DETROIT, Michigan.  It's October, and the Detroit Tigers are riding high as they return to Comerica Park after a 2-0 win over New York on the road in the American League Division series.

Tiger pitcher Justin Verlander

The Detroit Lions, on the other hand, are right where they usually are--down low in the standings of the National Football Conference's North Division with an 0-4 record.  They haven't won a playoff game in a quarter of a century, and have the second-worst record in NFL history, topping only the Chicago-St. Louis-Arizona Cardinals.

So some Lions fans are receptive to a proposal being floated by team owner William Clay Ford; merge the team into the Tigers, creating the Detroit "Ligers", a cross between a male lion and a female tiger made popular by the cult-hit movie "Napoleon Dynamite".

Liger

"In football, when it's fourth down, you either go for it or punt.  I think it is in the best interests of the Detroit Lions football team that we drop back ten and kick it to the more successful team in town, the Tigers," the executive summary of Ford's confidential forty-page report concludes.

William Clay Ford

In "Napoleon Dynamite", Napoleon draws ligers in his notebook.  When the character "Deb" notices one of his sketches she asks what he is drawing.  Napoleon replies "A liger," adding that "It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed . . . bred for its skills in magic."  Ford says magic will be required to revive the Lions' franchise, which won five NFL championships before its merger with the AFL, but none since 1957.

Napoleon and Deb

Kenny Rogers, starting pitcher for Detroit in tonight's game, expressed concern that a merger would result in sterile offspring.  "I'm not saying anybody on this club is on steroids," Rogers said, choosing his words carefully, "but if they are, they're gonna have enough problems with fertility as it is."

Tigers' shortstop Carlos Guillen said he had no objections to a merger, but had a problem with the name.  "We should be the 'Tigons'," a cross between a male tiger and a female lion, he said as he stood outside the batting cage at Comerica Park today, "'cause we're stronger than them."

Copyright 2006, Con Chapman

DETROIT, Michigan.  In the wake of charges that their assistant coach Joe Cullen has engaged in bizarre behavior that includes driving in the nude, members of the Detroit Lion family have rallied around their embattled colleague.

            “Joe has had problems with alcohol before,” said Lions president Matt Millen, “but there are plenty of rehab options available for that.  There’s really no twelve-step program for driving around naked.”

            Nude driving has been certified by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder, and is referred to by clinical professionals as “transient frontal lobe subluxation”, which Lions trainer Jake Gaskins translates as “brain cramp”.  Most Americans refer to the disorder as “Godiva Syndrome”, after the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who rode a horse naked through the streets of Coventry, England at her husband’s request in exchange for his agreement to reduce taxes on his tenants.

            In the absence of a recognized therapeutic technique to cure the disorder, Lions’ strength and conditioning staff have planned their own amateur treatment which they say will begin with a visit to a show by the Chippendales, a male strip-tease troupe, at a nightclub in an undisclosed Detroit suburb tonight.  “We want Joe to understand there’s nothing pretty about the typical male body, and if there is, then there’s something seriously wrong with the guy,” said strength and conditioning coach Ben Anthony.

            “Tomorrow we’ll take him to a body-building competition where the men get so slicked up it’ll make you sick,” Anthony said with a tone of disgust.

“Finally, on Sunday, we’ll deliver the knockout punch.  A visit to the steam room at the Boll Family YMCA.   If that doesn’t cure him,” trainer Gaskins said, “there’s no hope.”

 Copyright 2006, Con Chapman