BY GEORGE EICHORN of the Detroit Monitor
Fasten your seat belts, Detroit Tigers fans, your team is taking you on a pennant race!
I know it’s only May and there are four full months of baseball to be played but fans of the Tigers appear to be bracing for a chase to the American League Central Division title. Manager Jim Leyland’s first-place ballclub appear to have many of the ingredients necessary to contend for a crown.
Number one is pitching — always has been and always will be. The Tigers are blessed in 2009 with an outsatanding 1-2-3 pitched punch from righthanders Justin Verlander, Edwin Jackson and rookie Rick Porcello. The trio has combined to make the Tigers a contender. Verlander leads the majors in strikeouts and has been "lights out" of late, Jackson was a steal coming over from the defending AL Champion Tampa Bay Rays and 20-year-old Porcello has demonstrated the maturity of a veteran starter — trying to capture his fifth win in a row on May 27 in Kansas City.
The concern is the the number 4 and 5 starters — righty Armando Galarraga and (at the moment at least) Dontrelle Willis. Galarraga has not pitched well since members of the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association gave him his 2008 Rookie of the Year Award on April 29, 2009 at Detroit’s Comerica Park. I hope this is not like the Sports Illustarted (SI) jinx. Willis, meanwhile, pitched well his last couple starts. One of these two spots in the starting rotation could end up with veteran Jeremy Bonderman who is completing his rehabilitation following off-season surgery.
As for the Tigers bullpen — closer Fernando Rodney has been effective enough. He’s taken over the role perfected the past several years by the retired Todd Jones. Rodney is supported by flamethrower Joel Zumaya, veteran Zach Miner, lefty Bobby Seay, rookie Ryan Perry and former relief ace Brandon Lyon. It has been an effective group for the most part.
The Tigers defense is much improved with Gerald Laird catching fulltime and Brandon Inge at third. Adam Everitt is steady at shortstop, with Placido Polance covering the ground at second and Miguel Cabrera — while no Gold Glove — making progress defensively at first. The outfield is anchored by center fielder (and Gold Glove candidate) Curtis Granderson, right-fielder Magglio Ordonez and a cast in left field, including Josh Anderson (hitting over .300) and (when healthy) Carlos Guillen and Marcus Thames.
The Tigers have received excellent hitting this spring from Cabrera who is one of baseball’s pure hitters and one worthy every penny that owner Mike Ilitch and general manager Dave Dombrowski pay him. The Tigers can only win this thing should Cabrera carry them at the plate, in my humble opinion.
Ordonez has been emerging from a season-long hitting slump as has Polanco. Detroit needs both these guys plus more singles, doubles and triples off the bat of Granderson. He has a home run punch in 2009 but not much else. Inge continues his fine hitting and even Laird is providing some key hits. Everitt and Ramon Santiago are giving the Tigers a lift at the plate too!
Yes, the Tigers appear to be for real in the weak Central. No one deserves credit more than Leyland for his patience, coaching and coaxing the most out of this team. It’s high time the Tigers reward the skipper with a 2 or 3-year contract extension for the way his club has produced.
Buy George Eichorn’s book, "Detroit Sports Broadcasters On The Air," for $19.99 at www.amazon.com. Reach him at geichorn@yahoo.com.
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By Scott Morganroth of www.scottsports33.com
This year’s Preakness Stakes on May 16 showed me how little I know about horse racing.
I’ve always assumed that the winning jockey of the Kentucky Derby would automatically race in the Preakness Stakes and go after the Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes.
Boy, was I wrong!
Instead of riding Kentucky Derby Winner Mine That Bird, Jockey Calvin Borel chose to saddle up 1,095 pound filly Rachel Alexandra in the 134th Preakness Stakes, and for the 11th time in Hors e Racing History, a filly won a Triple Crown race.
Rachel Alexandra became the first filly to win the Preakness Stakes since 1924 and the first to win from the 13th position. For a days work, she earned a first prize payday of $660,000 from a gross purse of $1.1 Million.
But for Horse Racing fans, the Triple Crown drought continues at 31 years. Affirmed was the last horse to win the Triple Crown in 1978. The only Triple Crown left is for Borel, who has not decided what horse he’ll ride, on June 6 at the 1.5 mile Belmont Stakes.
Mine That Bird is still an option for Borel but the Owners remain non committal about Rachel Alexandra’s participation.
On May 2, in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, and Preakness, Mine That Bird started back in the pack and finished strong. Had the Preakness Stakes been a little longer, we could be looking at a Triple Crown accomplishment since Mine That Bird was a close second losing by a length in Baltimore.
I believe that if Borel rides Mine That Bird at the Belmont Stakes, in Elmont, NY, then a genius cap would be the next attire for him to wear if he pulls off this unique Triple Crown.
On Sunday May 24th, another female named Danica Patrick, who weighs 1/10 of Rachel Alexandra, was my sentimental favorite to win the 93rd Indianapolis 500.
Patrick put on an outstanding performance by finishing third which was the best finish ever for a female driver at the Indy 500, in front of 250,000 fans in Indiana. As a rookie in 2005, Patrick finished the Indy 500 in fourth place.
Even though Patrick didn’t get to drink the milk in the winners circle, this young lady, who has led laps at the Indy 500 in the past, has turned out to be a great inspiration for her gender competing at the highest level in one of the most dangerous sports.
Last season, Patrick did win a race in Japan topping the guys but her performances at the historic Brickyard are something she can feel proud of and a building block for her career.
So May Is Ladies Month and the theme is speed with gallant finishes along with dramatic & historical story lines.
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BY SCOTT MORGANROTH
There are certain times of the year that are more exciting in sports than others.
During the holidays, there is the bowl season, NFL playoff races along with college basketball, the NHL and NBA.
Who can forget the September pennant races leading to the World Series in October? I enjoy this time of the year because Major League Baseball jams its post-season into 30 days, therefore it gets everybody fired up about the World Series.
March Madness drives this country into hysteria because a lot of people participate in office pools and have a favorite university to follow as we anticipate upsets from the underdogs defeating the bigger schools in the 65-team NCAA Tournament.
But the time of the year which is the most exciting is Memorial Day Weekend. I have been fortunate enough to have attended two Indianapolis 500s back in 1994 and 1995.
My Detroit Monitor colleague George Eichorn and I went to our first in 1994. We went to the parade downtown and it just so happened that the Indiana Pacers were in the Eastern Conference Finals facing the NY Knicks. We walked over to Market Square Arena and we managed to get into the game by purchasing two stadium passes from an outside worker enabling us to watch the second half of an 88-68 Pacers victory.
Indy 500 Day was a long one. We drove to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from our hotel at 5:00 a.m. It took 50 minutes to arrive. Watching Jim Nabors sing “Back Home in Indiana” and Florence Henderson (Carol, the mother on the Brady Bunch) be part of the weekend festivities, waving to the crowd at the parade was a sight worth watching. But until you’ve watched and listened to the late Mary Holman say “Gentleman Start Your Engines” you know that you’re at one of the biggest spectacles in sports.
When we departed back to Detroit on Memorial Day, we knew that the basketball/racing weekend was a blast and Indianapolis, Indiana., was the sports capital of the world.
The Indy 500 experience was so fun that, I met my college buddy Stuart Bloom the following year in 1995. Bloom drove down from Minnesota and we did have a hotel 10 minutes from the track. We just went to nightclubs and interacted with die hard racing fans.
This turned out to be a good move because in 1996, the open-wheel series split as CART and the Indy Racing League went their own ways. Eichorn and I covered the Inaugural US 500 at the Michigan International Speedway in the beautiful Irish Hills of Brooklyn, MI.
Last year, the open-wheel series did merge and the top competitors are back in the same 33-car field. It would be monumental if Danica Patrick, who has led the Indy 500 in past races, does win the biggest race on the planet. It would be a marketing bonanza for the Indy Racing League.
In the late 1980s, the Detroit Pistons played on Memorial Day Weekends. In 1989-90, I bought a ticket outside Chicago Stadium and watched Detroit lose 99-97 to Michael Jordan’s Bulls. The energy and electricity at the cozy Chicago Stadium brought chills down my spine.
The following day I covered a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field where I wrote a story on the late Harry Carey.
The Detroit Red Wings lead the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1 in the Western Conference Finals. If NBC gets it’s wish, this years finals could be a dandy because it will have an "Original Six" team in Detroit that has won 11 Stanley Cups, facing Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby in a rematch of last year’s Finals. This would be the first time since the early 1970′s that the NHL Finals had a rematch dating back to when the Boston Bruins faced the Montreal Canadiens.
The Red Wings Penguins rematch could be an entertaining series to watch over Memorial Day Weekend because current Red Wings Marian Hossa and back-up goalie Ty Conklin played with Pittsburgh last year and left for Detroit because they felt they had a better chance to win a championship in Motown.
Finally, who could forget the Coca Cola 600 from Charlotte, NC? The longest race of the schedule starts late afternoon and ends under the lights.
I’ve enjoyed watching on TV Tony Stewart, John Andretti and Robby Gordon drive in this race and the Indy 500. It would be unbelievable to see one of these guys or anyone else wins both races.
What makes Memorial Day weekend fun is even if you watch a lot of sports on Saturday and Sunday, there is still Monday to spend time with family, friends and to barbecue plus watch an NBA game. Nowadays, with Tivos and DVR’s, no sports fan will miss anything including the MLB Game of the Week’s on FOX and ESPN.
I challenge any fan out here to tell me there is a more action packed Weekend in Sports than this one. The only one that comes close to matching it is Thanksgiving with the three NFL games featuring the Detroit Lions, Dallas Cowboys and the late contest, plus major college football match-ups, in addition to NBA and NHL action. But none of these games have championship implications.
Scott Morganroth can be reached at Scottsports33@aol.com
View his Web site at: http://www.scottsports33.com
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By Scott Morganroth
FAU running back Charles Pierre is a member of the Lions, but not the ones in Detroit.
On Dec 26, 2008, Detroit fans had a chance to see a No. 20 at Ford Field in FAU’s 24-21 win over Central Michigan in the Motor City Bowl.
No. 20 in Detroit has been out of circulation with the Lions but has been proudly worn by Billy Sims and Hall of Famer Barry Sanders.
I am surprised that the 0-16 Lions didn’t give Pierre a tryout with the worst case scenerio being that the 5-9, 210 pound native of Orlando, could play on special teams. This is always a great way to make it in the NFL.
I’ll never forget when the Miami Dolphins selected quarterback Jim "Crash" Jensen as a second day draft choice out of Boston University. All Jensen did was play 12 seasons with the Dolphins as a quarterback, running back, fullback, wide receiver, tight end, holder, and punt snapper.
From 1984-1991, Jensen turned 229 receptions into 132 first downs. From 1984-1988, he recorded a reception in 55 of 63 games.
I thought for sure when Jensen was drafted, he’d never make it through the summer since he played behind t he late David Woodley and Don Strock. But Coach Don Shula liked Jensen’s hands and versatility that he became a good blocker on special teams. Jensen would later become a weapon for Hall of Famer Dan Marino as well as an emergancy signal caller.
But Pierre could prosper in the CFL. Warren Moon led the Edmonton Eskimos to five consecutive Grey Cup Championhships from 1978-82. Moon is ranked fifth on a list of the CFL’s 50 greatest players.
Doug Flutie was regarded as too small by scouts to play in the NFL because his 5-10, 180 pound frame would be a liability for him to see over defenders. However, after three Grey Cup Championships in an eight-year CFL career that enabled him to become the first non-Canadian inductee into the Canada Sports Hall of Fame on May 8, 2007, Flutie proved his doubters wrong and eventually worked his way to the NFL.
Both Moon and Flutie took advantage of the wider and longer field and Pierre figures to benefit as well since there is no 55-yard line in the NFL with his breakaway style. Pierre will likely be the recipient of passes and could become a prolific receiver out of the backfield.
In 1990, Flutie began his career with the British Columbia Lions. The only things that haven’t changed from 1990-2009 is the fact that Pierre will need some heavier clothes, the passion that the city of Vancouver has for NHL’s Canucks and Stanley Park reminds me a lot of Seaworld in his hometown of Orlando.
Vancouver is one of the prettiest cities I’ve ever visited. If Charles performs well, and he is allowed to wear the BC Lions No. 20, these people would even wear it at Canucks games. But like Sims and Sanders, Pierre will still have the benefit of climate controlled dome conditions at BC Place which holds 59, 841 for football, slightly smaller than Ford Field’s 65,000.
But this will be a good stepping stone for Pierre to begin his mission to prove all NFL teams wrong by not giving him a shot to show his skills in the NFL. Now at least he can realize that Moon and Flutie did fine North of the Border.
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By Scott Morganroth
While other sports post-season’s are fun to watch, it’s still hard to match the excitement of the NHL Playoffs.
This is a tournament where at crunch time the officials call fewer penalties and swallow the whistle. If there is a penalty, it’s going to have to be an obvious one because that one power play could be the decisive blow to a team’s quest to put their name on the famed Stanley Cup Trophy.
How about those marathon contests when the goaltenders show how valuable they are and make the Boston & New York City Marathons look like the 40-yard dash. We’ve seen premature whistles that can cost a team a goal when the official didn’t see the puck with players scrambling in front of the net to jam the biscuit and put it in the basket. Those tired legs for the rest of the players remind me of jello in the grocery store.
How many other sports have each team shaking the other’s ones hands when their series are complete? Sportsmanship is a great message to send to the youngsters watching.
The NHL was fortunate to have three Game 7′s for the first time since 2001, as the three conference semifinals went the distance. That’s the good news. The bad news is, how many people actually saw these games on Versus? Not as many as there would be if any of the ESPN Networks or the Turner Stations had the television rights, or perhaps NBC would have added a game or two.
So while NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman can be proud that he had outstanding match-ups and competition, the exposure could have been much better!
But now the Frozen Four does consist of four USA based teams.
Two of them are original six teams that are meeting for the first time since the 1995 Western Conference Finals. The Chicago Blackhawks against the Detroit Red Wings series figures to do be a dandy with cities which have storied traditions. While there will be no Gordie Howe against Bobby Hull on the frozen pond, the goaltending match up features Detroit’s Chris Osgood, who has won three Stanley Cups against Nikolai Khabibulin, the net minder who led the Tampa Bay Lightning to the promised land.
Khabibulin posted his 41st career shutout on April 12 blanking the defending champs 3-0 in Chicago. The Blackhawks also defeated Detroit on April 11, 4-2 however the Red Wings were without Marian Hossa and Kris Draper for both games and Nicklas Lidstrom for the finale.
The upstart Blackhawks did an outstanding job winning two hard fought series in Western Canada against the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks. There is no doubt that Coach Joel Quenneville is telling his team to not become too over confident because his team swept the Red Wings during the final weekend of the season.
What few people realize is the one thing these two cities have in common is Chicago is the home of the original comedy club called "The Second City" while Detroit added a "Second City" downtown.
The Red Wings Game 7 heroics came with three minutes left as Daniel Cleary scored the game winning goal battling for the puck in front of the net for a 4-3 triumph.
The NHL got a break when the Boston Bruins versus Carolina Hurricanes series went into overtime. These games started 30 minutes apart so the country didn’t see all of both games. Bettman should have moved one of these games to Friday May 15 because as it turned out, there were no NHL or NBA Playoff Games on any network and hockey would have had the big stage all to itself.
However, it didn’t but as I just mentioned, overtime saved the NHL as Scott Walker scored the game winning goal 18:46 into the extra period to lift Carolina to the next round. It turned out to be Walker’s first goal in is 25th playoff appearance.
Boston was trying to accomplish what no other Bruins team has ever done and that’s win a series when it trailed 3-1 but that was not meant to be as they dropped to 0-21 with two of those series reaching seven games.
NBC had it’s dream match-up a year ago when the Red Wings faced the Pittsburgh Penguins. Can you imagine what the ratings would be if the Blackhawks or Red Wings faced the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Finals with these original six teams in large media markets?
It’s still hard to believe that the Bruins haven’t won a championship since the early 1970′s when Phil Esposito, Johnny Bucyk, Bobby Orr, Gerry Cheevers, Wayne Cashman to name a handful were fun to watch.
With the recent championship runs of the Red Sox, Celtics and New England Patriots, it’s hard to believe that the Bruins have the longest drought in one of the best sports towns in the country. But the Bruins will once again have to wait until next year.
Maybe by the time we see an original six finals, the national television contract will be greatly improved.
While the final Game 7 didn’t match the other’s, the series between the Penguins and Washington Capitals was a classic. Washington’s Alex Ovechkin outscored Sidney Crosby 14-13 in points but it didn’t matter in the clinching game as the Capitals dropped a 6-2 decision.
Crosby’s first Game 7 of his career showed poise and no nervousness as he scored a pair of goals to raise his NHL leading playoff goal total to 12. In the Capitals series, Crosby has eight goals and five assists for 13 points while Ovechkin had 14 points. But Ovechkin will be trading his hockey stick for a golf club this summer.
As we move forward, NBC still has a rematch of Detroit against Pittsburgh to look forward to and ironically, on February 1st, the Peacock Network watched the Steelers defeat the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl 43 in Tampa. The only thing we won’t see with this possible match up is Al Michaels and John Madden calling the action.
Yet how many Americans would be disappointed if Al Michaels and Ken Dryden called this series as they did the Miracle on Ice in 1980. But there is no doubt that Mike "Doc" Emerick and Ed Olczyk will do a fine job. The only thing they’ll do differently in the Red Wings and Penguins sequel is that Hossa and Red Wings backup Ty Conklin have switched from the Gold and Black to the Red and White uniforms.
But I’m looking forward to more intense hockey, officials swallowing their whistles letting the stars play, overtimes, etc. as all four teams have eight wins but there are eight more to go to reach 16 in their quest to raise the most prestigious trophy in all of sports.
Scott Morganroth can be reached at Scottsports33@aol.com
View his Web site at: http://www.scottsports33.com
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