Garret Craig

20,066 - The number of fans who will stuff into Joe Louis Arena tonight to witness the most hyped sporting event in Detroit since October 2006. According to ESPN.com, 814,474 cheered the Wings’ through the regular season, compared to 695,997 in Pittsburgh, who watched their team from Mellon Arena, the oldest arena in hockey today. I would imagine the Penguins would like to move to the Consol Energy Center in 2,010 with a Championship banner. Losing in the finals twice in a row would crush the young Pens, and this time, out of the Pens’ 9 UFA’s, who knows how many General Manager Ray Shero will lose to the Red Wings?

On that note, we’ll look at our next number of interest: 4,959, the number of news articles and blog posts published in the past month analyzing and debating Marian Hossa’s “controversial” decision to jump ship from Pittsburgh after last year’s final loss, and move to the team who “gave him the best chance to win the Stanley Cup.” This is the story-line everyone’s talking about. Hossa will have to step it up for Game 7, he’s netted 6 goals in the entire playoffs, but in the finals, only 3 assists. Tonight will more than likely define Marian’s career, and possibly make up Ken Holland’s mind on the tough choice to either let Marian go, or work some more cap magic and bring him back long-term. Wings’ fans can only hope that when the puck drops, his mind will rush back to last year, when he came so close, but it didn’t matter. Hossa has proven he knows how to lose. Now, in what could be the most important game he ever plays, he needs to step it up, or be remembered as the forward who was almost elite, almost a Champion. He has 60 minutes to prove that’s not him.

It’s been 373 days since Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin watched Detroit celebrate on Pittsburgh ice. 373 days they’ve been waiting for tonight, when they have the chance for revenge. To make us feel as they did last year. To make Hossa regret his decision to leave. A chance for Sidney Crosby to finally prove himself to his hundreds of thousands of critics.

For Wings’ fans, it’s been 104 games of yelling at the TV. Those 6,240 minutes thousands of us spent on the edge of our seats, mean nothing if we lose this game. Because now there’s one game. Winner takes all.

A loss for either city, especially Detroit, would be crushing. In the last 10 months, we’ve seen our football team make history by going 0-16, we’ve seen our once unshakable auto industry all but die, and recently, the complete demolition of Tiger Stadium, a Detroit landmark that meant so much to so many people. Detroit needs this win.

I could have titled this article a lot of other things; “Angel Hernandez” seems like a very plain title. Other titles I had selected may have been very clever and comical, but they would also have been very rude, so I decided against them this time (I’m feeling nice right now).

You may ask, at this point, what can you do but laugh when watching a Tigers game?  Why even write about the Tigers anymore? But I, like Jim Leyland, can’t prevent myself from finding something to complain about night after amusing night, and I feel obligated to make my point known.

I could talk about many things on the night of another horrifyingly disappointing loss for the Detroit Tigers, and I am by no means excusing Fernando Rodney for his terrible pitching in the 9th inning of tonight’s game or blaming the home plate umpire for the outcome of the game, but really, Mr. Hernandez, could you be any more arrogant?

Seriously. Do you really have to be so right that you can’t even ask the first base umpire for help when 3 different people think you might be wrong? Not to mention the rulebook says you don’t have a choice.

Rule 9.02(c) in the MLB Official Rulebook states; “Appeals on a half swing may be made only on the call of ball and when asked to appeal, the home plate umpire must refer to a base umpire for his judgment on the half swing.” Also, “Field umpires must be alerted to the request from the plate umpire and quickly respond.”

But you probably already knew that.

Miguel Cabrera has hit .291 this season, and only .292 over the past 7 days, but the Tigers are sure making him look good right now. Cabrera has batted in 9 runs in the last 3 games, about 53% of the Tigers total run production, and has earned them a 1-2 record in that span. But a .333 win percentage is not going to win very many ball games, especially the way the Tigers have played in their last 2 games.

On Tuesday night the madness started early, when the names Marcus Thames and Gary Sheffield were posted on the lineup card, and it transferred to the field early in the first inning. With one out and runners on first and second, Chris Lambert leaves a fastball right down the middle, but he get’s lucky; The batter pops the ball up to shallow right field. Placido Polanco circles under it for what seems like hours, but lets it tip off his glove, and everybody advances.

Polanco and the Tigers failed to play fundamental baseball again in the bottom half of the frame, as a ground out and a pop-out, both to third, fail to advance a man on second base with no outs. Miguel Cabrera picks up Polanco and Ordonez with a two-out RBI single. Then, with two outs, Gary Sheffield pops up with a 2-0 count to end the inning.

Good news came for the Tigers in the top of the second, when Edgar Renteria charged a ground ball! But we had to shield our eyes again in the next inning as Torri Hunter stole second base with 2 outs in the 3rd. This wasn’t just any steal… The Tigers were paying so little attention to what was going on, Hunter was probably half-way to second before the pitch was even thrown. Not to mention Placido Polanco couldn’t even beat him to the bag. It looked like defensive indifference, really.

I feel like I’m going to have to repeat myself alot here… That’s really how bad this is. Gary Sheffield fails to move another runner on second over with less than two outs; Ground ball to 3rd. Top of the 4th, one out, man on second, and Brandon Inge drops a pitch that hit him right in the glove, and lets the runner move to 3rd with one out. Brandon is one of the last players I want to be accusing of sloppy play, but it seems like it’s becoming a team trend now.

Off to the bottom half of the 4th now, nobody out, Renteria on first. Brandon Inge lines a ball to the right fielder, who throws it back in to first base. The ball hits the first baseman and trickles away about 5 ft. Edgar Renteria tries to advance and is easily thrown out. Now I understand taking a chance, making an effort, but sometimes it’s just plain stupidity, and that seems like the case here. Threat over.

The climax of bullheadedness starts in the top of the 5th, two men out, and a man on second. An error by Ryan Raburn on a ground ball to third moves the runner up and keeps the inning alive, and brings up Brandon Wood. Wood hits a ground ball back to the pitcher; Gary Glover kicks it away toward the 3rd base side, and every body’s safe. While the Tigers pick their noses and decide what to screw up on the next play, Mike Napoli moves over to 3rd with nobody covering.

Skipping through some more horrible play, I thought I should include something good in this article; Brandon Inge lays down a successful sacrifice bunt! That makes him 1/3 in bunt attempts all night!

Back to the bad… I believe most of the above falls on the manager, Mr. Jim Leyland. He has had poor decision-making all year. My expectations aren’t high for the next 2 games, but I’ll try to keep the complaining down for a few days.