their team’s quarterback situation.

But since they appear to want to believe in curses, then fair is fair: let them believe in a reason why such a curse has a way of being broken, right?

You now have about two months left to keep hearing about the Bobby Layne Curse, and the young man who just might be able to break it — like some sort of football Messiah.

Matthew Stafford is the kid QB from the University of Georgia who figures to be the likely draft choice of the Lions, No. 1 off the board, in the 2009 NFL Draft this April. Just being a young, talented quarterback with the goods to be a franchise savior isn’t enough in Detroit, though. You have to be a curse breaker, too.

The Curse in question is the one that the legendary Bobby Layne supposedly placed on the Lions franchise shortly after being traded in 1958. The trade was, granted, rather odd. The Lions were coming off a championship, and while Layne wasn’t the one under center (he was hurt and Tobin Rote took over late in the season), he was back to starting status when the ‘58 season began.

Shortly after the season began, though, Layne was traded, to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and not only was the move surprising, it was abrupt. Just like that, the greatest QB in Lions history was gone. And there is no shortage of theories as to why.

Layne was involved with gamblers. He owed money. He had crossed the line off the field with his playboy-like behavior. His drinking, also legendary, had finally pushed to envelope too far. Whatever. Bottom line was, he wasn’t a Lion anymore. On his way out of town, Layne allegedly uttered these words, or something similar: “The Lions won’t win for at least fifty years.”

That was 50 years and five months ago.

So now there’s this: Stafford, as fate would have it, happened to attend the same Dallas high school that Layne and another Lions legend, Doak Walker, attended.

Cue the proponents of karma.

Bobby Layne, the pride of Highland Park High in Dallas (as if that matters)

The drafting of Stafford will be, to the point of ad nauseam, portrayed as the move to make because, how can you go wrong by drafting a kid who went to the same high school as Layne and Walker?

Forget that the Lions have probably, throughout their history, drafted countless players who attended the same high schools as other, more famous (and better) players.

But this is an understandable crutch the Lions fan is almost sure to use to keep himself propped up, mentally if nothing else, as the Draft approaches.

50 years. A nice, round number. The length of the supposed Curse. And now Stafford happens on the scene, right on cue.

It’s all hogwash, of course. But don’t tell the Lions fan; let him (and her) play with this bone for a couple months. Or longer, if the Lions actually do draft Stafford.

Fantastic — as if the kid needs anymore pressure; now they’d heap this Curse Breaker status on him? Just because of the high school he attended?

For now, at least, Stafford sounds confident and eager to take on the challenge. For sure.

“I don’t know if it’s destiny, but I’d love to have the opportunity to be a Lion, for sure,” Stafford said. “I think it’s a great opportunity for me. It could work out in the end, for sure.”

Sure it could.

You should know, before you give Stafford too many points for being upbeat, that all kids entering the draft utter such confident words. It’s cute, really, how naive and non-cynical they are at this age. Give him a few years and check back.

I remember how bright and confident Joey Harrington was when he breezed into town in 2002. His upbeat ‘tude even earned him the derisive nickname of “Joey Blue Skies.” How DARE he look at the Lions’ glass and find it half full!

I remember Andre Ware raising his fists — both of them — in triumph as the ESPN cameras caught him at home, moments after being drafted by the Lions in 1990.

“Run-n-shoot, baby!,” Ware yelled, referring to coach Wayne Fontes’s new offensive scheme, one that Ware himself ran at the University of Houston.

So Stafford is wearing his Honolulu Blue-colored glasses as he talks bravely of wanting to be the one to break whatever it is that has been dogging the Lions.

You want to know what’s been cursing the Lions?

Bad drafts. Bad trades. Bad coaches. Bad management decisions. Bad ownership, of course.

Not bad luck. Not some sort of make believe curse, levied on a team by a bitter, emotionally wounded quarterback on his way out of town.

So this talk of Stafford and his connection to Dallas’ Highland Park High? Silly, plain and simple.

But it makes for something that weary Lions fans can hang their helmets on. As Stafford would say, for sure.

Whether Matthew Stafford can save the Lions won’t have a lick to do with what high school he attended. Won’t have anything to do with Bobby Layne or Doak Walker or some make believe curse. If the kid is good enough, and he gets enough good coaching and blocking and support around him, then he has a shot. If not, then he’ll be another bust — another huge disappointment.

For sure.

Therrien Gets The Ziggy, And An Old Axiom Is Re-proved

“The league has been especially brutal on its coaches this season. We should have seen it coming, when Chicago fired Denis Savard about a week into the campaign. It started then, and hasn’t really let up.”

 

Fire the coach!

When all else fails — or even when just a little bit fails.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are the latest NHL team to render the ziggy. Michel Therrien got it Sunday, barely eight months after leading his team to the Stanley Cup Gosh Darn Finals, no less.

If that’s what happens to a Cup Finalist less than a year later…

It’s easier, they say, to can the coach than change all the players. Even though, ironically, it’s probably the players who are the cause for the coaching change to begin with.

Therrien was too tough on his players, it’s been theorized. Too strict with the discipline. Too rigid in his insistence that everyone — EVERYONE — play defense. Well, the nerve.

Time to change the messenger.

Former football coach Bum Phillips said it best.

“If they want to fire you, they’ll think of a reason. You’re too nice. You’re too mean.”

And this: “There’s two kinds of coaches: them’s that have BEEN fired, and them’s that are GOING to be fired. And I’ve been both.”

Therrien’s dismissal was accompanied by the usual excuse: his players were beginning to tune him out. Now, Therrien has only been on the job in Pittsburgh since midway through the 2005-06 season, when he took over for Eddie Olczyk, who now gabs into a microphone (and quite nicely, I might add) for network TV hockey coverage. So this was Therrien’s third full season — and the last one of those, as I said, featured a berth in the Cup Finals. Yet three years is like dog years: it might as well be 21, if you’re talking about the patience GMs and owners exhibit with their coaches.

Fire the coach!

So that’s what you can look forward to, if you’re a coach in the NHL. You can look forward to making it to first runner-up, and still end up getting canned less than a year later anyway.

The league has been especially brutal on its coaches this season. We should have seen it coming, when Chicago fired Denis Savard about a week into the campaign. It started then, and hasn’t really let up. Tampa Bay gave Barry Melrose about a month. And that after luring him from his broadcast lair, making a big show of it.

Therrien will be replaced by someone named Dan Bylsma, who was minding his own business, coaching the Pens’ top minor league affiliate, when Pittsburgh GM Ray Shero called him up to The Show. The replacement of Therrien with the minor leaguer Bylsma is a repeat of how Therrien himself came to be the Penguins’ coach; he was coaching in the minors when Olczyk was ziggied. Bylsma, 38, is a former NHL player and assistant coach, and a little research revealed that he was born in Grand Haven, Michigan. Fancy that.

Bylsma immediately started saying things that sounded just like a new coach who’s trying to make an immediate imprint, which he is, of course.

“With the strengths we have, we should be able to go into buildings and make teams deal with the quality of players we have at every position,” Bylsma was quoted on ESPN.com. “I look at a group that can win games right now, and we need to do that. We can do this, but the players have to believe we can do this.”

Yadda, yadda, yadda — right?

And, as scripted, Shero played the role of anguished executioner thusly: “I didn’t like the way, the direction, the team was headed. I’ve watched for a number of weeks and, at the end of the day, the direction is not that I wanted to have here. I wasn’t comfortable, and that’s why the change was made.”

“I can’t quit, you fired me!”

For sure, the Penguins have struggled, especially lately. The straw that broke Therrien’s back was a grisly 6-2 loss in Toronto on Saturday — a game in which the Penguins led, 2-1, going into the third period. Last week I wrote of how feeble the Penguins’ effort was when the Red Wings manhandled them in Pittsburgh on national television. So it’s not like the Penguins don’t have their troubles, because they do. No question. They’re having an awful time of it this season, trying to regain that mojo, and the playoffs are beginning to edge further and further from their grasp. Therrien, I’m sure, can’t be judged an innocent, either. The buck has to stop somewhere.

It all just serves to re-prove a time-worn axiom — one succinctly stated by former Pistons coach Earl Lloyd, shortly after becoming coach following Butch van Breda Kolff’s self-ziggy way back in 1971.

“It’s funny,” Earl said. “But when you sign on to become coach, you’re also signing your own termination papers.’”

Fire the coach!

It can’t hurt…right?

If It’s February, It’s Another Directive To Trade Thames

“Unselfishly, I’d love to see Thames get his 500+ AB and hit 40-45 HRs. But selfishly, I like him where he’s at — on the Tigers’ roster, his right-handed-hitting cannon at the ready.”

 

Marcus Thames is the Tigers’ groundhog.

Every year in February, he shows his face, and if he sees his shadow it means six weeks of trade rumors.

We don’t even know what the alternative is, because Thames keeps seeing his shadow.

It’s already begun for 2009.

Lynn Henning of the Detroit News lobbed the first “trade Thames” volley over the weekend, when he included this among his crystal ball observations: “The Tigers decide they can’t hold Marcus Thames hostage to a part-time position that becomes even more part-time because of Carlos Guillen’s move to left field. Mercifully, they find him a new home ahead of Opening Day. It becomes a good deal for both teams when Thames is packaged with a pitcher for a solid infield prospect.”

They’ve been trading Marcus Thames for three years now, and he’s still a Tiger. And don’t be surprised if he’s still in Detroit on Opening Day, despite Henning’s and others’ directives.

Don’t get me wrong; I agree that Thames probably deserves to play more. But it could be that he’s best in the role that he’s had, which is that of a glorified part-time player who is in scoring position the moment he steps into the batter’s box.

Thames, I have long maintained, is the strongest man, physically, that the Tigers have employed since the days of Cecil Fielder, who was the strongest since Willie Horton, who was the strongest of them all when he showed up on the scene in 1963.

Thames launches another one into the stratosphere

 

Thames’s brute power is almost legendary in Motown. He’s averaged an almost Babe Ruthian one home run per 14 AB since he’s been a Tiger, including one per 12.6 AB last season (25 HR, 316 AB). And he’s done it playing half his games in a ballpark that isn’t exactly a haven for right-handed hitters, with its expansive alley in left center.

While it would be nice to give Thames 500 AB and watch the fireworks happen, it’s simply not going to happen, as long as Guillen is around to play left field. But Guillen hasn’t exactly been the most durable player lately; what happens if his back tightens up or any other of his past ailments flares up again? Isn’t it nice to be able to plug a guy like Thames in the lineup?

Selfish? Perhaps. But unless MLB allows four outfielders, a la slow-pitch softball, then Marcus Thames isn’t going to be an everyday player. Period. Gary Sheffield, his body willing, is slated to get most of the plate appearances as the Tigers’ DH. Thames lugs a first baseman’s mitt, too — so he could spell Miguel Cabrera on occasion.

See? Groundhog Day. The same role Thames has played year after year in Detroit. And that’s not bad. There are a bunch of teams that would kill to have a player like Thames on the bench. That smacks of him being great trade bait, but what is it they say about sometimes the best trades are the ones you don’t make?

Unselfishly, I’d love to see Thames get his 500+ AB and hit 40-45 HRs. But selfishly, I like him where he’s at — on the Tigers’ roster, his right-handed-hitting cannon at the ready.

The media folks — and some of the fans — in Detroit keep trading Marcus Thames. I wish they’d stop, because the more they keep trading him, the more likely it is that he actually will be. And something tells me that it will be a move the Tigers are likely to rue.

Yzerman At Peace; Skates Don’t Beckon Him

“It’s all about trying to win Gold for Team Canada, and the more you hear Yzerman talk about that, the more he sounds like an executive, and not just someone who plays one on TV.”

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Red Wings legend retires, gets kicked upstairs to the front office. Becomes a team vice president, but has no real job description.

It’s still happening in Detroit, but this time all’s well.

The Red Wings – most notably owner Bruce Norris and GM Ned Harkness – levied such obscene behavior on Gordie Howe, once upon a time. Actually, I have years for you: 1971 and ’72. That’s when Gordie hung up the skates, started wearing a suit and tie, and went to his office inside Olympia Stadium to watch the paint dry.

“They gave me the mushroom treatment,” Howe said in an oft-repeated line. “They kept me in the dark and every once in a while they opened the door and dumped (manure) on me.”

Only, Gordie didn’t say manure.

The Red Wings, on the surface, seem to be doing it again, this time to Steve Yzerman.

“I still have no specific job description with the Red Wings,” Yzerman was telling us media types via phone the other day. He’s an Executive Vice President now, Steve Yzerman is, and that’s been his title ever since he announced his retirement as a player back in July 2006. And though his words indicate that the Red Wings don’t have anything for him to do, a la Mr. Hockey, rest easy.

“I hang around the team a lot,” Yzerman said, clarifying his previous statement. “I’m trying to learn both the business side and the personnel side. I travel with the team sometimes. I spend a lot of time watching hockey.

“Between the Internet and TV, you hear a lot. I get forwarded a lot of e-mails.”

What Yzerman is hearing “a lot” about these days, from the Net and TV, is the Olympics. And with good reason. For Yzerman, you see, is the Executive Director of Team Canada for the 2010 Winter Games. That means he’s in charge, basically, of putting together the team, from top to bottom, that will compete in Vancouver for his native country. He was named to the post last October.

So that’s taking up the bulk of his time – but not as a distraction from any sort of “mushroom treatment” that the Red Wings are heaping on him. Yzerman is content to be the learning VP – functioning as a sponge among the team’s vaunted brain trust of GM Ken Holland, Senior VP Jimmy Devellano, and assistant GM Jim Nill. It’s a tact that Yzerman says he’s using with Team Canada’s management team, which includes current and former GMs like Holland, Doug Armstrong, and Kevin Lowe. Oh, and there’s one more hockey person that Yzerman leans on for advice.

“Wayne Gretzky told me that he’s always available,” Yzerman said of The Great One, who is functioning as a senior adviser for Team Canada, having once performed the job that Yzerman currently has. “Wayne was one of the first people I talked to [after getting the Team Canada job]. Having Kenny (Holland) around is invaluable.”

Is there a danger, I asked, of getting too much advice?

“Yeah, I think so,” Yzerman said. “But at the end of the day, I have to make the decisions. I like talking to people, listening to people. But I’m the one who makes the decisions.”

Howe made no real decisions with the Red Wings. The shameful treatment he received was a big reason why No. 9 retired from retirement and joined his sons in the fledgling World Hockey Association in 1973.

But if you’re wondering, as I had been, if Yzerman is tempted to put the skates back on and slap the puck around, wonder no longer. I hit him cold with the question.

Does this Olympic process, being so close to players and pursuing Gold, give you the itch to compete at the ultimate level – that of player?

“I don’t miss playing at all,” Yzerman told me. “The only time I thought about playing was when I was watching the World Junior Championships [in Moscow]. I was watching those kids play and I got kind of envious. But the more I’m exposed to the management side, the less I miss playing.”

So there you have it. The skates don’t beckon him, not one bit, save that moment of weakness in Russia. The suit and tie fit him nicely, thank you.

Yzerman: He’s gotten used to this look

It’s all about trying to win Gold for Team Canada, and the more you hear Yzerman talk about that, the more he sounds like an executive, and not just someone who plays one on TV.

“I want a well-balanced team,” he said of his vision for Team Canada. “One that’s solid defensively. Balanced teams win, whether it’s the Stanley Cup or in the Olympics,” Yzerman, who should know, added. “We want to attack and defend. We want to play with the puck. Because once you lose it at this level, it’s so hard to get it back.”

So, a team like the Red Wings, basically?

“Well, the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup last year,” Yzerman said, as if we needed reminding.

For the record, Yzerman says he and his team of suits will name a coaching staff shortly after the Stanley Cup Finals in June. He talked of wanting to know strengths and weaknesses and personalities of coaching candidates before rendering a decision.

“Just like how we’re watching players, we’re also watching coaches,” Yzerman said, sounding very executive-ish.

The playing days are three years in the rearview mirror now, and fading fast. Steve Yzerman is at peace, very much so.

“It’s been a great transition,” he said, “from being a player to being in management.”

So that’s one thing The Captain has on Mr. Hockey. By far.

It’s Probably Stafford, But Lions Need Pass Rush Help Badly

“In his prime, at his best, there wasn’t a better pass rusher in Lions history, save for perhaps Bubba Baker, than Michael Cofer. And the Lions haven’t been able to get to the other team’s passer since.”

I did some heavy research — I’m telling you, I slaved over this — with my focus being the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. After exhaustive work, I came up with this common denominator: No quarterback in the eighty-plus years that the NFL has operated has thrown a single touchdown pass while standing on the sidelines.

I told you it was exhaustive.

It won’t mean a gosh darn thing (this is a family website) if the Lions draft Matthew Stafford, or resurrect Daunte Culpepper, or reanimate Jon Kitna, or transform Dan Orlovsky, or develop Drew Stanton. Won’t matter how freakish Calvin Johnson continues to be. Won’t matter how brilliant of a runner Kevin Smith turns out to be. Won’t even matter how much they improve their Swiss cheese offensive line. None of it will mean a lick if the Lions cannot do one simple thing: get their defense off the freaking (again, family website) field on third down.

Third down is a pro football bellwether. Succeed on it offensively, and you keep drives alive and wear down the defense. Succeed on it defensively, and you severely limit damage against you. And, you keep those dangerous offensive weapons the opponents have on the sidelines, where, as I proved through my research, they can’t harm you.

The Lions, as you can imagine for a team that whiffed on all sixteen of their games last season, were horrible on third down. None of their QBs threw a TD pass from the sidelines, which not only kept the league streak alive, but took away the Lions’ passers best chance. For it was only on the sidelines where the Lions QBs could guarantee themselves tranquility and non-harrassment. On offense, their conversion percentage on third down was among the worst in the league. On defense? Teams made first downs on the Lions while in third down situations as if they were performing non-contact drills in training camp.

The worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) example of this heinous aspect was when the New Orleans Saints marched into Ford Field in December. The Saints went 11-for-11 — yes, you read that correctly — on third down. The official stats show 11-for-12, but that was only because of a kneel-down at the end of the game. A mercy non-conversion.

I’m too tired from the other research, or else I might try this: has any team — and I’ll be willing to include pee-wee teams — EVER gone 11-for-11 on third down? That just seems almost impossible to fathom, had it not actually happened to the Lions. Heck, has anyone ever done that in electric football?

In my opinion, that stat — 0-for-11 on third down stops — was the most damning of all the ghoulish numbers posted by the Lions in 2008. And it was the premier indictment of why the team’s defense needs serious overhaul.

It’s also why I hope the Lions don’t draft Stafford, or Mark Sanchez, with the no. 1 overall pick in the 2009 Draft.

The Lions need to get off the field on third down. Being unable to do so is demoralizing, bad for conditioning, and a key ingredient to any losing recipe.

There are many reasons for this inability. In fact, where do you want to start? You barely have enough fingers to use as pointers.

There’s the secondary, made up of possibly the worst collection of pass defenders ever assembled. There’s the linebacking corps, which is Ernie Sims and a bunch of bozos. There’s the defensive line, which is incapable of putting consistent pressure on the quarterback. Sometimes, just one of these three aspects is enough to cook you on third down, defensively. The Lions possess all three. Hence the Saints’ 11-for-11 that Sunday afternoon in December. And the Lions NFL-last ranking in third down defense.

Oh, how I wish the Lions resist temptation and bypass Stafford, Sanchez, or any QB in the first round and use their early picks to shore up their God-awful defense. Specifically, the pass rush.

Quick, name the Lions’ last big-time pass rusher. OK, not so quick. I’ll wait.

I’m still waiting.

OK, I’ll help you out. You remember a marvelous LB/DE named Michael Cofer? Cofer was a beast; almost unblockable. Had he played for a winning team for any length of time, he would have been mentioned among the Lawrence Taylors of the world.

Michael Cofer, the Lions’ last true pass rushing specialist

 

The last time I saw Cofer, I was at the Silverdome and he was being carted off the field after a win over the Miami Dolphins. That was in September 1991. He had suffered a severe knee injury that wound up being career-ending. He had 62.5 sacks as a Lion, but just two after that injury.

In his prime, at his best, there wasn’t a better pass rusher in Lions history, save for perhaps Bubba Baker, than Michael Cofer. And the Lions haven’t been able to get to the other team’s passer since.

It would be nice if they started doing it again. Of all the above-mentioned aspects of third down defense, I think you wouldn’t be wrong if you placed “pressure the quarterback” No. 1 on the priority list.

A solid pass rush is the first domino. Once knocked over, it affects the rest of the defense, in a positive way. Not the least of which is to hide, as much as possible, a weak secondary. Even the best DBs can only cover receivers for so long. Bad DBs need as much help as they can get.

Aaron Curry, a hybrid LB/DE type from Wake Forest, could fit the bill. But, there aren’t too many others who would be worthy of the No. 1 overall pick. The Lions could trade and drop down in the pecking order, of course.

Yet it looks like the Lions are going to draft Stafford after all. I wouldn’t go looking for razor blades and cyanide if they do so, because Stafford is, indeed, a heck of a prospect. But I would worry that he’d become another Lions draft bust at that position. And, there’s this: not WHERE would Stafford play, but WHEN?

The Lions never have the football.

Give Me The Drunks Over The Injectors Anyday

“I doubt alcohol ever helped pad anyone’s stats, or caused hat sizes to increase or turned David Banners into Incredible Hulks.”

 

I’m old enough to remember the good old days of baseball, when the players were drunk instead of on steroids.

It wasn’t all that long ago when the vice of choice was over-indulging with the bottle. Maybe the last drunk of note was pitcher Dickie Noles, who was a Tiger briefly in 1987. In fact, Noles was actually traded for himself. The Tigers got him from the Cubs for a player to be named later. That player turned out to be Noles himself.

But I digress. All this talk of Alex Rodriguez, the latest high-profile player to be outed as having steroided himself, continues to place the spotlight on HGH and BALCO and other nefarious acronyms.

Long gone are the days when the foreign substances players ingested had names like Johnny Walker, Jim Beam, and Cutty Sark. Oh, and Budweiser and Stroh’s and Pabst.

Drinking and baseball used to be married, in a way that caused not outrage and disgust, but instead induced winks and smirks. The stories have been told again and again of Babe Ruth’s hangovers and Grover Cleveland Alexander’s alcohol-caused fogs on the mound. Of Ryne Duren’s tipsy behavior as he delivered 90+ mph fastballs that no one knew were headed — least of all Duren himself.

Noles, who I mentioned earlier, was famous for beer consumption. He was purported to once have consumed 24 beers in a single night. The 1968 Tigers, those World Champions, had many players who liked their beverages.

Alcohol, though, caused tragedy when “Big Ed” Delahanty — a feared hitter around the turn of the 20th century — imbibed too much and in a drunken rage, was kicked off a train in upstate New York. Big Ed fell to his death (he may have jumped off a bridge) near Niagara Falls.

“Big Ed” Delahanty — a great hitter and an even greater drinker

I don’t like to think about this steroids thing. I know that smacks of the ostrich mentality of sticking my head in the sand, but I don’t care. I would rather concentrate on what goes on, ON the field, than off it. But with steroids, it’s hard to ignore because they appear to have so much influence over actual performance. I doubt alcohol ever helped pad anyone’s stats, or caused hat sizes to increase or turned David Banners into Incredible Hulks.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not tolerating alcohol abuse, not at all. But if that was the worst thing you had to worry about when it came to what your baseball heroes did during their down time, then that’s not so bad, is it? And the game’s records would still have sanctity.

You can’t go back, I know.

Save The Kleenex: Pistons Dead, But May Be Re-animated

“The Pistons, as you once knew them, have passed on. It was inevitable. Death is part of life. Maybe they can once again make like Jason and re-appear for yet another sequel. We’ll see.”

 

Here lies the Detroit Pistons. Rest in Peace. Once, they were a team to fear, a squad that smelled blood and came armed with hammers, ready to pound the nails into your coffin. Champions once, almost twice. Beasts of the East, if nothing else. Dead, at age seven, having finally succumbed to a long illness.

Their last words, according to those friends and family surrounding them as they passed away, were “I can’t believe it’s over.”

The Pistons passed away last night, in Chicago of all places. The Bulls have killed the Pistons twice now — once in the 1991 East Finals in Auburn Hills, and — after the Pistons had been resurrected, a la Jason in a “Friday The 13th” movie — they slayed them again.

The final, mortal blow came in rather surprising fashion.

The Pistons blew a 15-point lead with seven minutes to play. Or, if you like your obituaries REALLY ghoulish, they coughed up a 10-point lead with about three minutes left. When you can’t even win the games that have already been won, then you know the end is near. And, just like that, the Pistons expired.

The Pistons are dead. Long live the new beasts of the East, the Boston Celtics. Maybe the Cleveland Cavaliers, with their King LeBron, can overtake them. We’ll see. But the playoffs will not include much drama from the Pistons, who will be the only team in the tournament to show up post-mortem.

Pay your respects as this season winds down. If you’re a person of faith, bless their souls as they dissipate into the afterlife. The Pistons, as you once knew them, have passed on. It was inevitable. Death is part of life. Maybe they can once again make like Jason and re-appear for yet another sequel. We’ll see.

The long illness to which the Pistons ultimately succumbed was a fatal bacterial strain of pouting players, rookie head coach, inconsistent rotation, loss of appetite, and hubris. Doctor Dumars tried a jolt to the cadaver with the Allen Iverson trade, but its effects were minimal. There simply, in the end, wasn’t enough un-poisoned blood coursing through the team’s veins to sustain life.

So no time for tears. This is a wake but it shouldn’t be funereal. Just hope that Dumars can be The Reanimator and bring back his monster for another run. Last time the Pistons died, it took more than a decade to come back to life. It’s unlikely to take that long again, what with all the marquee free agents available a year from this summer. So at least there’s that, to get you through the grieving process.

The Detroit Pistons, Part II: 2001-2009. They’d only begun to live. But, at the same time, they seemed so old, too. Funny, huh?

Smart Money Says Bet On Verlander In 2009

“This is a young man who’s never had to deal with NOT being good, at any time in his baseball career… Maybe a gentle reminder that these are the big leagues and you have to constantly earn your keep will suit him well.”

 

Psst, want a sure bet? Looking to take something to the bank?

I got one for you. Sign, seal, and deliver it. Call up the folks in Vegas and book it, and good. Tell ‘em you heard it here first — I’m not afraid.

Spread the word. Justin Verlander is bouncing back, like a super ball, from last year’s anomaly season.

This one is golden. You can’t lose. Can’t go wrong here. Verlander is going to make American League hitters pay, and pay good, for last year’s transgressions. Their success at his expense is about to end.

Why am I so sure?

Easy. The kid is good, damn good. Too good to NOT have a bounce back year in 2009. I trumpeted him as a Hall of Famer, some 10-15 years hence, last year and I’m not backing down. I’m not letting a bizarre 2008 season (11-17, 4.84 ERA) dissuade me. Verlander didn’t have his mojo last season, and it happens to the best of them. It just doesn’t happen very often, is all. JV had his mulligan. We won’t see that for a while, I promise you.

Let’s not forget that Verlander is still only 25 (he turns 26 on Feb. 20). He’s allowed a season, this early in his career, when he gets a little frustrated and out of sorts. This is a young man who’s never had to deal with NOT being good, at any time in his baseball career. Maybe it all came a little too easily for him in 2006 and 2007, when he burst onto the scene and struck out a bunch of people and made it into the World Series and was Rookie of the Year and threw a no-hitter, among other accomplishments those first two seasons. Maybe a gentle reminder that these are the big leagues and you have to constantly earn your keep will suit him well.

Then, there’s new pitching coach Rick Knapp, who the Tigers hired to replace Chuck Hernandez. Knapp comes from the vaunted Minnesota Twins organization, which has been a factory of sorts when it comes to young pitchers. I have a feeling that another voice, and specifically that of Knapp’s, won’t do anything to hurt JV’s chances of bouncing back, either.

But the bottom line is talent. Verlander is simply too good to scuffle along for another season. Will he have his dicey moments? Of course. He just won’t have too many of them in 2009, and in the years ahead. And, the more he pitches in the big leagues, the more he builds his arm strength and stamina, which were bugaboos even in his ‘06 and ‘07 seasons. AND, the more he learns to pitch, both physically and mentally.

Verlander, I’m telling you, is going to be another Jack Morris type. You’ll need a small army to take the ball out of his hands, especially when a big game has to be won. I can also see him developing Morris’s snarl, which was a big reason why The Cat was so successful, especially as his career wore on.

So quit buying those scratch-off lottery tickets. Stop licking those Publisher’s Clearing House stickers. Just put your dough on Verlander having a big 2009.

Count it!

Red Wings’ Dismantling Of Penguins Not Surprising

“Two things can be culled from yesterday’s whipping. One, the Red Wings proved why they should be considered Cup favorites, no matter what those Sharks in San Jose are doing… Second, the Penguins are finding out what a difference a year can make.”

Once again, the NHL’s Eastern Conference is chewing up and spitting out the previous spring’s conference champion.

Add the Pittsburgh Penguins to the list of vanquished Red Wings opponents in the Stanley Cup Finals who appear to be one-hit wonders.

In 1997, the supposedly big, bad Philadelphia Flyers — who were going to bully and abuse the Red Wings physically on their way to the Cup — were swept, rather easily, by Detroit. The following season, the Flyers went one-and-out, losing in the first round of the playoffs in five games.

In 1998, the Washington Capitals somehow snuck into the Cup Finals, and were dutifully dispatched in four games by the Red Wings — a series whose only drama was in Game 2, a heart-stopping comeback win for Detroit. The next season? The Caps went 31-45-6 and weren’t close to making the playoffs.

In 2002, the Carolina Hurricanes were the latest “Cinderella” team to play for Lord Stanley’s Cup. After a surprising Game 1 overtime loss in Detroit, the Red Wings flicked the ‘Canes off their shoulders in four straight. The following season, the ‘Canes sunk to a miserable 22-43-11-6 record.

The 2008-09 Penguins?

The Red Wings lost to the Pens, 7-6, in Detroit in November, but that was clearly a fluke. The Penguins didn’t put up much of a fight in yesterday’s 3-0 loss, at home, on national TV. One example of why they run the risk of being yet another Red Wings Cup Final victim to fail to make the playoffs the following season could be found in the Wings’ final goal, late in the third period.

Pavel Datsyuk skated down the left wing, working against defenseman Kris Letang. Or, shall I say, OUTworking Letang. Datsyuk blasted a shot from the left wing, and after the rebound was kicked out considerably by Marc-Andre Fleury, Datsyuk showed more determination and effort in wrangling the loose puck, then muscling a backhander that trickled through Fleury’s pads while Letang made a feeble attempt to stop him. Datsyuk made Letang look like an old man. Earlier, Marian Hossa skated between the circles without much resistance before he, too, deposited a backhand shot past Fleury.

Both goals were the result of one team working harder than the other. And wouldn’t you think the Penguins would be the hungrier of the two clubs?

Two things can be culled from yesterday’s whipping. One, the Red Wings proved why they should be considered Cup favorites, no matter what those Sharks in San Jose are doing. Why? Because the Red Wings don’t cruise. They don’t take anything for granted. And they’re never truly happy with their game. Second, the Penguins are finding out what a difference a year can make.

To be fair, the Penguins have lost some people, both to retirement and free agency. Not the least of which is goalie Ty Conklin, who is making the Red Wings feel warm and fuzzy that they might have a suitable Plan B in the post-season, should Chris Osgood remain shaky. And of course, the Pens lost Hossa, who almost nightly shows why he’s an elite player in this world, or any world.

It all underscores how amazing the Red Wings’ past 16 years have been. In just about every one of those 16 springs, you could make a very good case for why the Red Wings are a legitimate Cup contender. Yes, there have been playoff disappointments aplenty, but that doesn’t change what the Wings’ status was, going in. Sixteen straight playoffs of being a Cup favorite. And these Eastern Conference Cup Finalists can’t even make the playoffs just one season later? It can’t be because of all the travel; Eastern Conference teams hardly have to even change time zones throughout the season.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, led by their superstar Sydney Crosby, are on the verge of being on the outside looking in come playoff time. This can’t make league commissioner Gary Bettman feel very good. To have one of the NHL’s faces at home come April has to give him the willies.

But Crosby was another Penguin who was a milk carton candidate Sunday afternoon. His presence on the ice was mainly a rumor. It wasn’t just a bad day; it was because of what the Red Wings did to him.

The Red Wings seem to relish these “test” games. They slapped the Chicago Blackhawks down a couple notches at the turn of the year when the young Hawks got too big for their britches. And, with the country watching (well, this is the NHL, so with about 3% of the country watching), the Red Wings girded themselves and totally shut down the Pens, that 7-6 loss now a distant memory, for both teams.

Does a 3-0 win in February mean the Red Wings are going to hoist another Stanley Cup this June, their fifth in twelve years? No. But it sure as hell didn’t do anything to weaken their status.

Strong Cup contenders. Again. Seventeen years and counting.

That ain’t bad.

Zetterberg, Holland Put Legitimacy On A Bombastic Town Nickname

“Three years ago, even after Holland’s brilliance had helped the Red Wings capture two more Cups, there was a stray naysayer out there. Me.”

 

It’s a nickname that I’m still not totally comfortable with, but I suppose it’s time for me to admit it: it’s not going anyway anytime soon. Detroiters aren’t about to relinquish it, no matter how misguidedly it was acquired.

Pittsburgh is a gritty, blue-collar, hard-working city, just like Detroit. Steel City, and with good reason. The football team proudly wears a bastardized version of the U.S. Steel logo on its helmets. Even the town’s name smacks of beer, dirty hands lifting those mugs, and lunch pails: Pittsburgh. It’s a city whose name you say with a sneer.

You can call Pittsburgh “Steel City” with impunity. Everyone has my permission.

But here comes the one that makes me wince.

“Hockeytown.”

We’ve declared ourselves such in Detroit. If others in other cities are aghast that we’ve claimed an entire sport as our own, well, I don’t blame them. Is there a Football City? A Basketball Burg? A Baseball Village?

Yet in Detroit, we lay claim to hockey as ours and ours alone, apparently.

I’ll say it again: I wonder what the good folks in Montreal must think of such a travesty. Last I looked, no team in the NHL can touch the Canadiens’ 24 Stanley Cups won. Huh. Funny that Montreal isn’t “Hockeytown”, don’t ya think?

Hmmm.

But then I thought of it another way. Steel City is apt because of all the, well, steel that’s produced in Pittsburgh. Hollywood is “Tinsel Town” with loads of logic. Boston is “Beantown”, and that’s OK by me, too. Heck, I was fine with “Motor City” for Detroit – so why did we need “Hockeytown”?

But using the above reasoning, I can abide Hockeytown, I suppose – but only because of this hypothesis: if they make steel in Steel City, then can we say that Detroit churns out hockey people?

The answer is unequivocally, yes.

Pittsburgh makes steel. Detroit makes hockey people. So, makes sense.

Two examples nudge me this morning as to the scope of the Red Wings’ dominance in the hockey-making business.

Henrik Zetterberg is, as they say, one of the “home grown” Red Wings. That is, he was drafted by the team (210^th overall in 1999), and has played only for the Red Wings in his career. And, thanks to an outrageous (but deserved, nonetheless) contract he signed last week, Zetterberg will retire as a Red Wing, some 12, 13 years hence. Or longer. He’ll be the next Steve Yzerman in that sense.

Zetterberg inked a 12-year deal (yeah, I said 12) to remain with the Red Wings through the 2021 season. When I look at 2021, I start to get all Arthur C. Clarke and Buck Rogers. Will they even have hockey in 2021? Or will it be some game played up in space, like an episode of The Jetsons?

Regardless of where they play it, or with what equipment (jet packs on the players’ backs?), Zetterberg will play it in Detroit, for the Red Wings. You can insert a gallows joke here about whether Detroit will be around in 2021, but let’s not get cynical here, OK?

Zetterberg is the second-best player, right behind Nicklas Lidstrom, on a team loaded with stars. And he was due to become an unrestricted free agent this summer. There really wasn’t much concern that Z would flee the Red Wings for greener rinks, but you never know. Funny things have happened in sports once that free agency status gets reached. Better to lock up your star players before any other team can get its mitts on them.

So the Red Wings did, because that’s what they do. They keep people around who are worth keeping. Which isn’t that easy to do under today’s CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) with the Players Association, with its hard salary cap that forces budgeting.

It took creativity to keep Z around while at the same time not gobbling up too much salary cap space.

 

Holland (above) got creative in keeping Zetterberg (top) a “Red Wing for life”

 

 

Enter the second example of Detroit’s hockey-producing ability.

General Manager Ken Holland authored himself quite a deal with Zetterberg. The 12 years was mainly so that the Red Wings could keep Z’s annual salary hit within reason, thus allowing for more money for other of the team’s stars. It was brainy, creative, and typical of Holland, who only happens to be among the top executives in all of sports.

Holland, too, is “home grown.”

He played a few games for the Red Wings in the mid-1980s, as a goalie. Suffice it to say that he was no Terry Sawchuk between the pipes. Heck, he was no Jim Rutherford, either. It was clear that goaltending wasn’t going to be Holland’s path to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

So the Red Wings convinced him to give up trying to stop pucks, and start looking for others who could.

Holland became a scout, being assigned to the western part of Canada, from where he hailed. His charge was to visit towns with names that even sounded cold and desolate and tiny, and dig himself up some hockey players who could, one day, don the Winged Wheel on those blood red sweaters.

He did that quite well, and earned himself some promotions. Eventually, Holland rose to the post of Scouting Director. Then, after the Red Wings’ Stanley Cup in 1997, Holland was promoted again, this time to General Manager. He hired the best scouts in the business. He found Zetterberg, after all, after 209 other players had been drafted in 1999.

The naysayers had a field day. They were rubbing their hands and ready to pounce. How could a rookie GM co-exist with the veteran, stubborn coach, Scotty Bowman? A lot of those folks didn’t give Kenny Holland an ice rink’s chance in Hell to succeed.

Three years ago, even after Holland’s brilliance had helped the Red Wings capture two more Cups, there was a stray naysayer out there. Me.

“Now we’ll see,” I screamed in print in a now-defunct magazine, “what kind of GM Ken Holland really is!” I also took my concerns to the Internet, several times.

My implication was thus: working under a new CBA in 2005, with its salary cap, would Holland have the chops to navigate it? After all, his previous success was aided by the Red Wings’ determination to spend and spend, much like baseball’s New York Yankees. Let’s see Holland do it with a budget!

He did.

Another Cup in 2008. Still some clever trades. Still some smart signings. And all done under the new CBA’s restrictions.

Take that, Eno!

I mentioned Hall of Fame earlier, and it was on purpose. Holland, it says here, is headed for enshrinement, as an executive. So is Zetterberg, in the more traditional role of player. Both home grown guys. Both “Red Wings for life.”

Both products of, ahem, Hockeytown.

No Panic, Just Fact: Osgood Not Right

“The Red Wings, struggling mightily to fight off the mid-winter blahs, had managed to forge themselves a nifty little two-goal lead in the third period. It looked, finally, like a game the Red Wings could put away and reclaim some confidence. Then Osgood struck.”

 

How’s this for a statistical anomaly?

The Detroit Red Wings — yes, those Red Wings who have the second-best record in the Western Conference — are among the worst in the NHL in save percentage. They rank 25th or 26th, depending on the day you look at the rankings.

How many teams ranked in the lower 15-20 percent of anything that important in hockey can you consider as Stanley Cup contenders? Yet the Red Wings are, and may still be the strongest of contenders when all is said and done.

Clearly, though, this is not the recipe for success. The Red Wings’ save percentage, which is not even at .900, is not going to get the job done in the playoffs, where even one bad goal can cost you a game and ultimately a series. Then there’s the penalty kill — especially the road kill (nice wording, huh?) — which is functioning at another heinously low rate of success. And what is it they say about your goaltender being your most potent penalty killer?

The save percentage number, and the road kill number, are aggregate; they’re team stats, in theory.

But there are only two netminders on the Red Wings’ roster, and one of them isn’t to blame for all of this.

Look not at Ty Conklin; he can be judged an innocent, for the most part.

That leaves one guy.

Chris Osgood, for reasons that we may never truly know — for trying to figure out goalies is like monkeying around with a Rubik’s Cube — is a bad goalie right now. He’s killing the Red Wings with zany, eye-rolling goals. They are goals that have been allowed in Detroit by the likes of Eddie Mio and Corrado Micalef and Bob Essensa. Nothing that you would expect from Osgood, with his hundreds of victories and two Stanley Cups as a starter.

Osgood’s not right. And time is running out to get him right.

This isn’t, I promise you, the annual hand-wringing over the Red Wings’ goalie situation. You know, the one that gets trotted out around this time of the year because there is, frankly, nothing else to worry about — because the division has been wrapped up and the playoffs are the A-train that we keep looking down the tracks for as we check our watch impatiently. No, this is the real deal; a real concern.

Osgood has been in search of the puck unsuccessfully too often this season

Osgood was at it again the other night, at home against Phoenix. The Red Wings, struggling mightily to fight off the mid-winter blahs, had managed to forge themselves a nifty little two-goal lead in the third period. It looked, finally, like a game the Red Wings could put away and reclaim some confidence. Then Osgood struck.

There was a goofy, short-side goal that the Coyotes scored because Osgood failed to defend the post in a move that would have earned him a do-over in Goalie 101. 4-3 Detroit. Then, another slap shot from the point eluded Osgood, tying the game — a goal oddly like the one the St. Louis Blues used a couple nights earlier to tie the Red Wings, also late in the third period. Phoenix 4, Detroit 4.

Nick Lidstrom saved the night, though, with a PP goal with less than a minute to play.

Coach Mike Babcock was at his best afterward, with his ability to call out his own players without embarrassing them too much.

“I think Lidstrom picked Osgood up,” Babcock said. Then, he refused to lay the blame of losing the 4-2 lead anywhere but at Osgood’s doorstep.

“I just think that the puck went into the net,” Babcock said, and his implication was crystal clear. It was Babcock-speak for: our goalie let us down tonight.

But Babcock wasn’t done. After word got back to the coach that Osgood, in his own post-game comments, mentioned that the Red Wings don’t seem to be as “loose” as they were last season, Babcock pounced.

“There’s one way to cure that,” he said, “and that’s to get better goaltending.”

Zing.

But it’s true. Osgood is fighting the puck — another ancient hockey term — and time’s running out to get him to win that battle. Don’t be misled by the Red Wings’ ability to overcome mediocre goaltending in the regular season. If Osgood doesn’t raise his game, then Babcock will have to duplicate last spring’s gutsy move, when he replaced starter Dominik Hasek with Osgood after Game 4 of the Nashville series. Only, this time it will be Osgood who will be lifted, Conklin (who’s played awfully well) replacing him. That is, of course, if Babcock turns to Ozzie as his starter to begin with. If there’s anything Babcock has shown since he’s been the Red Wings coach, it’s been his lack of shyness when it comes to making bold decisions.

The trouble is, so much of goaltending is the game that’s played between the ears. The goalie’s cerebellum is unlike that of any other human. That’s why a goalie coach might be the most underrated job in all of sports. The Red Wings have a good one in Jim Bedard. No doubt Bedard will have his work cut out for him between now and the playoffs.

Chris Osgood isn’t right. That’s not panic; it’s not overblown. It’s fact. This time, you’re allowed to worry with impunity.

Home Court Advantage? Not With These Pistons

“Of course, it’s merely symptomatic. The Pistons are a bad home team now because they are a bad team, period.”

So now it’s Dwyane Wade’s turn.

They’re lining up outside The Palace now, eager to kick the Pistons while they’re down.

On Friday, it was the star-studded Boston Celtics. On Sunday, King LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Now tonight, Wade and his Miami Heat. Another night where the Pistons will be asked to fold their trays into the upright position, strap on their seat belts, and pray that the oxygen mask drops down in time.

It’s not just the league’s brutuses, either. Not just the Houstons and Dallases and Utahs. The likes of the Minnesota (Timber)Wolves and Philadelphia 76ers have all come into the Auburn Hills Arena and spanked the Pistons, and good.

The Pistons are 13-11 at home this season, which in the NBA is a home record reserved for the dregs of the league. They’ve lost four straight and six of seven at home. All mind-boggling numbers. And disturbing. Quite.

As recently as a month ago, when I’d look at the Pistons’ upcoming schedule, I was able to pretty much count on most of the home games as being wins. The Pistons have defended The Palace well, for the most part, in the President Joe Dumars Era. Single-digit losses at home, for the entire season, had been the norm. Now, the Pistons are proving to be very gracious and generous hosts. Teams are being invited to dinner and end up sleeping in the master bedroom, while the Pistons grab the sofa for the night. Most generous, indeed.

The flip side is that the team is 12-10 on the road. Not sure what to make of this, except that it smacks of mediocrity and averageness, which is what the Pistons reek of.

It’s to the point where you just hope the Pistons can give these superstar-led teams a good game; forget about winning. Just don’t get embarrassed out there.

Whatever aura The Palace had, whatever intimidation factor it once held, is kaput. It’s like Michigan’s Big House in football; that place isn’t scary for the visitors anymore, either. When Toledo comes to town and lifts your valuables, then your Big House is officially Everyone’s House.

Not as intimidating as it once was

Home teams generally have more of an advantage in the NBA than in any other team sport, with the possible exception of Big Ten basketball, whose home court advantage is legendary. There’s the loudness factor, of course, but it’s also about intangibles: lighting, atmosphere, comfort, etc. The urban myth — it may be true — was that in the old Boston Garden, the Celtics knew where all the dead spots were on the parquet floor. There were also stories — NOT myths — of cold showers and rats in the visitors’ locker room.

But that advantage isn’t anywhere to be found, these days, in Auburn Hills.

Of course, it’s merely symptomatic. The Pistons are a bad home team now because they are a bad team, period. And when I say bad, I mean…well, bad. There’s really no way to sugarcoat this. The Pistons are lucky to be competitive on most nights, and they even struggle mightily to defeat the REALLY bad teams. It seems so hard for them now, and there’s no shortage of theories as to why that is. I’ll save you the heartache by not listing them here, today.

But home court, even when the road was rocky or the state of the team was in flux, has been the hot water bottle and teddy bear for struggling NBA teams. Even the worst teams have been able to manage .500 records, at least, in their own building.

The Pistons are playing .143 basketball at home for their past seven Palace contests.

Someone replaced their hot water bottle with dry ice.

Pudge Still Looking For Work; His Search May Be Fruitless

“We may have seen the last of Ivan Rodriguez in an MLB uniform. Unless he reinvents himself as a DH or a part-time first baseman.”

Five years ago, almost to the day, Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez put on a Detroit Tigers jersey, flashed that famous smile of his, and put legitimacy back onto a once-proud franchise that had just suffered through a 119-loss season.

It was February 6, 2004.

That’s when Pudge, fresh off a World Series win with the Florida Marlins, made like Woodward and Bernstein in “All the President’s Men” and followed the money. Out of work and with few teams looking to give a 32-year-old catcher a long-term contract, Rodriguez and the Tigers found each other to be willing participants in an arrangement that was, all at once, praised and derided.

Rodriguez came to Detroit, over the objection of his manager in Florida, Jack McKeon, who worried that Pudge was putting his Hall of Fame potential in jeopardy by toiling for such a bad team at that stage of his career. But McKeon’s words were mostly the juice of sour grapes, and not taken very seriously — least of all by Pudge himself.

So in an off-season that saw the Tigers having already signed OF Rondell White and 2B Fernando Vina, the capper was Rodriguez’s signature on a multi-year deal, ladened with legal language, to protect the Tigers against a possible flare-up of Pudge’s at-the-time tender back.

It was a bold, yet safe move for the organization.

Five years later, to the day, will be this Friday. And Pudge is again unemployed.

But this time he’s 37, and coming off a not-so-stellar season in which he was traded in late July to the Yankees. His numbers in New York were paltry. Before the trade, they weren’t so good in Detroit, either. He was splitting time with Brandon Inge at the time of the deal, and not very happy about it.

The sharing of catcher duties with Inge was rife with irony. For it was upon the news of Pudge’s signing with the Tigers that Inge, at the time a younger, more immature player, complained with a sour puss that the team didn’t need a “defensive” catcher after all, because they already had a fine one: Brandon Inge.

You probably could have heard howls of laughter from Detroit to Timbuktu. Mine.

Inge, when he bellyached about the Pudge signing, was a limp hitter who needed breaks and luck to manage even a .200 batting average. It was hilarious, to me, that Brandon Inge left out the discrepancy in hitting ability when he made the comparison between Rodriguez and he.

But there they were, four-plus years later, platooning, in a sense, at catcher. And Inge’s offense, though still not terrific, was catching up to Pudge’s. But then again, Rodriguez was past 36.

Rodriguez is not close, that I know of, to signing a contract with any MLB team. Thirty-seven year-old catchers aren’t at the top of many teams’ shopping list. Even the Yankees, who burn through cash faster than a teenager does with his allowance, have shown no inclination to toss any dough Pudge’s way, even as a backup.

We may have seen the last of Ivan Rodriguez in an MLB uniform. Unless he reinvents himself as a DH or a part-time first baseman.

Johnny Bench retired at age 35. Bill Freehan was even younger (34) when he announced his quitting. Playing catcher is unforgiving to the human body. It’s true that Pudge keeps himself in supreme physical condition, but the calendar eventually catches up; it always does. Often, it overtakes you in a flash.

Pudge is unemployed in early February, again. This time, it might be for good.

XLIII Lives Up To The Hype, And Then Some

“Yesterday the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t just play a football game — they collaborated and co-authored some of the finest theater the NFL has ever put on.”

Now THIS one was really Super.

It used to be, in the earlier days of the NFL-AFL Championship Game, which soon became known as the Super Bowl, that professional football’s supposedly finest hour was instead 15 minutes of garish fame. Seemingly decent matchups on parchment were then played on a “Super Sunday” — in January, once upon a time — and not long after halftime, you were wondering what the other two channels were showing. Sometimes you wondered midway through the second quarter.

The Super Bowls of the 1970s and most of the 1980s were dog games. The parties were always better.

But the Super Bowl seems to be mimicking fine wine; it’s getting better as it ages.

The game looks pretty good for XLIII. Doesn’t look a day over XXX.

Yesterday the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t just play a football game — they collaborated and co-authored some of the finest theater the NFL has ever put on.

This might have been the best of the XLIII — and last year’s wasn’t anything to sneeze at, if you recall.

This one had it all: a 100-yard interception return — by a defensive lineman; flashy air attacks; a safety; a long punt return; outstanding individual efforts; a comeback and some lead changes; and more video reviews than an EA Games message board.

You could put a dozen or so of the previous Super Bowls together, back in the day, and still not come up with the drama that filled yesterday’s classic.

We’ve been getting used to close, tight ballgames the older the game gets.

A quick check of recent history shows that the contests began getting snug in the late-1990s, as a rule. There was the game-saving tackle at the one-yard-line in Super Bowl XXXIV, that clinched the game for the St. Louis Rams. Adam Vinatieri’s game-winning field goal a couple years after that. The Patriots’ nail-biter over the Eagles in 2005. The Jerome Bettis Story in Detroit. And last year’s toppling of the undefeated Pats, thanks to a super-human catch by David Tyree.

But this — this was something else.

I feel for the Cardinals fans this morning. They sat about two-and-a-half minutes away from probably the most improbable Super Bowl championship in history, their 9-7 team battling back from a 20-7 deficit to take a brief 23-20 lead. It was tantalizingly close for them. No NFL championships since 1947. That’s LXI years, and some change.

But the Steelers showed that big game moxie of theirs, and managed to wrangle themselves into at least field goal position in the final minute.

My first reaction when I saw Santonio Holmes’ catch in the far corner of the end zone on second down and goal was that he was clearly out of bounds. Clearly. No way could he have collapsed onto the turf, that far past the white line, and have been in fair play when he caught the football.

But the field judge’s arms went up in the “touchdown” signal, and I thought, “Surely this will be overruled by the trusty video review.”

Then I saw the first of the half dozen or so replays.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Holmes did, indeed, make a legal catch. Falling forward, his tippy toes tapping against the end zone grass, ball firmly in his possession. Legal. Fair and square. And brilliant. I didn’t need more than a couple looks to confirm it. The other ten times it was shown — those were just to marvel at.

If they call Dwight Clark’s grab in the 1981-82 NFC Championship Game “The Catch”, then this was “THE Catch.”

It was also The Throw.

As with Joe Montana, who waited until the last possible moment before flicking the ball toward the back of the end zone, with Dallas Cowboys pass rushers about to engulf him, Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger made himself quite a toss, too. He looked left, then scrambled slightly to his right, then spotted Holmes. Did I mention that there were also three Cardinals pass defenders in Holmes’s personal space?

No matter. Big Ben zipped one of those “safe” passes — the kind that cannot be intercepted, only incomplete. But he zipped it so it could also be complete, given the proper ballet dancer to accompany it. And Holmes filled that role, big time.

Prior to Holmes’s grab, the most famous Steelers reception might be the tumbling-to-the-ground, bounce-off-the-defender gem that Lynn Swann made in Super Bowl X. Doubtless that you’ve seen that one a hundred times, always in slow motion, thanks to NFL Films. But Swann’s catch came in the middle acts; Holmes made his play in the game’s climax. Sorry, Lynn, but Santonio’s play supersedes yours.

Not that the Steelers fans care. They got their sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy, the most of any franchise. They’re 6-1 on Super Sunday — January and February, combined. Day games and night games combined. The Cardinals fall to 0-1. They still have won as many Super Bowls as the Lions. But not without a fight, and not without honor. If there ever was a game in which it was truly a shame to have a loser, it was yesterday’s.

Super.

The Headhunter: Baseball’s Extinct Species

“If the old-fashioned Headhunter wanted you hit on the thigh, he’d hit you on the thigh. If he felt like buzzing one near your ear (but not actually hitting you), then your ear would be buzzed.”

Don Drysdale is dead – literally and figuratively.

Drysdale died in the literal form in July, 1993, suffering a fatal heart attack in a Montreal hotel room. Right smack in the middle of yet another baseball season that he was broadcasting.

But Drysdale, I submit, is now dead in a more abstract way.

Big D was among the last of the Headhunters. His was a breed of pitcher who exacted vengeance and was just crazy enough to make sure a cloud of fear hovered over the batter’s box.

Orlando Cepeda may have said it best about Drysdale.

“The key to going against Drysdale,” the man known as The Baby Bull once said of his National League nemesis, “is to hit him before he hits you.”

And there’s this, from Mike Shannon, another fellow NLer back in the 1960s: “Drysdale looked at the intentional walk as a waste of three pitches. If he wanted to put you on base, he’d just hit you, using one pitch instead of four.”

Pitchers like Drysdale, and fellow Dodger Stan Williams, and a lefty named Ray Sadecki, and right-hander Dick Radatz, whose nickname was, oh-so-appropriately, “The Monster”, didn’t just take the mound – they claimed it. And, while they were at it, they annexed some of the batter’s box, too.

There were a bunch of these Headhunters back in the day. They were like the enforcers in hockey; just about every club had one on its roster. Their job was to keep the hitters honest. If one of their teammates got brushed back or knocked down, the Headhunters were expected to swing into action. And everyone knew it. In Drysdale’s case, he wasn’t shy to advertise his intentions. Those intentions resulted in 154 hit batsmen – the most in big league history.

The Dodgers and Giants have always been fierce rivals, but perhaps never more so than in the fabulous sixties, when Drysdale, Williams, and Johnny Podres wore Dodger Blue, and Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry, and Sadecki toiled for the Giants.

“My rule is ‘Two for One’,” Drysdale made sure to say when everyone was listening. “For every Dodgers teammate of mine that goes down, two Giants are going down. And they won’t be .220 hitters, either.”

These were the Giants that Drysdale was talking about, and these were Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Cepeda, The Baby Bull. Not a .220 hitter in that lot. And it was they – the Giants’ biggest stars – to which Big D ominously referred.

There wasn’t much being said from the Giants’ hitters about Drysdale’s Two For One Special.

That’s because it was accepted. Some men hunt deer. Drysdale hunted hitters.

The Yankees, in the early-1960s, employed a relief pitcher named Ryne Duren. Duren was half-blind, and a drunk. He’d amble in from the bullpen, with his Coke bottle glasses, and it was anyone’s guess if he was still tipsy from the night before – or from between games, if this was the second contest of a doubleheader.

Duren, at the urging of his teammates, would sometimes throw his first warm-up pitch as fast as he could – about 15 feet over the catcher’s head. The inference was clear and deliberate: “I have no idea where the ball might be going today, my friend.”

Drysdale: batter, look out!

The Headhunter – the anointed one in charge of metering out justice, frontier style – is no longer. Today’s beanballers are raw, inexperienced, rogue versions of the kind who deftly determined when and where and how hard a hitter should be plunked. So precise was their motives, so well-timed, that the ball they hurled that was destined for the brim of the helmet or the hip or the knee was called “the purpose pitch.”

There is no Drysdale anymore. No Early Wynn, who bragged that he’d knock down his own grandmother if she was crowding the plate. No Dizzy Dean, who was once so incensed by a hitter’s determination in digging his spikes in the batter’s box that Dizzy yelled to him, “Dig yourself a nice hole, son – cuz ole Diz is gonna BURY you in it!”

There isn’t any pitcher today who truly has a reputation of being his team’s policeman when it comes to “purpose pitches.” The Tigers, who have a roster filled with about as many nice guys as you’ll ever see assembled in the big leagues, don’t have anyone even remotely in the vicinity of Headhunter. Randy Johnson, the behemoth lefty, was once feared – but that was as much for his involuntary wildness, if not more so, than because of some sort of planned madness.

Something else that made the Headhunter a breed apart was that those types were rarely, if ever, charged at by an enraged hitter. If someone like Stan Williams, who was as mean of a son of a bitch as anyone who ever stood atop a pitcher’s mound, pasted a baseball on your flexor, well then that was just tough. Stan had himself a reason – a “purpose” – for such aggressive behavior, and the hitter pretty much just trotted to first base, bruised but with his on-base percentage increased.

So long ago was the heyday of the baseball Headhunter that gone are even those who taught that skill at the low minor league level. By the time the pitchers of today reach the bigs, some fancy themselves as self-taught Headhunters, when they are merely rank amateurs instead. If the old-fashioned Headhunter wanted you hit on the thigh, he’d hit you on the thigh. If he felt like buzzing one near your ear (but not actually hitting you), then your ear would be buzzed. I wouldn’t place such trust into the hands of today’s wannabes, for they are like Ryne Duren, sans the shtick: they truly have no idea where the ball is going.

“Facing Don Drysdale,” Pirates infielder Dick Groat once said, “is like making an appointment with a dentist.”

The analogy is apt. For dentists and Headhunters both drill you.