By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
September 4, 2012
One of my favorite sports movies ever is the 1992 dramedy, “Diggstown,” starring James Woods and Bruce Dern that focused on boxing, gambling and the behavior of con men.
The film is chock-full of awesomeness, but the relevant scene for today’s article is one where an African-American boxer is extremely motivated to defeat Louis Gossett, Jr.’s character.
How did John Guillon (Dern) persuade Hambone Busby to give it his all on the canvas in Busby’s attempt to defeat “Honey” Roy Palmer in the ring? Well, Guillon strung up Hambone’s brother (Slim) from the ceiling and the only thing separating Slim from certain death was a victory by Hambone.
Which leads me to the following question:
Anyone know where we can find Jim Leyland’s brother, Tom, some industrial strength rope and a wooden chair?
Because I don’t know what else is going to light a fire under the Tigers third-trimester abortion of a manager at this point other than the threat of bad things occurring to family members if he doesn’t start showing some urgency with the 2012 Tigers.
(And please don’t give me any garbage that I am threatening the Leyland family. It is called artistic license. I don’t need the FBI knocking at my door. Not to mention, Tom Leyland is a priest and the last place you will find me is in a church.)
The last two days of Leyland’s managerial behavior have brought back every single horrific memory of 2009 right back into my consciousness. Freddy Krueger has nothing on the Tigers manager when it comes to my nightmares.
Resting Placido Polanco in the last week of the season. Starting Alfredo Figaro in Game 161. The failure to pinch-hit for Gerald Laird who was in the middle of one of the worst batting performances in the HISTORY of baseball in Game 163. Letting a tired Fernando Rodney pitch the 12th inning of that game instead of emptying his bullpen with starting pitchers in a Do-or-Die game.
I don’t want to go all Meatloaf on you people, but it’s all coming back to me now. And it makes me want to fucking puke.
IN THE LAST TWO DAYS, we have witnessed Leyland exhibit ZERO urgency. Instead he behaved like it was Spring Training and NOT a September pennant race.
On Labor Day, Cancer Stick decided that Austin Jackson needed the day off. The same Austin Jackson who is TWENTY-FIVE years old. The same Austin Jackson who has only played 111 games in 2012 because he missed a few weeks with an injury.
Yep, THAT guy needed a breather. And not only was he so exhausted that he couldn’t start, Jackson couldn’t even be bothered to pinch-hit late in a ONE RUN GAME.
To make matters worse, this fuckstick “skipper” of ours didn’t pinch-run for Prince Fielder after the big man doubled to lead off the ninth inning.
Now, only in extreme circumstances would I ever pull Fielder or Miguel Cabrera out of a close game. The one time it is a NO-BRAINER is when you are deadlocked for first place on September 3rd and involved in a tie game in the BOTTOM OF THE NINTH INNING. Not to mention, Fielder isn’t going to get another at-bat ANYWAY unless you score a god damn run.
Like, if you don’t tie the game in the ninth, the GAME IS OVER.
Of course, Fielder stayed in and when Delmon Young nubbed a ball a few feet away from home plate in the next at-bat, Prince remained at second.
Austin Jackson with a decent secondary lead would have meant a runner at third and only a sacrifice needed to tie the ballgame after Young’s piss poor at-bat.
Leyland then let Alex Avila come to the plate with the game on the line even though the catcher is currently mired in a horrific slump that even banging Gabourey Sidibe wouldn’t get him out of.
That disgusting slob of a field boss actually let Jackson rot on the bench instead of inserting the team’s third best hitter into any of the above-mentioned roles.
Because it was only September 3rd and it wasn’t like his disappointing team was tied for first place in the AL Central.
But, Leyland’s performance on Monday was only a poo-poo platter for his lineup card on Tuesday when this senile imbecile actually wrote Don Kelly’s name on the lineup card.
Batting …… SIXTH.
Yes, the same Don Kelly who:
Is batting .173 this season.
Has an on-base percentage of .265 and a slugging percentage of .240. A .240 slugging percentage? I am not even sure how that is possible.
This is the same Don Kelly who was Designated for Assignment a few weeks ago by the Tigers. And when he was DFA’d and available for a song, NOT ONE OF THE OTHER 29 TEAMS in BASEBALL picked him up.
Think about that for a second. NOBODY wanted Don Kelly. Instead he was treated like the butt-ugly dog at the North Shore Animal League.
And now DON KELLY is batting SIXTH in the Tigers lineup with less than a month to go in the season with the 1-to-5 Central division favorites a game out of first place.
But, why should this surprise ANYONE? It has always been Leyland’s modus operandi.
He once penciled in Alexis Gomez’s name into the #2 slot of the batting order on the SAME DAY he was DFA’d.
(The same Alexis Gomez who never, EVER got another MLB at-bat after the 2006 season. A season in which he was DFA’d TWICE by the team.)
The same waste of a manager also thought it was a brilliant idea to bat Ryan Raburn SECOND just hours before the awful second baseman/right-fielder/hillbilly was sent to Toledo.
He used Brandon Inge as a PINCH-HITTER just days before Inge was given his unconditional release by the organization.
And don’t even get me started on how he uses middling minor league relief pitchers in high leverage situations in their FIRST MAJOR LEAGUE performance.
Remember Jose Ortega at Wrigley Field a few months ago? Funny, how this guy was allowed to pitch in the late innings of a tie game, but wasn’t even worth calling up when rosters expanded in September.
The Tigers Twitter feed likes to use the hashtag, #EveryGameCounts. Instead of telling the fans who follow your account this, HOW ABOUT YOU FUCKING TELL YOUR MANAGER!!!!!!
This dude is a freaking abomination and nobody in the media will say a goddamn word about it.
Instead, they just sit back and take Leyland’s ranting and raving (like he did Tuesday afternoon about the fan base and his lineup cards) like the spineless eunuchs they are.
These feckless shitbags just SAT THERE while Leyland said the following about Kelly’s start on Tuesday:
“I like good things to happen to good people and (Kelly) deserves it. He hasn’t had a good year, but what he’s done recently is worth something.”
What he has done recently? Don Kelly went to Toledo and hit .233 with an OPS of .643 in the INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE. That is what this LOSER has done recently.
But, that isn’t what Leyland meant. He was referring to the classy way that Kelly handled his DFA. We are starting guys in a pennant race based on their status as “good guys.”
Tomorrow batting third and filling in for Miguel Cabrera?
TOM FUCKING HANKS.
Seriously, I’ve gotta die.
And the only thing worse than Leyland is these douche bags that get PAID to cover this team. These so called journalists who wouldn’t know a scoop if it hit them in their face.
Well, that isn’t exactly true. Tom Gage would recognize a SCOOP of ice cream. Because, while a legitimate journalist would have been questioning Jackson’s non-usage on Labor Day or the decision not to pinch-run for Prince, this is what the Detroit News Tigers beat writer was obsessed with:
“Didn’t know, did you — neither did anyone else — that Leyland and his coaches have a pregame ritual of eating ice cream about a half-hour before the first pitch?
Their choices vary from popsicles and Drumsticks — “Nutty Buddies”, Leyland calls Drumsticks — to Klondike bars.
“There’ve been several games I’ve managed for the Tigers with chocolate all over my front,” he said.
I am not making that up. Instead of discussing this asshole’s awful managerial strategies, we got an anecdote about chocolate stains on the derelict’s jersey.
Can you imagine this occurring in New York, Chicago, Boston or Philadelphia? I mean, when are we going to break the really big story. What Gene Lamont orders when he goes to Coldstone?
DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, this is a manager who continued to run Delmon out there every single game when the DH was single handedly destroying the offense.
The Tigers had the second worst RBI production from the #5 hole in the AL even though their #3 and #4 hitters had the highest OBP. That, like, shouldn’t even be humanly possible. A .240 slugging percentage is more plausible.
Then Young gets red hot, puts up a 1.314 OPS over the last seven days and Cancer decides to give him a day off.
It is questionable if Young should have even been on the team after his April through August and I advocated an Alfonso Soriano trade, but why the FUCK would you sit a dude on that kind of heater? Even Jeffrey Tambor knows that is RETARDED.
And just when I thought the shit couldn’t get any worse, a “Live Chat” between the readers of the Detroit Free Press and John Lowe topped it all this afternoon.
Here are some gems from this Bible Thumping bastard:
“I see you remember Sparky. What I remember Sparky saying about one-run games is that it’s hard to be real good at them two years in a row (we’ll see with Baltimore next year). Fielder runs decently, don’t you think? He scored from first on Young’s double on Saturday night. As for getting Fielder off his feet, I don’t think that’s a “speed” issue. I think that’s a “rest” issue. In a one-run loss, it’s usually possible to find something a manager could have done differently. That doesn’t mean the other way would have worked. I think Leyland gets a lot of credit for having the courage to play Garcia (first two big-league starts) and Boesch (no homers since July 22) against LH Liriano and Sale in two biggest games of year so far. And both players did well in both games.”
It took COURAGE for Leyland to totally discard any statistical evidence when starting Brennan Boesch and Avisail Garcia? Yeah, let’s give him the Purple Heart or the Medal of Freedom.
If one or two of Leyland’s asinine decisions work we never hear the end of it from his cheerleading squad. What about the other 20 that utterly fail?
And Fielder runs DECENTLY? This shill actually wants to compare the speed of Fielder to some of the players on the bench who were available (Jackson and Garcia, primarily) to pinch-run?
But it gets better …..
“I don’t think it’s my job to put people on or off the hook. I hope I can help you form your opinion.”
A journalist. Said THAT. Umm, okay. Woodward and Bernstein just rolled over in their graves ….. and they aren’t even DEAD. Then you had this response in a query about why Leyland ignored sabermetrics and was starting Kelly.
You seem certain that he ignores those stats. It seems to me Kelly started in Game 5 in Yankee Stadium last year and homered in the first inning. Also, Kelly got sent down in mid-August this year, so someone was perhaps aware of those stats. Leyland has manged 3,300 games, and I thought what he did with Boesch and Garcia against the White Sox was some pretty good lineup-writing. I’m also not sure it’s been proven that teams that base lineups on advanced stats do the best.”
This asshat actually justified Kelly’s start this evening based on something he did last OCTOBER. Even though almost a full season has gone by and 29 teams also thought he was Total Puke Garbage and not worth a claim.
Is this game being played in Yankees Stadium with a ridiculously short right-field porch? Are the Tigers totally decimated by injuries where starting Kelly is almost a necessity instead of a choice? No? Then shut the fuck up, JOHN.
And that last line? I’m also not sure it’s been proven that teams that base lineups on advanced stats do the best?
No, teams that base their lineup on gut feelings, community service and penmanship usually have the most success, ya dolt.
I feel like I am stuck in this purgatory where I am forced to watch my FAVORITE team managed by a flat-earther, covered in the print media by evolution disbelievers and broadcast locally by climate change deniers.
Please, just end it all for me and replace Shannon Hogan with Sarah Palin.
I don’t even know what to do anymore. I posted on the DSR’s Facebook page that today is one of my most depressing days ever as a fan of this franchise.
It is just a perfect storm of horrible. From the manager lashing out at the fans who only want to see their team win and guided by someone who believes in math to the Gages, Lowes, Becks and Hennings of the world who continue to enable this relic.
It is just so damn depressing. This is all supposed to be a distraction. An escape from real life.
Yet, I am on the verge of needing Prozac just to follow the damn team.
25 minutes to game time.
Poor Me.