Joel Zumaya of the Detroit Tigers attempts to hitchhike his way out of town and onto a contender like the Yankees with teammate Ivan Rodriguez. But sadly, not many friendly truck drivers were driving by the pitcher's mound last night.

(AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

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The streets of Detroit were in Chaos early Wednesday night when the feud between the lions and tigers, the sports teams of the area, erupted into all out war. The tension had been building since the inception of the NFL's Lions franchise in 1930. City officials believed it was unwise to put a team named after lions in one that already had one named after tigers, due to the volatility of the two cat species. "There is a reason you don't put these two kinds of animals together," said San Diego Zookeeper Rich Blythewood. "They were just asking for trouble, and I'm surprised it took this long for something to happen."

The conflict broke out around 7:12 PM when a local butcher disposed of some expired strip steaks in the alley behind his shop. Some of the tigers and lions happened to be passing near the alley at that time and both wanted the steaks. They started biting and wrestling each other for the meat, and when other felines in the city heard, it devolved into a citywide brawl. Pedestrians on the street were mauled seemingly at random by the angry lions and tigers as they passed them. "They were so friendly before," said C.J. Kamp, a longtime Detroit resident. "I've shared a root beer float many times with a tiger, I've ridden a bicycle built for two with a lion, but now one of them just ate my legs, and the other a large chunk of the skin on my face. I don't know why we all can't get along."

A crazy scientist recommended one of the teams change their name to something unintimidating, like the Detroit Butterflies, back in 1992. But no one listened to him, and now we are all paying the price of the hostility between these two mascots. With 13 declared dead and 112 seriously injured, this is the worst documented citywide mascot feud since the one in Cleveland in 1976. That was where a pack of wild indians got in a violent brawl with the color brown, resulting in the deaths of 4. The incident in Miami last year, where the Marlins and Dolphins attempted to fight ended swiftly when both species realized they could not breathe oxygen and died on the streets. No one was injured there, although the city did smell horrible for several weeks.

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The Detroit Tigers have gone back into a slump after seemingly breaking out of it, losing their last 4 games including being unable to overcome a wildly off-target Daisuke Matsuzaka yesterday. Manager Jim Leyland has vowed big changes to the roster and the lineup in the coming days in hopes of breaking his team out of their offensive funk. His first move was designating veteran outfielder Jacque Jones for assignment after a disappointing start to the year. His assignment, learn to play a different sport, because baseball is not his thing. Gary Sheffield will also go from DH to playing the outfield, as Leyland hopes to recapture the glory of his play circa 1997.

"We've got to get better," said Leyland. "Having amazing hitters at every spot in our lineup is making us too predictable. We need to add some real curveballs in there that are going to make people wonder what's coming next. We are going to do away with the shortstop position here, and create a new position for a tight end. I've seen what they can do in the NFL, both blocking and scoring, so hopefully that can help us out. I hear Jeremy Shockey may be available, so that would be a real help to us. Also, Miguel Cabrera is not scaring anyone anymore on the basepaths, so we've got approval from the commisioner to have him round the bases in a 1990 Buick LaSabre. It's going to make steals very easy, as no one will want to block the plate with a car coming at him, and he'll be tough to pick off, especially if he has the windows rolled up."

Another big change in the field at Comerica Park is the addition of a .50 caliber mounted machine gun behind home plate. It will be for use by Ivan Rodriguez, who has had trouble throwing out baserunners this season. Hopefully with the help of a 200 bullet per minute, Pudge can now deter base stealers. We'll have to see what these changes have on the Tigers, and if they can finally put together some victories because of it.

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"I'm so proud of the special group of youngsters we've developed here in the Florida Marlins Organization," said team owner Jeffrey Loria, following his team's surprising 1st place finish through two weeks of the baseball season. The team from Miami, known more for selling off prospects than winning World Series in 1997 and 2003, might be looking to sell again sooner than they thought.

"We were able to make some real money by selling all our stars following the World Series years, and even made some cool dollars last year by trading away our best pitcher and hitter to Detroit. I thought it would be at least 3 more seasons before we would be able to do it again, but I guess these guys are ready to be sold after all. I see us more as a foster home than a baseball team, we just raise them and then send them off into the real baseball world. So, who's ready to buy some players? Remember, this is the team that beat out Johan Santana's Mets and Ryan Howard's Phillies for first place!"

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"My name is David Wright. I am the last good player alive in the National League. If there is anyone else out there, I will be playing a game called baseball every day at noon, when the sun is highest in the sky."

So begins the trailer for the new movie I Am Legend, premiering this April. It tells the based on a true story of the last good player in the National League and his quest to solve the mysteries of why there is so little talent in his league compared to the AL. The story was inspired by the recent trade of Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis from the Marlins to the Tigers.

The trade will likely mean continued dominance of the America League, who has won 7 of the past 10 World Series, 5 via sweeps, and the last 10 all-star games. The last team to learn the hard lesson of the AL dominance was the Colorado Rockies who swept through all the NL competitors they faced for an entire month, but then couldn't win a single game against the Boston Red Sox.

"It's a real fun story," said star David Wright. "It's an apocalyptic vision of baseball, where I alone stand up to an entire league. There's a good twist in the end where you learn that there actually are other players in the NL, but because they receive no reporting or TV coverage, the world never finds out. It's a very real movie, because just like true life the only teams shown to the public are the Red Sox and Yankees."

He continued, "There's a real fun scene in the middle where I have to take on the entire AL All-Star Team by myself due to no one else being picked from my league. I have to pitch, and then field. I end up losing 74-2. I originally said we may want to bump that number up a little, as that's usually the score in real life when we have a complete NL team, but they said it they didn't want to make it too depressing."


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