The Ron Gardenhire comedy hour

Like they say, you just can't make this stuff up. Detroit Tigers' manager Ron Gardenhire, though he strives mightily to be serious, comes off as quite the dead pan comedian. A bit like Henny Youngman of old with his "take my wife -- please" jokes.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that while most Major League Baseball teams have become high-tech with their statistical analyses of everything possible regarding players, who did the Tigers hire as their manager when they had an opening of their own creation? A George Jetson, futuristic type? Au contraire. Rather a Fred Flintstone type. Enter Ron Gardenhire. To call him "old school" would be a bit like saying Trump is a tad controversial at times. Um, no kidding.

[Idle thought. Pity there isn't a "variety" in between the syllable "Garden" and "hire". It would describe him ever so much more accurately, when it comes to Detroit.]

Currently the Puddy Tats, excuse, Tigers are in Oakland playing a series against the Athletics. To the surprise of absolutely nobody with half a brain, Detroit has dropped the first two games of the series. True, they were both close contests, one run losses each. But an L is an L and it doesn't matter if it was by one run or 20. In a day or two, nobody will remember, or care, anyway.

Yet in a post-game interview, dear Ron tried to expound a platitude or two . "Oakland is a really good team", quoth the Skipper.

Well duh.

Seeing as how the Athletics are 66-46 -- 20 games OVER .500, and the Tigers are 47-64 -- seventeen games UNDER .500, it doesn't take your proverbial rocket science to discern the obvious. Compared to his Tigers, the Athletics are world beaters. Men against boys. Or at the very least, talent against over-paid has-beens and a bunch of scrubs that likely couldn't make the roster of many other teams, let alone be starters.

But he wasn't done. "We just couldn't seem to get a hit when we needed it". Genius, pure comedic genius, considering his Tigers have scored a grand total of exactly one run in the first two games. The man's a regular laugh-fest. Eat your heart out Henny, wherever you are.

Consider the Ilitch factor. When patriarch Mike owned both the Tigers and Red Wings, the baseball team was at least competitive. True, they never made it over the hump of winning a World Series -- the drought is now 34 years and counting, but they gave their fans hope.

The Red Wings won multiple Stanley Cups under the elder Ilitch's watch. He wasn't afraid to spend a lot of dough getting talent for both teams.

Shortly after he passed, both the Wings and Tigers utterly collapsed into sad-sack also-rans. Nobody seems to know which of Mike's heirs is in charge of these fiascos. But sorry both teams are indeed.

No way would the elder Ilitch have brought on a retread like Gardenhire as a manager. The pizza magnate didn't get fabulously wealthy by being a backwards thinker.

And now after the Tigers have dumped whatever talent they had for monetary purposes and gone into full-blown "rebuild" mode, the fans are left with the Ron Gardenhire comedy hour?

They might as well have hired "I don't get no respect" Rodney Dangerfield as manager. Yeah, I know. Rodney's been dead for over a decade. But Gardenhire might as well be, for all he brings to the table these days. At least a cardboard cut-out of Rodney would be more entertaining than the best lines Gardenhire can come up with.

Only in Detroit. I mean, who might be next as their "field general"? Roseanne? A Kardashian? A rapper that named himself after a duck -- like Drake? That Flo girl from the idiotic insurance commercials?

Yep, tis a sorry state of affairs in Detroit. And that's not even mentioning the age-old sad-sack Lions -- or Pistons -- also a joke.

Alas.