By Jeff Moss
June 24, 2011
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com 

I am not going to lie to you, Google is starting to freak me out.

It was bad enough when the Internet juggernaut started finishing my sentences and guessing the topic I was searching.

And if that wasn’t disturbing, Google then decided to use target advertising as part of GMAIL based on your letter’s content. For example, if you send an email to a friend about attending a 9 pm showing of “Tyler Perry Presents Madea’s Big Happy Family” at the Star Southfield an ad for Chicken Shack instantly pops up.

But on Thursday afternoon, Google and their Big Brother-esque tactics finally crossed the line. When researching this column about my hatred for Brandon Inge, I was trying to find an old quote from the Tiger’s third baseman.

You see, a few years ago Inge was benched for a game by Jim Leyland in the middle of the August. Instead of taking responsibility for his awful hitting, Inge decided to blame the pitchers he was facing. In the famous quote he compared himself to two of the greatest hitters of ALL-TIME.

So I went to Google.com and typed in the following search, “Brandon Inge, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth.” And instead of providing me a link to a story with the quote, some Google algorithm program started HYSTERICALLY LAUGHING AT ME.

I actually had to punch-up Bing.com before finding the quote I was looking for. “I can’t explain it,” said Inge. “I’m getting pitched like I’m Babe Ruth. Everything is on the corner. I haven’t seen a ball in the middle of the plate for a week.”

So what made me look up that quote from August of 2007 nearly four years later? Well, Inge and his unique blend of denial and assholery are back at it again.

Look, this is what the Detroit Sports Media never could understand. Why DIE-HARD Tigers fans hate this motherfucker with a passion.

It isn’t his horrid career batting average of .236 or his atrocious OBP of .306. (Although it surely doesn’t help.)

It isn’t the fact that the guy has taken the check-swing strikeout and elevated it into an art form.

And it isn’t even the fact that casual Tigers fans (a majority of whom bleed seven out of every 30 days) who don’t know anything about baseball love Inge like he is some combination of Mike Schmidt and Brooks Robinson.

The Tigers have had PLENTY of shitty baseball players over the years and none have elicited the vitriol from the die-hards like Inge has. Take Tom Brookens for example. The team’s current first base coach is generally viewed as a decent former Tiger. Even though his career average was .246 and his OBP was actually worse than Inge’s (.296.) Not to mention Brookens’ didn’t have Inge’s “power.”

But the reason Brookens never took the type of heat Inge currently does is that Brookens knew who he was. He didn’t think he was a superstar. Brookens didn’t make retarded statements on a yearly basis. And Brookens didn’t have a sense of entitlement.

Nope, it is comments like Inge made on Thursday that bring out the worst in people like me:

“I am not going to blame it on the sickness,” he said. “I will take full responsibility. My numbers are what they are. I didn’t do well, though I did produce some RBIs (12). But the home run thing started to get to me. I was like, ‘OK, I can hit home runs pretty easily. I don’t have to try. I can flick them out easy. I am strong enough to do it. But it was getting hard for me to drive a ball a long ways. I was weak.”

Ummm, ok. Let’s dissect that quote for a second. At first he says that he is not going to blame his supposed mononucleosis. He then brings up the fact that he had 12 RBI prior to going on the DL like that is something a corner infielder should be proud of after 161 at-bats. It would be an embarrassment if four potential All-Stars (Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta and Alex Avila) WEREN’T HITTING DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF HIM!!!!

Inge then goes on to say that hitting home runs for him is usually easy. Easy? Yep, the guy who once compared himself to Babe Ruth and who on his career AVERAGES 12.5 home runs a year ACTUALLY said that.

TWELVE-POINT-FIVE!!!!!!!!!! Asshat, you aren’t even Barry Bonds pre-Balco.

All “Babe” Inge has to do is flick his wrist. Except that the mono was causing him to lose power and the poor guy felt so weak he couldn’t hit the ball out of the park.

Which, I don’t know, sounds to me like he IS BLAMING HIS HITTING WOES ON THE SICKNESS!!!!

But he wasn’t done. Inge was then asked about his current sniffling problem and if it was related to his “power-sapping” mono. “”Allergies,” he said, throwing up his hands. “It’s been that kind of year.”

Allergies? ALLERGIES? We are talking about ALLERGIES?!?!!? Are you fucking kidding me?

Dirk Nowitzki plays through a 103 temperature and this douche bag is going to complain about ALLERGIES?

Since Inge likes to compare himself to immortals, how about we mention him in the same sentence as Lou Gehrig?

The Yankees first baseman attempted to play through ALS before succumbing to the debilitating disease. A-fucking-L-fucking-S. And Inge is shrugging his shoulders and complaining about ALLERGIES?

You know what? In the future whenever I have an allergic reaction, I am going to tell people that I have “Brandon Inge’s Disease.”

Inge put a bow on his asinine statements with this beauty about potentially losing his gig to Don Kelly while he was out: “”I didn’t lose my spot.”

If it is true that you didn’t lose your spot, fuckstick, it is only because Dave Dombrowski idiotically gave you a two-year contract for close to $12 million this past offseason and the team doesn’t want to own up to its’ colossal mistake.

As much as I dislike “Quad-A” Kelly and his career .284 OBP, the guy has flat outplayed Inge this season.

This career scrub has a higher BA, OBP, Slugging % and OPS than Inge this year and can field third base just as well.

Now I am not sure if Kelly can drive a golf ball 400-yards or if he can dunk a basketball, but at least he doesn’t consistency flirt with the Mendoza Line.

And when Kelly gets moved from centerfield to leftfield to emergency catcher to the hot corner, he just smiles and grabs his glove and plays.

When Inge was asked to return to his natural position behind the plate he whined that it was negatively impacting his plate appearances (what the fuck doesn’t?) and he had his wife bitch to the Detroit media about the stress of losing his third baseman’s job.

Yep, who could forget the Shani Inge interview with Bernie Smilovitz in which she spilled the beans about Brandon’s disappointment in having to move behind the plate? How he couldn’t sleep at night and that he sometime CRIED about losing his position to Miguel Cabrera.

The same Brandon Inge who let his wife complain to the media about having to play catcher again had this to say in 2004 when the Tigers were on the verge of signing free-agent Pudge Rodriguez:

“It’s frustrating that this happened so late, but there’s really no one to blame. I know the front office didn’t intentionally say, `Let’s just screw Brandon over and go get Pudge.’ This is just something that came up at the last minute. I’m not mad at anyone.”

“Everyone just sees the offensive numbers and thinks they outweigh everything else,” Inge said. “My priority is always to help the pitching staff and throw runners out.

“In my mind, I think I’m just as good – if not better – than Pudge defensively.”

So [Shani’s Husband] didn’t want to budge from catching when Pudge signed and then didn’t want to move back to that same position when the Cabrera trade occurred!!

And the guy is considered a good team player to this day!!!!

The same fucking Inge who complained about his catching duties impacting his hitting abilities in 2008 was on RECORD in 2004 as saying that his first priority was to help the pitching staff and throwing runners out.

And NOBODY has EVER called this shithead on that dichotomy. Instead he is rolled out as the face of the organization.

THAT is why we hate Brandon Inge. Because of the comparisons to Ted Williams. Because of the delusions of grandeur that he was as good defensively as THE BEST DEFENSIVE CATCHER IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBAL. Because of his total lack of introspection and because he sent his WIFE to do his dirty work.

There seems to be some consternation regarding the team’s future third baseman. Will it be Nick Castellanos or Francisco Martinez?

I really don’t care, I just want one of them to get here quick and save us from our 10-year nightmare. Either Castellanos or Martinez will then have my undying gratitude™ (Charlie Batch.)

I just hope whoever it is won’t have a cunt wife with “Weekend at Bernie’s” cell on speed-dial.

(Special thanks to Jim Petrosky for unearthing the 2004 Inge quote regarding Pudge.)