I'm starting to feel pretty good about a bet I made several months ago. As was posted here a few weeks back, before the Major League Baseball season even started, yours truly got into a bit of a disagreement with another sports bar patron as to just how bad the Detroit Tigers would be. He was a die-hard Tiger fan.
I claimed they'd finish at least 20 games under .500. He said no way. It started out with a C-note, then escalated to five times that amount. All duly witnessed and official. Done deal. One of us is going to take a hit in the wallet when the season ends in a few weeks.
For a while there early on, the Detroit puddy-tats had me a bit concerned. They were hovering right around .500.
And then came the crash. They now find themselves 25 games UNDER .500. I'm liking it -- a lot.
No sane person thought the Tigers could compete with the Cleveland Indians in their own division over the long haul. And they haven't.
But the Minnesota Twins have zoomed by them as well.
Don't look now, but the pretty much woeful Chicago White Sox are poised to pass them up. At last look, they were only a single game behind in the loss column. The Chisox have won 7 of their last 10, including 3 of 4 from their latest series with Detroit -- who has gone 3-7 over the same stretch.
The only question that seems to remain is -- how low can the puddy-tats go? They seem hell-bent on getting rid of any potential talent that happens to emerge on their team. Every time a player shines, even a little, he's gone.
What's left is a rag-tag team of otherwise minor-leaguers and a few grossly overpaid and over the hill veterans that have long been past their prime.
So let's see. The starting pitching sucks. The bullpen is even worse. They're slow as molasses on the basepaths, Bad News Bears cartoonish defensively, and the offensive line-up has about as much pop as a boxful of wet firecrackers.
It's pitiful the depths the once-proud Tigers have sunk to. At that, they haven't won a World Series since way back in 1984. A whopping 34 years ago.
The most amazing thing would seem to be -- how do the Tiger announcers keep finding so many good things to say about such a bad team? Talk about a tough job. Do these shameless folks ever look in the mirror and take stock of themselves?
On another Tiger front, there remains the on-going debacle of Eldrick Tont Woods. Detroit Tigers announcers are the pinnacle of virtue compared to the sorry hero-worhiping Tiger lemmings. It's like they can't get enough of the guy.
Let's face it. He had his decade of greatness. Then he self-destructed in his personal life, couldn't stay physically healthy enough to play golf, of all things, and now he's a shell of his former self.
But still we get bombarded with Tiger this and Tiger that.
In the recently concluded Northern Trust tournament, the first of four making up the playoffs for the FedEx Cup, somehow Woods managed to qualify -- though he hasn't won squat in five years.
After the first round of play, see Eldrick five strokes behind. Not too bad. But late night highlight shows were chock full of Tiger so-called "highlights".
After the second round, it was nine, and he barely, by the scrawny hairs on his chinny chin chin, managed to make the cut. Never mind fifty some guys were ahead of him, there came more Tiger highlights.
When all was said and done, see Eldrick finish a whopping 14 shots behind. In a tie for 40th place, along with seven other guys. Of course, there would be even MORE Tiger highlights.
What is it with these people? Aren't broadcasters supposed to be unbiased? How can they rationally explain still force-feeding the public clips of Eldrick every week when so many other golfers finished ahead of him?
One can only wonder when this obviously prejudicial and, yes, highly discriminatory farce will finally stop. Where are the forces of equality and fairness? Out to lunch because Woods happens to be a black man playing a predominantly white man's game?
Tigers, Tigers everywhere. And none of them any good.
It's just about enough to make me stop eating Frosted Flakes, cuz Tony the Tiger is their pitch-man. Yet at least they remain GRRR--EAT!
Which is the polar opposite of their MLB and golfing namesakes.
They suck.
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