By Jeff Moss
July 26, 2011
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
What do The Diary of Anne Frank, Will Smith, Danny Raskin, Hamas, Gerald Laird’s corpse, Dennis Finch and Gefilte Fish have in common? They are all part of Tuesday Morning Mossisms™.
Mazel Tov, Little Larry
It surprised me that I actually cared about the Pistons recent coaching decision considering I really don’t like the current team at all, I am rooting for the entire upcoming NBA season to be lost and the team goes through head coaches like Gregg Henson goes through radio gigs.
But there are three reasons that the apparent decision to hire Little Larry Frank to replace John Kuester is somewhat interesting to me.
(And I say apparent because for whatever reason the team hasn’t announced the hire or hosted a press conference at the Palace for Drew Sharp to blow off.)
1) There seems to be a huge chasm between the national basketball writers and the local Pistons media on the influence that longtime executive Dave Checketts is having over the team and new owner Tom Gores.
And when I say there is a large gulf between the two realities, I mean that the nationals are saying Checketts is playing a huge role in the team’s decisions and the locals are asking, “Dave who?”
Here is what ESPN.com’s Marc Stein wrote about the impending hire: “The Pistons have selected Frank over former Detroit assistant Mike Woodson, with sources telling ESPN.com that the decision signals the growing influence in the organization of former New York Knicks executive Dave Checketts.”
The Jesus H. Christ of all basketball scribes, Adrian Wojnarowski, even lent some credence to the narrative that Checketts is in the ear of Gores and Dumars doesn’t have the autonomy he used to have under Bill Davidson.
But if you listen to the people in Detroit who cover the Pistons you would think that Checketts has as much power at the Palace as Mini-Hooper, Mason, the Ghost of Matt Dobek and Lindsey of Automotion.
In reaction to Stein’s report, Twitter absolutely blew up with Detroit media members insisting that Joe Dumars is his own man and that nobody is going to tell Fat Joe who he can and cannot hire.
Now, I don’t know what to think since I don’t have any inside information on the subject and after the DSR broke the story that David Katzman would be the team’s next owner, we pretty much decided to get out of the Pistons Breaking News business.
But I will say this, in recent months it seems that all big Pistons related stories have been broken by the national journalists so I am going to give some credence to the Stein position.
Or maybe this was just a total collaboration between Joe D. and the former President of the New York Knicks. You know, kinda like Dumars’ version of “Lean Back” with Checketts playing the role of Remy Ma.
2) In a joint effort, the Elias Sports Bureau, the Jewish News and the Anti-Defamation League are researching if any other professional sports organization has hired FOUR Jewish head coaches/managers since 1970.
Seriously, the hiring of Frank (no relation to Anne) continues a long Pistons legacy of hiring Kosher coaches. First there was Herb Brown, then Ronnie Rothstein, followed by Larry Brown.
And while we can confirm that George Irvine was circumcised and enjoyed a good corned beef sandwich as much as the next guy, we believe that he was a goy and not the fifth member of the tribe.
Anyway, there is no fucking way any team can rival this type of Hebrew lineage in coaching. You would think Larry David had been the team’s GM for the last five decades or something.
Shit, I don’t even know if the Israeli team that Will Bynum is about to sign with in Tel Aviv has had this many Head Jewboys in Charge since 1970.
Which leads us to …..
3) If you were to believe that insane ramblings of Susie Green, err, I mean Debbie Schlussel, you would have thought there was a better chance of Tom Gores first major hire being Khaled Mashal than a Jewish head coach.
I find it absolutely hilarious that this slobby cunt decided to make it a personal mission of hers to disparage Gores and insinuate that he had terrorist ties then have to watch him make his first marquee hiring that of a Jew.
Because, you know, a lot of members of Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Front give SEVEN FIGURE jobs to Zionists. Ya gotta believe me on this.
But in all seriousness I do like the hiring of Frank over Mike Woodson and hopefully this will stop the coaching carousel at 3 Championship Drive (I refuse to acknowledge WNBA titles.)
If it doesn’t, I am guessing Dumars’ days will be numbered and I would assume that Checketts will have some influence on that decision as well.
Another Leyland Loss
A few years back on the old DSR Forums we started keeping track of games that the Tigers absolutely lost because of asinine decisions that Jim Leyland had made.
Because, you know, managers shouldn’t really be solely responsible for a loss, but Cancer Stick has an innate ability to interject himself in the worst possible ways at the least opportune moment.
And on Monday night, Emaciated Adolf did just that while earning his latest “Leyland Loss.”
His most egregious and incomprehensible error came in the bottom of the fifth inning when Leyland decided to bring in a guy with ZERO big league experience in a 2-2 game with the BASES LOADED.
Yep, with the bases juiced and Carlos Quentin at the plate, Leyland went to his bullpen and called for Chance Ruffin. The same Chance Ruffin who was called up the previous night. The same Chance Ruffin who was drafted just last year.
And the same Chance Ruffin who admitted his heart was racing a mile a minute when he made his first MLB appearance in the middle of a pennant race with NO ROOM FOR ERROR. The guy admitted after the game to remember which FOOT TO PUT FORWARD FIRST!
So not only was the decision to bring Ruffin into the game idiotic, it was borderline cruel. And predictably Quentin lined a double to left field which scored two runs and the Sox never looked back in winning the game 6-3.
But that wasn’t the beginning of Leyland’s atrocious moves on the day the crucial series against the White Sox began.
(And if you don’t think this is a HUGE series, you don’t understand baseball. Not only was this three game set a chance to really bury their primary rival, but there were rumblings on Monday that if the Sox spit the bit this week against the Tigers that their GM, Kenny Williams, was going to commence a fire sale.)
You see, moronically a lot of Tigers fans assumed that when the team traded for Wilson Betemit and demoted “Wrist Flick” Inge to Toledo that the lineup would pretty much be set on a nightly basis.
Austin Jackson leading off in center followed by Brennan Boesch, Magglio, Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, Jhonny Pheralta, Carlos Guillen, Alex Avila and Betemit should be the Tigers batting order 95 percent of the time.
But since the trade was made last week, would you like to know how many times Cancer Stick has scribbled that order on a lineup card?
ONE FUCKING TIME!!!!!
Last night he decided to experiment with Ryan Raburn at third base even though the guy can’t even field the much easier position of second base. Let’s put it this way, if Raburn was the lead character in “I am Legend” and every other baseball player had perished at the hands of zombies, HE STILL WOULDN’T WIN A GOLD GLOVE!
But in some bizarre effort to increase Send the Duane Below’s degree of difficulty in HIS second MLB start, Leyland decided it was a brilliant idea to put Raburn at the hot corner.
And would you like to know why Leyland decided to bench Betemit for the second time in 72 hours? Well, it seems that the former Royal is 1-for-6 in his career against Monday’s CHW starter, Mark Buehrle.
Six at-bats. We are talking about a sample size of SIX FUCKING AT-BATS HERE. That is why Betemit sat and Raburn played third for the first time ALL SEASON LONG!!
Ya can’t make this stuff up.
I mean, if you are going to hire guys who never went to college to run $100 million dollar enterprises, shouldn’t they AT LEAST have to take one class in statistics before making decisions based on SIX FREAKING AT-BATS!?!?!!?
And for the record, Betemit’s sample size against Buehrle?
The exact amount of at-bats that Gerald Laird had in Game 163 against the Twins in 2009 when he left 10 men on-base.
And Betemit had one more hit. Just Shoot Me™ (Jack Gallo.)