Willis Continues To Confound Tigers

“It may be getting closer to the moment where the Tigers have to release Willis and start chowing down on his $22 million contract. Better have the Pepto-Bismol at the ready.”

The news on Dontrelle Willis just keeps getting weirder and, dare I say, sadder.

The Tigers placed the lefty on the disabled list to begin the season. But this isn’t any normal, run-of-the-mill DL placement. This isn’t a knee, or an elbow, or a shoulder problem.

The Tigers placed Willis on the DL for anxiety. Yep.

As in, “We don’t really know WHAT the heck is wrong with this guy — except that it’s between the ears.”

Willis, who’s struggled with control ever since coming to the Tigers from Florida a year ago, seems to have this propensity, now, to have good command in simulated games and between-appearance bullpen sessions.

Then, when the bright lights get turned on, Willis gets stage fright. Or something.

For when the games begin — and these are just spring training games, don’t forget — Willis loses it and seems to forget everything that he’s learned in simulation.

Not good.

I’ve been following the Tigers since 1971, and the closest thing that Willis’s case comes to in Detroit is the sad story of Kevin Saucier, which I’ve written of here before.

Saucier, also a lefty, had a marvelous 1981 in Detroit after coming over from the Phillies. He was the team’s closer and posted a fine under-2.00 ERA. He was lively and animated and would hop all over the field after saving another game for the Tigers.

Then, around mid-season in 1982, he feared for the safety of opposing batters and quit, on the spot.

And that’s not even all that close to the Willis situation.

Certainly, no Tiger in my lifetime has been sidelined because of anxiety. Jimmy Piersall never played for them, after all.

It’s disturbing, Willis’s condition. It has a lot of “he’s done” written all over it.

If a pitcher can’t do it during the games, then why bother with him?

It may be getting closer to the moment where the Tigers have to release Willis and start chowing down on his $22 million contract. Better have the Pepto-Bismol at the ready.

For my gig at The Baseball Page, I was commissioned to select five players from the American League who I thought were intriguing, for a variety of reasons, and who readers should keep an eye on in 2009. Willis was one of those players. You can read what I wrote here.

It looks like Dontrelle Willis might be on the verge of seeing it all go down the drain. Who gets placed on the DL for anxiety?

Better yet, who ever comes back from such a distinction?

Spartans Need To Look At Detroit Thru Visitors’ Lens

“But this is Ford Field, not the Breslin Center. The Spartans will be playing on that floor for the first time, just like the other three teams.”

If I was Tom Izzo, I’d blindfold my team, drive them around in circles, and try to convince them that the Final Four in which they’re about to participate is nowhere NEAR Detroit.

I’d cover all signs that say Ford Field. I wouldn’t let them look at anything until they were in the locker room. THEN I’d remove the blindfolds. Maybe I’d pipe in some phony anti-MSU rhetoric and tell them that they’re in Chapel Hill or Dallas or Orlando. Anywhere but in Detroit.

I know, not feasible. If only.

There are two sides to the sword, as you know.

One side says that the Spartans, who advanced to the Final Four Sunday by virtue of spanking the Louisville Cardinals (and good), have it made — playing in the Final Four in essentially a “home court” situation. How can it NOT be an advantage, playing such monumental basketball in an arena 90 miles or so away from campus?

But look at which team has all the pressure on it this morning.

The Spartans are in a box. If they fail to win the championship, they’ll go down as the team that couldn’t seal the deal with “home court” in their favor. How many teams even GET such an opportunity?

If they win, well, then they SHOULD have won. They have home court, after all!

Of course, winning is always the best option. Who cares what they say about you, once you’ve become a champion?

The point being, I hope Izzo — and knowing him, he’ll probably take my unsolicited advice — de-emphasizes, as much as possible, this supposed home court advantage the Spartans possess.

Because it really ISN’T a home court advantage.

It’s not like Ford Field is going to be populated with 90% Spartans fans. The NCAA people didn’t go quite THAT far when they awarded the Final Four to Detroit.

“Oh, and if any local team should qualify, then they will be allotted all the tickets.”

Not quite.

The advantage isn’t really all that much of one. It’s all in the head. And the more the Spartans think they hold an advantage, then the worse off they are.

And if they think that UConn is going to cower and bow to them meekly, simply because the game is being played in Detroit, then MSU is REALLY going to be in a world of hurt.

Izzo, who can make the original Prince of Pessimism, Chuck Daly, look positively like Barney the Dinosaur, will no doubt put on his best tired, haggard face and tell the media folks that nothing is in the bank until the check clears. As well he should.

It’s terrific that MSU was able to pick this year, of all years, to make it to the Final Four. Thirtieth anniversary of the 1979 team winning it all. Revenge against Kansas for the 1986 clock debacle. And, of course, the event taking place in Detroit.

But this is Ford Field, not the Breslin Center. The Spartans will be playing on that floor for the first time, just like the other three teams. The stands will not be full of green, from one end to the other. No Izzone.

Conversely, if I was UConn coach Jim Calhoun, I’d make a big deal out of it. I’d tell anyone who’ll listen how tough his kids have it, facing MSU in Detroit. It’s time for some mind games right about now.

MSU in the Final Four, in Detroit? Great!

But not so great, really. And they need to be reminded of that. A lot.

Porcello A Potential Ace Between The Ears, Too

“(Rozema) had his fun, though. Maybe that’s all he was in it for. Mission accomplished.
Rick Porcello wants to have fun, too, I’m sure. He just wants to do it more responsibly and with more long-term success.”

There’s no telling how good Dave Rozema could have been, if only he’d taken his career seriously.

Rozema, “Rosie” to his adoring fans and to some of the more informal members of the media, was what some of us old-timers used to call players of his ilk, a “flake.”

The flake was the odd, the goofy, the unstable player. He could be a fun-loving flake or someone you’d just as soon not be alone with in the same room.

Baseball has been full of them. I think it’s the long season, being cooped up with the same guys from February till October, that can cause some guys to get flaky. Or worse.

Alex Johnson was a Detroit kid, grown up on the west side. His brother, Ron, was a star football player who thrilled the folks in Ann Arbor as a running back for U-M before having a decent career in the NFL.

Alex was…different. A flake? Perhaps. Or maybe just plain weird.

A.J., as they called him, was a terrific hitter. He won the 1970 A.L. batting title. But he was strangely unhappy most of the time. A professional might even call him paranoid and/or depressed. Alex Johnson was a good baseball player who thought everyone was out to get him.

Once, while playing for the Angels, Johnson accused teammate Chico Ruiz of waving a gun in his face in the locker room. Ruiz denied it. Johnson stuck to his story.

Johnson played for the Tigers in his last season, in 1976. Folks around town made a big deal of A.J. coming home, finally, to play big league ball, but I don’t think Johnson cracked so much as a grin while he was here. Then again, A.J. never did smile much. At all.

Dave Rozema happened upon the scene in 1977. One year after Mark “The Bird” Fidrych thrilled baseball audiences. Rozema’s fastball couldn’t break a pane of glass, but he could get hitters out with precision control and changing speeds. Rosie was 21, fun-loving, and a jokester during his rookie season in ’77.

Rozema was the antithesis of Alex Johnson. Where A.J. moped and brooded, Rosie always had a smirk on his face. He was the cat who ate the canary. Then he fell in with Kirk Gibson and that’s what did him in.

Rosie and Gibby. What a pair!

They partied together. They dated sisters – “exotic dancers”, to boot. Then they eventually married them. Gibson, a self-admitted jerk in his formative big league years, was hardly the best influence on the impressionable, flaky Rozema.

Rozema’s career moved on, decently, but never did he truly improve upon his 15-win rookie campaign. He had the talent. He had the ability. He just didn’t seem to have the moxie.

Then, in a moment of foolishness in 1982, Rosie sealed his fate for good.

The Twins and the Tigers brawled at Tiger Stadium. As far as baseball fights go, this one was pretty brutal. It was the kind where fists truly flew and the potential for something dangerous to happen was high.

Enter Rozema. Literally.

He came from the dugout, or the bullpen – not sure which – and spotted Twins player John Castino. Rosie got up a running start and, leaving his feet, tried to execute a Jackie Chan-like karate kick at Castino.

Rosie blew out his knee trying to impersonate Chan.

Tigers manager Sparky Anderson wasn’t amused.

Rozema was even less the same after his karate kick. But he didn’t learn his lesson.

A couple years later, Rozema was goofing around in the Tigers clubhouse and, while clowning, fell on his rear end. A small glass jar of medicine that was in his back pants pocket broke. He got cut up in his…posterior.

Sparky wasn’t amused again.

The Tigers eventually let Rozema go, and he ended up with the Texas Rangers. While with the Rangers, Rosie, in a relief appearance, ended up facing Kirk Gibson one night down in Arlington. The TV cameras caught Rozema giggling like an eighth-grader, unable to keep a straight face, as he prepared to pitch to his friend Gibby.

Rozema’s karate kick was immortalized in a bobble head doll last summer at a minor league game in Grand Rapids

The Tigers, in 2009, have themselves a young stud named Rick Porcello. He’s a 20-year-old right-hander who doesn’t have a whole lot of professional experience but who has baseball folks dismissing that forthwith. This is because Porcello possesses a golden right arm that has the real possibility of thrilling baseball fans in Detroit for years to come.

But it’s not just Porcello’s talent for throwing a baseball that has impressed folks down in Florida this spring training. It’s also his demeanor. The veteran players love how he conducts himself.

“He’s the kind of pitcher who, if he gives up a home run or something, just asks for the ball and says, ‘Let’s go’,” said designated hitter Gary Sheffield, no less, a couple weeks ago. “He doesn’t let anything bother him.”

The accolades regarding Porcello’s arm have been out there since last summer. Now they’re starting to pour in about his head. The words are similes of the best kind.

Composed. Mature. Unflappable. Focused.

And so on.

Porcello has a shot, albeit an outside one, to make the Tigers’ Opening Day roster. Manager Jim Leyland’s starting rotation is a little in shambles right now, due to injuries and others not doing so great. And Porcello, save one shaky outing on Thursday, has pitched well.

“It’s an honor to still be here and still have a chance,” Porcello said the other day.

On other occasions, Porcello has been one of his toughest critics. He already has that perfectionist thing about him. A lot of the great pitchers have that gene.

Dave Rozema was out of baseball by age 30. The karate kick didn’t help. But the kick was merely symptomatic of his bigger issue, which was a distinct lack of professionalism in his approach toward the game.

He had his fun, though. Maybe that’s all he was in it for. Mission accomplished.

Rick Porcello wants to have fun, too, I’m sure. He just wants to do it more responsibly and with more long-term success.

If only someone was able to give Rozema’s head that final screw to the right. Just another quarter turn might have done it. Oh well; you amused us, David, if nothing else.

Enberg, Packer The Pins To Our MSU/ISU Balloon

“Yes, the game has grown in legend in 30 years. And yes, much of that — if not all of it — is because of what the two players did in the NBA. But doesn’t every good-to-great game’s stock grow over time?”

Shame on Dick Enberg. He’s a Michigan born-and-reared kid. He ought to know better than to rain on our parade in this state.

And here I thought that the 1979 Michigan State-Indiana State NCAA Final — aka Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird — was some good television.

But now here’s Enberg, trying to spoil the fun just as MSU is set to take on Kansas in a regional semifinal tonight.

“It’s almost sacrosanct to refer to it as one of the great games of all time,” Enberg, who called the game for NBC and who now works for CBS, told USA Today.

Well, nuts.

Enberg didn’t stop there. Not only should we stop holding the game in such high regard, he said, and not only wasn’t it one of the greatest finals ever, it was downright…bad.

“But had Magic and Bird been NBA busts, I don’t think we’d look back on it as a great game. It was not a great final. As I left, I had the same feeling as after Super Bowl blowouts — that it wasn’t very exciting.”

Hmph.

Enberg’s sour puss was joined with that of broadcast partner Billy Packer, who echoed the downer words of CMU grad Enberg.

“It was one of the poorer finals games I ever broadcast,” Packer said. “What Bird-Magic eventually became made that game, not the other way around.”

Well, now that last statement of Packer’s, I can swallow.

I won’t quarrel that Magic and Bird’s NBA careers certainly added to the image of the ‘79 Final, when MSU met the Indiana State Sycamores. The Spartans had breezed — as much as a team can “breeze” thru an NCAA tourney — thru the brackets, and waiting for them were Bird and his flock, who were 33-0.

But take it from me, who’s old enough to still recall the game (I was 15): the game wasn’t a dud.

Maybe I’m looking at it through too much of a local prism, but I seem to remember that, although the Spartans led most of the way, it was never a blowout, and Bird did his best to make sure it would never be such.

I’m perplexed and a little disappointed to hear such wet blanket words from Enberg and Packer, because it’s not like Magic and Bird weren’t already superstars — at the college level. NBC, I’m sure, enjoyed terrific ratings that night — the only time Magic and Bird met in college.

In other words, these guys weren’t chopped liver who became NBA Hall of Famers. They were already damn good, and that’s why the MSU-ISU game was looked forward to with so much anticipation.

Maybe Enberg and Packer expected TOO much.

But we fans expected a lot, too, and I simply don’t remember being disappointed. MSU won, 75-64, but it wasn’t until the final minutes that you could, as a Spartan fan, relax. As long as Bird lurked, no lead felt truly safe.

I’ve wondered for years if the outcome would have been different had the three-point shot been made available to Bird in 1979.

I don’t know what Enberg and Packer were hoping for, but to broadcast a college game with two high-profile studs like Magic and Bird in it, squaring off…well, unless the game was a complete dog, you’d think you’d have a little more respect for its memory than what they told USA Today.

Yes, the game has grown in legend in 30 years. And yes, much of that — if not all of it — is because of what the two players did in the NBA. But doesn’t every good-to-great game’s stock grow over time?

If we’re going to start telling tales out of school, then I’ll throw one back into Enberg’s face, who was about my 1979 age when it happened: the 1958 NFL Championship between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants. You know, the “Greatest game of all time”?

Not so much, really. Had it not been the first (and only) overtime game in NFL Championship/Super Bowl history, I don’t know that it would be known as the greatest game.

Oh, it was close — no doubt about that. But there were turnovers and dropped passes and it lacked a big game from any of the very talented skill players that both teams employed at the time.

So there. Two can play at this game.

Don’t get me wrong; I love Dick Enberg. He’s been a rock in the business. I still get chills thinking about his game show, “Sports Challenge”, which aired in the mid-1970s to early-1980s. And his voice was the one calling all the plays on my Talking Football game. For those who don’t know, Talking Football was played with two people. You selected an offensive play, which was a tiny recorded disc, and dropped it into the disc player. Your opponent spun the disc to match up with the defense he was calling. Then you plunged the disc down, and the player described the play.

My favorite was, “A LEAPING interception….he’s going to go…all the way!! TOUCHDOWN!”

So Dick Enberg is OK in my book. Not so much Billy Packer, but there you go. But my man Enberg’s memory might be the one that’s not so good.

It’s OK to keep lauding MSU-ISU from 1979. You have my permission.

Gibby’s Daring Made Kuntz A World Series Mini-Hero

“Who scores from third on a pop up to the second baseman, anyway? In the World Series, no less!”

Maybe when Rusty Kuntz tells the story nowadays, to those who don’t know any better, the sacrifice fly has become a long drive to the warning track. And Kirk Gibson trotted home from third base, effortlessly.

I wouldn’t blame Rusty if that’s how it’s being put forth. Nothing wrong with a good fish story now and again.

But I was there, and there are tons of folks still around who remember it from watching it on TV, and we know that Kuntz’s sac fly that drove Gibson home with the go ahead run in the clinching Game 5 of the 1984 World Series was hardly a boomer.

I wonder if Rusty ever took Gibby out to dinner, or something, for making him moderately famous because of that play.

The scene: fifth inning, Game 5. The Tigers are trying to clinch the Series at home, but the San Diego Padres have come back from an early 3-0 deficit and the game is tied, 3-3. The bases are jammed with one out. Gibson is the runner on third base. Lefty Craig Lefferts has been brought in, so Sparky Anderson pinch-hits Kuntz for Johnny Grubb.

Kuntz, not a power hitter, swings mightily but manages only a soft, harmless pop up between the infield and the outfield, behind second base.

I’m in the CF bleachers, and I can see that Gibby is entertaining thoughts of trying to score, even though the ball is about to be caught by an infielder. But it’s really not a bad decision, because 2B Alan Wiggins’s back is partially facing the infield when he makes the catch.

Gibson takes off, building up his trademark head of steam. The crowd roars, which tips Wiggins off. But by the time he reacts and throws the ball homeward, Gibson is sliding in, safely.

It wasn’t even really close.

Tigers lead, 4-3. A lead they would build on and never relinquish. And a sacrifice fly for Kuntz, who hit the ball maybe 200 feet.

But like I said, maybe that 200 feet is now 360, up to the track in left center at Tiger Stadium.

Or maybe Rusty has played it true, and told the story as it actually happened. Which, frankly, is a better story anyway. Who scores from third on a pop up to the second baseman, anyway? In the World Series, no less!

Kirk Gibson, that’s who. He’s one of the few who had the daring and the sense of drama to try such a cockamamie thing. But he did it, and gave Kuntz the game-winning RBI in the process. The GWRBI in the game that made the Tigers champions of ‘84.

Leave it to Gibson, though, to trump himself — twice. First he hits the legendary homer off Goose Gossage later in that game, to REALLY seal the deal, then he bests Dennis Eckersley four years later, as a Dodger, with that even MORE legendary homer.

But Gibby kicked things off, as a Fall Classic hero, with his feat of daring on Rusty Kuntz’s pop up. Rusty owes him one, if he hasn’t paid up by now.

George Kell: Sadly, God Waaaved Him In!

“That’s what happens when the famous, the beloved pass away. We all say the same thing, pretty much — but we somehow feel remiss if we don’t say it.”

 

I always found it so ironic that George Kell mastered the art of the strikeout call, when he hardly struck out himself.

Kell, who died Tuesday at age 86, won the 1949 batting title, nosing out Ted Williams, no less. That much, you probably know. But how about this? In doing so, Kell struck out 13 times. Total.

A big league season is about six months long. So Kell, in hitting .342, struck out about twice a month. Once every 15 days or so.

Yet of all the signature calls that Kell, as the Tigers’ longtime broadcaster, had, I think I’d put his strikeout call in the top two or three.

There were a few versions.

In a non-crucial portion of the game: “He STRUCK him out,” in that Arkansas-coated accent.

In a more important situation: “Hey, he struck him out!”

In the last out of the game, a big Tigers’ win put to bed: “STRIKE THREE! OH, HE STRUCK HIM OUT!”

I remember on one occasion, channel 4 edited together all of Kell’s strikeout calls during a Jack Morris win in Kansas City. Morris fanned ten or eleven guys, and the montage was all of the third strikes, as described by Kell.

They were pretty much all the same. “Heee….struck him out.” Nothing too exciting. But the fact that they WERE all the same was, to me, fascinating. For that wasn’t a sign of boring repetition, but rather of sameness and reliability and, because of it, the comfort that Kell provided the viewer/listener.

He was a speaker of half-sentences, and that was OK, too.

I found one of our daughter’s baby videos last summer, and it was shot back in 1993. The TV sound was on in the background, and, clear as a bell, there’s Kell and Al Kaline, describing a Tigers game in Milwaukee.

“Here comes Cecil,” was all Kell said at one point. That’s all that needed to be said. Then, after the first pitch: “Up high.” Again, all that needed to be said. A few moments later, after some blissful silence that today’s announcers fear like the plague, there was this in the background as our two-month-old daughter rolled around on the bed: “Ball two, strike one. (long pause) Ground ball to short….(pause, then Milwaukee crowd cheers)…two out, in the sixth.

“Now it’s up to Gibby!”

Man, it doesn’t look nearly as good in print as it sounded to my ears, but those who grew up listening to Kell are probably smiling.

The one that gave you chills — at least me — was when a runner would try to score on a base hit and the ball was being hustled in to the infield.

“They’re WAAAVING him in!” Kell would yell, and there wasn’t anything more exciting. “There’s gonna be a play at the plate!”

A ball would be fouled off, rather hard, into the stands. “Look OUT!” Kell would warn, as if the fans could hear him.

Of course, I could go on and on. And I’m really not imparting anything to you that you don’t already know. That’s what happens when the famous, the beloved pass away. We all say the same thing, pretty much — but we somehow feel remiss if we don’t say it.

Oh, and there’s this. I used to be a pretend Detroit Tiger in my Livonia driveway as a kid. Sometimes I’d be myself, magically inserted into the Tigers lineup, or I’d be one of the real players — Willie Horton, Norm Cash, etc. I’d have my plastic bat and my Tigers cap on and I’d dig in against an imaginary pitcher.

The “pitch” would be delivered and I’d swing. Funny how I always connected, dead-on.

Then I’d be Kell, announcing my heroics.

“There’s a lonnnng drive! Way back! That ball is…GONE!”

I think I even tried to do Kell’s Arkansas accent, as an 8-year-old.

Kell hasn’t announced games regularly since 1995. But despite his 13 years away, his loss is still like it happened while he was an active broadcaster. He retired, but never truly left us.

Until now.

But only physically. There’s still that home movie that I have, for example. And the stuff rattling around in my head.

“Thanks, Larry, and good afternoon everyone. The weatherman says we’re gonna get this one in.”

Stuff like that.

“Comfortable” Cabrera MVP Material

“There will be stretches where you simply cannot get him out. And there will be streaks in which he’ll club five, six homers in a week and drive in 15, 16 runs. Guaranteed.”

Last year, Miguel Cabrera wasn’t comfortable. Not for a good, long while, anyway.

There was a new team to get used to, a new city. Heck, a whole new league. He signed a big, fat contract with the Tigers — the kind that causes folks to expect a little bit from you. Correction — more like demand.

Then third base didn’t agree with him, and the feeling was mutual. He was shifted to first base not long into the season. So, more getting used to.

Toss in a slow start, which was an offshoot of the above, and you had the makings of a real mess. They started to boo a little bit at Comerica Park.

Yeah, Cabrera was uncomfortable, alright. Said so himself.

So how did all that discomfort affect his production, you might ask.

Well, he set career highs in HRs (37) and RBI (127).

Cabrera is more comfy this year. Again, right from the horse’s mouth.

Cabrera launches another one

The idea of a comfortable Cabrera, after the destruction he caused in 2008 while “uncomfortable”, ought to make American League pitchers and opposing managers curl into the fetal position.

I just hope they uncurl in time to see Cabrera be named the Most Valuable Player in the American League. You heard me.

Cabrera doesn’t have half, in 2009, of what he had to contend with in ‘08. He might not even have a quarter of it. It’s all there now: settled in to the city; adored by fans (it took a while); used to the manager, his teammates; “over” his contract status; more familiar with AL pitching.

Goodness gracious — are we looking at 45 HR, 140 RBI? Maybe more?

The right-handed hitting Cabrera uses all fields; he’s no dead-pull hitter. In fact, his power to right field might be more impressive than what he has for left field. I saw Cabrera, on more than one occasion last season, simply “flick” the bat, and darned if the ball didn’t end up over the right-center field fence. He does that from time to time.

The only major stat in which Cabrera slipped last year was batting average. He “only” hit .292 in 2008, after hitting .320+ in each of the three years previous to that. But don’t forget — he was uncomfortable.

I’m kidding.

What’s not a joke is this: Miguel Cabrera has the tools, the talent, and the approach to be a multiple MVP winner before all is said and done. Especially done. There will be stretches where you simply cannot get him out. And there will be streaks in which he’ll club five, six homers in a week and drive in 15, 16 runs. Guaranteed.

Cabrera is a specimen, and did I mention that he has a birthday next month?

He turns 26.

Good Lord.

He’s still a child, in a way, Cabrera is, and he’s already become a human wrecking ball. Just think of what he’ll do when he starts to lose the baby fat.

I’ve been known for the hyperbole; guilty as charged. I practically enshrined Justin Verlander into the Hall of Fame last spring in one of my fits. But I still stand by my prediction of greatness for JV, and I’ll do so for Mr. Cabrera. Is he even old enough for me to call him Mr. Cabrera?

Miguel Cabrera, AL MVP. Yes, in the future, but also right now. This year.

Comfy cozy.

Curry Robs Pistons Of A Last Shot Vs. Heat

“Because of Curry’s temper tantrum, the Heat were able to toss in four free throws — two for the techs and two for the foul.”

I’m beginning to think that Michael Curry was smarter and was a better coach when he was a player.

Curry lost, for the Pistons, yesterday’s nationally-televised game against the Miami Heat at The Palace. At the very least, he robbed the Pistons of a chance to win it. Practically the same thing.

Curry first lost his cool, then his head, and because of all that losing it, the Pistons, well, lost.

The Heat were down most of the game, but that’s not a concern anymore when you play the Pistons in Auburn Hills. It once used to be a frightening place to play for visiting teams. Now, it’s more scary for the Pistons, truth be told.

So the Heat spotted the Pistons a dozen or so points, stayed within four-to-eight points for most of the second half, then, as if sensing that they could snatch the game at will, decided to nudge even closer in the fourth quarter. Finally, tired of playing catch-up, the Heat tied the game and eventually took the lead in the waning minutes.

Curry lost the game, for good, at the very end — more about that in a moment — but he didn’t do his team any favors down the stretch, when he used peculiar defensive assignments against Dwyane Wade and didn’t crack the whip when the Pistons went into statue mode offensively.

All that, and the Pistons still held a 96-95 lead with 13 seconds to play, thanks to a Walter Herrmann three-pointer.

Then the Pistons couldn’t corral a bobbled inbounds pass, and after some pinball action, the basketball landed in the hands of Udonis Haslem, who coaxed a soft eight-footer into the hoop for a 97-96 Heat lead.

Curry, when he was a player, wasn’t much of a scorer. His reputation was that of lockdown defender and an analytical mind on the court. Those two traits, plus his work ethic, made him a basketball observer darling. Often during his two stints as a Piston, we heard of how Michael Curry was good “coaching material” because of his being like the cliched “coach on the floor.”

Well, Curry acted like a player at the end of Sunday’s game — a frustrated, out-of-control player. Not at all like the cool, calm, collected coach he is supposed to be in crunch time.

Curry had issues throughout the fourth quarter with the way Wade was viewed through the officials’ eyes. Get in line, coach!

So Curry is upset that Wade is getting to the foul line on some suspects calls — his version — and wonders why the same courtesy isn’t being extended on the other end. Again, not unlike what goes on every night in every game that players like Wade and LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, etc. participate in.

The Pistons’ talented young point guard Rodney Stuckey drove the lane in the final few seconds, and Wade was right there with him, contesting everything. Stuckey tried a shot, and Wade not only slapped it away, he managed to grab possession of the ball while staying a fraction of an inch inbounds. He passed to a teammate, who was fouled. There was about a second left on the clock.

Curry couldn’t contain himself. He railed at the officials so much, he was given two technicals and therefore ejected from the game. He left the court, and the Pistons’ chances went with him.

Because of Curry’s temper tantrum, the Heat were able to toss in four free throws — two for the techs and two for the foul.

The two extra free throws due to Curry’s technical fouls were killer. Had the Pistons been down, 99-96, they’d at least have a fighting chance for a game-tying triple. Instead, the Heat led 101-96. End of game.

No one said it would be easy for Curry, a rookie head coach with just one year of assistant coaching experience under his belt. No one could have foreseen the trade of Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson, nor the myriad of injuries to Pistons players who normally don’t miss a lot of playing time.

Curry is not all to blame for what’s gone wrong in this haywire, 34-35 Pistons season.

But he hasn’t really done a lot to stem the tide, either. Yesterday’s brain freeze, preceded by some “meh” coaching in the fourth quarter, was another example.

The ABC announcers were incredulous after Curry got himself thrown out.

“All you have to do is wait 0.6 seconds to complain!” screamed Jeff Van Gundy, himself a former coach.

But Curry couldn’t wait. His rookie status reared its head at a most inopportune time.

Funny, but Michael Curry, the player, probably wouldn’t have done that. What is it about putting on the Armani suits that’s making him dumb?

Draper’s Thousand Games With Red Wings Simply Grand

“Basically, you wind Draper up, tell him to check and skate and win face-offs, and that’s pretty much what he does. Night after night.”

To get an idea of Kris Draper’s time spent on the ice in a Red Wings uniform, go to the nearest calendar and look ahead ten days. Then add ten hours from the time it is currently.

Now, imagine Draper zooming up and down the ice, forechecking, pestering, winning face-offs, killing penalties, backchecking. Imagine him doing that, 24/7, for those ten days and ten hours. Non-stop.

Draper just played in his 1,000th game as a Red Wing. He’s done so mainly as a fourth-liner, meaning that he plays about a quarter of each game.

So, a little math.

One-thousand games, times sixty minutes per game (not including overtime), equals 60,000 minutes. A quarter of that is 15,000 minutes, or 250 hours. And there’s your ten days, plus ten hours.

It was almost thirteen years ago when it was feared that Draper wouldn’t play another minute in the NHL.

Hockey players aren’t pretty. Their faces are full of scars and crevices and their noses are disjointed and their dentist is on speed dial. Ted Lindsay’s face looks like it’s made of a combination of corduroy and rough-hewn leather, to show you. You half expect to see bolts sticking out from his neck.

Teddy knows he’s not pretty, so I’m not worried about making him angry.

Be aware of the pretty boy hockey player, for he’s probably not worth a hill of beans.

The red-headed Draper isn’t pretty, either. He looks like a Howdy Doody doll that got caught in a garbage disposal. But he’s still playing, thirteen years after they thought it was all over for him.

Hockey is a great sport for those who love to hate the guys who wear the black hats. Lindsay was hated in each of the other five cities that had NHL hockey in his day. They didn’t call him Terrible Ted for nothing. Once, in Toronto, there were death threats during the playoffs.

“We were skating warm-ups, and nobody wanted to be near me,” Teddy recalled once about the threats in Toronto. “I asked Gordie (Howe) why, and he said, ‘What if they’re a bad shot?’”

Well, Teddy scored the game-winning goal in overtime, and he skated around the Maple Leaf Gardens ice, “shooting” the crowd with his hockey stick, as if it was a pretend machine gun.

Terrible!

In the 1996 Western Conference Finals, the black hat was firmly atop the head of Colorado’s Claude Lemieux. The Red Wings were the best team in the NHL during the regular season, but they were having a devil of a time in the playoffs. They struggled to get past the Winnipeg Jets and St. Louis Blues before meeting the Avalanche in the conference finals. The NHL’s version of the Final Four.

Lemieux was the worst type of black hatter, because he lacked courage and professional courtesy. He was a drive-by type of bad guy – hitting from behind, jabbing with his stick, sucker-punching.

Draper was against the boards, trying to finagle the puck, his back toward the charging Lemieux. Which meant that Lemieux had Draper just the way he preferred all of his victims: unaware, defenseless.

The resulting hit from Lemieux’s cowardice, which slammed Draper’s face into the boards, rearranged the Red Wing’s facial structure. Lemieux cracked Draper’s face like a walnut, and then skated away. Typical.

They showed photos of Lemieux’s destruction a couple days later, and Draper’s face – the eyes still blackened, the mouth still swollen, the jaw wired shut – reminded me of the famous photo of Tony Conigliaro after he got beaned while with the Red Sox in 1967. Tony C wasn’t the same, and was out of baseball a few years later.

Lemieux attacking Draper in ‘96 (top); the aftermath, after some healing (above)

Draper, it was speculated, might never play again – or at least, not with the same fervor and energy.

Well, it’s 2009 and he’s still out there, every night, still with the trademark speed and still being a pain in the other team’s keister.

Draper, in typical hockey player fashion, is taking an “Aw, shucks” attitude to having reached his milestone of one-thousand games as a Red Wing. He started listing the others who have done it: Steve Yzerman; Gordie Howe; Alex Delvecchio; Nicklas Lidstrom.

“Geez, to see my name among those guys,” Draper said as he was on the verge of playing Red Wings game No. 1,000. “It’s like, which name doesn’t belong?”

I’m not so sure about that sentiment.

Draper is one of the four-time Stanley Cup winners on Detroit’s roster. That’s one more than Yzerman, by the way. And he’s played those thousand games with the same effort every night. You’ve never had to worry about what you’re going to get from Kris Draper from game-to-game.

He doesn’t score much, and with all due respect, he’s one of those who makes you cringe when he bears down on the goalie with a breakaway. His hockey hands are as soft as granite.

But that’s never been his role, and it’s never been something the Red Wings have expected from him. Basically, you wind Draper up, tell him to check and skate and win face-offs, and that’s pretty much what he does. Night after night. For a thousand games, and counting.

Draper’s face has long since been repaired after Lemieux’s horrific hit. Though there’s a big difference between being repaired and being fixed. Mothers and wives are the only ones who matter, anyway.

Draper’s No. 33 probably won’t go up to the rafters at Joe Louis Arena when he’s done playing, like the others in the 1,000 Game Club (Lidstrom’s No. 5 is sure to be raised). He may not get any consideration at all for such an honor, which is weird, because why not? He’s contributed as much as anyone to bringing four Cups down Woodward Avenue.

Kris Draper, the red-headed stepchild. Literally.

Willis And Strike Zone Still Only Casual Acquaintances

“There were fat dudes on carnival midways, throwing softballs at milk bottles, who had better command than Dontrelle Willis in 2008.”

Dontrelle Willis still can’t get the ball over the plate. Maybe he never will.

It’s not looking good for Mr. Willis, who’s desperately trying to show the Tigers — and the baseball world — that 2008 was simply nothing more than a ghoulish, chilling nightmare, not the start of the end.

Willis came to the Tigers in December 2007, in the same trade that brought Miguel Cabrera from the Florida Marlins. He was thought to be a major addition to a rotation that needed one more live arm. Willis wasn’t that far removed from a 22-win season.

His arm has been live, alright. Too live. Lively is more like it.

Willis can’t throw strikes. That’s pretty much what it boils down to. He started not throwing strikes last spring, and it was a concern, but not a panic. Then the season started, and Willis kept not throwing strikes. He didn’t stop there; he added not throwing the ball anywhere near the plate to his repertoire.

There were fat dudes on carnival midways, throwing softballs at milk bottles, who had better command than Dontrelle Willis in 2008.

Willis mastered two pitches last season: a ball, and a LOOK OUT.

Willis delivers another one high and outside (probably)

The Tigers have a new pitching coach, Rick Knapp. He comes from the Twins’ organization, which has this uncanny ability to produce one good young pitcher after another. Much of why these pitchers are so good is that they throw strikes. Consistently.

So the Tigers hoped that Knapp would arrive, work with Willis, change some things, and everyone could declare 2008 one of those flukes.

Whatever magic potion Rick Knapp has been feeding Dontrelle Willis either hasn’t kicked in yet, or Willis is immune to it. In either case, the outlook isn’t good.

Willis pitched in the Tigers’ exhibition loss to Atlanta on Thursday, and the results were, as usual, mixed. That’s about as good as you can hope for from Willis anymore — mixed results. He wasn’t terribly wild, but he was hit hard. It’s like pick your poison.

The spring totals are creepy: 11 2/3 innings, 13 earned runs and 10 walks. Not much has changed, it seems.

The notion of Willis being finished must make the Tigers nauseous. There’s a boatload of money that he’s owed, whether he makes the team or not. On the baseball side of things, the Tigers never got anywhere near what they thought they were getting when they traded for Willis. Not that they could have predicted such a dramatic and swift loss of command.

After switching from his trademark high leg kick to a more conventional windup, Willis returned to the high kick in his final inning Thursday. The Detroit Free Press reported that Knapp prefers the high kick, and Willis will be reverting to it from now on.

It’s rarely a good thing when windups and batting stances are constantly being changed, from one style to another. OK to change once, but when it becomes a back-and-forth thing, it smacks of folks reaching for straws.

The Tigers are trying to cobble together a pitching staff that will service them for the 2009 season. The rotation isn’t set yet, and neither is the bullpen. Some of that has to do with injuries. And some of it has to do with guys not separating themselves from their competition.

All this, and Dontrelle Willis still can’t throw strikes. At least not enough befitting a big league pitcher. That’s two springs in a row now. Not good. Not good at all.

Peterson Another Who Finds 0-16 Lions A Welcome Challenge

“The Lions’ status as the first team to go winless throughout a 16-game season doesn’t seem to be as dissuasive as you might think. In fact, it might even be a recruiting tool for some players.”

The Pro Bowl linebacker arrived in town, after some stellar years elsewhere, and even though he was on the wrong side of 30 and coming off an off-year, he spoke bravely of recapturing his glory days. And he declared himself thrilled with his new team and of the coaching staff. The Lions, in turn, had finally, they thought, acquired the difference-making, playmaking linebacker they had long sought.

Then Pat Swilling crossed the line.

He asked to wear No. 56.

It was 1993, and the Lions had pulled off a draft day trade, acquiring Swilling from the New Orleans Saints. Swilling was to be the energetic, two-for-one LB that coach Wayne Fontes craved — a guy who could rush the passer and contain the run. But Swilling wore 56 in his Saints days, and thought it would be swell if he could wear it in Detroit, too.

Someone with the Lions, I hope, cleared their throat and said, “Um, Pat, 56 was worn by Joe Schmidt. The Hall of Famer, Joe Schmidt.”

Swilling wanted 56 anyway. And here’s the joke: the Lions let him have it.

Now, the punch line: Swilling soiled the number, playing two uninspired seasons in Detroit. He made the Pro Bowl in ‘93, but it was one of those “reputation” things. He wasn’t two-thirds the player in Detroit as he had been in New Orleans.

No. 56 went back into storage — and I hope it never again sees the light of day.

The Lions introduced Julian Peterson to the media folks the other day, and I hope he’s not the modern day version of Swilling.

Peterson will be 31 soon, and he’s coming off an “uh-oh” off-season in 2008. But prior to that, Peterson was a beast for the 49ers and the Seahawks. The Lions acquired him earlier in the week for DT Cory Redding and a fifth-round draft choice.

Peterson: 2008 a fluke, or the start of a trend?

Lions coach Jim Schwartz sees Peterson as still being capable of being the playmaking, two-for-one linebacker that he was through 2007. Peterson has made five Pro Bowls — or five more than the Lions’ current LB corps has made, combined.

Peterson, for his part, is tickled at the prospects of coming to the 0-16 Lions. He went to Michigan State, and so he has local ties. And he loves what he sees from Schwartz and his staff. You can read what he had to say about becoming a Lion HERE. It doesn’t sound like bull, but then again, who knows?

But one thing is becoming clearer to me as the off-season drones on.

The Lions’ status as the first team to go winless throughout a 16-game season doesn’t seem to be as dissuasive as you might think. In fact, it might even be a recruiting tool for some players.

Players like Peterson, and others who the Lions have acquired via free agency and trade, and potential No. 1 draft picks like Matthew Stafford and Aaron Curry, have all sung the same tune. They all, they say, would love to be part of a rebirth of pro football in Detroit. The allure of contributing to the rise from the ashes is apparently pretty strong.

On second blush, this shouldn’t be too surprising. Professional athletes — the ones worth their salt, anyway — love challenges. Sometimes the best motivator is to tell a player, or a group of the right kind of players, that they can’t do something.

Having said that, there’s no question that the Lions probably lost out on landing some of the bigger name free agents. Again, not surprising. The upper-tier guys usually have either won or have lost a lot, so the prospect of going to a winless team doesn’t appeal to them, no matter how optimistic or how many changes that winless team can boast.

But there are plenty of good, solid NFL players out there who, if put into the right system, can come together and be the missing pieces that can bring a team from 0-16 to near .500 in Year One, then into the playoffs in Year Two. The Lions, it says here, have added several of those types since the curtain fell on 2008.

Julian Peterson says he wants to prove to everyone, and to himself, that his subpar 2008 season was a mirage and not the beginning of the end. He says he’s happy and that the trade to Detroit was a “good fit.” He likes the new coaching staff. He likes the area.

And he wears No. 59, not 56. So that’s something, right there.

Ford’s Eulogy One For The PR Types

“I have no idea when the need will come to eulogize Bill Ford. I’m not one of those hoping for his demise. But time is running out to fashion a legacy of success that won’t need to be camouflaged with flowery talk of how nice of a man he was.”

They eulogized Bill Davidson yesterday. The place was filled with a Who’s Who of Detroit and national sports. As well it should have been.

There’s no riddle when it comes to the legacy of Davidson, Mr. D, who passed away last Friday at age 86. There’s no need for a spin master or a cadre of P.R. types to punch up his bio and his legacy.

It’s all there: championships; the resuscitation of a moribund franchise; a star-studded player roll; an entertainment empire that reaches beyond sports.

You don’t have to be clubbed over the head to “get” why Davidson’s legacy will land among the greatest of those in Detroit sports history.

I wonder what Bill Ford Sr. is thinking today.

It’s ghoulish and morbid, but whenever one in a small clique passes, the other surviving members are looked at cross-eyed.

Ford is on the clock. So is Mike Ilitch — in the legacy department. Unseemly, but true.

Ilitch is going to be 80 this summer, but by all accounts he seems to be in pretty good physical condition. Besides, he’s a four-time Stanley Cup champ with the Red Wings, and a World Series participant with the Tigers. He’s won enough to keep even the vermin-like fans among us from wishing his obituary to be printed.

But Ford? You don’t want to know what they’re wishing about his health. It’s not very nice.

But that’s what happens when you take a franchise and drive it into the muck, repeatedly, for 45 years.

Davidson, actually, was much like Ford — in the beginning. He, too, emerged from a group of potential owners and bought out the syndicate so that he could run a team all by his lonesome. Davidson did it in 1974, ten years after Ford did it.

One of the folks who Ford bought out was Ralph Wilson, the longtime owner of the Buffalo Bills. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking.

As I read of Davidson’s funeral, and all of the A-list folks who attended and spoke on his behalf, it was hard not to think of what they might say about Ford, who turned 84 last Saturday, when it’s his time.

What will the legacy be?

The sports broadcasting heads like to say, “If the playoffs started today…” as an excuse to talk, today, about things that are better talked about in the future — like when they actually happen. So I’ll borrow from that and say, “If Bill Ford’s funeral was today…”

Morbid? Maybe. But it’s a question worth asking: Just what WILL Ford’s legacy be, should they lay him to rest before another pro football season is in the books?

Lemme see…

Well, I suppose they could speak of his integrity and his family’s car company contributing greatly to the NFL’s success in the 1960s and ’70s, courtesy of advertising dollars. They could talk about how nice of a man he was. They could say that he wasn’t a loud-mouthed buffoon, like so many of his contemporaries. They could talk about his loyalty to his employees and how he was, by what we’ve read and heard, simply wonderful to work for.

They will not, however, be able to say that he was a winner. Like Bill Davidson. Like Mike Ilitch. That part will have to be left out.

Ford’s failure to field a championship-caliber football team won’t, I maintain, determine the size of his funeral or the stature of folks who’ll fly in for the event. He’ll still draw the A-listers, mainly because of his longevity. The NFL will throw tons of bouquets at his memory. You really can’t blame them; Ford has been, indeed, one of the league’s classiest owners when it comes right down to it.

None of that nice guy, classy, loyal stuff means much to the hard-working, blue collar football fans in Detroit, however. And it’s not like you can have one and not the other; we’ve seen how Davidson operated (and how Ilitch still does), and Mr. D was all those things that they’ll say about Ford — PLUS he was a winner. So it CAN be done.

It just wasn’t done with the Lions, like it was done with the Pistons. Davidson took over a team that was in far worse shape than the Lions, in terms of fan support and tradition, bought out his partners, and went to work. He stumbled along the way (see Vitale, Dick) but then corrected himself in short order (see McCloskey, Jack). Davidson was bold, unwavering, and generous. Ford, sadly, has been only the last of those three.

I have no idea when the need will come to eulogize Bill Ford. I’m not one of those hoping for his demise. But time is running out to fashion a legacy of success that won’t need to be camouflaged with flowery talk of how nice of a man he was.

All they had to do at Davidson’s funeral was recite his resume. It’ll take more than that to celebrate the Ford Ownership, when that time comes. A lot more.

Uh-oh? Zumaya Being Held Out Of Action — Again

“The Tigers can still market a C, C+ bullpen without Zumaya, but it’s a solid “B” with him healthy and doing his thing.”

 

I’m getting that Doom Doom feeling about Zoom Zoom again.

Joel Zumaya is feeling some more discomfort in his pitching shoulder. Again. And he’s being held out of spring training competition. Again. And the Tigers’ bullpen — specifically, who will pitch the seventh and eighth innings? — is back in flux. Again.

Sigh.

It may not be as serious as in previous instances, but anytime the topic du jour is Zumaya’s shoulder, and the discussion includes words like “stiffness”, “soreness”, and “won’t pitch” — well, you’re excused if you start developing a nervous tick.

I’m not ready to breathe yet, when it comes to Zumaya and his attempts to play out a season in good health. And I won’t exhale until the 2009 season is in the books and Zoom Zoom hasn’t spent one day on the disabled list. It may be a pipe dream, but you can’t convince me that a pitcher is free from arm/shoulder trouble until he’s played at least one season DL-free.

Zumaya needs to cause hitters to look skyward if Tigers' pen is to be successful

Of course, maybe Zumaya and the DL will become good acquaintances over the years. Doesn’t mean his career is a dud, and it doesn’t mean that he can’t be a key contributor, once again, to the Tigers’ bullpen. It just may mean that he’s a high maintenance pitcher. That, I suppose I can contend with. But there’s nothing sadder than to see a young player flame out before his time (see Fidrych, Mark) due to injury or other things out of his control.

I’m sure the Tigers, burned in the past, are babying Zumaya, maybe beyond what’s actually necessary. No qualms with that. But I just start to squirm, uncomfortably, whenever I read that Zumaya is being held out of spring games.

The Tigers can still market a C, C+ bullpen without Zumaya, but it’s a solid “B” with him healthy and doing his thing. And the Tigers, as a team, jump a half-a-grade or so with Zumaya manning the seventh and eighth innings.

As pitchers and catchers reported for spring training last month, Zumaya declared himself healthy and pain-free. Said he hadn’t felt this good in quite some time. Then, a few appearances later, he began to be held out of the reindeer games. Maybe it’s just a precaution. I hope.

I’m not being totally selfish here; I want Zumaya healthy for HIS sake, too — not just for the Tigers’. I don’t want him to be another cautionary tale. Like I said, it’s too sad.

I’m not in super-duper panic mode yet, but I’ll feel a whole lot better once Zoom Zoom is back on the mound, throwing pills to the plate, instead of ingesting them for pain.

Michigan Basketball: One-Shot Deal, Or The Start Of A New Trend?

“How a school of Michigan’s stature enabled its basketball program to sink to an almost comedic level is a mystery that I’d dearly love someone to solve someday.”

University of Michigan basketball is back. For one more game, anyway.

The NCAA selection committee found the phone number to A.D. Bill Martin, after all, and shot an invitation to the Wolverines, asking them to be there at 7:10 p.m. sharp Thursday, so that they may take on the Clemson Tigers in Round One. The Tigers, who started 16-0, finished at 23-8. Maybe their most impressive win was a 74-47 thumping of Duke, no less, at Clemson. The Wolves beat Duke, too.

U-M joins Michigan State in the tourney. The selection committee knows the Spartans’ number by heart.

I’m not a Michigan fan, though I’ve softened my stance over the years. Maybe it’s my inferiority complex from having attended Eastern Michigan University, seven miles down the road and firmly lost in U-M’s shadow.

I’ve been an MSU leaner, though I’m hardly heartbroken whenever the Spartans lose anything of note. I guess that makes me semi-objective when it comes to commenting on the two schools.

Regardless, I’m actually thrilled for Michigan — both the university and the state. How can it not be better, when both the Wolverines and the Spartans are in the “Big Dance”, as they call it. I remember how exciting it was when the University of Detroit took on powerful Michigan in the 1977 tournament. Michigan won, but not before the Titans scared the bejeebers out of them.

Of course, the only way MSU can play Michigan in this year’s tourney is if they meet in — gasp! — the Final. In Detroit.

You can stop fantasizing now.

The Wolverines have been AWOL from the Dance for so long, the players who last played on a Michigan tourney team are now retired from the NBA.

It was 1998, in case you were wondering. The Wolves got blasted out in the second round, losing to UCLA. Since then, the program has been in flux. And that’s a rather kind way of putting it.

How a school of Michigan’s stature enabled its basketball program to sink to an almost comedic level is a mystery that I’d dearly love someone to solve someday.

Manny Harris and Michigan will make the school’s first NCAA appearance since 1998

But they’re back — in the tournament, for as long as they shall live.

Clemson won’t be a pushover. Few teams are, when you enter the tournament as a no. 10 seed, as Michigan is in the South region. Besides, even a win over Clemson will simply likely lead to a second-round date with no. 2 seed Oklahoma. Sayonara!

But U-M is in, and I really do hope that this isn’t just a blip on their screen; it would be wonderful if the Wolverines could provide more than token resistance to MSU’s basketball dominance in the state. For too long (with the exception of last season), the U-M/MSU thing has been relegated to Michigan dominating in football, and MSU returning the favor on the hardwood. Wouldn’t it be nice if the gaps were closed in each of those sports?

Of course, they’ve been trying to close the gap in football in East Lansing for over 30 years, with little success.

Michigan’s a 20-win team again, which used to mean, almost, an automatic invitation. But with the onslaught of conference tournaments, there are fewer at-large openings, since conference tourney winners are often not the teams who would have received an at-large bid had they not gained an automatic berth by virtue of winning their conference tournament. That was a long sentence, and it may take you longer to read it than the Wolverines will last in the tournament. Forgive my sass, but after a 10-year absence, I’m entitled to throw some sass Michigan’s way.

Now it’s up to them to shove crow down my throat.

Michigan basketball is back. Well, as back as you can be, when they float you an invitation 11 years after the last one.

Lions Made Right Choice In ’80, Despite Sims Injury

“Sims, through no fault of his own, isn’t anywhere near the top of the list of all-time leading rushers. That’s because there’s a lot of Gale Sayers about him.”

Billy Sims and Charlie White were rivals, of sorts, in college football. At least, they were media-created rivals, which isn’t always the same thing, I realize. And one of them was deemed to be the best running back to enter the 1980 draft.

Sims, or White?

Sims was the flashier of the two – galloping with his long, high-step kick for the University of Oklahoma. Sims’s style was one of avoidance; and he had the moves to back it up. Billy Sims chose to run around people rather than through them.

White was physically tougher, in the sense that he didn’t always bother with the fancy twist and turn to dodge tacklers. White played for that football factory on the Left Coast – the University of Southern Cal.

In 1979, Sports Illustrated ran a cover of Sims and White – each clutching the Heisman Trophy in a mock tug-of-war. Who would win the coveted trophy for being the best college player in the country? Sims had already won it in 1978. And White ended up winning it in ’79, after all.

The Lions didn’t win much of anything in White’s Heisman year. The ’79 Lions went 2-14 – the worst team in the NFL. We might be kind of desensitized to such a distinction nowadays, but in 1979, it was still a shock to the system in Detroit, to have the worst professional football team in the land.

The 1970s ended with a thud. The Lions looked toward a new decade with new hope.

Two crown jewel runners would be available in the 1980 draft: Billy Sims and Charlie White. The Lions had the no. 1 overall pick off the board, just like they do in 2009. It was widely agreed that a brilliant skill position player such as Sims or White was just what the doctor ordered for the moribund Lions.

Sims, or White?

As the draft grew closer, a previously-ignored factor emerged: Sims’s age. He would be 25 years old in September, due to a late start in college and being red shirted due to injuries. Charlie White was just 22. The three extra years were thought to maybe dissuade the Lions from drafting Sims.

But in the days prior to the draft, word leaked: the Lions were leaning toward the flashy, whirling dervish Sims over the quick, more bulldozing White.

Turns out that Charlie White wasn’t thought of as highly in NFL circles as the media folks assumed. Imagine.

The Lions snatched Sims off the board, as leaked – the first player chosen in the 1980 NFL Draft. But Charlie White didn’t go second overall. He didn’t go third overall. In fact, 25 more teams made their picks, and White’s name had still yet to be called.

The Cleveland Browns finally ended White’s consternation, grabbing him with the 27th overall selection.

The Lions of 2009, it’s been said, are faced with the “most important draft in their history”. Not sure about that, but it’s certainly the most curious, because even the 1979 Lions managed to win two games. What does an 0-16 team look for, anyway, with a cache of draft picks and more holes in its roster than a pound of Swiss Cheese? What does it do with the no. 1 overall pick? It’s the highest pick possible, but you can still only use it to draft one player.

In 1980, the choice was pretty much limited to Billy Sims or Charlie White.

SI’s September 10, 1979 cover, depicting the rivals White (left) and Sims

In 2009?

There is no shortage of opinions, each trumpeted by the opinioned as being, unequivocally, the best thing for the 0-16 Lions.

The Lions badly need a franchise quarterback, some of the opinionated say. So who better than Matthew Stafford, the flawed but talented QB from the University of Georgia?

No, other opinionated experts say. Defense wins football games, and the Lions have the worst defense in the NFL, by far. So who better than Aaron Curry, the wrecking machine linebacker from Wake Forest?

But wait! What good is a franchise quarterback if he’s under constant attack? You need blocking, so who better than Jason Smith, the wall of a left tackle from Baylor?

It’s not a Sims-or-White thing for the Lions this April.

The Lions better hope that they have as much success with this no. 1 overall pick as they did back in 1980, when they drafted Billy Sims.

Sims, through no fault of his own, isn’t anywhere near the top of the list of all-time leading rushers. That’s because there’s a lot of Gale Sayers about him.

Sayers, the Kansas Comet, was in the NFL and gone, just like that. Just like his running style. Sayers was drafted by the Chicago Bears in 1965, and by 1970 he was toast, his knee irreparably damaged. He was the James Dean of pro football; we only got a teaspoonful of his potential before the spoon was snatched away entirely.

Sims burst onto the scene with the 1980 Lions, and immediately he proved the team correct in drafting him first overall.

The Lions played the Rams, on the road, to open the ’80 season. The Rams were defending NFC Champs, and the 2-14 Lions were daring to take them on, in the Rams’ backyard. Sims torched them, rushing for over 150 yards and three touchdowns. The Lions won, 41-20.

The 1980 Lions started fast and faded, but not Sims personally. He finished with 1,303 yards and 13 rushing touchdowns. The next season, Sims rushed for over 1,400 yards with a 4.9 yards per carry average, and scored 13 more TDs. He slumped slightly in the 1982 strike-shortened season, but bounced back with another 1,000-yard season in 1983.

In 1984, Sims got off to a terrific start. Halfway through the season, he was nearing 700 yards rushing and his yards-per-carry average spiked to 5.3.

I was at home, watching the game in Minnesota on the tube – the Lions’ eighth game of the ’84 season. It was the week after the Tigers clinched the ’84 World Series. The Lions were rassling with their old nemesis, the Vikings, in the Metrodome.

Sims took a toss from quarterback Gary Danielson and swung to his left. It was a signature play the Lions had been running ever since drafting Sims in 1980. And, also signature, Sims swerved away from the aggressive Vikings pursuers. But Walker Lee Ashley – I’ll never forget his name – crashed into Sims’ left knee and the force of the blow caused the knee to burst like a popping kernel of corn.

Billy Sims’s career was over. Just like that.

The Lions may have gotten shortchanged on their 1980 no. 1 overall pick, but it wasn’t because they chose the wrong guy. Billy Sims proved himself worthy of his draft status. Charlie White was pretty much a dud of an NFL player.

Now, 29 years later, they need to get it right again. It’s one of the few times you hope Lions history repeats itself.

Phillies & Tigers Have Quite An Inter-personnel History

“Lance Parrish knew almost as soon as he signed his free agent contract with the Phillies that he had made a mistake.”

The Philadelphia Phillies are, for the first time since 1981 and for only the second time in their 127-year history, heading into a season as defending world champions.

That, plus a recent piece I wrote about the ‘84 Tigers and the famous trade made with the Phillies in spring training that brought Willie Hernandez and Dave Bergman to Detroit, caused me to think of other Tigers who became Phillies, or vice-versa.

Phillies who became Tigers

Tony Taylor was a solid-fielding, solid-hitting second baseman who actually stuck around long enough to amass over 2,000 hits in his career. He was mostly a Phillie, but became a Tiger in 1971 when GM Jim Campbell began providing manager Billy Martin with aging veterans to patch holes in an organization that was becoming frightfully bereft of young talent.

Taylor gave the Tigers some decent part-time play, batting .287 from June-October in 1971, and .303 in ‘72 when the team won the AL East title. He slumped to .229 in 1973, and was released that winter. Think a poor man’s Placido Polanco: a right-handed contact hitter who rarely struck out. And a glove that was above average. Taylor only made 13 errors in the three seasons that he was a Tiger.

Speaking of ‘72, Campbell once again turned to the Phillies for veteran help.

He picked up lefty Woodie Fryman, who was wallowing with a very bad Phillies team when Campbell acquired him off the waiver wire on August 2nd.

Fryman, a noted tobacco farmer from Kentucky, did even better than Tony Taylor in the “aging veteran contributes” department. He simply went 10-3 down the stretch with a 2.06 ERA, including pitching the division-clinching game against the Red Sox at Tiger Stadium. He faltered in ‘73 and ‘74, however, and the Tigers traded Fryman to Montreal. But Fryman wasn’t close to being done as a big leaguer; he played until 1983 at age 43.

I used Placido Polanco in reference to Tony Taylor, so here’s Polanco, period.

The Tigers raised some eyebrows in the summer of 2005 when they traded relief pitcher Ugueth Urbina to Philly for second baseman Polanco, who was being nudged out because the organization wanted to make room for Chase Utley. Trading pitching for non-pitching was deemed unwise, and not many people in Detroit had even heard of Placido Polanco.

That skepticism didn’t last too long.

Urbina flamed out, and before long was in prison, under suspicion of murder south of the border. Polanco was a key cog in the Tigers’ rise to the World Series in 2006, and is still a front-line player.

Tigers who became Phillies

Glenn Wilson, for whatever reason, didn’t get along with Sparky Anderson. And that meant that he wouldn’t last long in Detroit; few players did, who didn’t see eye-to-eye with the Tigers’ skipper.

Wilson was a talented, right-handed hitting corner outfielder who had average power but who hit for good average and drove in runs. Yet he found himself in Sparky’s doghouse, and from there you rarely emerged. So Wilson was packaged with OF/C/DH/1B Johnny Wockenfuss in the Hernandez and Bergman trade of ‘84. In 1985, Wilson had 102 RBI on just 14 HRs with the Phillies, hitting a solid .275. He finished with the Pirates and the Astros, never putting up eye-popping numbers, but functioning as a capable big leaguer.

Wockenfuss was a fan favorite in Detroit and was truly sorry to leave the Tigers. He hit .289 in just 180 AB for the Phillies in 1984, then retired in ‘85 after just 37 AB, at age 36.

Lance Parrish knew almost as soon as he signed his free agent contract with the Phillies that he had made a mistake.

Parrish as a Phillie; doesn’t look right, does it?

Parrish left the Tigers after the 1986 season and signed with Philadelphia, a city whose fans are not known for their patience or compassion. It was odd, seeing Parrish in the Phillies pinstripes. And he was never comfortable. He got off to a miserable start and the booing soon began. His BA was still below .200 in late-May. 1988 wasn’t any better and then Parrish became a journeyman the rest of his career, save a decent season or two with the Angels. In 1994, Parrish asked the Tigers for a tryout. They politely declined.

So those are the highest-profile Tigers/Phillies over the past 40 years. Let me know if I missed anyone!

NHL Needs To Get Smaller In Order To Grow

“The NHL has seen itself come tantalizingly close to being a full-fledged member of the four major team sports, and it’s killing them that it’s just out of their grasp, in their eyes.”

Oh, to be NHL commissioner for one day. Just one.

Just one day is all I’d need to, with one stroke of my commissioner’s pen, commit common sense.

I’d place all the Original Six teams in one division.

The rest? I’d let them fight on the floor for scraps.

That may seem like a counter-intuitive move, but what Gary Bettman and the NHL doesn’t want to admit is that they have themselves a niche sport. And the sooner they come to terms with that, the better off the league will be, in the long term.

I know the NHL doesn’t want to hear that. They fancy themselves a significant player in the world of professional team sports. They are, after all, still inferred to whenever someone invokes the phrase, “four major sports.”

Yes, hockey is one of the “four majors”, but they’re no. 4, and they need a telescope to see the rear end of no. 3.

I’ve complained for years that the NHL has tried to appeal to the fringe fan at the expense of alienating its core. It’s been borne out in the way the league has expanded, force-feeding NHL hockey to the Sun Belt and the West Coast. It’s been displayed in many of the rule changes over the years, including the relentless assault on fighting.

If the NHL would only realize that if they cater to and listen to their core, the true hockey fan who’s been interested in the game since they were toddlers, and not worry about trying to have mass appeal, then their efforts would be rewarded — IF they can swallow some pride.

Some franchises might drop off, and so might some of the fringe fans who were hanging on by a thread. But the folks who truly love hockey, the ones who would dearly appreciate moves like creating an Original Six division, would very much stay. And, I submit, they might end up being the best marketing tool the NHL has ever had. Certainly the cheapest. Because they’d be Bettman’s Johnny Appleseeds, spreading the word about the NHL to friends, co-workers, family — you name it.

There’s no shame in presiding over a niche sport. Look at NASCAR, for crying out loud. The good people over there don’t hold races where there’s no interest in racing. They don’t change their rules to try to appeal to the fringe racing fan. No, NASCAR sticks to its core and caters directly to it. And that strategy has been pretty darn successful.

The NHL has seen itself come tantalizingly close to being a full-fledged member of the four major team sports, and it’s killing them that it’s just out of their grasp, in their eyes.

So if they’d only pull back, re-assess themselves and take a hard self-inventory, they’d see that this “appeal to the masses” approach is self-destructing.

A couple years or so ago, I moderated a roundtable discussion with ex-Red Wings Shawn Burr, Johnny Wilson, and Ted Lindsay. I asked each of them what they’d do if they could run the NHL. Burr didn’t hesitate.

“I’d have surveys in every NHL arena,” he said. “And I’d ask a bunch of questions about the game, to get the fans’ opinions.” Then, Burr said, he’d use that information to see what the game needed to fix. I thought it was wonderfully simple yet brilliant.

Bettman’s been simple plenty of times, but rarely brilliant.

Can someone save the NHL from itself?

UDM, Once Fearless, Ducks Even Oakland U. Nowadays

“UDM sits right smack in the very city that produces some of the finest high school players in the entire Midwest, yet they wallow. Have been, with few interludes of success, since the mid-1980s.”

 

There was a time when the University of Detroit (before they added the Mercy part to their name) wasn’t a-scared of anybody, when it came to basketball opponents.

Powerhouse DePaul? Bring it on! Marquette, on the road? When does the bus leave? Michigan? Just name the time and the place!

That was a long, long time ago.

U-D is now UDM. They added an “M”, but lost their nerve.

Why, UDM won’t even play Oakland University, some 30 miles or so north.

It’s not the travel, of course — it’s the quality of the Golden Grizzlies.

UDM is ducking OU. Has been for years.

Oakland coach Greg Kampe was chatting with some Internet fans the other day, and portions of the chat were printed by the Free Press.

Who, Kampe was asked, is Oakland’s biggest rival?

“It should be the University of Detroit-Mercy,” Kampe said. “But they won’t play us. So it’s Oral Roberts.”

Oral Roberts plays in Oakland’s league, in case you were wondering. Which is more than you can say about UDM.

UDM doesn’t play in many people’s league anymore. They’re officially a member of the Horizon League, with schools like Cleveland State (who just won the league tournament) and Butler and Wisconsins of Green Bay and Milwaukee. It’s not a bad little league, actually; Cleveland State and Butler have caused other teams fits in basketball over the years.

So did U-D/UDM, once upon a time.

U-D had Dave DeBusschere and Spencer Haywood in the 1960s, and Terry Tyler and John Long and Terry Duerod in the 1970s. And it was no picnic playing the Titans — especially in that glorified high school gymnasium called Calihan Hall.

The Titans still play in old, decrepit Calihan, and their team hasn’t caused any trouble for too long. The 2008-09 season that the Titans just completed was another cautionary tale of a campaign: 7-23 overall; 2-17 in league play.

No wonder they’re ducking Oakland U.

Dickie Vitale and Dave “Smokey” Gaines and even Don Sicko must be horrified at the notion that UDM won’t play Oakland — not because OU is small potatoes, but because the Titans might very likely get their tails handed to them if they dared play Greg Kampe’s kids.

Kampe has Oakland on a great upward path. They win a lot up there, and for a school of its size, OU puts a very competitive team on the floor, year after year.

UDM sits right smack in the very city that produces some of the finest high school players in the entire Midwest, yet they wallow. Have been, with few interludes of success, since the mid-1980s.

Now they won’t even hop on a bus for 45 minutes to play Oakland, nor will they host them, thus robbing OU of its biggest rival, according to Coach Kampe.

I remember watching the ‘76-’77 Titans march into the old Mecca in Milwaukee and take on Marquette — who would be eventual NCAA champions in coach Al McGuire’s farewell season. Both teams were independents at the time, and the game had been scheduled at the behest of Vitale, who wanted his team to play as many top-notch programs as possible.

U-D won, in a game televised back home to Detroit, and Dickie V. did a jig at center court as he was being interviewed after the game. No joke — he danced, he was so happy.

That was back when U-D/UDM feared no team in no arena.

Now Greg Kampe can’t get the Titans on the court, nowhere, no how.

Times sure have changed — even for a team whose home gym hasn’t since the 1960s.

UDM, ducking Oakland University? The shame of it all.

47 Days Till The NFL Draft? STILL?

“Many of the clubs haven’t played a game since late-December. If they don’t have at least an inkling of who they’re going to draft by NOW, then shame on them.”

Only seven more weeks until the NFL Draft!

Ugh.

No other professional team sport has such a lag between the crowning of its champion and its draft. In the NBA, the confetti is barely swept from the streets of the champion’s city and then we’re at the draft. They don’t waste much time in the NHL, either — usually less than two weeks. MLB has its amateur draft during the season, for goodness sakes.

But the NFL?

The Super Bowl happens in early February. Then we’re forced to wait some 12 weeks or so before the league gets around to holding the draft. Why the wait?

The NFL Combine — that precious vehicle where would-be draftees are watched, measured, timed, and interviewed (rinse and repeat) — usually takes place before February is done. Yet we still need two more months before we can go ahead and draft those players?

Seriously, what the hell?

I’ve never understood the gap between the Super Bowl and the draft. Is there money to be made somewhere, the longer the wait? As far as I can tell, the only good the wait does is for the mock drafters and the talking heads on TV — some of whom surely must be paid by the word.

How come the NBA and the NHL can make up their minds on who to draft in such short order, and the NFL needs the equivalent of nearly an entire business quarter?

Nonsense!

The NFL should have its draft, at the latest, by mid-March. Do it before the NCAA basketball tournament begins, if you’re worried about competing with another major sporting event. That would give teams a good four months to sign the higher-round picks before training camp begins, presumably reducing the amount of holdouts due to stalled contract negotiations, since teams would have an extra six-to-seven weeks to hammer out deals.

I know — how DARE I think with any logic about the NFL!

And I use the Super Bowl as a generous plotting point. Truth is, only two teams made it that far. Many of the clubs haven’t played a game since late-December. If they don’t have at least an inkling of who they’re going to draft by NOW, then shame on them. They also have had ample time to run different scenarios through their computers and their brains. They did their combine thing. They’ve probably watched more film by now than Leonard Maltin has in his entire movie-reviewing life. So get on with it already!!

If it’s suspense you’re trying to build, then that can be accomplished by mid-March as well.

It’s just that I’m so sick of the draft right now, and it’s still 47 days away. FORTY-SEVEN.

Why is it necessary to keep us all waiting?

Wish we could somehow tie the draft to Groundhog Day. If he sees his shadow, six weeks till the draft (mid-March). If he doesn’t, an EARLY draft (late-February, right after the combine).

If only…

Healthy Guillen Key To Tigers

“A healthy Guillen isn’t just something that would be nice to have — it’s practically mandatory, for the Tigers to do anything of note in ‘09.”

It’s getting tiresome, seeing Carlos Guillen…NOT on the field. Or not in uniform. Or not anywhere near the Tigers, because he’s rehabbing something.

It’s becoming an annual summer thing in Detroit — the Guillen extended trip to the disabled list (DL).

It hasn’t been just one thing that keeps getting broken, either — it’s an assortment of ailments. And Guillen’s time spent on the DL has been soaring at an alarming rate over the past three years.

Guillen is valuable for many reasons, but two of the most important ones are that he’s a switch-hitter (the Tigers have shockingly few of them), and he can play a variety of positions. Of course, the latter has been due to a combination of ineffectiveness and the needs of manager Jim Leyland, but it’s true, nonetheless, that Guillen could, at any given time, play: SS, 1B, 3B, and, this season, LF.

Guillen is the Tigers’ starting left fielder, but notice that I didn’t use the sometimes interchangeable word “everyday” in substitute for “starting”. For it’s getting more and more difficult to declare Guillen an everyday anything, thanks to his injuries.

A bad back. A bad shoulder. A bad groin. A bad abdominal wall. All these, and more, have knocked Guillen out of the Tigers’ lineup for varying amounts of time since 2005. The two worst examples were in ‘05, when Guillen only played in 87 games, and last season, when he participated in just 113.

Last season, Guillen missed 49 games, not playing past August 25. After 8/25, the Tigers went 10-21. It’s partly coincidence, but not entirely.

The move to LF this season is designed to get as many at-bats as possible for as many of the Tigers’ starting eight as possible, but it’s also being done with an eye toward Guillen’s health. This spring training, Guillen is attempting to complete a comeback from last year’s pinched nerve in his back. It even hurts to write “pinched nerve in his back.” Can you imagine how painful it is to actually have one?

Guillen (left) and Magglio Ordonez have a much better chance of repeating this celebratory scene from the 2006 ALCS if Guillen can stay off the DL

At the time of his permanent trip to the DL last August, Guillen was hitting a steady .286. But that’s also considerably down from the .300+ years he was making us all accustomed to in Detroit. Bottom line: Guillen’s being shifted to the DL was the white flag; his back had been flaring up and bothering him all season. Typically, you don’t just get a bad back suddenly; it slowly wraps its tentacles around you and squeezes the health out of you.

So far, so good this spring. Guillen is playing in the World Baseball Classic (for Venezuela), and has reported no pain, yet, as he gets ready for what he hopes is an injury-free 2009.

A healthy Guillen isn’t just something that would be nice to have — it’s practically mandatory, for the Tigers to do anything of note in ‘09. Not only does he present problems because of his switch-hitting status, but Guillen is one of the finest men on the team. His leadership isn’t done with words or antics; it’s done the old-fashioned way, with hard play and courage.

Yes, courage. Don’t forget that Guillen nearly died in 2001, when he contracted tuberculosis. Not only did he contract it, he played with it. It probably did his body no good, but Guillen played with TB, because that’s what he’s about.

Such a teammate isn’t commonplace, anymore, in baseball.

The Tigers have many players to whom you could attach “MVP” to: Miguel Cabrera; Curtis Granderson; Magglio Ordonez; Placido Polanco; Justin Verlander. But none of them bring, in quite the same fashion, the intangible leadership qualities that Guillen provides.

It would be nice to see Guillen in uniform as often as possible in 2009. For a change.

Hard To Believe, But 25 Years Since Detroit’s Boys Blessed

“But 1984? Sparky was tormented, he wrote. How could the Tigers NOT win the whole thing after such a start? All season he gnashed his teeth and looked at the flagpole in center field, harboring ghoulish thoughts, apparently.”

It was the summer of 1984, and Tigers manager Sparky Anderson was musing, as usual. This time he had one of Detroit’s ink-stained wretches beside him.

“See that flagpole out there?” Sparky said, pointing to the famous, in-play pole deep in Tiger Stadium’s center field. “That’s where they’ll be hanging me, if we don’t win this thing.”

The 1984 baseball season was, in ESPN terms, an “instant classic” to the folks around Motown. It was fun. It was magical. It was a feel-good summer, capped off by a World’s Championship.

Fun for everyone, it was later revealed, except for Sparky.

He wrote it in his book, They Call Me Sparky. The Tigers zoomed out of the gate at a record-breaking pace – their won-lost soared to an almost unbelievable 35-5 after 40 games – and for ole Sparky, there was only one way to go. Down. Which meant that HE would go up – up on the flagpole, hanged. The feared hanging made it into the book.

The ’84 season, Sparky wrote, was among his least favorites. For the record, one of his most favorites came three years later, when the Tigers rose from the ashes of an 11-19 start and captured the AL East flag thanks to a wild, wonderful final week in which they overtook the Toronto Blue Jays – who held a 3-1/2 game lead on the Tigers with eight games to play.

But 1984? Sparky was tormented, he wrote. How could the Tigers NOT win the whole thing after such a start? All season he gnashed his teeth and looked at the flagpole in center field, harboring ghoulish thoughts, apparently.

It’s 25 years later, and what is it about us as a people that we fawn over the nice, round anniversary number? Last year was 24 years. Next year will be 26. Heaven forbid we recall the 1984 season at any other time than now – a quarter century later. The Silver Anniversary of the Tigers’ most recent World Series title.

Some random thoughts….

The Tigers gave it a good shot in 1983, but the Baltimore Orioles were too tough. The ’83 Tigers won 90 games and had the makings of being a contender for several years. But one smarmy, acerbic TV broadcaster was having none of it.

Acid Al Ackerman loved to smirk. He loved to sneer. And that was to the camera. You should have seen the looks he gave his interview subjects as he jabbed a microphone in their faces.

So the Tigers are trying to make a race of it in ’83, but during one treacherous streak, Acid Al gets sarcastic. He loved to do that, too. The Tigers finally won a game to break the losing spell, and Acid Al sneers, “Bless You, Boys!” in a manner that was hardly meant to be encouraging. He kept dragging the sarcastic expression out, whenever the Tigers would win one during the losing spells.

Bless You, Boys!

And Acid Al kept doing it, into the 1984 season. But by this time, the good folks in Detroit had taken Ackerman’s sarcasm and turned it around on him. People were saying “Bless You, Boys!” in the most supportive, fervent way possible: calling it from their car windows, yelling it to their neighbors across the street. Lance Parrish would hit a three-run home run, and you could almost hear a city’s baseball fans cry, in unison: “Bless You, Boys!” It ended up on bumper stickers. Hell, it practically became the team’s official slogan: Bless You, Boys!

Take THAT, Acid Al!

In this book, Sparky says he feared he’d be hanged if the Tigers didn’t win the 1984 World Series

More random thoughts…

It’s near the end of spring training, and the Tigers have a dilemma: too many position players, not enough beef in their bullpen. They have righty Aurelio Lopez, but his arm had gone kaput in 1983. There were other incidents of arm trouble for Senor Smoke in the past, too. The Tigers were a little nervous about who would close their games.

So GM Bill Lajoie pulls off a stunner of a trade in late-March. He deals outfielder Glenn Wilson, never a favorite of Sparky’s, and catcher/first baseman/DH Johnny Wockenfuss, a fan favorite, to the Philadelphia Phillies. In return, the Tigers get first baseman Dave Bergman, who had a slick glove, and left-handed reliever Willie Hernandez.

With that move, Bill Lajoie simply wins the 1984 World Series for the Tigers.

Hernandez goes bananas as the Tigers’ closer, winning both the AL MVP and Cy Young Awards. Bergman plays stellar defense – he saved Jack Morris’s no-hitter in Chicago with his glove work – and contributes some key hits along the way.

More random thoughts…

It’s before a game against the California Angels at Tiger Stadium, and I, as a fill-in, cub reporter for the Michigan Daily, am on the field. I can’t help but notice that Reggie Jackson has broadcaster Joe Garagiola in stitches. I mean, Garagiola can’t stop laughing at whatever the heck Jackson is saying to him. I inch closer, trying to eavesdrop. Garagiola is laughing so hard his face is red and he’s practically convulsing. I edge closer. Then, Jackson catches me and glares me back to my original location. I still don’t know what he said to Garagiola to elicit such an uproarious reaction.

Some more…

The Tigers are playing the Indians at Tiger Stadium in late-April, and I’m downtown, too – watching the Pistons take on the New York Knicks in the decisive Game 5 of their first round playoff series, inside warm, humid Joe Louis Arena. It’s the series where the Knicks’ Bernard King goes bonkers, averaging over 40 points per game. And it’s the game where Isiah Thomas scores 16 points in the final minute-and-a-half, erasing an eight-point Knick lead and sending the game into overtime. The Pistons lose, and we go out for some pops afterward to drown our sorrows. I stumble into the house – it’s past 1:00 a.m. by now – and the Tigers are still on the radio. They’re engaged in a 19-inning affair with the Indians. The Tigers lose, too.

Oh, and I was in attendance for the World Series-clinching Game 5. And no, I’ll never forget what Kirk Gibson’s moon shot into the right field upper deck looked like from my spot in the center field bleachers. Nor will I forget the swatches of turf being tossed into the bleachers after the game, appearing over the rail like magic, from nowhere.

But it wasn’t until 14 years later, when Sparky’s book came out, that I learned how terrible the ’84 season was for him. Would they really have hanged Sparky from the flagpole if the Tigers didn’t win it?

Best not to ever know, I suppose.

“Rooftop” Jones Another Instant 1984 Tigers Legend

“In Detroit, Rooftop Jones became an instant legend, in a season that made legends of many. The famous “short porch” in right field at Tiger Stadium was custom made for his upper-cut, lefty swing.”

 

I had known about Ruppert Jones, from his days toiling in near-obscurity with the Seattle Mariners, but he had mostly dropped off my radar by the time the 1984 baseball season began. I knew that he was a left-handed hitting outfielder, and that he once had some pop in his bat. But he played for the Mariners, which meant that he wasn’t a household name by any means.

So when the Tigers signed Jones and dispatched him to AAA Evansville in April of ‘84, I may have halfway raised an eyebrow — then hoisted another beer at Theo’s Tavern or the Spaghetti Bender, or wherever else I chose to do my drinking on the campus of Eastern Michigan University as a junior student.

Little did I, or anyone else, know that Ruppert Jones, within a few months, would be known as “Rooftop” Jones and would become yet another delicious side story in a wild, wonderful championship season.

 

Jones, in near anonymity as a Mariner

Jones was called up to the Tigers in early June, and in typical Sparky Anderson fashion, the manager put Jones into the lineup right away. The Toronto Blue Jays were in town, and they were the only team that had a snowball’s chance in Hell of slowing down the Tigers, who had famously started 35-5, but were now on a 4-8 streak. The Jays had moved to within 3-1/2 games of the Tigers.

Jones started in center field, and went 1-for-3. The Tigers lost. The next day, Jones started again in center. And he launched a rocket of a home run, onto the right field roof at Tiger Stadium. It was part of a four-run sixth inning. The Tigers won, moving back to a 4-1/2 game lead. The Jays wouldn’t get closer the rest of the season.

They started calling Ruppert “Rooftop” shortly thereafter — and Jones lapped up the attention. No longer was he playing in a vacuum. He had been a Yankee for a period of time, but hardly one of their stars. In Detroit, Rooftop Jones became an instant legend, in a season that made legends of many. The famous “short porch” in right field at Tiger Stadium was custom made for his upper-cut, lefty swing.

Jones hit 12 HR in 215 AB in spot duty with the ‘84 Tigers, though he only got eight at-bats (hitless) in the post-season. But he got himself a World Series ring. After the season, Jones was granted free agency and ended up signing with the Angels. He hit 46 HR in three seasons with the Angels — maintaining a good HR/per AB ratio — before retiring after the 1987 season at age 32.

Ruppert “Rooftop” Jones — another Tiger who was sprinkled with the magic pixie dust of the 1984 season. A few of them did that in ‘84 — swept in for the fun and were hardly heard from again. But they had their moments in the sun that year, and that’s all any big league player can really ask for.

Spartans Have Real Shot At Making 30th Anniversary Of ‘79 Team Truly Memorable

“It says here that today’s Spartans, thirty years later, have an excellent chance to duplicate the results of Magic and Greg Kelser — but with considerably less star power, of course.”

It’s almost enough to make the old-timers (like yours truly) choke on their spittle, but it’s been thirty years, incredibly. Thirty years since the Michigan State Spartans captured the NCAA basketball title in a matchup that they’re still talking about, and as well they should.

Because it really wasn’t MSU vs. Indiana State University, as nice of a thought as that was. It was Magic vs. Bird.

Earvin “Magic” Johnson, the Spartan sophomore, was to go up against Larry Bird, “The hick from French Lick (Ind)” — and it was perhaps the most anticipated NCAA final in history. The Spartans had made mincemeat of just about every opponent in the tourney, but here were the Sycamores, led by Bird, who were undefeated at 33-0.

NBC, televisers of the Final Four, stumbled all over themselves, fawning over the impending battle between the flashy, smiling Magic Johnson and the more staid, blue collar Bird. It was the first made-for-television NCAA Final. Maybe the first true reality show to ever appear on NBC’s airwaves.

For there were no writers — this was unscripted stuff.

Magic, along with his second banana, Gregory Kelser, worked the Sycamores inside/out, as they had with the poor, helpless opponents leading up to the Final. Bird, working more solo than Magic, kept ISU in the game with his patented, slashing drives to the hoop and his dead-eye outside shooting.

NBC beamed the basketball drama into the tens of millions of homes whose occupants were transfixed by it. Those same living room folks had seen Bill Walton and UCLA have their way with hapless Final foes. They had seen, just two years earlier, Marquette University give their retiring head coach, Al McGuire, the best going away present of them all: a National Championship, as McGuire wept on the sidelines in the closing seconds, the TV cameras recording every teardrop.

Now McGuire was courtside again, but wearing a headset and gabbing into a microphone. He had done the usual coach’s thing, post-career: begin a new one as a television talking head.

But never before had the people in TV land seen an NCAA basketball Final this rich in individual star power. Maybe they haven’t, since. But that’s another debate for another time.

Magic vs. Bird. The start of a beautiful rivalry, carried over big time, into the NBA.

The ‘79 Final: in the end, it was Bird who needed to be picked up by Magic

It says here that today’s Spartans, thirty years later, have an excellent chance to duplicate the results of Magic and Greg Kelser — but with considerably less star power, of course.

I’m sure it hasn’t been lost on Tom Izzo’s squad that they plan on playing this year’s Final Four right smack downtown — Detroit, Michigan, USA. It amounts to a home court advantage, which is more than Magic’s Spartans had, for sure.

But today’s Spartans aren’t two players and three extras, as Magic’s team had been in ‘79. So vast was the talent possessed by Magic Johnson and Gregory Kelser, so well-oiled their inside/outside game, that coach Jud Heathcote could have put Larry, Moe, and Curly on the court, and MSU would still have won a boatload of games.

Izzo’s team, in 2009, doesn’t have that “one guy” who totally overshadows his teammates. But it doesn’t mean that the Spartans can’t be national champs for the first time since 2000.

MSU won the Big Ten title, outright, and they really weren’t challenged for it all season. Occasionally their lead was sliced to one game, but no worries. Of course, there were some hiccups along the way; an occasional stinker played on a foreign court, and even a couple at the Breslin Center. But not enough to derail Izzo and his kids.

The only derailment that can happen now is on the journey to Detroit’s Final Four. Even an early-round upset in the Big Ten tournament won’t be enough to keep the Spartans from receiving an at-large bid to March Madness.

Funny things have happened to (some would say) more talented Izzo teams in the NCAA Tourney. It seems it’s either one and done, or a Final Four berth — nothing in between — when it comes to Tom Izzo-coached teams in the NCAA “Big Dance”.

I won’t predict a Spartan National Championship, because that’s just so hard to pull off, even for the most elite teams. And I know some say (Big Al, for one) that just making the Final Four — because it’s in Detroit — somehow gives MSU a backstage pass into the championship game, as if it doesn’t have to be earned anymore, at that point. But I will admit this: if the Spartans can somehow win four games and be one of the Final Four, then they will indeed have a distinct advantage over the other three teams, because of the geography. And that’s as far as I’ll go.

The 2000 Spartans, led by guard Mateen Cleaves and the “Flintstones”, missed the 20th anniversary of that 1979 team by one year in winning their national title. Now, nine years later, the 2009 Spartans have a chance to make it a nice, round number again: winning the whole enchilada 30 years since the school’s first-ever National Basketball Championship.

I know Magic Johnson, for one, would simply eat it up.

Smith Yet Another Product Of Lions’ Decades-Present Dark Cloud

“So it’s been chasing the Lions for 45 years now, off and on — this dark cloud of death and paralysis.”

Corey Smith is, likely and sadly, dead. Only the strongest believers in miracles would think otherwise.

Smith, the Lions’ free agent defensive lineman, looks to be added to the list of team tragedies. As you know, he’s one of three men missing at sea off the Gulf Coast, following a fishing boat capsizing that occurred on Saturday.

Smith is likely dead, and now it’s another time to recall the dark moments in Lions history — but this time the real life dark moments, not the ones played out on the football field on Sundays.

Chuck Hughes. Dropped dead of a heart attack, on the field, in 1971. Still the only on-field death in the 80+ year history of the NFL.

Head coach Don McCafferty. Another heart attack victim. Died during training camp in 1974 after mowing his lawn.

Mike Utley. Paralyzed from the chest down due to an in-game injury in 1991.

Eric Andolsek. Killed by an out-of-control driver while doing yard work, of all things, in front of his home in the spring of 1992.

Assistant coach and brother of head coach Wayne Fontes, Lenny Fontes. Died of a sudden heart attack in 1992, not long after Andolsek.

Reggie Brown. Nearly became the second on-field death in 1997 after a violent collision at the Silverdome. He lived, but his career ended.

Now Smith, who ironically became a free agent on Friday, a day before he went missing at sea.

Smith: The fourth Lions player to die, while still active, since 1964

It may not be that the Lions are cursed with these sorts of things more than any other NFL team. In case you haven’t noticed, NFL players are being felled at a rather alarming rate, all over the league. But we certainly haven’t avoided this kind of stuff in Detroit, that’s for sure.

The Lions issued a statement after the U.S. Coast Guard announced it was “suspending” its search for Smith and the others. The team didn’t disagree with the decision, considering the circumstances, and added that the whole incident served to remind us all just how fragile life is.

I like to think that it shouldn’t take this kind of a tragedy to serve that reminder, but I suppose this isn’t the time to quibble.

I just hope that Smith’s loss, and that of Oakland Raiders LB Marquis Cooper and former college player Will Bleakley, won’t be minimized simply because the two NFL players toiled for bad teams and Bleakley wasn’t an NFLer at all. We tend to do that, you know — plot the “tragedy factor” of a player’s loss based on his star value within the league. Or based on the star power of the team that employed him.

I probably shouldn’t forget a young Lions lineman from the early-1960s named Lucien Reeberg, who died at age 21 in January 1964 from chronic kidney disease.

So it’s been chasing the Lions for 45 years now, off and on — this dark cloud of death and paralysis.

Kind of makes this “Bobby Layne Curse” and the failures of the Ford ownership look like small, meaningless potatoes, eh?

Grandy In The WBC? It’s Not OK With Me

“A healthy Granderson, from jump street, is essential. The Tigers cannot pretend that they have anyone who can come close to duplicating all that Granderson does on the baseball diamond. Because they don’t. No one in MLB does.”

Curtis Granderson doesn’t have my permission to play in the World Baseball Classic. I hereby order him to stay in Lakeland, with his REAL teammates, and get ready for the 2009 season in the traditional way. Further, I order him to not hurt himself, as he did last year late in spring training.

Oh, how I wish Grandy wouldn’t play for Team USA in the WBC. I wish even more that my demand means more than the space it takes up on this blog.

Granderson, of course, just happens to be the one player in all of baseball who you’d want to represent the United States of America. If that sounds like I’m laying a lot on Grandy, then so be it. It happens to be fact.

So I get why Granderson, the Tigers’ four-tool center fielder (he just needs to work on that arm a bit), was asked to be on Team USA. Who wouldn’t want a young man who can triple to left, homer to right, beat out an infield hit, and steal other teams’ fun by covering more real estate than Century 21? All that, and an award-winning smile and a personality that makes Dale Carnegie look positively cranky.

So go if you must, Curtis — but you’d better not hurt yourself, or else I’m gunning for you, my friend.

Yeah, he caught it.

In case you’re still bamboozled about what in the heck happened to the high-priced, over-hyped Tigers of 2008, look no further than Granderson, who injured his hand late in spring training and missed most of April. The Tigers were 8-13 when Granderson finally made his debut, on April 23. In his first game back, Grandy went 2-for-4 and the Tigers drilled the Texas Rangers, 19-6.

One player does not and should not a team make, but I submit that if Curtis Granderson had been healthy from Day One in 2008, the Tigers would not have gotten off to the start that they did. He simply does too much. You don’t just slice someone like that out from the top of your batting order, from your center field position, and not feel the absence.

A healthy Granderson, from jump street, is essential. The Tigers cannot pretend that they have anyone who can come close to duplicating all that Granderson does on the baseball diamond. Because they don’t. No one in MLB does.

Never mind wondering how many All-Star games Granderson will perform in when all is said and done. Better start contemplating how many MVP Awards will end up on Grandy’s mantel. It’s not being a homer to say this. Just ask around the league.

Granderson is gone now, off to be with Team USA. But not before slamming a home run for the Tigers on his way out the door. Just a nice reminder of what the Tigers will be missing in camp for up to possibly three weeks.

Just as long as they’re not missing it when the curtain rises for real. We’ve already seen how lethal that can be.

Bing’s Mayoral Bid Maybe Years Too Late

“Bing, fresh off his primary victory, is already going on the offensive, attacking Cockrel’s politics the same way he used to attack the Bulls and the Celtics and the Lakers with his relentless drives to the hoop.”

 

 The ironic thing is, David Bing could have been mayor of Detroit when he had no such aspirations. Now that he wants it, it might not be there for him. We’ll see.

Bing, 65, wants very badly, today, to preside over the city whose arms embraced him some 42 years ago, plus. Too bad he didn’t have this notion way back when.

Bing, the former Pistons guard who only saved the franchise from itself once upon a time, has long been a successful businessman. His name has been mentioned in connection with occupying the Manoogian Mansion for nearly two decades now. They’ve held elections in which I’m convinced he’d have wiped the floor with his competition.

And only NOW he finally decides to run?

Bing could be elected mayor now. But there was a time when he was about as wanted in Detroit as a Japanese car company.

It was the summer of 1966, and the staunch basketball fans in Detroit – and perhaps there were thousands of them at the time – were hoping beyond hope that the Pistons’ last place finish would equal the drafting of college star Cazzie Russell, from the University of Michigan. For four years, Russell bedazzled the folks in Metro Detroit – and across the country – with his basketball skills. The Pistons were in a bad way in ’66 – never a winning record since they arrived in Detroit in 1957 and just coming off a brutal 22-58 season.

Cazzie Russell, it was surmised, would be the answer to all the pro basketball problems in Detroit.

Time was running out on the Pistons – and that’s no hyperbole. It wasn’t certain just how much longer owner Fred Zollner was willing to wait before turning a profit in the Motor City. But oh, if Cazzie Russell could become a Piston…

All the Pistons had to do was win a coin flip.

The New York Knicks were the other last place team and they wanted Russell, too. Everyone wanted Russell. He was very want-able.

They flipped the coin. The Pistons lost. Surprise, surprise.

Russell went to the Knicks. The Pistons cursed their luck – rotten ever since they moved from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Detroit. They settled for a skinny guard from Syracuse named Dave Bing.

When Bing arrived in Detroit, after having driven here with his worldly possessions in his car, he didn’t exactly cross 8 Mile Road to a hero’s welcome. The city was still in mourning over the loss of Cazzie Russell to the Knicks.

Bing couldn’t have been elected dog catcher, then.

A few years later, after winning Rookie of the Year honors and leading the team into the playoffs and winning a league scoring title and breathing life back into a nearly-moribund franchise, Dave Bing was much more electable.

He could have been elected mayor in 1974, when the Pistons went 52-30 and made the playoffs and lost a heartbreaking, seven-game series to the Chicago Bulls.

The trouble was that Bing’s contributions to the saving of the Pistons – again, no exaggeration here – were in inverse proportion to the interest of the sporting fans in Detroit. So I say he could have been elected mayor – if his electorate consisted solely of the majority of the 5,000 or so fans who cared enough to buy a ticket into Cobo Arena each game night, shortly after he arrived from Syracuse. Even after Bing put the Pistons on the map, they were a small village, not yet a city. Attendance of 8,000 was considered a good night in Detroit.

 

OK, so maybe he couldn’t have been elected in 1974 due to low voter turnout, but eventually, Bing, post-retirement, began to craft a reputation in town as a benevolent businessman who created jobs and pumped life into the city’s economy – just as he had pumped life into the Pistons, once upon a time.

He could have been elected mayor, for sure, after Coleman Young relinquished his seat in 1993. There were many who wanted Bing to run. It would have been a landslide, I’m telling you. But Bing said no – too many things still to do as a non-mayor.

So he kept building his business, and helping to get housing built, too. Bing became a hero of sorts to the poor, to the indigent. He would have embarrassed whomever he ran against – Dennis Archer included – if he had chosen that path.

He remained a non-mayor, a non-candidate. The two terms were interchangeable.

So it’s not until 2009 that Dave Bing decides he wants to be mayor, after all.

If this was basketball, we’d say that Bing got out of the first round of the playoffs and will now advance to the championship series. He finished first in last week’s primary election, a smidgen ahead of the current, interim mayor, Ken Cockrel, Jr. There was a time when Cockrel’s dad, Ken Sr., was another who was mentioned as mayoral material.

One of them – the ex-basketballer Bing or the son of a maybe-mayor Cockrel – will be declared the winner in the wake of this May’s special general election.

Bing, fresh off his primary victory, is already going on the offensive, attacking Cockrel’s politics the same way he used to attack the Bulls and the Celtics and the Lakers with his relentless drives to the hoop.

The topic du jour was the City Council’s unexpected (to some) rejection of a deal to renovate and expand Cobo Hall – Bing’s old basketball playing haunts. The challenger took the interim mayor Cockrel to task over not having the votes necessary to ensure the deal’s passing.

“You shouldn’t come to the table with a deal unless you have the votes,” Bing railed to the papers. “Now it looks like we have to start again from scratch. We look like a bunch of clowns.”

A bunch of clowns. Those were words that would have been apt to use to describe the Pistons upon Bing’s arrival in 1966. Now he aims to save the city from itself, as he once saved the Pistons from themselves.

He could have done it earlier, and much, much easier. Ken Cockrel’s kid isn’t going to be a cakewalk opponent.

But then again, they never seem to do anything in Detroit the easy way, do they?