Remember the spring of 1999. Remember how Star Wars fans/geeks everywhere began counting down the days until the release of "Episode I: The Phantom Menace."? Remember how the first reveal of Darth Maul and the 'Duel of the Fates' gave us all goosebumps? Remember how that teaser poster of a young Annakin Skywalker casting the shadow of Darth Vader made us all curse until that eventual May release?
And, remember walking out of the theater cursing all things pod-races and Jar-Jar Binks?
In other words, what the hell happened?
Allow that to serve as an intro to my denouement of the 2008 Detroit Tigers. (See, in the Intra-net these days you must make some sort of glitzy pop culture reference and then use it to make a sports point. It's Blogging 101.)
Really, there's not much of a true connection between the stink bomb that taught us about Intergalactic trade embargo and the soon to be 2-10 Tigers aside from the fact they were both very costly and both colossal disappointments.
Maybe, as a lifelong fan, I'm rushing to judgment here. The season isn't even at the 10 percent point. Maybe it's too small a sample size. Maybe it's just the cold weather that's keeping the team -- which some pundits predicted would score 1,000 runs -- from hitting. Maybe Curtis Granderson's injury is holding the team back.
Enough.
Tigers fans probably thought it couldn't get any worst than last Sunday when General Manager Dave Dombrowski endured two innings inside the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball booth, while the millionaire's club team he assembled played Keystone Cops in the inside against the hated Chicago White Sox.
Nay, rock bottom found a lower level inside Earth's core which would have made even Jules Verne blush. Sunday afternoon, again against the Black Hats from the Southside, the would-be next Manny Ramirez suffered bad luck on par more akin to Jose Cancesco, when he collided with the third base umpire trying to catch a Jim Thome foul pop, and of course, the ball landed in fair territory.
Perhaps this scene wasn't all that bad. Maybe it was worse. I had to create an image of the play happening in my head via the radio webcast. See, if you buy the MLB.tv package and your team travels to U.S. Cellular Field, sanity and reason force you to either mute the speakers because of the one and only Hawk Harrelson. Basically, more than innings exposed to the Hawk force you to re-enact this Perry Bible Fellowship cartoon. So it is, in fact, possible the wind took it and it wasn't the worse play of all time and destined for blooper reals everywhere.
But the mind's eye is all that counts and right now there is nothing pretty to say about this team. This is not a good baseball team.
Oh right, how can you forget the two grand slams allowed to the ChiSox in the same game?
The litany, or more specifically, the comedy of errors the Detroit nine has accrued two weeks into the season is a recipe for disaster.
* 19 GIDP in 12 games? Check
* Fewest runs in baseball? Check.
* Shoddy fielding? Check.
* Worst team ERA in MLB? Check.
* Most walks allowed in MLB? Check.
* Guys swinging at first pitches and in 2-0 counts? Check.
* No energy or emotion in the dugout? Check.
* Nearly no-hit by the immortal Gavin Floyd, he of the lifetime 6.00 ERA? Check.
Just as George Lucas found out that all the special effects money and actors in front of green screens doesn't equal compelling cinema, the Tigers are finding out the hard way that assembling a team on paper with long-term, big-time deals doesn't win ball games. Hell any Uwe Boll flick and the 2000s Yankees are testament to both corollaries.
Sure, there's plenty of time for things to change. Perhaps they'll stop pressing at the plate in a week or two. History says no team that began 0-7 has made the World Series, yet that should be the least of this team's concerns. Maybe Jim Leyland will stop chain-smoking and kick over a post-game spread, thusly firing up the team.
Pitching, however, should be. No matter what the lineup of sluggers does at the weather heats up means nothing unless they can get the opposition out. Of all the deals this team made in the offseason, it never addressed the bullpen -- which if memory serves was the team's undoing last season. Yes, it's not financially prudent to overspend for middle-rate arms, which encompass the bulk of middle relievers. To simply trot out guys like Jason Grilli and Zach Miner and how a miracle happens, isn't exactly sound strategy.
Hindsight is 20/20 but if the Tigers knew they could land Miguel Cabrera they likely wouldn't have traded intriguing pitching prospect Jair Jurrjens for Edgar Renteria -- a classic National League player if there ever was one. It also didn't help that Dontrelle Willis fell off the mound in Chicago Friday night, not that he could throw a strike anyway.
The other worry is the Tigers rushed their latest phenom, Rick Porcello who's barely out of high school.
Again, it's definitely too early to close the book on the 2008 season, especially since on paper, at least, this squad has the potential to be good. But the feeble attitude, the lack of fight in the team, coupled with the god-awful pitching doesn't leave much room for concern.
Above all, the most depressing thing is that after years of following the dreadful, 119-loss Tigers from afar, they actually gave me hope in 2006 when they made the World Series, but were derailed by a week-long layoff, rain, pitching that couldn't field, and oh yeah, the St. Louis Redbirds.
What's more depressing is deep down that's probably the closest that core is going to get. They'll never be able to recreate that magic, instead chasing "win-now" players like Sheffield and Renteria and only dig a long-term hole as the farm clubs are stripped bare. Drombowski is left chasing windmills and ghosts.
The excitement of winter is gone, charred from my memory. The enjoyment of scheduling your life around games, has turned into a comedy of errors. I'm more broken hearted than Brian Kuh when Steve Wiebe achieved the first Donkey Kong kill screen at the New Hampshire Funspot.
Buy hey, the 'Phantom Menace' at least had a decent light saber battle at the end and at least the 2008 Tigers have Todd Jones, who is 1-for-1 in save opportunities.
And, remember walking out of the theater cursing all things pod-races and Jar-Jar Binks?
In other words, what the hell happened?
Allow that to serve as an intro to my denouement of the 2008 Detroit Tigers. (See, in the Intra-net these days you must make some sort of glitzy pop culture reference and then use it to make a sports point. It's Blogging 101.)
Really, there's not much of a true connection between the stink bomb that taught us about Intergalactic trade embargo and the soon to be 2-10 Tigers aside from the fact they were both very costly and both colossal disappointments.
Maybe, as a lifelong fan, I'm rushing to judgment here. The season isn't even at the 10 percent point. Maybe it's too small a sample size. Maybe it's just the cold weather that's keeping the team -- which some pundits predicted would score 1,000 runs -- from hitting. Maybe Curtis Granderson's injury is holding the team back.
Enough.
Tigers fans probably thought it couldn't get any worst than last Sunday when General Manager Dave Dombrowski endured two innings inside the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball booth, while the millionaire's club team he assembled played Keystone Cops in the inside against the hated Chicago White Sox.
Nay, rock bottom found a lower level inside Earth's core which would have made even Jules Verne blush. Sunday afternoon, again against the Black Hats from the Southside, the would-be next Manny Ramirez suffered bad luck on par more akin to Jose Cancesco, when he collided with the third base umpire trying to catch a Jim Thome foul pop, and of course, the ball landed in fair territory.
Perhaps this scene wasn't all that bad. Maybe it was worse. I had to create an image of the play happening in my head via the radio webcast. See, if you buy the MLB.tv package and your team travels to U.S. Cellular Field, sanity and reason force you to either mute the speakers because of the one and only Hawk Harrelson. Basically, more than innings exposed to the Hawk force you to re-enact this Perry Bible Fellowship cartoon. So it is, in fact, possible the wind took it and it wasn't the worse play of all time and destined for blooper reals everywhere.
But the mind's eye is all that counts and right now there is nothing pretty to say about this team. This is not a good baseball team.
Oh right, how can you forget the two grand slams allowed to the ChiSox in the same game?
The litany, or more specifically, the comedy of errors the Detroit nine has accrued two weeks into the season is a recipe for disaster.
* 19 GIDP in 12 games? Check
* Fewest runs in baseball? Check.
* Shoddy fielding? Check.
* Worst team ERA in MLB? Check.
* Most walks allowed in MLB? Check.
* Guys swinging at first pitches and in 2-0 counts? Check.
* No energy or emotion in the dugout? Check.
* Nearly no-hit by the immortal Gavin Floyd, he of the lifetime 6.00 ERA? Check.
Just as George Lucas found out that all the special effects money and actors in front of green screens doesn't equal compelling cinema, the Tigers are finding out the hard way that assembling a team on paper with long-term, big-time deals doesn't win ball games. Hell any Uwe Boll flick and the 2000s Yankees are testament to both corollaries.
Sure, there's plenty of time for things to change. Perhaps they'll stop pressing at the plate in a week or two. History says no team that began 0-7 has made the World Series, yet that should be the least of this team's concerns. Maybe Jim Leyland will stop chain-smoking and kick over a post-game spread, thusly firing up the team.
Pitching, however, should be. No matter what the lineup of sluggers does at the weather heats up means nothing unless they can get the opposition out. Of all the deals this team made in the offseason, it never addressed the bullpen -- which if memory serves was the team's undoing last season. Yes, it's not financially prudent to overspend for middle-rate arms, which encompass the bulk of middle relievers. To simply trot out guys like Jason Grilli and Zach Miner and how a miracle happens, isn't exactly sound strategy.
Hindsight is 20/20 but if the Tigers knew they could land Miguel Cabrera they likely wouldn't have traded intriguing pitching prospect Jair Jurrjens for Edgar Renteria -- a classic National League player if there ever was one. It also didn't help that Dontrelle Willis fell off the mound in Chicago Friday night, not that he could throw a strike anyway.
The other worry is the Tigers rushed their latest phenom, Rick Porcello who's barely out of high school.
Again, it's definitely too early to close the book on the 2008 season, especially since on paper, at least, this squad has the potential to be good. But the feeble attitude, the lack of fight in the team, coupled with the god-awful pitching doesn't leave much room for concern.
Above all, the most depressing thing is that after years of following the dreadful, 119-loss Tigers from afar, they actually gave me hope in 2006 when they made the World Series, but were derailed by a week-long layoff, rain, pitching that couldn't field, and oh yeah, the St. Louis Redbirds.
What's more depressing is deep down that's probably the closest that core is going to get. They'll never be able to recreate that magic, instead chasing "win-now" players like Sheffield and Renteria and only dig a long-term hole as the farm clubs are stripped bare. Drombowski is left chasing windmills and ghosts.
The excitement of winter is gone, charred from my memory. The enjoyment of scheduling your life around games, has turned into a comedy of errors. I'm more broken hearted than Brian Kuh when Steve Wiebe achieved the first Donkey Kong kill screen at the New Hampshire Funspot.
Buy hey, the 'Phantom Menace' at least had a decent light saber battle at the end and at least the 2008 Tigers have Todd Jones, who is 1-for-1 in save opportunities.
Labels: Baseball, Detroit Tigers, rants
Then the appropriate follow-up is: what warrants comparison to the crappy Episode 2 and the downright disappointing Episode 3?
Kevin
Remember, the 1998 Yankees started the season 1-4. It's early. Very early.
The Tigers suck. What a pathehic group of no guts no care millionairs. Leyland should just stop apologizing for their inept play and sit some of their sorry asses down. But he is am overrated kissass guy. He just looks like an old time mager but he is horse shit even in 2006 won they got real close. His moves and demeanor just baffle me. But then he is payed pretty well to. Wait-maybe these guys just need a raise. Screw them. They could at least look like they care.
Ace Cowboy's right; it's very early. Hang in there.
As an Indians fan I feel your pain re: Hawk Harrelson. I too live outside the area and wanted to share with you a workaround for MLB.tv. Follow these instructions and you'll be able to watch full-screen video of the game at 800K with it's audio muted and then open a seperate audio-only stream to listen with your hometown radio broadcasters.
The setup:
1. Uninstall both Microsoft Silverlight (unfortunately necessary) and the "MLB NextDef Plugin."
2. Install VLC media player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)
3. Using Firefox, download/install the "Media Player Connectivity" add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/446).
4. In the set-up wizard for Media Player Connectivity, set "Windows Media" to open with VLC (usually "c:\Program files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe")
5. In the "Media players" tab of Media Player Connectivity, check/enable "Expert mode" and, in the small box to the left of the "Browse..." button on the "Windows Media" line, replace the "%f" with "--codec dmo %f". Otherwise the video displayed in VLC will be scrambled.
6. Restart Firefox. Setup is done...
To watch the game in full-screen:
1. Open Firefox and go to MLB.tv (http://mlb.mlb.com/mediacenter/index.jsp).
2. Select the 800K stream of your choice (see note #1), log in as necessary.
3. Click "Use the Original Mediaplayer," then click the play button in the middle of the screen.
4. VLC will open and begin the stream.
5. Double-click on the video to go full-screen. If you have black bars all around, right-click the video and choose "crop > 4:3."
Note#1: Unfortunately, the 800K stream is the best you can get at the moment (as of 13 April 2008). The 1.2M stream only works with their (Silverlight) media player/plug-in combination and, in addition to being choppy and generally undependable (in my experience), cannot switch between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios of the source. As a result, if MLB is getting a game in 4:3 and pushing it out over MLB.tv, when one attempts to go full-screen as a viewer, one is left with a 16:9 full-screen with the 4:3 video centered. In other words, black bars all around (i.e. not really "full-screen").
To use Gameday Audio alongside the video feed:
1. Click the speaker icon in VLC's toolbar to mute the video stream.
2. In the MLB Mediaplayer screen (on the left side), click "Listen" and select the audio stream of your choice.
3. Another instance of VLC will open and begin to stream.
Note#2: It can be weird to watch a game this way (especially at first); the Gameday Audio is about 10-12 seconds delayed from the video with no way (as far as i know) to sync them. On the other hand, you get to watch the game of your choice, with the audio of your choice. This effect is negated when a game is broadcast on national television because then, the Gameday Audio will be ahead of what's on the telly. In this case, mute the game on the telly and use VLC's pause button to sync up the audio and video. With a bit of trial and error one can get them sync'd perfectly. I watched the entire 2007 playoffs this way.