Here We Roar Again

So here we are, Detroit baseball fans. The same place we were five years ago. Our Tigers fresh off a 95-win season and a nice shiny trophy for that Verlander fella, on their way to New York to face the Yankees in the ALDS. Then, like now, the Bronx Bombers at 97-65 were just two games ahead of Detroit. Yet everyone picked them to win.

As you can see from this link, I was one of the very few to pick the Tigers to shock the world and upset the Yanks back in '06, in four games at that. Splitting the first two at (then the old) Yankee Stadium, and sweeping NY in both games in the D. And shock the world they did, winning in four exactly as I predicted. (Just to add a bit of perspective, I was on record as saying that Ryan Leaf was a better, longer-lasting choice than that Peyton Manning kid. Nonetheless.)

So unplug your ipod and zoom ahead five years to 2011. Same situation awaits this ball club. So who goes on to face the winner of the Texas-Tampa ALDS? Now, like then, the pick is Detroit. And although I'm tempted as hell to say kitties in three, I'll give the Yankees a win before the door shuts on their season.

Why Detroit in four? For too many reasons to mention. But I'll try.

1. Justin. Verlander. Forget his poor playoff outings from years past. This year he's 24-9, a lock for the Cy Young award and a legitimate candidate for the AL MVP. If the Yanks hope to win this series, they'll most likely have to get to #35 at least once, as he's the likely starter for a deciding game 5.

2. Doug Fister. The freaking kid is like one of those Japanese knives on TV that keep getting sharper the more you use it. Every outing is more commanding than the one before. He's the guy the Yanks aren't waiting for. And if JV picks up win #25 in game 1, Douggie may be the one to push New York to the brink of elimination, before the series really gets underway.

3. These ARE your father's New York Yankees. In 2006 the names to watch on the New York side were Jeter, A-Rod, Cano, Pasada. All of them are still playing on the 2011 squad, each five years older than they were before the '06 ALDS. The two notables missing from the list this year are former Tiger Curtis Granderson and former Indian C.C. Sabathia. This is a team about to undergo a major transition. A transformation, if you will. And nothing would kick-start that process than a sound defeat of the pinstripes over the next week.

4. Jim Leyland. He has all the pieces needed to out Fisher Joe Girardi's Spasky. The New York Yankees don't scare him, didn't then and don't now. He's done a masterful job of getting by for the majority of the season without long relief. And now must get his kids believing that this year's edition of the Detroit Kitties aren't about to be stopped just yet. Not for a series or two.

5. Our 9th inning is better than theirs. One converted more save opportunities in one season than anyone in major league history. The other has more career saves than any other pitcher, ever. Mariano Rivera was once the light's-out closer for the ages. But he's aged as well, and every year takes another mile per hour off your fastball. And although it's generally been a rarity, he has been hit and hit hard. Of the two, the edge has to be Tiger stopper Jose Valverde, Mr. Perfection is a pristine 49-for-49 in save opportunities, and no one in baseball is more automatic at nailing down those final three outs.

6. Pitching aside, the teams are pretty much even. Forget the two extra wins on New York's part. these cats is practically interchangeable in terms of talent. The Yankees are the stronger team defensively, but Detroit has the better bats in their lineup. If it all comes down to pitching, the edge in this series heads north a few hours. The way Fister's pitching of late, the Yanks must face the reality that in three of the five games they will be facing Verlander, Fister and Verlander. And the other two games are in Detroit.

7. Miguel. Why he wasn't a regular part of the AL MVP talk, especially in September, is beyond me. But in the four out of five games that Verlander doesn't pitch, Cabrera is the team's most valuable guy.

So there it is. Tigers in four, then off to play one of two smoking-hot teams, either Texas or Tampa Bay. Unless their series goes five and needs extra innings, the Tiger dream will most likely end in the ALCS and one of those two organizations will head to the Fall Classic. But given the way the games played out yesterday, we're all better off just waiting until the ALCS comes.

Ja That's Him

Leaving his "party in the back" along the trail of his multiple East coast stops, Jaromir Jagr made his debut this week as a member of the Philadelphia Flyers. The 39-year-old Czech is taking a chance at another year in the NHL, but not as big a chance as the Flyers, who signed him in July for $3.3 million in an off-season transformation of the 2010 Eastern Conference champions. GM Paul Holmgren cleaned house by sending center Jeff Carter to Columbus and forward Mike Richards to the Los Angeles Kings, in return welcoming Jagr, former Red Wing defenseman Anders Lilja and a trio of forwards, Wayne Simmonds, Brayden Schenn and Jakub Voracek, to The City That Booed Santa. Before all the moves, the Flyers appeared to be a front runner again in the East. Now they're a fascinating mystery, a quickly gelling force for the next few years or a black and orange implosion.

Philly, we know what you did last summer. The question is, will they know what they've done next May?

O-H-I-AM-ON-THE-50!

One of the perks of my current employment is the occasional "team building" event. A day where we put the big projects and hot deadlines aside and travel to an undisclosed off-site destination, you know, to help us grow together as a unit.

This past week we had one of our team-building events, and it involved a trip to The Hoss-Shoe. Ohio Stadium. The silver fortress nestled along the banks of the Olentangy River, as Keith Jackson used to say. In all my lifetime, through four decades of season tickets in Ann Arbor, I've yet to have the honor of a facility tour. But here, in my first year in Columbus, I am being guided through every nook and cranny of the old stone edifice. The former home of Hopalong Cassidy and Jesse Owens. The field that Woody wore thin every fall, working out his soldiers to the point of exhaustion, so they'd always be ready to defeat "that school up north".

The meeting rooms and private suites really give one a glimpse into the world of the fortunate few who foot the bill for the football program. We were escorted into a suite that we were told costs its owner $75,000 a season—and this doesn't include actual tickets to the game. That is simply the fee for the right to view the game from that location, once tickets are purchased. Comparatively, Ohio Stadium itself was built in 1922 for $1.3 million, or the cost of 20 of those suites for one season. Without tickets.

We soaked up the view from each layer of the press box before being escorted onto the field. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be sure. But for the enemy, especially an enemy who was tipped off the night before, it proved to be an ideal chance for a long-held goal: a photo on the 50-yard line, standing in the scarlet "O" wearing maize and blue!

I waited till the small crowd we were with trickled away before popping off the neutral hoodie to reveal my true colors. A co-worker (whom I had already asked to snap my image) captured several pictures, but only one of me all alone, dotting the "O" as it were. As you can see it turned out quite well.

We then toured the band room, an expansive area whose far wall bears a large oil painting of John Phillip Souza. Every band member's sheet music was out, as if they had momentarily stepped out of the room. In the long lecture about the history of the Ohio State University band and all of its traditions, not one word about how "Script Ohio" originated from the Michigan Marching Band during the school's visit to Columbus for a football game. The M Band scrawled out the four-letter cursive word as a tribute to their opponents on that day, and as you can see (left), crude is an understatement. The OSU band has tightened it up since then and made it a timeless tradition of football Saturday. But there's no debating where the custom came from, no matter how much they think they can bury the facts.

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Michigan 34, WMU 10: But it felt so real...

I had the strangest dream.

It involved University of Michigan football of course, being that we're in the late summer. And being that U-M football has been a part of the last 41 autumns of my life. So I was going to a Michigan game. But it wasn't just any Michigan game.

For one, it was the single hottest Michigan game I can remember, ever. And I'm enough of a geezer to remember the 1983 home opener against Washington State, where the aisles between sections became as busy as the hallways of an emergency health care clinic, with paramedics carrying heat exhaustion victims up and out, one after another. Today the mercury approached 100 degrees and the fiery maize ball sat alone in a deep blue sky.

My friend called and had me on the invite list for a radio station's pregame party. An endless buffet of wings, rib sandwiches, you name it. All on the house. Open bar, too. It is a dream, right? Then, armed with sunblock, we headed off to the stadium in time for all the pregame traditions. "Band, take the field!" Fanfare. The thing where the drum major bends backward and touches the ground with his hat. The M Club banner. Brady Hoke's first run through the tunnel as coach. And finally, game.

Western Michigan was the opponent as I recall. They had this quarterback, I think his name was Carder, who led them down the field with relative ease. Suddenly, quickly, Michigan trailed by seven. Then--and this is how I know it's a dream--Denard Robinson was ineffective. He ended up with just 46 yards rushing and less than 100 yards through the air.

This can't be happening, I thought. Not on a day like this. The thought had yet to settle in my slumbering brain when, at the Wolverine five yard line with the score tied at seven, Carder was hit as he threw the ball and his fluttery pass was snared by Brandon Herron. The senior linebacker ran through several WMU players and a number of missed blocks on his way to an inexplicable school-record 94-yard interception return.

And like that, the game turned. Everything seemed to turn on that play in fact, as clouds began to fill the sky. Still warm, still sunny. For the most part. But the air was getting thicker for all of us, particularly those wearing the gold and brown. Western could only manage a field goal the rest of the half as Michigan held a 20-10 lead at intermission. By now the wind had picked up, and clouds moved at a Denard-like pace over the rapidly darkening Big House.

The second half began and no sooner did the Wolverines receive the kick when the skies opened. A sudden storm whipped through the bowl, shooting rain sideways and sending crashes of thunder throughout the area. Referees ran onto the field and, for the second time in Michigan Stadium history, stopped the game due to weather delay. The teams scurried into the tunnel as 110,000 fans ducked into the 60 tunnels that surround it. Yet even as they left, even as sheets of rain continued to pelt the field, the skies above were blue. Players covered their eyes from the sun as they left the newly brightened green field turf.

Details are a bit fuzzy but I swear, it felt so real. I remember huddling next to a rail under the south end zone stands, watching fans escape the downpour, young and old, male and female, as soaking wet as if they were running ashore. After a half hour, the rain stopped and the game was back on. Three quarters of the crowd decided to stick it out and returned to their seats, drenched yet eager to see what will transpire down below.

Michigan took control when play resumed. Carder dropped back to pass and was met full-on by Jordan Kovacs. He never saw the blitzing Wolverine safety and lost the ball upon impact. From the left side of the line burst who else but Brandon Herron, who picked up the gift in stride and ran a dreamy 28 yards into the end zone. No Wolverine has ever scored on both a fumble and an interception return in the same game. Were I not experiencing this moment in the midst of REM sleep, he would have ran his way into the Michigan football record book on this day.

Then, after Denard rose from the dead and scrambled for a hard-earned first down, Michael Shaw took a handoff at the WMU 44 and hit the goal line in a dead sprint, untouched. 34-10 Blue. Seemingly back to normal. Until the kickoff. A deep purple wall formed in the skies over the northwest end. This is where it gets really sketchy.

Fitzgerald Toussaint took a handoff from Robinson and the entire field became awash in heavy sheets of water. A brilliant flash of lightning blew up just above the north end zone. A thunderous boom pounded into our chests an instant later. An eclipse of darkness engulfed the field as players disappeared. 70,000 fans disappeared in a matter of minutes. We huddled inside the M Den as a sales associate hung up her phone and informed us that a severe thunderstorm with 70mph winds was minutes away. We extended our welcome with strategically planned merchandise purchases but were ultimately told to evacuate the tiny blue trailer.

One more look into the section 15 tunnel. The stadium was dark and empty, ordered evacuated for the first time ever. The new lighting system illuminated the field, giving me what would be my only glimpse of what prime time would look like inside the stadium, as I would be at my brother's wedding in Minnesota the following week and not able to attend the historic Notre Dame night game. I remember the only other light coming from the new scoreboards at each end, displaying satellite images of the angry red and yellow circles that swept one by one, directly over Ann Arbor. All other neighboring areas were clear. My friends were boating in sunny Pinckney, stunned to hear that it was even raining at the stadium.

Guards escorted us back through the tunnel. Then we were running, running through the violent storm. Lightning crashed to either side of us, each blast closer than the one before. Still we ran, for miles it seemed, until we reached our car. They said they cancelled the rest of the game. Yeah right.

We made it to a local sports bar and grill when the winds hit with full force. The lights of the parking structure cut out. We dodged cans, signs and trash cans to get to the door of the establishment. The Tiger game was on one of the satellite TVs, they were down by two runs to Chicago in the ninth inning with one out when lightning struck the building, knocking out power. A couple fought through class-one hurricane winds to enter the building. He wiped his wet face and headed to the bar. A fierce gust of wind pushed the door closed and pinned his wife at the waist. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the threshold.

Back at the table, a woman sitting next to us hung up her phone. Her husband just told her the Tigers won. Weren't they down 8-1? The dishes re-callibrated and screens alternated between images of empty Michigan Stadium and empty Notre Dame Stadium. The Irish were losing to South Florida 16-0. I know right? South Florida!

I awoke with a shudder and sat bolt upright in my bed. What just happened? Where am I? And why am I soaking wet? Enough with these crazy dreams already. When for the love of God will the football season start?