It's been over a month since I last posted and I have a really great post to wright about. As you know, the Red Sox are leading the AL East over the Yankees by 7 1/2 games and the best team in baseball. They have a terrific starting rotation with Beckett, Matzusaka, Schilling (when healthy) and knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. Their fifth man, Julian Tavarez, has been shaky the entire season so the Red Sox have decided to call up this man... 

#31- Jon Lester. Now while most people who don't know about this man will think it's not a big deal that the Sox have called someone up. Well maybe you should know about this kid's backround. Let's go back in time to about the end of August last year, Lester, a rookie, was 7-2 and pitching real well when he got some news no one wants to hear. Lester was scratched from his August 27th start against Oakland and the next day was put on the DL. The doctors told him that he had lymphoma, a treatable form of cancer. On December 5th he was told he was cured of his cancer. Then it was time for him to work his way back on the team.

On March 5th he made his first appearance since he was diagnosed with lymphoma, he went 1 inning and made 3 consecutive outs. At the beginning of the season he was pitching at Single-A Greenville Drive but was quickly called up to Triple A affiliate Pawtucket Red Sox. Then in June he was called up and today, July 23rd, he will go against Cleveland Indians and will hopefully pitch as well as he was last year. Good luck Jon, I'm rooting for you!

Red Sox @ Indians 7:05 on ESPN2

Welcome to the new and improved edition of Double Dip.. Ver. 3.0. Let's go right to the diamond shall we?

The Tigers lost to the Indians yesterday, 7-4. This wasn't a very good pitching game by Nate Robertson, letting up 2 HR when they needed him to pitch a gem. C-Mo had a good game, he hit his 8th HR of the year, but it would've been better had Jason Michaels not have robbed him of a 3 run jack that would've gave the Tigers the early 4-2 lead. He also didn't help out his cause when he tried to hit a HR in the 9th inning when we STILL WOULD'VE BEEN DOWN BY 1! We have Verlander today so let's see if our young stud can get us back on track.

Why does everyone but the state of Michigan think that the LeBron shot at the end was a foul. Yes, it's "King" James and we always have to give the "King" the calls especially close calls like that. LeBron, when you make a big shot once in a while you'll get the call. Right now you aren't cause you can't deliver when needed.

The Indy 500 is this Sunday, (I think), and what do I keep on seeing "The Importance of Women Drivers" but why? Danica is a sex symbol and the other two I haven't even heard of except that 1 is a rookie and the other has raced there like 5 times. I think we should stop beating a dead horse with this until one of them actually wins. PS- My money is on Marco Andretti, the one who got 2nd last year.

Finally, wrestling was actually pretty good yesterday on Smackdown! Jimmy Wang Yang vs. Chavo Guerrero was better then I thought, with Jimmy winning and the Main Event was about as good as it was hyped up to be. In case you didn't know, the Main Event was a Fatal Fourway with Kane, Finlay, Mark Henry, and Bautista and whoever won would face Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship in 1 week. Bautista won with a spear on all 3 of them and then pinned Finlay. It should be a pretty good 1 night stand.

That's all I have for right now.

There hasn't been anything interesting here lately so I've been obligated to do something creative and here it is.. The Idiots Guide to... Finding out why your favorite team sucks. You may hate me for this, but it's all in fun. Let's start with..

Baltimore Orioles: You make grown men cry because you have no defense and haven't won anything since you had a player on steroids. (Palmerio)

Tampa Bay Devil Rays: As an attempt to get some publicity you go to a minor league stadium. Your single-A team is probably better then you anyways.

Toronto Blue Jays: Why do you have to be the only Canadian team in MLB. This is called "The National Pasttime" for the US. You hosers have hockey.

New York Yankees: You have the highest salary in baseball and over half of your guys have a bigger payroll then the D-Rays... and you still suck.

Boston Red Sox: The baseball world doesn't revolve around you.

Oakland Atheletics: You play in the crappiest stadium in MLB and your uni's are green Please.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: Why don't you quit worrying about your name and actually play some fundemental baseball damnit.

Texas Rangers: Your pitching sucks and you try to have Sammy Sosa hit like he was when he was with the Cubs. You my friend are an ####.

Seattle Mariners: These guys mise well be in Canada since they suck so badly.

Minnesota Twins: You are challenging the A's for the worst stadium in baseball. Minny is a football town anyways.

Chicago White Sox: You think your rivalry with the Cubs is good, but you can't beat them. When you can't beat the Cubs you really do suck.

Cleveland Indians: The best thing that came out of Cleveland was Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn.

Detroit Tigers: Why don't we call you the "####" instead of the Tigers because half of your OF don't know how to make a routine catch.

Kansas City Royals: After the first week of the season they are out of contention. The most noise you have gotten is being in last place for __ Weeks in a row.

There, that's why your team sucks. Don't like it, kiss my rump now just for a minute let's all do the bump.

O my god, hide the children. It's Friday the 13th. I know it's terrible, if you have paraskavedekatriaphobia you need to lock yourself in the closet and not to come out until it is 13 min past the hour the next day. OK, I'm only kidding, I'm not like one of those pshycos that are afraid of a number. But, apparently, sports players do. I have done some researching and have found a very minimal amount of players who have or are still wearing the number 13. These guys are-

Wilt Chamberlain

Dan Marino

Don Maynard

Alex Rodriguez

Steve Nash

Ralph Branca

I know. Very little. I guess athletes are all about supersitions. And I guess these guys deserve a little "about-me" time. So let's start out with our luckiest of the bunch, Mr. Wilt Chamberlain.

Wilt, considered by many to be the greatest center of all-time, was arguably the most dominant player of his time. He was the only basketball player in the history of the game to score 100 points in a game. He has 4 of the top 5 scoring averages in one year. He has scored the most points in NBA history and, according to him, had sex with more than 20,000 women. So in my books he is definetly a "scorer."

Now the second person on here is considered to be one of the best "stat" QB's of all-time. This is Dan Marino. Dan was drafted in the late first round by the Miami Dolphins. He was drafted late because of a poor senior season and injury problems at Pitt, but nontheless he had a brilliant career there. Anyway, the Dolphins didn't make a mistake in drafting him. The only thing missing from Dan's trophy case is a Super Bowl. In 1984, his best season both statistically and team outcome-wise, the Dolphins gave Marino his only chance at a ring when they made it to SB XIX against another HOF QB (Joe Montana) and Montana's 49ers soundly beat the Dolphins 38-16.

On the 3rd of my 6 people, this player also played football, this man was Don Maynard. Unlike Marino, Maynard played WR. He was the first player ever signed by the then AFL New York Giants. Maynard, although received heavy criticism by the NY media, produced good numbers for most of his career. He and fellow HOF WR Art Powell were the first pair of WR's to get 1,000 yd on only receptions. He was introduced in the HOF in 1987.

The fourth victim on my list is simply known as A-Rod. A-Rod came into the league with a big #### in his first full year hitting .358 with 36 HR's and 123 RBI's. In 1998 he had an even better season joining the 40-40 club. In 1999 he hit 42 HR's in only 130+ games because of injury. In 2000, he had a great final year with Seattle, but the Mariners lost the ALCS to the Yankees and Rodriguez was a Free Agent. He was signed by the Texas Rangers and he had a phenominal 3 year career there, hitting 156 HR's and winning his first MVP there. But with the teams struggles he was traded to the NY Yankees. Since his time in New York he has won another MVP award, and been booed many times by many Yankee fans, but with the start he is having, the boos should stop soon.

The only other player on the list that is still active is Steve Nash. Nash was drafted by the Phoenix Suns but was traded by them 2 years later on draft day to the Dallas Mavericks where he got his start. In 02-03 he and the Mavericks had great years. The Mavericks made it to the conference finals and Nash averaged 17 points 7 assists and made the All-Star team for the second straight year. Following a bad year in 03-04 though, the Mav's let Nash walk. The Phoenix Suns happily signed him and Nash won back-to-back MVP awards and is trying to make the same case again this year.

The last player on my list is probably the unluckiest one of the bunch and that is Ralph Branca. Branca played with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Detroit Tigers, and NY Yankees. He played most of his career in a Dodger uniform and it was when he was in that uniform is when his unlucky situation happened. Everyone knows about the "Shot heard 'round the World" and Branca was the pitcher that gave Thompson his HR pitch. After the HR Branca didn't have much more sucess as a player. He retired in 1954.

So for you paraskavedekatriaphobias who came out to read this post, go lock yourself back in the closet.

Today is Fat Tuesday. For you non-religious people, Fat Tuesday is the Day before Lent, a day in which you should give something up for 40 days for what Christ did for us. I have put some thought and I have decided to give up the Internet. Yes, blogging. It's really hard thing for me to do, for 40 days. I will not come on Sundays even though people think that is a day where you can "break" your promise. I won't. What Christ did for us is a lot harder then giving up the silly internet. So this is my last post for a while.

I've never gotten to writing this, but the Detroit Tigers didn't make a lot of noise in the offseason except for trading for Gary Sheffield. That's ok though. The AL Champs didn't need a lot of changes this year, and here are my pre-Spring Training Rankings for the Tigers..
Offense- B+; Need to be more patient at the plate. Inge, Monroe and Granderson are capable of 120 K's or more. The rest of the lineup is pretty good.
Defense- A; Subtract the World Series, only Guillen and Inge had 20+ errors. Leland is going to try and fix those pitching errors in the WS by extra PFP (pitcher fielding practice.)
Pitching- A+; Bonderman is a future ace, Verlander will earn a Cy Young eventually, the other 2 regular starters from last year (Kenny Rogers and Nate Robertson) are very good. Bullpen is shaky with Todd Jones at closer, but Zumaya would be ready to take the reigns if needed.
Coaching- A-; Leland is a genius, just has to keep the WS out of everyone's minds.
Overall- A; The Tigers didn't do much changing this year, but that's all right when you have a team that is coming off a WS berth.

Projected Lineup
1. Curtis Granderson CF; Is fast, but needs to cut down on the K's.
2. Placido Polanco 2B; Probably the most consistent hitter on the team. Only 27 K's last season.
3. Ivan Rodriguez C; Has lost a little luster, but is still consistent.
4. Magglio Ordonez RF; Had a comeback year last year, let's see if he can keep it up.
5. Gary Sheffield DH; The power bat that the Tigers needed.
6. Carlos Guillen SS; Had the best average last year, .320, very strong for a No. 6 hitter.
7. Sean Casey 1B; Like Polanco, doesn't K much. (43 last year.)
8. Craig Monroe LF; A huge pop in his bat, just can't chase for pitches.
9. Brandon Inge 3B; Probably the least consistent bat on the team, needs to lay off some pitches.

Pitching Rotation
1. Jeremy Bonderman; Had over 200K in 214 innings. Need more info?
2. Kenny Rogers; The best defensive P on the team, under 4 ERA.
3. Justin Verlander; ROY last year, hopefully he won't turn into Mark Fidrych.
4. Mike Maroth; Had arm problems last year, was terrific before he was inj. last year.
5. Nate Robertson; Sometimes I wonder what he's doing, but he does get his innings in.

Bullpen
Todd Jones CL; Even though he had 37 saves last year, he had an elevated ERA.
Jose Mesa SU1; Signed for a year, I don't know if he'll have a huge impact.
Fernando Rodney SU2; Will be the major set-up man, able to close if Jones struggles
Joel Zumaya HLD; He puts fear into every hitters eyes with that 100 MPH pitch, can blow you away with 3 pitches.
Jason Grilli MU; He can mop-up and eat a lot of innings if needed.
Wilfredo Ledezma LHS; The only pitcher in the bullpen (right now) that is left-handed.

Prediction
96-66 1st place in division.

Thanks for reading my post, cause it'll be my last for 40 days.

I recently watched South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut (for anyone who cares) and it was better then expected, but you have to "Shut your #### face uncle ####ka." OK I have the song in my head, and it's very wrong, and... I can't back that up. No. 12 was a multi sport athelete who sucked it both sports. I'm talking about...

Drew Henson MLB/NFL player

Baseball: Drew was drafted by the Yankees, where he was in the Minor Leagues for most of his career, recieving only 9 AB's total in the league. In 2004, after only 2 years with the Yankees, he went to the NFL.

Football: Drew was drafted by the Texans in the 2003 draft, but traded him to Dallas before he even played a game there. He got his first playing time in a Thanksgiving game, which he started, but was taken out at halftime for Vinnie Testaverde.

The list----

No. 25 Darryl Strawberry
No 24. Michelle Wie and her attempts at Men Events
No 23. Charles Rogers
No 22. Michael Olowokandi
No 21. Dwight Gooden
No 20. Tonya Harding
No 19. Anna Kournikova
No 18. Kerry Wood
No 17. Andre Ware
No 16. Cade McNown
No 15. Maurice Clarett
No 14. Mark Prior
No 13. Bryant Reeves
No 12. Drew Henson

Tommorow: No. 11

Well anyone see the NHL All-star game yesterday? Me neither. What channel is it on? 600. I don't surf THAT far. But it was higher then MLB All-stars game. It was 12-9. That's as many points in a game as the Colts-Ravens playoff game. That's sad. Anyways, we are inching closer and closer to finishing my Top 25 busts of the past century. So here's No. 14....

No. 14 Mark Prior MLB player

I don't know which one was more of a bust, Kerry or Mark. Both started very well, but I put Mark up higher because he was younger when he got injured. He has had many arm injuries since like his second year, and that hurts when you're a MLB pitcher. He hasn't had much action since that year, obviously. And to add insult to injury (I like that phrase) it looks like the Cubs aren't worried about him anymore. Sure, they still want him to pitch, but when he gets injured it's not the end of the world for them.

Tommorow: No. 13

The List------
No. 25 Darryl Strawberry
No 24. Michelle Wie and her attempts at Men Events
No 23. Charles Rogers
No 22. Michael Olowokandi
No 21. Dwight Gooden
No 20. Tonya Harding
No 19. Anna Kournikova
No 18. Kerry Wood
No 17. Andre Ware
No 16. Cade McNown
No 15. Maurice Clarett
No 14. Mark Prior

I have missed my postings from the past few days for the biggest busts so I have to make up 6 people's flops. So here they are:

No. 22 Michael Olowokandi NBA player

Michael, drafted No. 1 by the LA Clippers in the 1998 draft, is considered to be a bust because he was drafted No. 1, but didn't ever put up solid numbers for the teams he played with. He has averaged 9.5 ppg and 7.7 rpg, also with a disappointing 2.1 ppg and 3.5 rpg in 15 playoff games. To add insult to injury, he was arrested after police used a stun gun to subdue him when he refused to leave an Indianapolis nightclub. He is currently playing for the Boston Celtics.

No. 21 Dwight Gooden MLB player

Ahh, Darryl Strawberry's partner in crime. He was considered to be one of the greatest pitchers of all-time, but, like Strawberry, decided to deal with drugs instead. He was, again like Strawberry, terrific his first 4 years and then a few above average seasons later. There has been two different reasons on why Dwight wasn't a "great" pitcher: Drugs and very many pitches thrown early in his career. Either reason, he could've been better then what his career showed.

No. 20 Tonya Harding Ice Skater

Now this is a more interesting subject because of the fact that she did win medals in the U.S World Championships. So you'd be saying," Why is she on here?" well the reason is because of the Nancy Kerrigan-stabbing incident. Ya know, she sends out a dude to do her dirty work of stabbing a fellow competitor. But ya know what cracks me up, she then decided to go to boxing. She has put up decent numbers there, going 3-3.

No. 19 Anna Kournikova Tennis Player

Anna was projected to be a great one. But she: Never won at the 4 majors. And the farthest she has gone was in Wimbledon where she went to the semi-finals. People probably best know her for being a model instead of a tennis player. Kournikova was a sucessful doubles player, but injury did cause her to retire.

No. 18 Kerry Wood MLB Player

Wood was supposed to be one of the most nastiest 1-2 combos with Mark Prior(who I'll talk about another time) but like many busts, has been injured numerous times. He was very talented for about 2 years, but he then started having arm problems and then finally went to the bullpen where he got injured again.

I officially kicked off my Top 25 busts/scandals of the past century yesterday, but I was very intrigued by the SD-NE game, and we all know how that went down. Kaeding misses the 54 yarder, SD done. But, what you didn't see was what happened after the game. LT, one of the classiest players in the game, was very aggrivated with the Pats celebrating  after the game on the Chargers Logo in MF. This is what LT had to say,"I would never react in that way. I was very upset," Tomlinson said. "When you go to the middle of our field and start doing the dance Shawn Merriman is known for, that is disrespectful. They showed no class and maybe that comes from the head coach." I saw something but they, the media, may be taking this a little far. Anywho, here's NO. 24 on my Top 25 busts/scandals of the past century.

Michelle Wie and her attempts at Men Events

Michelle, as you know, is a 17 year old female who keeps on attempting to make the cut at a Men's event. She has played in 8 mens events in the 2 years she has become pro. She has only made the cut once, and that tournament didn't have the "Cream of the Crop" in it. In her other 7 attempts, she has failed miseralbly. But take a glance at her LPGA Majors just last year. She finished in the Top 5 in all of them but the British Open. Not to tell you that you are bad or anything, but Michelle, stay with the women.

Now that concludes No. 24 in my Top 25 busts/scandals of the past century.

Tommorow: No. 23

I have an Idea! It's a Top 25 list. You thought I was going to say a Top 10 list, no 25 is much better. FYI it's the Top 25 bust's/scandals of the past century. This may be players or teams. I will try to be as spread out as I can, but It'll mostly be MLB, NFL, and NBA. It will be a series of players/teams, will try and give 1 a day, all the way up to Sat. Feb 3, which will be the day off for me, and then post the Top 5 on Superbowl Sunday. So if you want to keep in check with my list, stay here regularly. Now let's get on with this damn list!

NO. 25

Darryl Strawberry MLB Player

Yes, his first 5-6 seasons as a MLB player were spectacular, but can we forget this is a guy who, #### cocaine, had lots of trouble with his wives, and after his years with the Mets he really wasn't going to break Hank Aaron's record because even though it only took him 5 years to get 220+ homers, he would need 5 more to get to 300. If you go on careers based on their first 5 years, he's a shoe-in for Hall-of-Fame, but that's not how it works.

And with that, we have our Top 25 list started.

Tommorow: No. 24.

So close. So close. You could see the anguish in their eyes. But they fell..short. I am very saddened that the Tigers didn't win the World Series, and you can see why. They haven't won since '84, and they have been a terrible team record wise for the past decade and a half. I thought after that Magglio Shot that left the building, it was the Tigers who was going to win it...Mets or Cardinals.

We get the team that we swept in June, even thought they were all close..they won em. But, in October it's a different atmosphere, more pressure on the line..and they out-played us. We made the costly errors, 5 pitching errors in the series tells you enough. It always seemed they brought in the man with two outs, while we stranded them.

It just wasn't our time, you may say we were the best team in MLB... but it doesn't matter how good you are in the Regular season, take the Cardinals for instance, they were terrible in the Regular Season, but they got it done when it counted.

I tip my cap for the Cardinals, they were prepared, and they won. It doesn't seem right, but it's called reality, so I have to believe it. Again Congrats Cardinals.

It just wasn't our time.

P.S.- You can visit this post on http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/detroitsports<
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