By Jeff Moss
May 2, 2012
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com 

Over the last couple of weeks I haven’t been exactly productive in writing articles on the DSR based on a combination of factors. And no, the reason isn’t because I have a bad back from patting myself on it for being dead-on regarding the Wings all season long.

For one, I have been prolific on my Twitter and Facebook accounts to the point that I feel I steal my OWN thunder for potential columns before I even write them. (Hell, half of the crap you are about to read is just regurgitated nonsense from a social media platform.)

Then you have the issue of my utter depression that the DirtSpurt hasn’t gone NxT LvL yet and that we still have an embarrassing, ugly, five-year old design on the main webpage. Couple those dilemmas with the fact that my favorite racetrack in the world was running live (Keeneland in Lexington) and you have your answer to why there has been a dearth of new DSR material.

There is also the issue that anything I have to say that doesn’t appear on the Twat Box or the Book of Face will end up on my weekly appearance with Damon Perry on “DoGgy TV” and with that you have a perfect storm for a lack of new Mossisms™.

But I decided I had to write a new article soon so I popped a Xanax, washed it down with a grape, 5-hour Energy shot to see if I could snap out of this current funk.

Anyway, in the last couple of weeks, Detroit sports fans have been treated to the following:
1) A hot goalie knocking the Wings out of the playoffs in a succession of one-goal games.
2) The Tigers losing a series to the Texas Rangers in an embarrassing fashion that included an extra-inning affair, a sweep at the hands of the lowly Seattle Mariners and the arrest of one of the Young brothers at an upscale hotel.
3) The Pistons winning MEANINGLESS regular season games as to negatively impact their Draft Lottery status.

4) The Lions ridiculously selecting a WIDE RECEIVER with a high draft selection when they had more needs on defense than the Liechtenstein Armed Forces.
Like, the only thing missing from that “Nick at Nite” retread lineup was Uncle Phil throwing DJ Jazzy Jeff out of his Bel Air mansion because he was inappropriately hitting on Hilary. Hell, I half-expected that annoying cunt, Andie McDowell, to show up at the Tigers game spouting off about World Peace, 19th-century French poetry and men changing “poopie” diapers while crying in front of their mother.

So with all of the above nonsense to get caught up on and more, here is my Semi-Annual, “State of the Detroit Sports Teams” address:

THE DETROIT LIONS

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed longtime Lions beat writer, Mike O’Hara, on the aforementioned UDetroit.com show and asked him on a scale of 1 to 10 with “1” being Rachel Phelps in “Major League” and 10 being George Steinbrenner how important winning was to Lions owner, William “Massa” Clay Ford, Sr.

The former Detroit News scribe refused to answer the question directly and instead claimed that Ford’s desire to win was as STRONG as any owner in professional sports. I mocked O’Hara’s answer and gave many examples over the last six decades that made his answer patently ridiculous.

I didn’t know at the time of my inquisition (which led to O’Hara basically hanging up on me) that the writer was just a few days away from being EMPLOYED by Ford, Sr. as a SHILL on the team’s website, DetroitLions.com.

If you needed any further evidence that Ford, Sr. has placed absolutely ZERO priority on watching his team win a championship while on this side of the earth then you only have to bear witness to his General Manager’s approach to this offseason.

Last month, the owner of the Lions and the chief torturer of the Detroit fan base turned 87 years old. EIGHTY-SEVEN. My specialty is property insurance, but even I know that most actuary tables would tell you that the Old Man is on borrowed time.

After coming off a 10-win season and the team’s first playoff appearance in a decade, you might think that an owner in poor health and advanced age MIGHT tell his GM to do everything possible to win immediately.

ORRRRRRR, he could idly sit by while Martin Mayhew does absolutely nothing to address the team’s biggest need (the secondary) while selecting two players on the offensive side of the ball in the NFL Draft. Two players who might not even contribute in 2012.

On the Ninth Anniversary of the selection of Boss Bailey in the second round, the Lions once again grabbed a player who dropped in the draft because of a significant injury issue. But at least with the pick of Bailey, the Lions were addressing a position of NEED and not a WIDE RECEIVER who might not even be available to play until November.

For a team that over the years has used second round picks on Barrett Green, Kalimba Edwards, Teddy Lehman, Daniel Bullock, Drew Stanton, the Hawaiian-Hyphen (Ikaika Alama-Francis), Gerald Alexander, Jordan Dizon, Dan Owens, Van Malone, Juan Roque, Kevin Abrams, Germane Crowell, John Ford and Pat Carter, this might be the most baffling pick of them all.

(If you aren’t puking after reading that abomination of a list then you must have taken an overdose of Dramamine before starting this article.)

A fucking WIDE RECEIVER when your defense got shredded like Iraqi housing documents at the Bluth Company offices during the last half of the 2011 season? Are you kidding me?

How many assets are the Lions going to spend on WIDE RECEIVERS? They made Calvin Johnson the highest paid non-QB in the history of the sport. Last year, they spent a second round selection on Titus Young not to mention that Nate Burleson is currently in the midst of a 5-year, $25 million deal.

To say that adding another WR was a luxury this team couldn’t afford is like stating it would be irresponsible for the bankrupt city of Detroit to build a pure gold monument likeness of Kwame Kilpatrick fingering Christine Beatty outside the Manoogian Mansion.
If you have a guy in Johnson who already dictates a double team whenever he is on the field and an up-and-coming star in Young are you fucking telling me that Matt Stafford can’t develop some sixth-round pick into a valuable slot receiver?!!?!?

And I love all of this talk around town that you can’t question Mayhew since he turned this team around from 0 and 16 to 10-6 in just a few years. I know this is an oddity in Detroit, but the NFL is BUILT for these types of turnarounds. Like, if you get the benefit of drafting Stafford, CalJo and Ndamukong Suh, you should start WINNING GAMES. (Save your emails, I know that Mayhew didn’t draft Johnson. I am talking about the LIONS.)

In his three drafts as GM of the team, how has his Amazing Technicolor Draft Board helped him in the third round and beyond? Other than DeAndre Levy, the guy hasn’t done jackshit in the rounds where REAL championship teams are built.

How did taking the “best player on the Wizard of Mayhew’s” board work out when the team picked Derrick Williams? Or Amari Spievy? Or Jason Fox?

And let’s stop this façade that the Lions strategy is based on selecting the best available player. His theory should be considered the best available player on our totally subjective board as long as that player isn’t a Quarterback, doesn’t have a couple weed busts or possess a harem of Baby’s Mammas.

Call me bi-polar, but I’d rather take a guy with a couple of marijuana possession charges than a WR who tore his FREAKING ACL!!!!!!

And it isn’t like Mayhew isn’t aware of the humungous need at cornerback. Last year, he tried to trade up for Patrick Peterson. Last week, he attempted to move up the board to acquire Stephon Gilmore. So even though he is totally aware of this gaping hole in his defensive backfield, he decided to address the need by using a third round pick on a CB from a hyphenated college in Lousiana and a kid from Albion. What, there was no solution at Siena Heights or Kalamazoo College?

And excuse me if based on Mayhew’s past success in later rounds that I don’t celebrate the Bentley kid who has two first names or Chris Greenwood as saviors for this team’s biggest deficiency.

Look, if the Lions would have rid themselves of Kyle Vanden Bosch and Burleson’s onerous salaries and acquired a corner like Asante Samuel or someone of that ilk then I would have had no issue with the Ryan Broyles pick. But they didn’t and they won’t.
But why should I care at 39 when the OWNER of the team who is over double my age doesn’t seem to have any urgency at all to see a Super Bowl in his lifetime?

Yep, O’Hara, Ford, Sr. cares as much about winning a championship as Mike Ilitch who just signed a first baseman to a $214 million contract when he ALREADY had the best first baseman in baseball at that position.

But as long as those checks for writing propaganda clear the Ford bank account, who really cares?

Right, Mike?

THE DETROIT TIGERS

Earlier this week I had a flashback to the 2003 season when the only joy I received from the Detroit baseball club was perusing the team’s minor league statistics which was fine THAT season since the Tigers lost 119 games and weren’t expected to run away from the AL Central by at least ten games.

But that is the exact place I found myself when marveling at Nick Castellano’s numbers in Lakeland. Through 22 games the franchise’s best position prospect possessed an OBP of .433, a Slugging Percentage of .545 and an OPS of .978. And if those stats weren’t gaudy enough I also noticed that his teammate, Avisail Garcia, had an OBP of .440 a Slugging Percentage of .565 and an OPS of 1.004.

And of course there was also the obligatory check-in of Jacob Turner’s progress to see if he had recovered from his dead arm issue so Dave Dombrowski might be able to swing him for a quality big league pitcher to solidify the Tigers starting rotation sometime soon.

It was utterly depressing that a team that I had predicted would challenge the 1984 team’s 104 win total had already frustrated me to the point of “Down on the Farm” updates.

But after the failed Adam Wilk experiment, the organization’s secondary hitter’s complete failure to supplement Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder’s production and Delmon Young’s best Jesse Jackson imitation in “Hymietown”, I didn’t know where else to turn.
Like, if it weren’t for the outright release of Brandon Inge and Drew Smyly’s “Fernando Valenzuela” impression, I think I’d be downright suicidal about this team’s opening month of that ended in a 10-10 record.

What is even more aggravating about the Tigers is that all of their problems are so EASILY correctible, but yet NOTHING will be done to fix them.

Fans remain baffled on why Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer continue to flounder or the reason Ryan Perry and Daniel Schlereth have flamed out in Detroit. Do you know what all of those pitchers have in common? They were all first round draft choices that haven’t lived up to their potential and who cost the team a ton in both money and assets.

Do you think it is possible that ALL of these guys might have regressed because they are not getting the proper guidance from a PITCHING COACH? While the Tigers have done a wonderful job in exceeding Bud Selig’s slot recommendations on draft picks, they have penny-pinched on hiring a competent instructor to tutor them.

Is there ANYONE in baseball who thinks that Jeff Jones would have a job as a pitching coach in MLB if the Tigers didn’t hire him? We are talking about a guy who has lost his job THREE times as the BULLPEN COACH of the team!!!!!!

Seriously, look it up. Let go in 1995. Fired in 2000. And then axed again in 2002. The guy is like the Billy Martin of BULLPEN COACHES without the cute personality or drinking problem and yet after all of those dismissals he is now handed the responsibility of getting the best out of our young pitching commodities?

I mean, getting shit canned as the bullpen coach REPEATEDLY and then getting hired as the PITCHING COACH is the equivalent of losing your job three times as a teller at Bank of America and then one day getting hired as their CFO when the previous executive was scapegoated by three former managers of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Well, you get what I mean.

If I am Mike Ilitch and I had to watch some of Scherzer and Porcello’s starts in April (not to mention Mark Schlereth’s son’s gasoline act in the pen) I would have gotten on the phone with Bristol, Connecticut and offered Orel Hershiser a BLANK CHECK to replace this three-time loser.

And while you are on the phone with the Baseball Tonight studio, Mr. I, you might as well hire Terry Francona to replace the manager who thought it was a brilliant idea to PINCH-HIT Brandon Inge in a close game just days before Dombrowski released his ass.

The same manager who would continue to fill out a lineup card with Delmon Young in LF and Andy Dirks at DH if Delmon didn’t find the one homeless Jew in the WORLD to scream anti-Semitic obscenities at.

(And what the fuck is with the Young Brothers and their continued bad behavior at five-star hotels? Dmitri once assaulted his girlfriend at the Townsend and Delmon decides to go all Louis Farrakhan on a panhandler at the New York Hilton. Instead of a seven-day suspension, MLB should have forced Delmon to stay at roach motels that charge by the half-hour for the remainder of this season.)

This isn’t real difficult. When his hamstring is healed, Andy Dirks should be in left EVERY GAME. Ramon Santiago needs to be inserted in as the Tigers REGULAR second baseman so he can solidify the infield defense and he is more than capable of chipping in as the team’s #9 hitter.

And if Delmon Young can’t adapt to the DH position or he starts screaming at the vendors at Comerica who sell the Kosher Vienna hot dogs then “Inge” him and sign Vladimir Guerrero until Victor Martinez is back in September.

There was a valid reason that I thought this team could win 104 games in 2012. They were seriously flawed until August last year and they STILL WON 95 times.

Seriously, the 2011 squad won 95 games and that happened with:

1) The team starting the season with Brad Penny as their FOURTH starter.

2) A 4-19 record from their “fifth” starter until the acquisition of Doug Fister who I THOUGHT they would have for the entire season in 2012.

3) A third hitter that until August had an OPS of under .600 in Magglio Ordonez. This was the guy hitting before two All-Stars with RISP averages of around .400.

4) A lineup that featured both Brandon Inge and Ryan Raburn hitting under .200 for a majority of the first 81 games of the season.

And there is still plenty of time for this team to live up to offseason expectations considering a year ago TODAY they were 12-17 and eight games out of first place.

But if you told me that Drew Smyly would be outpitching Justin Verlander and Austin Jackson would have an OPS of .921 a month into the 2012 season I would have guessed the Tigers were well on their way to another 35-5 record and NOT in a three-way tie with the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians for first place in an awful division.

And since Orel and Tito aren’t about to walk through that door, it is up to Alex Avila, Brennan Boesch and Jhonny Peralta to get their heads out of their collective asses and start hitting like two of the best hitters in ALL OF BASEBALL are surrounding them in the lineup.

And Porcello and Scherzer need to grow the fuck up and give us an ERA of around 4.00 and a WHIP of 1.30. Is that asking too much of a couple of first round picks even if their pitching coach is an incompetent boob who once solicited a 14-year old boy to pose for sexually explicit photos?

(Oh sorry, WRONG Jeff Jones. I guess in between bullpen coach firings, THIS Jeff Jones didn’t star as Ferris Bueller’s principal or the publisher of the Deadwood newspaper.)

I still believe this team will win the AL Central comfortably, but I am guessing it won’t occur until Dombrowski has done some tweaking through midseason trades. Kind of like 2011.

So keep your OPS around 1.000, Avisail.

Just in case.

DETROIT RED WINGS

Now that the Red Wings season is mercifully over after a disappointing performance by both the team and their Teflon General Manager, Ken Holland, it is time to look forward to the upcoming offseason.

And while the sports radio talking heads who know NOTHING about hockey have convinced their listeners that the solution to the Wings problems are named Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, I am here to tell you something different.

And yes, while the addition of a sniper left winger and one of the better young defenseman in the game would be nice summer transactions it pales in comparison to the systemic overhaul we need as NHL fans in Detroit.

The real potential savior of hockey in Detroit is someone who might not even know how to SKATE. His name is Donald Fehr. Yes, THAT Donald Fehr.

The former head of the MLBPA is now in charge of the NHL’s player’s association and with the current CBA set to expire after Gary Bettman has been booed off the ice while handing the Stanley Cup to some captain not named Nicklas Lidstrom, we MIGHT actually be near the end of this garbage restrictive hard cap era.

Look, we are probably about a week away from the Western Conference Parity Finals where a team owned by the league and that might reside in Quebec next season (the Phoenix Coyotes) will most likely take on a squad that didn’t even qualify for the playoffs until the last few days of the regular season.

Yes, a Los Angeles Kings franchise that was so desperate to make the postseason that they traded away one of their top young players (Jack Johnson) for a total malcontent in Jeff Carter just so they could avoid the ignominy of missing the postseason after a season of high expectations.

Of course, in this current NHL system, which features the only true hard salary cap in all of sports, you might have a WCF next year of Nashville vs. Edmonton. Or Calgary and Columbus. Or maybe Dallas facing St. Louis.

Which leads us to our Knight in Shining Armor, Mr. Fehr. If there is one thing that The Donald despises it is a hard salary cap. I am pretty sure that Fehr is actually allergic to the hard cap and carries around an EpiPen in case someone tries to impose one on his rank and file.

All of this is wonderful news for Wings fans who have witnessed their once “large market” advantage dissipate to nothing which finally culminated this year with the humiliation of having a payroll $5 million less than the BLUE JACKETS.

Now, I am not expecting a miracle from Fehr and a return to $80 million team salaries or a FOURTH line of two Hall of Famers like the 2002 Wings enjoyed, but I can’t believe Marvin Miller’s protégé will EVER agree to a renewal of this airtight cap.

My hope is that Fehr will play a game of “Chicken” with Bettman as both men have been partially responsible for championships not being crowned when they were involved in the respective labor negotiations. The question Bettman will have to answer at some point is this….

“Do I want to be known as the commissioner of a sport that lost two full seasons to labor strife?”

And as monumentally awful as Bettman has been as the head of the NHL, I can’t imagine even he wants that on his obituary.

So what is the best Wings fans can expect this offseason in regards to the CBA? I am guessing some sort of hybrid between what the NHL has now and the agreement the NBAPA just ratified this past December. As long as Mike Ilitch has the ability to go over the cap and pay some sort of luxury tax that will filter down to the Florida Panthers and the Winnipeg Jets of the world, maybe, just maybe we can return to the days of actually getting offensive production from our third line.

And you know what? I am willing to sacrifice another ENTIRE season if it means getting out from underneath this AWFUL hard cap. Because, I am not sure you noticed or not, but the second coming of Terry Sawchuck, Pekka Rinne, has been getting lit up like a Holiday Tree by the Coyotes in the second round.

Maybe, just maybe, Rinne didn’t stonewall the Wings as we all might have thought.
It is possible that the Wings, as they are currently constructed, just freaking SUCK.

But it is nothing that can’t be solved by throwing some of Ilitch’s pizza dough at the situation and hopefully Fehr will accomplish what his predecessor, Bob Goodenow, couldn’t.

Reach a deal with Bettman in which the Wings, Maple Leafs, Rangers and Flyers can exceed the cap if they are willing to match those funds in some sort of revenue sharing plan with the league’s have-nots.

Then we can go out and sign Parise and Suter and then trade for Roberto Luongo and Rick Nash. You know, like the good old days when we were the New York Yankees of the NHL.

God damn, I miss that era.

DETROIT PISTONS

I don’t want to go all Bill Maher on you here, but ……

NEW RULE ….. If Joe Dumars wants to continue to take this high and mighty stance that the Detroit Pistons will NEVER tank games in an effort to improve their Draft Lottery chances, he needs to call out David Stern and the teams who do mail-it in while making this issue his own personal KONY2012.

But the one thing I don’t want to hear from Dumars is the following:

“(At pick #) 9.. It is rare to find an impact guy. It is hard to find that guy.”

Oh really, Joe. It is hard to find an impact player with the number nine selection? What a revelation that is. MAYBE THAT IS WHY FANS OF YOUR TEAM WANTED YOU TO DO WHAT EVERY OTHER FRANCHISE IN THIS LEAGUE DOES ….. TANK GAMES TO GET A BETTER FUCKING PICK!!!!!!!

Of course, tanking isn’t in your DNA. That is what you keep telling us because you are such a moral person. The problem with Dumars is that he doesn’t even understand what “tanking is.”

Tanking isn’t losing games on purpose or point-shaving. Tanking is NOT re-signing Tayshaun Prince when you knew fully well that you weren’t going to make the playoffs.
Tanking is inserting young players late in the season (people like Vernon Macklin) to see if they can play or not at the expense of veterans, which will lead to some growing pains and LOSSES.

Tanking isn’t ordering your players to miss shots or not go after rebounds, but to experiment with different lineups and rest certain players so your odds of winning decrease.

Every single GM not named Joe Dumars has figured this formula out which makes the last few weeks of recent seasons incredibly maddening as one of the few Pistons fans left that even care about this pathetic organization has to witness totally meaningless wins that negatively impact our lottery odds.

Which leads us to another of Dumars’ favorite assessment. That few teams historically that have earned the WORST record in the league actually get the #1 pick. And while that is true statistically, the moron fails to recognize that just because you don’t get the FIRST PICK doesn’t mean there isn’t an inherent advantage in getting the second, third or fourth!!!!!!

This isn’t real difficult. When I am at a blackjack table and I have 12 against the Dealer’s 2, I hit. Not because I think I am going to win EVERY TIME I DRAW A CARD, but because the BOOK tells me to do so. Give me the best odds possible every single time and I will take my chances with the ramifications. Another theory that Joe doesn’t seem to comprehend when contemplating the “tanking” scenario.

You know what I really think is behind this yearly nonsense that tanking isn’t in the Pistons DNA? A few years back the NBA named the “Sportsmanship Award” after Dumars. And because of that trophy and his reputation I am guessing Dumars thinks he would be sullying his good name if he allowed his team to stoop to the level of the Warriors, Wizards and Kings.

And if that is Joe D’s position then fine. But if you are going to compromise the Pistons chances of getting better through the Draft, you better damn well take this all the way and make it your “Cause Celebre.”

If you are the face of everything that is right in the NBA and your moral code won’t allow you to participate in this “farce” then you need to call out David Stern for allowing it to occur. You need to write a New York Times op-ed piece stating that this purposeful losing is making a mockery of the game. Go on Jim Rome and call out the GMs of the teams who are perpetuating this “fraud.”

Tell David Stern to take your name off the Sportsmanship Award if he won’t change the system that rewards the tankers and penalizes “good sports” like YOUR team. Ya know, a system where every team that doesn’t make the postseason is thrown into a hopper and the draft order is randomly selected by someone other than Stern. A man who lives under the shadow of suspicion that he has consistently fixed the lottery.

If Dumars wants to throw his weight around and effect change then good for him. But if he wants to continue this moral high ground which results in the Pistons getting a non-impact white center in June and another late lottery pick AGAIN next year ….

Well, I hope Tom Gores finally ends Dumars’ benevolent reign as the GM of the Detroit Pistons and replaces him with an executive with no moral compass at all.