The Best (and Worst) of Yours Truly, 2011

In a flash, a whirr and a blur, another year in sports came and went. 2011, it seemed, might have been missed had you blinked.

And what a year it was.

Tigers AND Lions in the playoffs, for the first time in the same year since 1935.

Pistons with a new coach (again).

Red Wings almost coming all the way back from an 0-3 playoff deficit against the San Jose Sharks.

Michiganfootball resurging under new coach Brady Hoke.

And I wrote about it all—with varying degrees of premonition and soothsaying.

For the fourth year in a row, I take you through the calendar and share some of my bon mots—and why they were or were not some of my best.

 

January

(on Steve Yzerman putting together a winner inTampaBay)

You can dress him however you like, put him wherever you want, but you can’t take the will to win out of him.

There’s quite a story going on in the NHL, not that you’d know it, because it’s happening to a team closer toCubathanCanada.

Yzerman is Vice President and General Manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning, a hockey team that really does play in the NHL; I looked it up.

No team with which Yzerman has been associated has had a losing season since 1991.

Now he’s taking the slapstick Tampa Bay Lightning and making them the new Beasts of the East.

Yzerman is turning theTampa(freaking) Bay Lightning into winners in his first year on the job.

Surprised?

Stevie’s team made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, as a matter of fact.

 

(on why the Pistons should hang onto veteran Tracy McGrady)

McGrady might be a Hall of Famer when all is said and done, except not all has been said, and it doesn’t look like all has been done; not even close.

The Pistons signed McGrady last August and it was the quintessential marriage of convenience. McGrady needed the Pistons so he could show the NBA that he still had game, and the Pistons needed another NBA veteran with a name; a player who wasn’t too far removed from his oohs and aahs days.

 The Pistons didn’t need another swingman; in fact, they needed one like a hole in the head. And it wasn’t like NBA teams were knocking McGrady’s door down for

 

his services. But the Pistons figured they could get McGrady on the cheap (which they did), and maybe he could still score a little and provide a veteran presence.

It’s not a bad idea to keep dudes like this on your roster, if you can manage it.

The Pistons decided otherwise, and let McGrady walk away after one season in Detroit.

 

(on the once unthinkable retirement of former Piston Dennis Rodman’s number)

He worked as a janitor at theDallas-FortWorthAirportafter high school, but after another growth spurt he gave hoops another shot.

Keep in mind he played little to no high school basketball.

Turns out Rodman could play the game, after all, mainly because he had a fetish for rebounding. He played a semester for some place calledCookeCountyCollegeinGainesville,Texas, averaging over 17 points and 13 rebounds per game.

From there it was on to SE Oklahoma State, an NAIA school—which was not exactly the career path of choice if one hoped to crack the NBA.

The Pistons are going to do something on April 1 that, had you put money down on it in 1986, you’d be breaking the bank right about now.

On that date, Dennis Rodman’s No. 10 Pistons jersey will be raised into the rafters, which is appropriate because that’s often where you could have found Rodman himself, in his salad days as the league’s most ferocious rebounder.

Not long after, Rodman went into the Basketball Hall of Fame, too, for good measure.

 

February

(on the long overdue election of NFL Films founder Ed Sabol into the Pro Football Hall of Fame)

Ed Sabol is still around, thank goodness. He’s 94 years old.

I say thank goodness because only last week did the powers that be deem him worthy of induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

You heard me; it took them nearly 50 years after he fed his first footage into his 16 mm camera to put Ed Sabol into the Hall of Fame.

This is more overdue than a cure for the common cold.

Ed Sabol doesn’t just belong in the Hall of Fame, he should have his own wing. This is like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame realizing it hadn’t yet inducted the electric guitar.

It was very satisfying watching Ed, with son Steve by his side, giving his induction speech.

 

March

(on who should be the Tigers’ starting second baseman)

If I had a vote, I’d cast it for Will Rhymes to be the Tigers’ second sacker.

Rhymes, a lefty bat, is a prototypical second baseman. He’s hard-nosed and the front of his jersey is always dirty. He hit .304 in 191 AB last season, and he only made four errors in 53 games.

He’s a late bloomer, turning 28 on April 1, but that’s still seven years younger than (Carlos) Guillen.

Umm, you can’t win them all. Rhymes did indeed win the job in spring training, but he didn’t hit a lick and was lopped off the 40-man roster earlier this month.

 

(on the importance of leadoff hitter and centerfielder Austin Jackson to the Tigers’ cause)

Jacksonis the most important because if he gets a case of the sophomore jinxies, and the Tigers don’t have a reliable leadoff hitter, then the house of cards that is the team’s offense gets blown down.

Jacksonstrikes out a lot, which is understandable for a young player, but also more tolerable when that young player is hitting .300. It’s not so great if the batting average is .250 or .260.

Well, the batting average was .249, and the strikeouts jumped from 170 to 181. Yet the Tigers still won their division.

 

April

(on the sad state of veteran forward Mike Modano, who was on the outside looking in, for the most part, during the NHL playoffs)

Mike Modano, healthy scratch. For a playoff game.

Not what anyone had in mind when the Red Wings brought the veteran, home-grown kid back toDetroit.

Modano has gone on record as saying that this is likely his last chance at the Stanley Cup, because retirement is beckoning him.

“I can’t stay on the ice as long,” he told the media a few days ago. “I think my body is telling me that I’m near the end.”

Modano only got into two playoff games, and he retired over the summer, after having missed about three months of the season with a badly gashed wrist.

 

May

(on my frustration with the stubborn Tigers manager, Jim Leyland)

Jim Leyland, in case you haven’t heard, is a rocket scientist.

He presides over a job so sophisticated, so complicated, that it defies the understanding of those who aren’t rocket scientists.

He stands above all in his knowledge of his very scientific vocation, and therefore has no use for those whose brains simply cannot wrap themselves around the mesmerizing theorems, laws and corollaries that one must know in order to manage a baseball team.

OOPS; did I say Jim was a rocket scientist?

I made an assumption, since that’s how he treats his job, and those who dare question his logic.

The Marlboro Man had the last laugh, of course.

 

(on the prospects of new U-M football coach Brady Hoke)

Michiganfootball had been living in the penthouse and is now slumming. This is a program whose name wasn’t just spoken, it was said with a sneer—by both supporters and rivals.

 

Michigandidn’t get hurt, it inflicted it on others.

…But Hoke needs to start beatingMichiganState, too. And continue to beat Notre Dame. And he needs to keep having good recruiting classes. He needs to restore pride and faith inMichiganfootball once again.

Brady Hoke has one charge and one charge only: He has to saveMichiganfootball. That’s all.

And you know what?

I think he’s gouhnna do it.

That last sentence was my attempt at spelling how Hoke pronounces “gonna.” And, for the record, Hoke seems to be right on course, leading the Wolverines to a fine 10-2 season.

 

(on the Red Wings forcing a Game 7 in their conference semi-final series againstSan Jose, after dropping the first three games)

It’s now the thinkable.

The Red Wings are Secretariat in 1973, the ‘51 Giants, the ‘78 Yankees. They’re the ‘68-69 New York Jets, the 2004 Red Sox.

The tortoise has nothing on them, in that great race against the hare.

Check the calendar for a month of Sundays. Charlie Brown might get that kick off, after all, out of Lucy’s hold.

This isn’t happening, but yet it is. Even Disney’s Mighty Ducks never pulled something like this off.

The Red Wings are going to play a Game 7, which was a fantasy a week ago. Remember a week ago? A gut-wrenching overtime loss in Game 3? Devin Setoguchi with a hat trick, including a penalty in overtime and the game-winner shortly after he fled the box?

The Red Wings dropped that Game 7 to the Sharks, but they made Hockeytown so extremely proud of them.

 

(on why the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera hasn’t been embraced by fans as a superstar player should)

We love the idea of Miguel Cabrera being on our team. But we don’t love him. In fact, there’s a bunch of us who may not even like him, because he’s not that likeable of a guy, frankly.

Which is all such a shame, because we probably have him figured out all wrong. His teammates liken him to a big, cuddly bear. That may be the case; they ought to know, after all.

But we don’t see that side because we don’t see him. All we see is a big, talented man wearing a Tigers uniform. That may be enough for some, but it falls way short for most.

We don’t know Miguel Cabrera because we never hear from him. This is his fourth season as a Tiger and the man is a blank canvas, save for some splotches that have been tossed onto it.

I stand by this, though he ingratiated himself more as the season wore on.

 

 

June

(on LeBron James, after the Miami Heat lost the NBA Finals toDallas)

The Miami Heat won’t soon live this one down, folks. Maybe not ever. History, me thinks, will be in a cranky mood when it passes judgment on the 2010-11MiamiHeat—the team LeBron James couldn’t wait to join. The team that so easily seduced him, but that he also disappointed by leaving during the NBA Finals.

Until he wins a championship—and there’s no guarantee that he ever will—LeBron James should go down as one of the most laughable “superstars” that pro sports has ever seen. He should go down as a less-than-brilliant, heartless, gutless player who managed to fool his public even while hiding in plain sight.

But LeBron didn’t just fool them; he failed them.

His name doesn’t belong in the same sentence as Michael Jordan’s, unless it’s to create a grocery list of reasons why it doesn’t.

Why don’t I tell you what I REALLY feel?

 

(on the death of former Tiger Jim Northrup, and my personal dealings with him)

Jim Northrup always got his hacks in—whether it was at the plate or at the table.

I remember conversing with him on the phone in advance of the roundtable and it was free form Northrup. He was in a mood to talk, as usual, so I obliged, feeding him batting practice pitches and marveling at the results.

I found out that he hated playing for Billy Martin because, according to Jim, Martin was quick to take the credit and even quicker to blame his players and others when the Tigers were in a losing funk.

I found out that when Norm Cash was released in 1974 (the day after my birthday), Norm found out on the radio, driving to the ballpark. Northrup told me that he was so upset about the way his friend and teammate was cashiered, that he burst into manager Ralph Houk’s office to vent.

He was one of a kind, Jim Northrup was. RIP.

 

July

(on the potential end of Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood’s career)

So it will be with Osgood, 38, who is likely to be among the last to acknowledge that his days as Howard’s backup are over with.

Osgood is coming off two less-than-stellar seasons that have been pocked with injury, most recently to the groin—a goalie’s worst enemy.

Osgood is another who isn’t making things easy forHolland. Ozzie hasn’t offered to be jettisoned, nor will he make such an overture. At least, it’s doubtful that he will.

 But Osgood’s reticence hasn’t stoppedHollandfrom carrying on with his duties as GM. The Red Wings have some money to spend on a new/old goalie. They told Osgood (and Kris Draper) that a new contract wouldn’t be offered until after July 1, the date that free agents can begin to be signed. That is, if a contract would be offered at all.

It wasn’t, and Ozzie retired to help coach the organization’s young goalies.

 

(on the All-Star season authored by Tigers catcher AlexAvila)

Now I know why they call April 1, April Fool’s Day.

 

For that was the date, after just one game had been played in the 2011 season, that sports talk radio was lit up with phone calls from loudmouths on their cell phones, calling for the ouster of catcher Alex Avila from not only the Tigers starting lineup, but from the roster, from Detroit, and probably even the state of Michigan—to be on the safe side.

The Tigers had lost on Opening Day to the Yankees inNew York, and I won’t argue that it wasn’t one ofAvila’s crowning moments. He was shaky behind the plate and he looked overmatched with the bat—albeit he was going against southpaw CC Sabathia.

 After one game, the callers were frothing at the mouth.

 By mid-season, those same callers were urging fellow fans to vote for Avila for the All-Star team.

 

August

(on the importance of Lions QB Matthew Stafford staying healthy for the whole season)

Every timeStaffordgets hit, every time he scrambles around in the pocket—hell, every time he jogs onto the field for player introductions—Lions fans will wring their hands and rock back and forth in their seats.

The sales of candles and rabbit’s feet will explode in Motown this football season.

…The Lions are worthy of the buzz for reasons other thanStafford, I will grant you that.

There’s Ndamukong Suh, the wrecking ball defensive tackle, who might be, after just one season, the best in the business. Suh is the godfather of the D-line and sitting with him at the table are some very fearsome lieutenants.

There’s freakishly big Calvin Johnson, the receiver who gleefully gallops across the gridiron, making the football that he’s clutching look like a baking potato.

There’s more talent across the board than any Lions team we’ve been presented with in years.

But Matthew Stafford has to stay healthy. He just has to.

So far, so good.

 

(on my [then] disappointment with Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera)

Baloney, I say, to those who would tell me that I expect too much from Miguel Cabrera.

Look at his numbers, they’ll say. He grinds out an MVP-like season almost annually.

So how come Cabrera has never truly ever, in his four years as a Tiger, put the team on his back for any extended period of time?

Has he? Go ahead—I’ll wait while you come up with some examples. Or one, even.

Cabrera is doing it again, his timing again impeccably bad.

He has pedestrian numbers, this season, for a man of his talents. He swings too much at the first pitch. He grounds out to shortstop more than I thought was humanly possible.

This is the column that I took the most heat from. And Cabrera turned it around almost immediately and I gladly ate crow.

 

(on the Pistons hiring yet another new coach—Lawrence Frank)

They paraded another poor sap onto the lectern to be given his death sentence as the new head coach of the Detroit Pistons the other day.

There was Joe Dumars, team president, leading the march, and the way these things have gone over the years, you half expected to see Joe reading from a Bible n Latin, his head bowed.

The scene that unfolded on Wednesday was the seventh one presided over by Dumars since 2000.

It goes like this: Dumars leads his doomed coaching choice onto the lectern, says a few words tinged with hope and confidence that the man seated to his left is “the one.” Doomed coach speaks of work ethic and tradition and fends off questions about his past failures or mercurial history. The proceedings end with Dumars, the coach’s future executioner, shaking hands and smiling with his eventual victim as the cameras snap away.

Let’s hope Frank proves to be something other than just another Pistons coach who stays for a couple years then is jettisoned.

 

September

(on Lions coach Jim Schwartz)

Jim Schwartz has been the head coach of the Detroit Lions for nearly three years and I don’t trust him.

He doesn’t have “the look.”

How can he be the coach of the Lions and not look like he just saw Humpty Dumpty fall down and bounce back up?

The Detroit Lions coaches of years past have always had “the look.” The one that speaks the ghoulish thousand words.

…A look further at the hype reveals a common thread—the folks going ga-ga over the Lions do so because they all believe in the head coach.

“Smart” is the word that is most often repeated when describing Schwartz.

Jim Schwartz does know his football. He knows talent. And he knows what he’s doing as a head coach in the NFL.

Now THERE’S a look for you.

Schwartz has the 10-5 Lions in the playoffs, three years after 0-16. Looks good to me!

 

October

(on the prospects of the Red Wings without defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom)

Lidstrom, the Red Wings‘ all-universe defenseman, is 41 years old. In human years.

In hockey-playing years, he’s closer to 30, because he hasn’t used his body as a battering ram or for someone else’s target practice.

Lidstrom plays hockey like Bobby Fischer played chess and Minnesota Fats played billiards—literally. No one has seen that 200’x80’ sheet of ice better than Lidstrom, who is always a move or two ahead of his opponent. He’s the geometric hockey player—using the puck’s caroms and angles like Fats used those green felt rails.

 

There hasn’t been a defenseman like him, before or since he entered the NHL in 1991. I’ll put up a batch of my wife’s Pasta Fagioli that there won’t be one like him after, either. Ever.

Sooner rather than later, the Red Wings will have to pursue the Cup without Lidstrom, a frightening thought indeed.

 

(on why the Tigers beating the Yankees in the playoffs couldn’t really be celebrated)

It’s tempting to say that this is as good as it gets—that the moment is so savory as to be incapable of being eclipsed.

The problem with beating the New York Yankees in the first round of the playoffs—on the Yankees home field in a do-or-die game that boils down to the fate of the last batter, indeed the last strike—is how easy it is to feel like nothing can be tougher.

Or that nothing could be better.

As sweet as the Tigers’ 3-games-to-2 victory was over the Yankees in the American League Divisional Series (ALDS), it doesn’t change the fact that the Tigers are still just one-third of the way toward their post-season goal.

And that’s as far as the Tigers got, thanks to Texas’s Nelson Cruz.

 

November

(on why Lions DT Ndamukong Suh is good for the NFL’s business, good guy or bad guy)

It doesn’t matter if the publicity is positive or negative. The NFL loves Ndamukong Suh because, for the first time in decades, the league has a Bad Guy.

Suh’s entry into the NFL is the best-timed debut of any pro player since Magic Johnson and Larry Bird splashed onto the NBA scene in 1979. Before Magic and Bird, the NBA was scrambling for media attention. They were like the NHL has always been.

Prior to Magic and Bird, the NBA used to televise its Finals games on tape delay. No fooling.

The NFL has been desperate for a marquee name on defense for several years. The two guys who most fans think of when it comes to tough defense—Brian Urlacher and Ray Lewis—are on the back end of their careers.

Suh’s play on the field seemed to take a slight step backward in his sophomore season, but his presence in the league is still high-profile and impactful.

 

(on former Lions guard—and paraplegic—Mike Utley’s battle to once again walk sans crutches)

Utley then made one of the most famous gestures inDetroitsports history.

His life certainly flashing before his eyes, his fear of his own well-being no doubt palpable, Utley nonetheless thought about the fans and his teammates.

He managed to work his right hand into a position of hope.

Thumbs up!

The gesture just about brought the Silverdome down. The image was beamed onto the big JumboTron screen above the end zone scoreboard, so that the fans could see it, just as those watching at home on television could.

 

Thumbs up!

Utley’s message of hope became the rallying cry for the Lions, who didn’t lose another game the rest of the year until they succumbed toWashingtonin the NFC Championship game in January.

It’s hard to find a more inspirational figure than Mike Utley.

 

(on the mid-season struggles of Lions QB Matthew Stafford)

But someone has to get Matthew Stafford right. And fast. There’s no Dave Krieg 1994 or Eric Hipple 1981 standing by. The only way backup Shaun Hill starts is ifStaffordis hurt—there’s no QB controversy here.

Staffordisn’t right. His sluggishness extends back to the 49ers game on October 16.

The Lions have to fix him, or none of this playoff talk will mean a Hill of beans.

The Lions fixed him—i.e., his broken right index finger healed—and Stafford is as hot as they come heading into the playoffs.

 

December

(on a new era of Lions football, being ushered in by coach Schwartz, after the team clinched a playoff berth)

It’s a new age of Detroit Lions football. Jim Schwartz aims to make his the next great era. One that will make history not as kind to the Fontes years, after all.

If that happens, we just might look back to Christmas Eve, 2011 as the victory that started the Lions on their way.

We just might.

 

(on new Pistons coach Lawrence Frank and his dual charge: to make the Pistons competitive and likeable)

From this hodgepodge of a roster, coach Frank has to not only make the Pistons competitive but also make a team that people will want to see perform. He doesn’t have the luxury of a superstar player around whom the rest of the team satellites.

The Pistons’ fan base, I suspect, is ready to embrace a kinder, gentler team—even if it’s one that doesn’t produce a lot of wins right away. That’s how bad things have gotten here since 2008.

Frank has dealt with starting 0-16 inNew Jerseya few years ago.

The Pistons won’t scare him.

The Pistons’ new slogan, to replace the tired and worn “Going to Work,” should be a derivative of Al Davis’s mantra with the Oakland Raiders.

“Just Like Us, Baby.”

After three games, the likeable part looks to be more feasible than the competitive part, for now.

 

There you have it! 2011 in a nutshell.

See ya next year.

 

Memorial Day 2011: These Five Sports Things Aren’t Coming Back

 

It’s Memorial Day weekend—a time to reflect on those who’ve served our country and to honor their memories of lives lost on the field of battle.

And to grill sausage, of course.

Really, I don’t take this holiday lightly, especially these days, with our boys all over the globe, it seems, trying to restore peace and spread democracy and freedom—and risking their lives on a daily basis in the process.

Nor am I one of those who compare sports to war, which I’ve always felt cheapens what our soldiers have done and continue to do. Nothing that happens on a gridiron or on the ice or on a court even remotely compares to war in the literal sense.

But this can also be a time to be reflective about sports.

There are so many random memories I have about things and people and just plain stuff about sports—all that will never return to our great games.

So without further ado, in honor of Memorial Day, here are five things about sports that I miss, and why.

 

Helmet-less hockey players. When I first started following hockey, the sport was full of bare heads. Those wearing helmets were the ones who stood out like teeth in a player’s mouth. Then the NHL, in 1979, suddenly recognized that skating recklessly on the ice on a surface that was surrounded by hard wooden boards, without a helmet, was at the very least foolish and at worst insane.

So the league instituted a rule that said that any player who entered the league from 1979 on would have to don a helmet. Those who signed contracts prior to ’79 would be grandfathered in and thus would have the option of wearing buckets or not.

So as the years went on, the helmet-less players dwindled, like an endangered species. Gradually, it was the bare head that was the exception.

The last Red Wing to play sans helmet was Brad Marsh, in the early-1990s. The last player, overall, to do so was Craig MacTavish.

I forget how much I pine for the bare head until someone in today’s game inadvertently loses their helmet during a shift. Suddenly there’s a head of hair on the ice!

It doesn’t last long—maybe 15, 20 seconds, tops, but my eyes become glued to the helmet-less player. I could care less about what’s happening on the ice. For those precious seconds it’s 1973 again, when the helmet was for wimps—or Europeans.

 

Exterior chest protectors for umpires. This one kind of slipped past me, until I woke up one day and realized that the likes of Nestor Chylak weren’t umpiring anymore.

The American League umps continued to use the exterior chest protectors behind home plate after their National League colleagues went to the sleeker version that fit inside their shirt or jacket, like bulletproof vests.

The exterior chest protector, to me, screams umpire.

They hung around the umpire’s shoulders—those big black padded shields. They’d dangle there, until it was time for the pitcher to make his delivery, at which point the ump crouched and shoved the chest protector into position, as it cupped his chin and covered him from head to waist.

Not sure why I miss that, but I do.

 

Twenty-four second clocks on the floor. Whenever I happen upon old NBA footage, say circa 1972 and earlier, the first thing I do is to look for the 24-second clocks.

Back then, they weren’t located on top of the backboard—which makes perfect sense, by the way.

No, in those days, the shot clocks were placed on the floor, angled, usually in one of the corners—which made imperfect sense.

I don’t know what it is, but to me there’s a certain cozy simplicity to those old NBA and ABA films that feature shot clocks on the floor.

Again, having the clocks perched up top makes all the sense in the world. But shot clocks on the floor make me think of Afros and shorts with belts and smoke-filled arenas and players with names like Erwin Mueller and Hawthorne Wingo.

Good stuff.

 

Quarterbacks with one face bar on their helmets. I believe Joe Theismann might be the last of this ilk.

I like the idea of a singular face bar on a football helmet, anyway—and they were mainly worn by place kickers and punters, naturally.

But every so often you’d see a wide receiver wear such a skimpily-equipped helmet, or better yet, a quarterback.

Joe Kapp, anyone?

Billy Kilmer did the one bar thing, too, along with several others. You gotta love a quarterback who’s willing to pull that off, because the one bar helmet may as well have been the no bar helmet, for all the protection that single bar—which was usually somewhere near the chin—provided.

Today the QBs wear facemasks that used to be reserved for linemen—cage-like apparatuses that were worn by players named Otis Sistrunk and Vern den Herder.

Here’s to Theismann, the last of his breed, who wore the Horst Muhlmann-style, one-bar headgear.

 

Straight on kickers. Back in the days of the 40-man pro football roster, teams didn’t necessarily opt for the luxury of carrying a player whose only purpose was to lay his foot into the pigskin, be it a place kicker or a punter.

Did you know that Lem Barney, the Lions’ Hall of Fame cornerback, also moonlighted as the team’s punter in his first three years in the league?

Barney was no exception. Kickers and punters were also everything from tight ends to quarterbacks to linebackers to linemen.

And the kickers used their toes to thwack the football, not the sides of their insteps. After all, Hall of Fame kicker Lou Groza’s nickname was “The Toe,” not “The Instep.”

Ahh, the straight on kicker!

Mark Moseley was the last one, and his final year in the NFL was in 1986.

The straight on kicker wasn’t conspicuous by his puny size, like today’s sidewinders, or “soccer style” kickers. The straight on kicker was big and beefy and his jersey was dirty, too—because he was a real football player, not strictly a specialist.

He wore numbers like 76 and 55 and few things, to me, say old school football like a straight on kicker with his squared off shoe, readying himself, arms gently swinging by his side, as he glances at the goalposts—which were on the goal line, by the way and shaped like an H.

Then the moment—when he steps into the kick and swings his leg gloriously like an American football kicking leg should be swung, like a pendulum, not a tennis racket.

Yeah, I miss that.

 

And many other things, too, but this is a column, not a book.

I hope these memories are ones you share, too. If you’re over 45, the chances are good.

Happy grilling.

That Was the Year That Was: 2010 in My Written Word

 

For the third straight year, I look back at the year and pick out some of the highlights—and lowlights—of my written bleatings.

Enjoy!

 

January

On Martin Mayhew:

“Mayhew was a splendid choice, as it turns out. He drafted better, in just one try, than his former boss, Millen, did in his eight drafts combined, just about. In October ’08, Mayhew, still interim GM, fleeced Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys in his first few weeks on the job, taking them for a first round draft pick for receiver Roy Williams.

Mayhew spent most of 2009 combing the waiver wires, trying gamely to bring the most talented players he could find—defensive backs, especially—to the Lions. Not all of his expensive free agent signings during the off-season worked out, but the draft is where you really build a team. And in that area, Mayhew did wonderfully.”

Now all Mayhew has to do is…do it again, in 2011, for the Lions to contend in the NFC North.

On John Kuester/Pistons:

“The Pistons are, again, devoid of leadership. It’s been a black hole, a vacuum, ever since they traded Chauncey Billups away. Poor Michael Curry got swallowed up by it. Don’t believe me? Anyone see Michael lately?

The Pistons are a bunch of soft scorers and Ben Wallace. They play with no life, no urgency. The Palace is a great place to go to get caught up on some reading, or maybe study for a trigonometry test.”

Sadly, not much has changed around the Palace—the team’s ownership situation continuing to be an unsettling cloud hanging over the organization.

On Chris Osgood:

“So here we are, January 2010. And Osgood is suckering us again, or trying to. This year it’s Jimmy Howard, a rookie , who has some people thinking the Red Wings ought to leave Ozzie on the bench come playoff time—should the Wings qualify.

Why? Because Osgood is sandbagging it again in the regular season, while the kid Howard is doing things like stopping 51 of 52 shots, as he did in L.A. the other night.

I’m not much of a gambler. I can barely figure out how to work a slot machine. But if I saw Chris Osgood at a table, I’d beat it.

You want the rookie Howard in goal, instead of the proven Osgood, when the playoffs arrive—again, should the Red Wings qualify?

P.T. Barnum was right, and this is your minute.”

I missed on this one—Howard proved that he was more than ready to lead a team in the playoffs. And Osgood still looks suspect, too often.

February

On U-M football coach Rich Rodriguez:

“Rodriguez, heading into his third year as coach, still has stench on him. There’s a lot of sheister about him. Remember his clumsy parting from West Virginia? Remember the allegations of document shredding at WVU before the school could get its mitts on pertinent papers?

Remember the scuttlebutt over the amount and lengths of practices last summer? Remember the defection of players who were disgusted by the Rodriguez Doctrine?”

It’s looking more and more like Rodriguez will become “former Michigan coach” Rodriguez, doesn’t it?

On Johnny Damon/Carlos Guillen:

“If the Tigers sign Johnny Damon, as has been widely speculated, and insert him in left field, there wouldn’t seem to be any place for Carlos Guillen to play—at least not that involves putting on a mitt.

Guillen, whilst a Tiger, has been seen in various years at shortstop, first base, third base, and, most recently, in left field. Sadly, he’s also been seen very frequently on the Disabled List. He’s been more fragile than a carton of eggs.

The Damon signing might force the Tigers to do something I’ve been beseeching them to do for months: forget this notion of designated hitter-by-committee and make Guillen the full-time DH. Better than him being on the full-time DL.

Guillen’s glove ought to be swiped by the Tigers and hidden somewhere. Maybe that’s the only way to keep him healthy. Damon isn’t exactly a Gold Glover in his own right, but Guillen breaks too easily.”

Guillen, as usual, ended up on the disabled list, needing microfracture surgery on his knee. Surprise!

On Red Wings coach Mike Babcock:

“Mike Babcock is in his fifth season of coaching the Red Wings, so I suppose it’s about time to find out whether he can actually, you know, coach.

Don’t snicker—I’m not being flip. Since Babcock arrived in Detroit in the summer of 2005, when has he had to coach the team in the regular season like he has to at this very moment?

If the Red Wings were being overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, their threat level would be elevated a color.

This is big doings, folks. We’re closing in on 20 games remaining in the regular season, and the Red Wings haven’t been cleared for playoff flight yet.

Enter Babcock, whose mystique as a prickly, no-nonsense guy is about to be put to the test in a manner like never before in Detroit.”

Babcock passed the test with flying colors, turning in his best coaching job ever in Detroit (keep reading).

March

On Mike Babcock (again):

“Babcock is a great hockey coach, and is having his greatest of seasons.

His greatest season wasn’t in 2008, when he brought the Cup back to Detroit after a five year absence. It wasn’t last year, when he nearly did it again.

His greatest season is right here, right now, guiding what was, for most of the year, a M*A*S*H unit through the rigors of an NHL campaign.

Babcock should get the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year, and mainly because he never put a pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger.”

As expected, Babcock did NOT win the Jack Adams, but it doesn’t change the facts: last season was Babcock’s best in Detroit.

On Magglio Ordonez:

“If Ordonez can regain his mojo, the Tigers offense not only “sounds” better, it IS better.

It’d be terrific if the rookie Jackson and the grizzled veteran Damon can form a solid 1-2 punch at the top of the order. Cabrera will get his 30+/100+ in HR and RBI, no matter what.

But if the 36-year-old Ordonez, who figures to hit third, isn’t the Maggs we know and love, then the house of cards collapses.”

Sadly, Ordonez got hurt and the Tigers’ offense suffered immeasurably.

On Austin Jackson:

“We’re about to find out if this kid Jackson has the goods to not be dwarfed by the specter of playing centerfield in the big leagues. He’s not following Cobb or DiMaggio or Mantle or Mays, but you’d think so, gauging by the fans’ take in post-Granderson Detroit.”

Jackson more than held his own in Detroit, replacing Granderson at both the leadoff spot and in center field. Remember Jackson’s catch in the ninth inning of Armando Galarraga’s near-perfect game?

On the state of the Pistons:

“Dumars has no vision anymore. He’s become Mr. Magoo, and no one is more of a shadow of himself than Joe D. He’s the Incredibly Shrinking GM.

The Pistons still try to use “Going to work” as a marketing hook and it’s laughable. This team only goes to work for coach John Kuester on occasion; the rest of the time it’s out to lunch.

It’s sad what’s happened to this team, but that sadness pales in comparison to the future’s outlook, which is chillingly bleak.”

As stated previously, the Pistons’ future is indeed bleak, easily the bleakest it’s been since the late-1970s, when Dick Vitale ruined the team in less than two years.

On MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo, preparing for another March Madness run:

“Still, for all his success at MSU, Izzo has but one National Championship to show for it, and that came 10 years ago. Not that it’s for the lack of trying, or for not having come close. Izzo looks like he’s the most tormented man in America at times, coaching his kids in East Lansing, but somewhere deep down inside, he must like it.

But like I said, the guy’s a little nuts.”

Izzo would have a chance, a few months later, to prove how nuts he was—for MSU.

April

On Brendan Shanahan, who I interviewed in Trenton:

“Shanahan scored, and he fought. He also increased the interest in hockey among the females. Often all in the same game. The Brendan Shanahan Hat Trick was a goal, a fight, a swoon.

I wanted to know what this time of the year meant to an old NHL warrior like him.

‘You close yourself off to all other things,” he said. “Eating wasn’t enjoying food—it was just adding more fuel to your body. Sleeping wasn’t rest, it was something you needed. Everything was done for the next game. You sequestered yourself in the hotel with your teammates and you got blinders on.’”

Shanahan is now proving that he’s very adept at his new job—as an NHL Vice President.

On Austin Jackson’s fast start:

“Jackson is hitting a cool .306 with an OBA of .375. He already has four multiple-hit games. Nicely done, kid.

The Man who Replaced Curtis Granderson—how much longer before we drop THAT moniker?—is slapping extra base hits, playing solid defense, throwing runners out, and using his speed on the basepaths to make the other team nervous.

And there’s that keen batting eye, which belies his tender age.

Austin Jackson is the real deal. He’ll make folks around Detroit forget Curtis Granderson soon enough. Because he’ll be better than Curtis, when all is said and done.”

After Jackson’s rookie season played out in its entirety, I haven’t changed my opinion one bit.

On Miguel Cabrera, bouncing back from an ugly end to his 2009 season:

“His shoulders are plenty broad enough to carry the Tigers for stretches of time this season, if need be. And the need will be. Whether he does so won’t depend on his ability—it will depend on the space between his ears. The only thing Miguel Cabrera doesn’t have quite yet is a killer instinct in crunch time, when the games matter the most.

He’ll get that, too.

Scary, isn’t it?”

Cabrera had a monster year, and might be the best hitter in all of baseball in short order, if he isn’t already.

May

On the Twins-Tigers divisional race:

“This Twins-Tigers thing in 2010 is going to just about kill you, I’m certain.

They’re going to be so close to each other all summer, one will know what the other had for lunch. You won’t be able to get anything thicker than a credit card between them.

It’s going to be like this from now until the end, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Oh, someone will edge in front by a few games, beating their chest as the king of the hill. Then the other will yank them by the ankle and down they’ll go.

It’s going to be a back-and-forth, I got it-you take it sort of affair. Morneau will get as hot as a firecracker and the Twins will jump on board his shoulders for a week or two. Then Cabrera will see that and raise it a sawbuck.”

Umm, not exactly. The Twins ran away and hid from the slumping Tigers, post-All Star break.

On whether Steve Yzerman should take the Tampa Bay Lightning GM job:

“The Lightning wants Stevie Y to be their new GM, the scuttlebutt is.

This isn’t the brass ring of GM jobs. It’s beneath Yzerman, frankly, to go to work for a team that didn’t exist until 1992—when he was starting his 10th season as a player.

Going from the Red Wings—as solidly run of a franchise as any in pro sports—to the Lightning is like stopping midway through a lobster dinner and switching to Spam.

It’s beneath Yzerman to work for such a Mickey Mouse franchise, which needs three home dates to fill its arena, in a city that is as much of a hockey hotbed as Hades.

Someone of Yzerman’s stature deserves much more than being the GM of the Tampa Bay Freaking Lightning.

Yet, as much as this pains me to say it, he ought to take the job.”

Stevie Y took the job, and his Lightning are, surprisingly, leading their division, playing some marvelous hockey.

On LeBron James, before he left Cleveland:

“Cleveland needs LeBron James a whole lot more than he needs Cleveland. Then again, Cleveland even needed Buddy Bell more than Buddy Bell needed Cleveland, so I guess that’s not really saying much.

If I’m James, I take a good look at New York and take my chances with the Knicks.

It’s not going to happen in Cleveland. Clearly.

Then again, what does?”

But I didn’t mean for LeBron to LeGo the way he did!

June

On Pavel Datsyuk, after winning yet another Selke Award for best defensive forward:

“He usually comes from behind you. Most of the good crimes start that way, I know. But even if you know he’s behind you, it doesn’t do you any good. In fact, Datsyuk could give you a call and set up an appointment and tell you that he’s going to relieve you of the puck and it wouldn’t mean jack squat.

A common method is for Datsyuk to glide up behind you and neatly use his stick to lift yours off the ice surface, mid-stickhandle. In a flash, he has the puck and is skating away with it. He does it so fast you’d swear he was playing with giant chopsticks, not a hockey stick.

Another modus operandi involves Datsyuk pretending like he doesn’t know you have the puck, allowing you to skate by him, presumably unnoticed. But then a flick of his stick later, he’s poke checked you, you’re sans the puck and he’s with it and you can’t wait to see what the security cameras show.”

On Magglio Ordonez, again:

“Ordonez is back.

He’s hitting .322, with 10 HR and 49 RBI. That’s .048, seven and 25 better than last year at this time. The ball again explodes from his bat. The swing is back to its upper cut smoothness.

It’s more, well, Ordonez-ish.

Seems like he hasn’t forgotten how to hit, after all.

And his resurgence is a huge reason why the Tigers’ 3-4-5 hitters are among the best in baseball right now.”

But at least Maggs will be back with the Tigers in 2011, eh?

On Red Wings executive Jimmy Devellano finally being elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame:

“You’d like to say that Jimmy Devellano has forgotten more hockey than all of us know, except that I don’t think Jimmy has forgotten a lick.

The NHL shouldn’t enshrine him, they should clone him.

They’re finally putting Jimmy D. into the Hall of Fame. It’s almost a redundant move. Nothing’s been this overdue since an apology from Ann Coulter.”

Good for him.

On Dave Pallone, the only openly gay umpire in MLB history, and who I had the pleasure of interviewing:

“Pallone, for 10 big league seasons, was two people.

There was the tough, talented umpire Pallone, who toiled in the minor leagues for eight years before getting his chance in the wake of the infamous big league umpires strike of 1979. There was the guy who wouldn’t be shoved out, despite atrocious and reprehensible treatment by his so-called brethren who looked at him and saw scab.

Then there was the “other” Dave Pallone—the one who told bold-faced lies regularly.

The one who didn’t want anyone to know what he was really up to. The one who lived in daily fear of being found out.

That Dave Pallone was gay.”

Pallone was fired for being suspected of being part of a gay sex ring, which was proven to be untrue. Still, he chose not to sue baseball, taking a cash settlement instead.

On Tom Izzo as he contemplated leaving MSU for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers:

“Izzo is no more serious about taking this job in Cleveland than he is driving his car into a brick wall tonight.

But he won’t say that, because he gets off on this stuff. It’s enough for him to remind the people in East Lansing that he can crush them into a fine powder.

NBA teams keep Izzo’s phone number on speed dial because they haven’t been instructed not to—by Tom Izzo himself.

Izzo can end all this nonsense. He can come out and say, ‘Look, NBA, save your breath. I ain’t never turning pro! And you can’t make me.’”

Izzo stayed at MSU, and finally did close the door to the NBA, thankfully.

On Armando Galarraga’s near-perfect game:

“Jim Joyce picked the worst possible time to be human.

Don Denkinger, move over—we’re seating a second at your table.

Armando Galarraga lost a perfect game but gained the respect of the entire country. Hell, the world.

At the precise moment when most mortal men would have collapsed or thrown a temper tantrum, Galarraga stood holding what should have been a baseball headed for the Hall of Fame this morning and smiled.

Smiled!!”

This is a story that we won’t ever forget in Detroit, and we should all be honored that we were around to see it unfold.

July

On Ben Wallace coaching the Pistons:

“Wallace was never a guard. The offense never ran through him. He never called plays, or even for time outs. His words can be measured by the handful.

But he’s won, and he’s been around a lot of different coaches. He can pull the best from many of them.

I wouldn’t put anything past an undrafted multiple All-Star and NBA champion who played a position that he’s several inches too short for, from Virginia Union.

Pistons coach Ben Wallace.

It’s just crazy enough to work.”

Another of my cockamamie ideas that will likely never see the light of day, but it was fun to throw out there.

On throwback linebacker Chris Spielman, who was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame:

“(When Spielman played) there should have been no facemasks or elbow pads. The forward pass should have been considered radical. The drop kick should have been part of the playbook.

The games should have been heard on radio, not seen on television. The accounts should have been read from a newspaper, not the Internet.

The players should have played both offense and defense. There should have been one coach per team.

Red Grange should have been around for advice. Jim Thorpe, too.

Chris Spielman was born too late. Like by about 50 years.”

On LeBron James leaving for Miami:

“James’s absconding to Miami was an act of cowardice because he didn’t have it inside of him to stick it out in Cleveland. His impatience is only matched by his gutlessness.

James had an opportunity to never turn his back on the folks in northern Ohio, and to see the journey to an NBA Championship all the way through. He had the chance to be a genuine hero, and to be placed shoulder-to-shoulder with other true NBA greats.

LeBron James can’t hold the jock straps of any of the superstars who won championships in the 1980s and 1990s. His heart is infinitely smaller. His fortitude is laughable.”

Why don’t I tell you what I REALLY think?

On lack of a quarterback controversy in Detroit:

“But mostly, Matthew Stafford won’t have any competition.

For the record, the backup QB is a guy named Shaun Hill. The Lions got him from the 49ers and he’s not a tomato can—he can actually play.

Still, I just as soon we not see him—no offense, Shaun.

The quarterback in Detroit is Matthew Stafford, and should be for years to come. Future signal callers will be drafted just so the Lions can be polite.”

Well, we saw Shaun Hill—a LOT of Shaun Hill. And not much Matthew Stafford. Let’s hope that’s not a scenario that’s repeated in 2011. Again, no offense, Shaun.

On Bob Probert, who died tragically on July 5:

“Bob Probert, the former Red Wings and Blackhawks player who died Monday at age 45, wasn’t a great player. Hundreds of men suited up for the Red Wings who had more talent in their left pinky than Probert possessed in his mammoth body.

But none of them owned Detroit like Probie owned it.

Probert wasn’t a hockey player, he was a spectacle.

Time was, you had a few pops in Greektown or the watering hole of your choosing, hopped on the People Mover to the Joe, and took in Probert first, the Red Wings game second.”

Probie’s loss was just one of several we suffered in Detroit in 2010, but he was by far the youngest of the ones who passed away.

August

On the Pistons signing Tracy McGrady:

“The Pistons-McGrady marriage couldn’t be one of more convenience if they put a Slurpee machine, some beef jerky, an ATM and a magazine rack in the locker room.

But that’s OK. This is a business and both parties need each other.

The Pistons need McGrady to put some fannies in the seats. McGrady needs the Pistons to showcase his talents.

Till death—or 2011—do they part.”

My opinion hasn’t changed, but it’s good to see McGrady beginning to play more like the superstar he used to be.

On the Granderson/Jackson trade:

“The trade is already a great one for the Tigers.

Austin Jackson is six years younger than Granderson and is every bit as good defensively. He doesn’t have Grandy’s power—not yet—but is OBA is a robust .352. Jackson also fans a lot, so that’s a wash.

As I’ve written before, I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ve already seen the best of what Curtis Granderson can do. He’s topped out, in my mind, as a big league ballplayer.

Doesn’t mean he’s not a good one—just that I don’t see him getting much better, if at all.

Austin Jackson, on the other hand, has a ceiling that far exceeds Granderson’s.”

Granderson played OK for the Yankees, and Jackson was mostly outstanding for the Tigers.

On Mike Modano signing with the Red Wings:

“A 40-year-old hockey player with 21 NHL years behind him ought to have a face that looks like un-ironed corduroy. His voice should be raspy and his tongue should be pocked with marks from hitting the gaps caused by his missing teeth.

His face shouldn’t be tanned, it should be yellowed. You should be half looking for bolts coming out of his neck.

But there Modano sat, chatting as if he was an author on a book tour, not a 40-year-old giving the NHL another go, having wondered mere weeks ago if he had it in him to play another season.”

Unfortunately, Modano was felled a quarter through the season with a gashed wrist.

September

On the Lions’ recent kick return game, and newcomer Stefan Logan:

“In the 2000s, the Lions have been returning kicks politely. Their return men frequently collapse to the ground easily. They’ve been as elusive as a turtle, and as slippery as flypaper.

In 2010, there’s a new kid back there fielding kickoffs. His name is Stefan Logan and he’s the size of a matchbox. Maybe the Lions are hoping it’ll be 20 yards before anyone finds him, let alone tackles him.

Logan had one decent return last Sunday, just before halftime—and just before the ill-fated sack of QB Matthew Stafford. Beyond that, he didn’t show me much.”

Logan ended up having a solid season—showing me something, after all.

On the reborn Red Wings-Blackhawks rivalry:

“This is going to be a doozy for the NHL for years to come. Rumors of the Red Wings’ death have been greatly exaggerated.

Thanks to a second round KO last spring, the Red Wings have had much more time off than they’re used to getting. It got so weird that superstar center Henrik Zetterberg got married to a beautiful Swedish TV personality, and was STILL hunkering to get back to Detroit to get into hockey mode.”

It’s always fun when two of the Original Six are league rivals.

On Matthew Stafford, yet again:

“Stafford is the unchallenged, unquestioned leader of the Lions, in just his second season. He’s the closest thing to Elway and Montana and Favre and Manning that the franchise has ever had. By far.

Stafford is handsome, football smart, possessor of a cannon for an arm, and with leadership skills beyond his tender age. He has everyone’s trust in the Lions organization.

Matthew Stafford is going to make Detroit go crazy.

You get that feeling.”

That craziness will have to wait until next year, at least.

October

On the U-M/MSU football rivalry, in the week leading up to the game:

Michigan and Michigan State are going to get it on and this is serious business, folks.

This isn’t a rivalry in name only. It’s not a titular game. There won’t be any little brothers on the football field. Michigan can’t play this one with one arm tied behind their back, like so many of the other encounters

The loser of this one will look like he bit into a lemon for a whole year, just about. It’ll be almost 52 weeks of grumpiness, a year of Monday mornings.

And for the winner? Well, MSU doesn’t play Ohio State this season, so if they win Saturday, the Big Ten title doesn’t look like anything like a fantasy. If U-M wins, Rodriguez’s detractors will temporarily have a sweat sock stuffed in their mouths.”

MSU won for the third straight year, and Rodriguez’s detractors are still out in full force.

On Jimmy Howard:

“The goalie’s resume is the length of his last game, at its longest. Often, it’s not even “What have you done for me lately?” It’s, “What have you done for me the last shift?”

The Red Wings, it says here, will be among the final four teams standing next May—with one big caveat.

If Jimmy Howard doesn’t mess it up for them.

Isn’t the life of a goaltender grand?”

Howard hasn’t done anything to “mess up” the Red Wings’ chances this season.

On John Kuester:

“The Pistons’ coach is a pleasant enough looking man with thinning hair and an easy smile. He looks more like one of the dads at your kid’s school than an NBA head coach.

Kuester, a grad of that basketball institution North Carolina, has been called the “G” word by some in the NBA’s inner sanctum—a genius of offensive schemes and strategies. But that was as an assistant. He’s in his second year as a head coach and we still don’t know if he can really be a head coach or not, because last year’s Pistons were a fractured, splintered group—literally. Their injuries were early and often. Rip Hamilton hurt himself on opening night and the tone was set.

Kuester has a bunch of Twos and Threes and from that he’s supposed to accumulate a bunch of Ws.

Now THAT would be genius!”

Poor John Kuester.

November

On Tigers retiring No. 11:

“Yes sir, the Tigers should retire no. 11, and erect a statue of the man who wore that number proudly.

Why haven’t the Tigers so honored Bill Freehan?

Excuse me—did you think I was speaking of someone else?

In the wake of the sad news of Sparky Anderson’s passing, there’s been a call to retire Sparky’s no. 11. The dispute between Sparky and the Ilitches aside, I can see where a case could be made to formally ensure that no Tiger ever again slips on no. 11, even by accident.

But that number shouldn’t have been available to Sparky to begin with. So says me.

Freehan, a Tiger (and ONLY a Tiger) from 1961-76, was the best catcher of the 1960s—American or National League, Earth or any other planet you got. Period.”

I’ve long wondered when the Tigers were going to come to their senses and honor Freehan, a local kid and a great Tiger.

On the ageless Nick Lidstrom:

“Lidstrom plays hockey with the efficiency of a coffee filter, and with about as much effort. He plays 30 minutes a game but he doesn’t actually play them, he conducts them, like clinics. Have you ever seen him sweat?

Lidstrom isn’t human, I’m telling you.

This is a man who ends opponents’ rushes into the Detroit zone like an altar boy with a candle snuffer. Some Fancy Dans have tried stickhandling past him, but that’s like trying to beat a frog in a staring contest, or a man trying to win a fight with his wife.

Others have tried sucking Lidstrom into them and then passing the puck, but Nick’s hockey stick is more precise than a surgeon’s scalpel. He’s ruined more passes than a girl in a bar full of drunks.”

Lidstrom is having a great season, even by his standards. It’s amazing.

On the passing of Sparky Anderson:

“With the Tigers, Sparky took a collection of young, impressionable men who thought they knew a lot and was able to, at the same time, both remind them that they knew precious little, as well as turn them into champions. He also made them into men in the process, even if they didn’t know it at the time.

They know it now. Upon the news yesterday that Sparky had been placed into hospice care, one by one his former players spoke of how much he taught them about baseball and about life.

Pain don’t hurt, Sparky once said.

But his death sure does.”

December

On Rich Rodriguez’s performance at the U-M football bust:

“U-M coach Rich Rodriguez, in his clumsy, ham-handed attempt to ingratiate himself with the Wolverine faithful, instead brought the program to the national forefront as a big, fat, maize and blue joke.

The desperate plea by Rodriguez that he wants to be a “Michigan Man,” the hand-holding, the biblical quotes, the swaying back and forth while “You Raise Me Up” played in the background—it all added up to staining Michigan football for untold years to come.

The display confirmed what I’ve suspected for quite some time—that Rodriguez puts himself first.”

 

So there you have it—the bon mots from 2010. As usual, there were hits and misses

Here’s to a great 2011, everyone!

 

Naughty or Nice, These Heroes and Goats Deserve Gifts, Too

Who says you can’t still get excited on Christmas morning, just because you’re all grown up? Where is it written that “thou shall not race into the front room, eager to open gifts,” if you’re beyond the age of 18?

Our sports heroes and goats should be able to enjoy December 25, too. Santa Claus ought not to skip over their houses!

To that end, here’s what I hope ole St. Nick will leave under the tree for some of them as he makes his rounds in the wee hours.

 

For Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford: the folks from “The Six Million Dollar Man” TV show, to rebuild his shoulders with bionics—because they HAVE the technology.

For Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, who wants to own another dog: a nice, fluffy, stuffed facsimile—and nothing more.

For Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood, who’s on the verge of career win No. 400: a Hall of Fame induction speech—just in case.

For Tigers injury-prone, jack-of-all-trades Carlos Guillen, recovering from micro-fracture surgery on his knee: see Matthew Stafford, but for Carlos’s entire body.

For MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo: another Final Four appearance, and the kind where you lift the trophy at the end of it.

For U-M athletic director David Brandon: a plate of pancakes for breakfast, to replace all the waffling of late.

For Pistons coach John Kuester: a year’s supply of Pepto-Bismol.

For Tigers fans: outfielder Magglio Ordonez—oops, you already got that!

For ESPN: royalties on Brett Favres’s life; he couldn’t have stayed in the news without you, oh Worldwide Leader.

For Pistons guard Rip Hamilton: a nice, new snuggie, binkie, and sippy cup.

For Red Wings superstar Pavel Datsyuk, who has a broken hand: see Matthew Stafford, too.

For the Miami Heat: another basketball. They’ll need it, eventually.

For Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga: a made-for-TV movie about his sudden link to umpire Jim Joyce, entitled “Perfect Strangers.”

For Red Wings defenseman Nick Lidstrom: whatever he damn well wants.

For Tigers third baseman Brandon Inge: a brand new bat that’s guaranteed to hit .250 or higher.

For U-M quarterback Denard Robinson: a defense that doesn’t belie your offensive prowess.

For former Lions playing great and coach Joe Schmidt: all the continued good health in the world, and much thanks for sticking around and staying a Detroiter for life.

For Red Wings legend Ted Lindsay: ditto.

For former NFL kicker Tom Dempsey, who recently celebrated the 40^th anniversary of his record-setting 63-yard field goal that beat the Lions: my forgiveness, and congratulations—you continue to be the league’s unlikeliest record holder.

For Red Wings center Mike Modano, recovering from a sliced wrist: a clean bill of health for the playoffs.

For Lions receiver Calvin Johnson: reasons to stick around, i.e. more wins.

For MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, who wants to add another tier of playoffs to a post-season that already has trouble ending before Election Day: a freezer full of snowballs, ready for whoever throws out the first pitches at future World Series games.

For the 4-10 Arizona Cardinals, who were in the Super Bowl just two years ago: a chance to renew its deal with the Devil.

For oft-injured Tigers pitcher Joel Zumaya: any bionics left over from Matthew Stafford and Carlos Guillen.

For Tigers manager Jim Leyland: fresh gallons of paint for the All-Star break, so his teams can stop fading in the second half.

For basketball coach Larry Brown, who just left his 13^th coaching gig, with the Charlotte Bobcats: a new job as spokesperson for Monster.com.

For the Los Angeles Clippers: a proclamation from Gov. Schwarzenegger declaring them a disaster area, so they can qualify for federal aid.

For baseballs everywhere in the big leagues: an extra layer of padding for whenever Miguel Cabrera is at the plate. Poor things.

For fans at games who hold up the letter “D” and a piece of fence: a new rebus, already.

For Red Wings coach Mike Babcock: a Jack Adams Trophy, sooner or later.

For U-M football coach Rich Rodriguez: a job as an evangelist, in case his current one doesn’t work out.

For injured Pistons forward Jonas Jerebko: a nice card, telling him that we miss him and are thinking about him.

For Lions rookie defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh: a key to the City of Detroit, if we can get it back from Curtis Granderson.

For Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander: a piece of coal, because like Jack Morris and Bob Gibson, Justin pitches better when he’s angry.

For Lions coach Jim Schwartz: a badge making him an honorary member of the CIA, for his handling of player injury reports.

For my lovely wife, who puts up with my sports-ness: a better husband for 2011. Here’s hoping.

For everyone who reads GregEno.com, listens to “The Knee Jerks,” or both: fulfilled dreams, health, and many thanks.

Merry Christmas!

Last Night on “The Knee Jerks”: Pistons Paradise (?) with Dave Pemberton of the Oakland Press

We put the Pistons in our crosshairs last night on “The Knee Jerks,” the weekly gabfest I co-host on Blog Talk Radio with Big Al Beaton, who’s rapidly beginning his own Internet writing empire.

That’s because our guest was beat writer Dave Pemberton of the Oakland Press, whose blog about the team can be found here.

Dave got us caught up on the latest news surrounding the possible sale of the team, went over his mid-season grades, and talked about the near and long term future of the REALLY Bad Boys. Chalk it up perhaps to his professionalism, but you’ll hear that Dave didn’t seem quite as visibly shaken as Al and I are about the Pistons’ future.

After Dave’s segment, Al and I plunged into the other hot topics around town—especially the Tigers, as their caravan makes its way around the state. We discussed their wild and wacky lineup, particularly who’s going to bat leadoff and No. 2. We also speculated about who the No. 5 starter might be, and why the Tigers don’t consider making someone (*cough* Carlos Guillen *cough*) a full-time DH. (Oh, and listen to Al’s proposal as to who should be the No. 2 hitter—verrry intriguing).

Finally, we roasted Los Angeles Kings GM Dean Lombardi for the very incendiary remarks he made about the U-M hockey program, coach Red Berenson, and how they supposedly retarded the development of Kings star Jack Johnson.

Then, as usual, we closed with our “Jerks of the Week.”

Some Highlights:

Big Al

On the Tigers: “You can’t play Gerald Laird as much as you did last year. He played too much in 2009. He can hit better, but he has to catch less.”

Also on the Tigers: “I like Ryan Raburn batting third. He has power and can maybe hit 25, 30 home runs.”

On the Red Wings: They’re getting players back. They’re going to be one scary SOB come playoff time.”

Eno

On the Tigers: “What in the world is wrong with having one guy being the full-time DH? Instead they’re going to do it by committee again. Too many people moving around the field, moving around the batting order.”

Also on the Tigers: “I’d like to see Nate Robertson seize that No. 5 spot in the rotation again. I like his bulldog mentality. For awhile, I thought his career might be over. But he seems healthy now.”

On Dean Lombardi: “There’s an unwritten rule that you don’t trash a university’s program. And he put his own player in an awkward situation as well. The only thing that keeps this from completely blowing up is that it’s the Los Angeles Kings, and who cares about THEM?”

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, for updates on scheduled guests, time changes, etc.

You can listen to the episode by clicking HERE.

Last Night on “The Knee Jerks”: Talkin’ MAC Smack with EMU Hoops Coach Charles Ramsey

College basketball was in focus last night on “The Knee Jerks,“ the weekly gabfest I co-host on Blog Talk Radio with Big Al Beaton, who’s rapidly beginning his own Internet writing empire.

That’s because our guest was EMU men’s coach Charles Ramsey, who’s in his fifth year at the school in Ypsilanti.

The Eagles (9-7 overall; 1-2 in the MAC) feature no less than seven Metro Detroit players on their roster. Ramsey himself is an Ypsi kid who attended EMU and was an assistant there. He became the team’s head coach in March 2005.

Ramsey is full of energy and passion, and that came through in the interview. It was good stuff, as he talked about the team’s goals and how it can get back to the top of the MAC.

After coach, Al and I got down to business—literally. The finances of sports was the underlying theme in just about all of our topics. It was there when we talked about the Jose Valverde signing by the Tigers. It was present when the discussion turned to the future of the Pistons and Red Wings, as far as venue and, in the Pistons’ case, possible sale.

Finally, we roasted the NHL on their bungling of the shootout debacle in Dallas involving the Red Wings last Saturday. Then it was time for our “Jerks of the Week.”

Some Highlights:

Big Al

On the Pistons: “These aren’t the Clippers. The Pistons are worth a lot of money. But it looks like Karen Davidson doesn’t want to own a basketball team anymore.”

On the Tigers’ signing of Valverde: “This is sending mixed signals. I think it’s a waste of money.”

On the Red Wings’ situation: “It’s hard to believe, but Joe Louis Arena is a dinosaur, and it’s only 30 years old. The luxury suites are in the nosebleed section. Who ever thought they might partner with the Palace Sports and Entertainment people?”

Eno

On the Pistons: “Karen Davidson might end up selling just a portion of the team, not the whole thing. She shouldn’t be in a hurry, although I think the current state of the team might be hastening her decision to sell.”

On the Valverde signing: “Maybe there are other moves coming down the pike, that will make this make more sense. Right now it seems to fly in the face of the Curtis Granderson, ‘Let’s get cheaper and younger’ trade.”

On the shootout debacle: “There should only be two entities making decisions: the ref closest to the play, and the video review people. That’s it! If you start reversing decisions like that, then you’d better be really sure. And the ref who made the original call had the best view in the house!”

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, for updates on scheduled guests, time changes, etc.

Upcoming guests/topics:

Jan. 25: (guest TBD)

You can listen to the episode by clicking below!

Last Night on “The Knee Jerks”: No Guest, So Rants Aplenty!

Happy New Year from “The Knee Jerks”!!

We decided to eschew (like that word?) a guest so that we could get caught up on some Detroit sports talk, last night on “The Knee Jerks,” the weekly gabfest I co-host on Blog Talk Radio with Big Al Beaton, who’s rapidly beginning his own Internet writing empire.

All our teams except the Tigers got some generous air time. We started, naturally, with those lovable Lions.

We dissected the team’s 2009 season and the near future for about an hour, including giving a letter grade to rookie QB Matthew Stafford. Then, we talked Red Wings, with special emphasis on the resurgent Todd Bertuzzi and the surprising Jimmy Howard. We saved the Pistons for last, with us surmising whether GM Joe Dumars has it in him to author another rebuild.

Rants were aplenty last night!

We also each named our biggest sports story in Detroit in 2009 (hint: we both agreed!) before closing, as always with our “Jerks of the Week.”

Some Highlights:

Big Al

On the Lions’ off-season: “They have 24 free agents and will only realistically bring about six back. Can you imagine?!”

On Stafford: “He has ‘it.’ He looks like a quarterback. I think he can improve from a ‘C’ to a ‘B+’ or even ‘A-’ next year.”

On Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard: “Who would have thought that we’d be so impressed by Jimmy Howard at this time? He might be playing good enough to be the starter for the rest of the season.”

On Pistons GM Joe Dumars: “If you look back at his successful moves, you could say that some of them were kinda lucky.”

Eno

On Stafford: “The good thing about him is that what’s wrong with him is coachable. Plus, he knows he’s the No. 1 guy and doesn’t have to worry about all the draft hub-bub.”

On Red Wings forward Todd Bertuzzi: “He’s healthy, he’s happy, and he’s even playing well in his own zone. He’s playing the best hockey he’s played in years. If he didn’t get hot, the Red Wings would have been up you-know-what without a paddle.”

On Dumars: “I think he has to face some facts. He has to realize that his team is probably lottery-bound. But maybe he doesn’t even WANT to do a rebuild here. He likes winning too much.”

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, for updates on scheduled guests, time changes, etc.

Upcoming guests/topics:Jan. 11: WCSX radio sports guy Jamie Samuelsen

You can listen to the episode by clicking HERE.

2009: My Best (and Worst) of the Year

Happy New Year!

Time once again to look back on the previous year and see what clippings appeared in this space—and how accurate, wrong, or prophetic (or not) I turned out to be…

January 2009

On the outcome of Super Bowl XLIII:

“This is the Super Bowl, folks. Aside from Warner (and I know that’s like asking Mary Lincoln how she liked the play otherwise, but work with me here), the Cardinals have a bunch of first-timers on their team. Super Bowl rookies. Heck, playoff rookies until just a few weeks ago. The Steelers came to Tampa as if it was their birthright. They’re probably still steaming that it took them THIS long to make it back to another Big Game.

Me thinks this one is going to be ugly at times — sort of like the Ravens’ win over the New York Giants eight years ago. Only, the Steelers don’t have the handicap of Trent Dilfer as their quarterback. Ben Roethlisberger isn’t chopped liver, you know. He has as many Super Bowl wins as Warner does.

I don’t do predictions. But if you kidnap my family and force me to make one, here it is: Pittsburgh 17, Arizona 13.

If anyone asks, you didn’t hear it here.”

(The Steelers won, 27-23; not bad!)
February 2009

On the Pittsburgh Penguins’ firing of Michel Therrien and his replacement, Dan Bylsma:

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

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

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

Yadda, yadda, yadda — right?”

(Umm, the Pens regrouped, big time, and won the Stanley freaking Cup)
On Allen Iverson’s legacy:

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

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

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

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

You really cannot win with Allen Iverson, after all.”

(I don’t believe this will EVER be proven wrong)

On Chris Osgood’s regular season struggles:

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

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

(Osgood was a Conn Smythe candidate until the Red Wings dropped Game 7 of the Cup Final on home ice)

March 2009

On the fall of the University of Detroit-Mercy’s basketball program:

“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 was never the same after they added the “M” to their name, and never will be—until they replace decrepit Calihan Hall)

On Kris Draper playing in his 1,000th game as a Red Wing:

“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.”

(Here’s to Drapes, who’s one of those guys who you’d like to honor by retiring his number, but can’t quite move yourself to do it)

On the passing of legendary Tigers announcer George Kell:

“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.”

(Turned out to be a baaaaad year for Detroit sports icons passing away)

On Mike Babcock:

“Mike Babcock is the best coach in the NHL, yet he’ll likely never win Coach of the Year honors.

Such is how coaches and managers are viewed.

You may as well rename the COY award the “Most Improved Team and So Here’s an Award for their Coach” Award.

There’s a fallacy that great teams can’t seem to be coached by great coaches. Or, at the very least, great teams would be great no matter who coaches them.

Baloney.

Sparky Anderson, his critics said, only needed to possess a pen when he managed the Reds. That’s all that was required to write in the names of Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and the rest every day.

Sparky’s Big Red Machine — that could have been managed by anyone and the results would have been the same.

Again, baloney.

If that was the case, if only the most talented teams won championships year after year, then we would be spared the drama of actually having the games be played.

We’d simply feed every team’s roster into a computer and have it declare the champion for that year.”

(Babcock’s greatest challenge may be happening right now)

On the Red Wings’ defeat of the Anaheim Ducks in seven games in the conference semi-finals:

“Thomas Edison ought to be proud.

It was Edison, the inventor, who famously opined, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Ole Tom would have loved the Red Wings’ series-winning goal Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena.

It was a typical playoff tally. Devoid of artistry, full of ugly.

Dan Cleary’s goal with exactly three minutes left in the third period wouldn’t make the highlight reel of a beer league team’s end-of-the-year video.

But it was beautiful to the Red Wings, who now move on to face the Chicago Blackhawks in a Western Conference Finals series that can’t possibly be any more taxing than what the Wings and Anaheim Ducks just went through.

The series-winning goal, though, might have been drawn up on a playoff chalkboard.

Flick the puck to the net. Charge net. Bull your way in and keep jamming your stick where you think the puck might be. Repeat until red light goes on.

“It was the biggest goal of my career,” Cleary said afterward.

So far.

The Red Wings are now rid of these Ducks, who seemed to made up of one line and two defensemen. Yet those five players managed to take the defending champions to the brink of disaster.

Oh, and a goalie. The Ducks did have that. And a good one.

Speaking of goalies, where are all the Chris Osgood bashers this morning?

Anyone? Anyone?

Osgood won the game for the Red Wings. That’s all. Won the series for them, too, in the process.

Ozzie, yet again, came up big when the stakes were the highest.”

(See above re: Ozzie’s bounce back from the regular season)

On the controversial loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 3 of the conference finals:

“Go ahead and accuse me of homerism–and I don’t mean a man crush on Tomas Holmstrom.

Ignore the following as bleatings from a partisan.

Shake your head and say that my grapes are as sour as Dick Cheney’s puss.

I don’t care.

The Red Wings lost a hockey game in Chicago Friday night, and can you blame them?

They were playing five-on-seven all night.

It wasn’t enough that the two referees got their jollies by watching the Red Wings play just about the entire first period shorthanded.

They also seemed to forget that hockey is a contact sport.

Niklas Kronwall just about killed Marty Havlat last night. But it was perfectly legal.

Legal to everyone, apparently, except for Gary Bettman’s minions wearing the zebra stripes and orange arm bands.”

(OK, so maybe I went overboard, but the officiating sure was suspect in that game)

On Matthew Stafford being the starter for the 2009 season:

“There’s a low rumble starting that I’m afraid is only going to get louder and more and more difficult to ignore as time goes by this summer.

Matthew Stafford, the Lions’ bonus baby quarterback from Georgia, has his supporters, which is great.

But those supporters are taking their zeal too far.

They want Stafford to be the starting quarterback when the Lions tee it up for real on September 13.

What is it they say about those who forget the past?

If the Lions have even the tiniest peas for brains, they should at least be smart enough to know that Stafford shouldn’t so much as warm up during any game this season.

He and his money should remain on the sidelines, from Week One thru Seventeen.

His jersey should be put on and removed week after week, never seeing a washing machine in between.

The Lions baseball cap should adorn his head at all times.”

(OK, so I got this one wrong, big time!)

On quiet Red Wing Darren Helm:

“Helm is the 22-year-old Manitobian who propelled the Red Wings to where they are now—about to take on the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup Finals: The Sequel—thanks to his goal at 3:58 of overtime on Wednesday night in Game Five of the conference finals against Chicago.

Not that you would know it.

The reporters continued to ignore Helm as he told me about how his parents instilled a work ethic into him and that “anyone in this room” could have gotten that series-winning goal—present company excluded, of course—and that he plays “hard between whistles.”

The more I talked to him, the more I either wanted: a) him to be six years younger, or b) my daughter to be six years older.

Memo to all you dads out there: you’d be thrilled if your little girl came home with a kid like Darren Helm in tow.”

(Helm is still figured mightily into the team’s plans, if he can just stay healthy)

On Kirk Maltby and his role in the Red Wings’ win in Game 1 of the Cup Final:

“After the scintillating, gritty shift, as Maltby willed himself to the bench (he didn’t skate, per se, because skating involves moving the legs one in front of the other, and Maltby couldn’t, so he simply coasted), the partisan crowd got off their feet and gave the trio a rousing ovation.

After the game, I asked Maltby if that shift and the fans’ reaction to it reminded him of the heyday of the Grind Line, on which he played with Kris Draper and Darren McCarty so marvelously in the late-1990s, early-2000s. Won three championships, the Grind Liners did.

“You never like to live in the past, but yeah, this arena is awesome to play in,” Maltby said, appreciating the acknowledgement from the crowd for the hard work–not just on that shift but throughout all those Grind Line seasons.

“The fans are great (in Detroit),” Maltby went on. “They’re very hockey smart. They acknowledge all sorts of big plays, whether it’s a goal, or a hit, or a great save.”

On the way home from the game last night, I was trying to put into words how the Red Wings played, because it wasn’t a typical game for them. Mainly because they seemed to put defense first and offense second.

Then it occurred to me.

The Red Wings had won by playing the perfect road game in their own building.”

(Until Game 7, of course)

After winning Game 2:

“Barring a collapse, the Red Wings will win their second straight Stanley Cup, fifth in twelve years, and 12th in team history. And Osgood, who’s been amazing in every round, will be the hands down Conn Smythe winner.”

(Yeah, about that…)

On The Tigers not seizing control of their division:

“The rest of their division is sleeping, and the Tigers aren’t wandering off.

The AL Central, I thought, was going to be a nip-and-tuck, close shave the whole way. A three, maybe four team battle.

The Indians looked like the team to beat. Tells you how much I know.

The Twins are always hovering, thanks to that damned Metrodome.

The White Sox are defending champs, and they have handled the Tigers in recent years.

The Royals, to me, looked improved–a good pitch, no-hit team but pitching is the name of the game, right?

The Tigers?

I had them around 90 wins–which didn’t endear me as a very smart man to a lot of folks.

The pitching, they said, was supposed to be awful. The bullpen would be positively heinous.

Hold up, I countered. They play 162 games on the field, not on paper, for a reason.

Things aren’t always what they seem, I reminded the doubters.

I whiffed on the Indians, but I’ve pegged the Tigers pretty good. So far.

But the Detroiters aren’t getting off scott-free here.

This division, it’s turning out, is so for the taking that you can practically see the GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card lying on the ground and the Tigers stepping right over it. No team is playing particularly well. This is evident in the won/loss records, which show only Detroit playing on the north side of .500.

Oh, if the Tigers could only hit with any consistency! This race would be over with by now.”

(It was true in June, and was true at the end of the season)
On the Penguins’ winning the Stanley Cup:

“Not very far from where Lemieux held court, I found Bylsma—just before he headed into the dressing room to enjoy the Cup with his players.

Was this moment ever, I asked, on his radar when he took over from Therien in February?

To my surprise, it kinda was.

“Actually,” Bylsma said, giving it some thought. “You know, there was a moment where I thought that this team could have a mural on Mellon Arena—a picture with them raising the Cup. But that was fleeting. We were more worried about just getting some wins.”

The coach agreed with the owner: the players “bought in” to the new system, the new way of doing things.

“This isn’t my victory,” Bylsma said. “It’s theirs,” he added, nodding toward the few players still on the ice.

The Penguins’ captain, Sidney Crosby, skated off in terrible pain after a hit early in the second period. It looked to be a knee injury—or something to do with the leg.

The score was 1-0, Pittsburgh. And there went arguably the team’s best overall player, doubled over in pain.

What was going through the coach’s mind at that point?

The deliciousness of the moment wasn’t lost on Bylsma.

“I just thought,” he said, truly giving his answer some time to formulate, “that it just made for a better story. That we didn’t have to rely on just one or two guys to win it.”

Bylsma adjusted his new Stanley Cup Champs hat.

“This is good stuff,” he said. “Good stuff.””

(So I guess that changing the coach thing worked, after all)

On the potential of Lions receiver Calvin Johnson

“A healthier Johnson, in 2008, racked up over 1,300 yards receiving on 78 catches. He caught 12 touchdown passes—all while playing for the only 0-16 team in NFL history.

There’s a fluttering feeling in the tummies of Lions fans—and players and coaches—that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential of Calvin Johnson.

He could be a one-man wrecking crew for years. He’s still a baby, in football terms. More like a bulldozer outfitted with a racing car engine.

Calvin Johnson could own Detroit. He’s the most talented, most physically gifted pass receiver to come down the Lions’ pike in, well…ever.

All the Lions need now is someone to throw the ball in his general direction with some degree of consistency.”

(Maybe the Lions found that guy in Matthew Stafford; we’ll see)

From July 2009

On Rasheed Wallace leaving the Pistons:

“I, for one, won’t miss Rasheed Wallace. Once, he was the fire and brimstone that the Pistons needed to win a title. That was then.

Wallace, by the end of his time with the Pistons, had denegrated into a disinterested, scowling malcontent. It used to be that Sheed saved his disdain for his opponents and the officials. By the end, even his own team wasn’t immune to his toxic behavior.

Now he’s gone, off to Boston, where the Celtics hope he can do for them what he did for the Pistons five years ago — to be that missing piece.

In Detroit, he was just missing.

No Sheed.”

On Curtis Granderson’s baffling season

“Fast forward to 2009, and where are the doubles? Where are the triples? Where’s the annoyance he’s causing opposing pitchers at the leadoff spot? Where’s the .280-.300 batting average?

It’s almost as if Granderson sold his baseball-playing soul to the Devil, in exchange for a season as a home run hitter.

Curtis has 19 dingers, which means he’ll likely eclipse his career high of 23 this season.

Whoopee.

So we’re left with a .257 BA, 10 doubles, and four triples.

When Granderson missed the first few weeks of the 2008 season, his absence was used as one of the reasons why the Tigers came out of the gate oh-so-slowly. Made sense, as Grandy was coming off his dynamite 2007 season, when his 2B/3B/HR line read 38/23/23, and his average was .302.

How he failed to make the All-Star team in 2007 is almost as baffling as why he made it this year.

Granderson isn’t an All-Star—not now, and not when the team was announced. Maybe he made it because the center field crop is dry this year. Not sure.”

(We all know what happened to Curtis, don’t we?)

From August 2009

On the courage of Brandon Inge:

“Inge should be on the disabled list, for the rest of the season, and should have had surgery weeks ago. Someone else should be playing third base.

“It affects everything you do,” he said recently. “Anything that gets you in any sort of an athletic position, that’s what hurts. Anything.

“It’s not fun playing like this.”

Even stepping into the batter’s box—stepping into it—causes Inge great discomfort.

But here’s where it gets legendary, as if that wasn’t enough.

“How could I go on the disabled list and not play, when we’re in first place, when there are people all over out of work and struggling to get by? What kind of message would that send?”

Gulp.

Did a professional athlete, being paid millions of dollars, just say that?

The words are Inge’s, said a few weeks ago.”

From September 2009

On the news of Ernie Harwell’s cancer:

“If only the rest of us could accept Ernie Harwell’s fate as well as Ernie Harwell.

Leave it to Ernie to top us again when it comes to level-headedness and spirituality.

The news that Harwell, 91, the longtime Tigers broadcaster, has a cancerous tumor in a bile duct and that the prognosis isn’t terrific, is slowly but surely sinking into the souls of those who’ve listened to him call Bengals baseball for months, years, decades—whichever category you choose, and in whichever you happen to belong.

“I’m ready to face what comes,” Harwell told the Detroit Free Press. “Whether it’s a long time or a short time is all right with me because it’s up to my Lord and savior.”

OK, but what about the rest of us?

Ernie’s health is about to decline, perhaps quickly, because once this dreaded cancer gets started it can get downright insatiable until it achieves its purpose.

So who knows how long we have to prepare for the worst?”

On Miguel Cabrera’s performance down the stretch:

“Miguel Cabrera—he of the big bat, big contract, and big expectations—has pulled another vanishing act, and at the worst possible time.

Cabrera’s talent is in rarified air. When he’s on, he’s a rightfully feared hitter who can break the spirit of entire teams. He has the goods to swing the bat of Albert Pujols or Alex Rodriguez or Ryan Howard. It is company with which he ought to feel comfortable.

But Cabrera is failing the Tigers now. Maybe it’s a lack of maturity or temerity, but Cabrera is proving to be a fraud in the broad shoulders department.

I’ve seen players of far lesser talent than what Cabrera possesses hunker down and pile the Tigers on their backs.

I thrilled to Kirk Gibson, who returned from the strike of 1981 as if a man on a mission. Gibby destroyed American League pitching in the second half of that divided season, batting a robust .375 from August 10 on, leading the Tigers straight into a truncated but no less real pennant race with the Milwaukee Brewers.

I remember Johnny Grubb—the Gentleman from Virginia—carrying the Tigers for several weeks in 1986 as the team scrambled to give the Boston Red Sox a run for their money.

Neither Gibson nor Grubb had anywhere near the talent that Miguel Cabrera has. Perhaps Cabrera has more of it in his left bicep than Gibson or Grubb had in their entire bodies.

But Kirk Gibson was the greatest money hitter I’ve ever seen in Detroit. By far.

Cabrera has a wonderful chance to own this town, right now. It’s all there for him. He should, by rights, be allowing his teammates to board him as he lugs them across the finish line, quite heroically.”

(As with Granderson, we all know how Miggy ended the season)

From October 2009

On the hard-charging Minnesota Twins:

“The Twins team that you’re seeing in September is more representative of what they truly are.

The Twins do many things better than the Tigers. They move runners along the basepaths better. They walk fewer hitters. They drive in runs from third base with less than two outs far better than the Tigers do.

They have a better lineup, hitting-wise.

They have Ron Gardenhire as manager, who nullifies Jim Leyland, and then some.

They had the Metrodome for 81 games.

Yet they—the Twins—are still likely to fall short, despite their late run, because they muddled along at or just below .500 most of the season. That’s their fault, of course.

That the Tigers couldn’t put the Twins away is an indictment against the Bengals.”

(The Twins, of course, did NOT fall short)

On the eve of the one-game playoff between the Tigers and Twins:

“If the Tigers blow this, if they aren’t able to finish this heist—and that’s what it would be—then they ought to issue a public apology for doing such a heinous thing to their financially-decrepit fan base.

Shame on the Tigers, if they raise all those people’s hopes up for five months, teasing them, only to collapse in the season’s final days.

It would be almost too much for these people in this God-forsaken state to bear.

But if the Tigers do win it, they’d be, at the same time, thieves. Took the Twins’ division and away they ran, into the night.

The Twins rightfully own the Central Division. They’re the best team, clearly. So some shame on them, too, for fooling around for 142 games and waking up barely in time for a late, 20-game run.

How fitting it is, both ways, that this playoff is being played in the Dome.

Fitting if the Twins win, because it would be one last “GOTCHA!” for the Tigers under that plastic roof, housing all those trash bags.

And incredible irony if the Tigers win, closing the Dome for good with such a monumental win.”

On the fate of Red Wing goalie Chris Osgood’s No. 30, post-retirement:

“So this much we know.

One evening, in the not-too-distant future, fans will look to the rafters at Joe Louis Arena—or wherever the Red Wings will be playing by then—and see a large red “jersey” with a white No. 5 and the name “LIDSTROM” adorning it, the years played for the Red Wings listed below it, in red on a white band.

That much we know.

But, and I know my timing isn’t great here, I submit that those same fans should also be able to crane their necks and see a big red swatch of fabric with a white No. 30 and the name “OSGOOD” sewn onto it.

You heard me.

It’s a few weeks into the NHL regular season, and that may turn some people on, but this is the perfect time to be an argument starter, if you ask me. Let these October games drone on in the background while we muck it up in the corner, figuratively speaking.

Chris Osgood’s number retired? You betcha.

By the time he hangs them up for good, Osgood will have likely passed the great Terry Sawchuk for most wins by a Red Wings goaltender. For starters.

He has three Stanley Cups, two earned as the starter throughout the playoffs—and ten years apart, which must be some sort of record, somewhere.

Your honor, the defense rests.”

From November 2009

On old Olympia Stadium:

“Olympia seated about 16,000 for hockey and was just about the most intimate indoor arena you’ll ever enjoy.

The place shook when the crowd reaction was explosive enough. But when the din was low, you could hear the players shout to one another, even if you sat in the upper rows of the balcony. It was like a theatre that way.

The skates etching the ice, the puck being smacked from tape to tape as it was being passed around, the crunch of the glass during a solid bodycheck—those are hockey sounds to be treasured. And you could hear them at Olympia as if you were wearing personal earphones.

The acoustics were tremendous—which made it a wonderful concert venue, too. All the big name acts played the Olympia: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, you name it.

The Pistons called Olympia home for a few seasons before Cobo Arena opened on the riverfront in 1960.

Olympia’s front doors—it literally had a lobby—were just a sidewalk away from Grand River. Kind of like the old Maple Leaf Gardens on Yonge Street. The old-fashioned marquee with the hand-posted red letters would announce that evening’s festivities: “HOCKEY TONIGHT RED WINGS VS MONTREAL 8:00.”

Then the escalators, which were, frankly, a nightmare for anyone with either claustrophobia or a fear of heights. If you had both, you were in trouble. The steps were barely wide enough for two people. And that steep angle made you feel like you’d tumble backward on the people behind you if you leaned back a bit too much.

I feel sorry for those who never got a chance to take in a Red Wings game at Olympia Stadium.

I feel that way, because they’ll never make hockey palaces like that again. No one has it in them, I guess.”

On the retirement of former Red Wing Brendan Shanahan:

“Shanahan played long enough. He said so, retiring yesterday at age 40, which in the NHL is the new 30 anymore.

Before Shanahan, power forward was a basketball designation. “Cerebral” and “hockey player” were antonyms. Someone named Brendan was probably a Pistons assistant coach.

Shanahan started and ended a Devil, and it’s only fitting that he bookended his career, because he was a library on skates.

He knew his movies, for one. Shanahan didn’t only play on lines, he could recite them. From many a flick. That’s another thing he could have been: a movie reviewer. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in a camel jacket, a sweater vest, and glasses.

Brendan Shanahan brought the word “refined” to hockey, both in terms of his demeanor off the ice and his goal-scoring skills on it. He was, at his best, perhaps the most complete player in hockey. He might have led the league many a season in the Gordie Howe Hat Trick: a goal, an assist, a fight.

Yeah, he could fight. Can’t all Irish men?”

(Almost immediately, Shanahan took a job in the NHL front office)

On the current state of the Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry:

“Everything was better back in the day, wasn’t it?

Gas prices. McDonald’s. The “Tonight” show. And Michigan-Ohio State.

It wasn’t a game, it was High Noon. It was the fight with the kid after school. Be there or else. They didn’t finish it, they reconvened. The winner went to the Rose Bowl and the loser’s intestines got gnarled for 364 days.

MichiganOhioState. It was a two school rivalry said in one word. You could empty a crowded theatre in Ann Arbor or Columbus by saying it, more so than if you yelled “Fire!”

Now it’s been reduced, like a sauce that’s been sitting on the stove for too long. Its stock has fallen faster than General Motors. Ohio State so outclasses Michigan anymore that it’s not a rivalry, it’s a chore—something that has to be done before you can close up the cottage for the winter.

This pairing has all the drama and suspense of a “Brady Bunch” episode. They should put it on “Nick at Nite,” not ABC.

Michigan-Ohio State. I have one question for you.

That show’s still on?”

On Curtis Granderson being traded to the Yankees, of all teams:

“But New York? As if they need any more effervescence. Adding Granderson to New York is like spritzing champagne with carbonated water.

What a waste of a good guy. New York won’t appreciate what Granderson does for life outside of baseball. He’ll be able to walk the streets of Manhattan and the only time he’ll be stopped is if someone happens to ask him for the time. In Detroit, Grandy might one day have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Mayor Dave Bing in front of the groundbreaking for a new playground. In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg might not even have time to take his call—if he even knows who Curtis is.

But from a purely baseball perspective, the Yankees will love what Granderson brings to their team. If he ever learns to hit left-handed pitchers, his only days off will come from November thru March.

The Yankees got their man. Again. Comcast just bought NBC and 20 percent of your cable lineup, so why not Granderson to the Yankees? While we’re at it, let’s sell Yahoo to Google and give Nestle’s a great deal on Hershey. Hey, how about getting McBurger King done?”

*********************************
So there it is—2009 at GregEno.com in a nutshell.

How’d I do?

Last Night on “The Knee Jerks”: Screw the Digital Age! We Like Rolling Them Bones!

Put away the controllers and XBoxes and Playstations! We talked sports games last night—tabletop, board-game style—with Keith Avallone, owner of a website called www.plaay.com. At Keith’s site, you’ll find simulations of everything from roller derby to indoor lacrosse to, soon, hockey. That was our guest segment on “The Knee Jerks,” the weekly gabfest I co-host on Blog Talk Radio with Big Al Beaton, who’s rapidly beginning his own Internet writing empire.

After talking “old school” sports gaming with Keith, Al and I roasted the Lions (as usual), and wondered whether Drew Stanton has a future in the NFL—with the Lions or anyone else.

We also blistered the Free Press and its decision to run an “All Decade” team for the Lions, with such notables as Tony Semple, Joey Harrington, and Todd Lyght on it. The All Decade coach was Steve Mariucci! Oy vay!

You also might want to hear my last rant of 2009—a 15-minute rampage on the Indy Colts and their decision to bench Peyton Manning on Sunday. It’s among my best, if I do say so myself!

Al included himself, indirectly, in his pick of “Jerk of the Week.”

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, for updates on scheduled guests, time changes, etc.

Upcoming guests/topics:

Jan. 4: Big Ten basketball preview (OR January 11)

You can listen to the episode by clicking HERE.

Last Night on “The Knee Jerks”: NHL Central Musings, Another Lions Waxing

Hockey took center ice, so to speak, last night on “The Knee Jerks,“ the weekly gabfest I co-host on Blog Talk Radio with Big Al Beaton, who’s rapidly beginning his own Internet writing empire.

We held our much anticipated NHL Central Roundtable, in which we hosted Bleacher Report writers from Chicago, Columbus, and Nashville. Our St. Louis guy had a conflict and couldn’t participate.

Joining us were Tab Bamford (Blackhawks), Ed Cmar (Blue Jackets), and Mark Willoughby (Predators). Each one of those guys were extremely knowledgeable and provided excellent analysis of their respective teams. We went a good 50 minutes and could easily have taken up the entire show time with that discussion.

But what would an episode of “The Knee Jerks” be without Al and me ripping on the Lions?

QB Daunte Culpepper was our target, with both of us agreeing that he should never take another snap in a Lions uniform. Al ranted about “moral victories” and I countered with one about fans who want the Lions to lose for “draft positioning.”

With the holiday approaching and it being a relatively quiet week around Detroit sports—and having discussed the Red Wings in the roundtable—we wrapped up a bit earlier than our usual two-hour allotment. Not before choosing our Jerks of the Week, of course!

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, for updates on scheduled guests, time changes, etc.

Upcoming guests/topics:

Dec. 28: Tabletop sports game creator and business owner Keith Avallone

Jan. 4: Big Ten basketball preview

You can listen to the episode by clicking HERE.