8/31 - Quick Links
I commented on the ESPN and Sports Illustrated reviews of the Red Wings offseason moves over at Winging it in Motown.
Over at the Lions Den, I talk about the strong likelihood running back Kevin Jones will remain on the PUP (physically unable to perform) list and will miss the first five games of the season.
I promise to have more Red Wings updates here when the number of Wings news actually starts to pick up. Until then…
Tomorrow, I will have photos and postgame reaction from the UM football game. Go Blue!
Anyone want free HHOF tickets?
Here’s the deal: I won four HHOF tickets awhile ago, but have been unable to find time to make it up to Toronto. Unfortunately, the tickets expire September 30th and I know that I won’t be going up to Toronto by then. Does anyone want them? If so, send me an email and I’ll mail them out to you. Please only say you want them if you realistically think you’ll use them by the expiration date (Sep 30th). Thanks!
Update: I received a few emails requesting the tickets, but I had to make it fair and just send the tickets to the first person who emailed me. Hope you have fun at the HHOF, Nick!
I’m a proud season ticket holder
Yesterday morning, I officially joined the Detroit Red Wings season ticket holder group. Ironically, it’s the first year I have no use for the tickets as I’ll be working all of the home games. However, my parents decided that they wanted them so they’re paying for them (but the tickets are technically in my name). We got pretty good seats for it being our first time- Section 211A. Row 9. Seats 8-9 (one of them is an aisle seat). Plus, it’s the side where the Wings shoot twice.
Why does this matter to you, the reader? Well whenever my family can’t go to a game, I will announce it here on BTJ and you can buy the tickets from me (via PayPal) for face value. There will also likely be a contest at some point during the season where I will give two tickets to a BTJ reader!
Tigers 16, Yankees 0
I had the joy of being able to attend tonight’s game and likely my last one of the season. I sat in the third row behind the Yankees dugout (section 122) and got to watch firsthand the Detroit Tigers absolutely destroy the New York Yankees, 16-0.
Verlander gave up just three hits and Placido Polanco was one of three Tigers with at least three hits, including his homer after Mussina was chased, to lead Detroit to a 16-0 win over New York on Monday night.
The Tigers, who outhit the Yankees 20-3, took three of the four games and won a series for the first time since sweeping Minnesota from July 17-19. Detroit didn’t make up any ground in the AL Central because the Cleveland Indians also won to maintain a 2 1/2-game lead.
A few photos from the game…
Go Tigers!
Review: It’s Not About the Truth
I just finished reading a book entitled It’s Not About the Truth by Don Yaeger. If you haven’t already heard of the book, it’s the “Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives It Shattered.” Yaeger has written 13 books and was the Associate Editor for Sports Illustrated for 10 years. He actually has already sold movie rights for this book.
Yaeger used notes taken by former Duke Lacrosse head coach Mike Pressler during the entire fiasco as well as thorough research into this case and the circumstances behind it. The book is definitely not pro-Mike Nifong, but it’s hard to argue with his viewpoint after you read everything that the team had to go through.
Now before I go any farther, I wanted to give you my thoughts about this case before I had read the book. When I first heard the news report that members of the Duke Lacrosse team had allegedly raped a stripper, I believed the report like most of America. As Yaeger argues, it was a perfect storm of rich white kids playing lacrosse at a prestigious university versus a poor black stripper that created a controversial story that the country jumped on.
After reading the book, I can actually better sympathize with the Duke players. Should they have hired two strippers for a party? No, it wasn’t a good idea. Were they perfect students? No. But the majority of college students drink and party so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the lacrosse players did so as well.
I attended a college preparatory high school where men’s lacrosse was pretty popular and quite a few of our players ended up playing for D-I programs (ie. Syracuse). For the most part, these players were white and from wealthy families. For me, I don’t find it hard to believe that the team was bored on spring break and made a poor decision by hiring two strippers. I also believe that when the two women who showed up were not what they requested, the strippers were asked to leave. Unfortunately, one stripper decided to lie and cry rape.
In part because of the racial division between the two sides and the fact that DA Mike Nifong needed the publicity to win the upcoming primary and consequent election, the case was pushed forward and heavily publicized despite the fact that the alleged rape victim kept changing her story and the DNA tests did nothing to prove a rape had happened by any of the lacrosse players.
I had casually followed the case on TV so I knew the basics about this case, but I was blown away by how completely unlucky the players on the team were. Nifong appeared to be on a witch hunt and didn’t look like he would stop until the jury read off the guilty verdict. Fortunately for the players, the tide started to turn and they were eventually able to clear their names but those three players will always be known for their role in the alleged Duke Lacrosse rape case.
If you have any interest in the case, I would highly suggest reading this book. It’s Not About the Truth was an easy and enjoyable read. It’s amazing how many things were left out of mainstream media about the alleged victim and even the DA. Yaeger estimates that Nifong “granted up to seventy interviews in rapid succession” and in those interviews he misinformed the public by making incorrect claims or ignoring facts that hurt his case. He also tried to attack the character of the lacrosse players during these interviews and one time called them hooligans.
My jaw literally dropped a couple times in utter shock of the things Nifong did. Here’s an excerpt from pages 262 and 263 that summarize some of the things Nifong did.
1) On more than one occasion, Nifong suggested condoms may have been used in the attack - this after he had read the report, which stated the victim said no condoms were used. Nifong knew the statements were false, but he still suggested circumstances that excused the exculpatory evidence.
2) The DA insinuated that results of certain tests performed as a part of the investigation proved their guilt. No such evidence existed.
3) Nifong openly proclaimed the players’ guilt, poisoning a potential jury pool.
4) Nifong should not have castigated the lacrosse players for their alleged refusal to cooperate with or make statements to law enforcement authorities. Nifong painted a picture that the players hid behind a wall of silence, which, it was noted, was false. They voluntarily helped investigators with the search warrant, offering personal statements and DNA.
5) Nifong also “defamed the character, credibility, and reputation” of the accused. This, along with his expression of opinions and views of the nature of the alleged crimes, had a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused. The bar cited sixteen comments that attacked the reputation of the accused white men and their “ganglike rape” of a black woman.
You can buy It’s Not About the Truth today on Amazon.com for only $16.50.
Holland talks during Tigers’ game
The Detroit Tigers played a game this evening against the NY Yankees, which they lost 7-2 in the second of four games in this series at Comerica Park.
Somewhere around the third or fourth inning, Red Wings GM Ken Holland came on to spend a little time in the broadcasting booth. He briefly discussed training camp and pushed available ticket packages. He even said that there are still some season tickets available (does that mean there is no waiting list?).
One of the two broadcasters asked Holland if he ever gets worried with the health of his players with all the “fisticuffs.” Holland’s reply is below (but I probably didn’t get it correct word for word and I also missed a couple of sentences):
“You always worry about your players, but at the same time it’s part of a game…you have to sacrifice your body. I thought our team physically stood up and matched up with the three teams we played in the postseason.
Lions lose to Colts, 37-10
The only other Detroit team in action tonight, the Lions, lost their first preseason game to the defending Super Bowl champs, the Indianapolis Colts. I wrote more about the game at my MVN blog, Lions Den.
Wings oldest team by age average
As of right now, the Detroit Red Wings have the oldest average age on their roster out of the 30 teams in the NHL according to James Mirtle. Their average age is 30.49 years. This comes as no surprise to me with Dominik Hasek, Chris Chelios, and Nicklas Lidstrom on our roster.
Admittedly, the average age will likely change for a lot of teams after training camp, but I don’t see the Wings average moving significantly in either direction especially with the signing of Dallas Drake this summer. Personally, I don’t see that average dropping for at least another few years. Hasek should be done after this season, but Cheli and Lids will still be playing and only getting older.
According to Mirtle, the league average is 27.94 years of age. The San Jose Sharks have the youngest average age for their roster with 26.05 years.
Vote for the Red Wings logo!
Thanks to a link from Paul @ Kukla’s Korner, I found a website called the NHL Tournament of Logos. The new blog has a goal to help determine the best logo in the NHL.
The Wings first face off against the LA Kings and the Wings are currently leading with 64% of the vote. You can vote through August 30th before the winning team moves onto the next round of the tournament.
This blog also does a great job covering all things NHL logos and jerseys so be sure to check it out if you haven’t already!
Review: Triumph by Jeremy Schaap
Early last week, I finished a book entitled Triumph by Jeremy Schaap. I went into the book figuring that I’d like it for a few reasons:
1) I thoroughly enjoyed reading Cinderella Man, which Schaap also wrote. The movie, of the same title, was based on his book and also one of my favorite movies.
2) I used to run varsity track before my knee got crappy and so the “untold story of Jesse Owens” sounded appealing.
3) I had just finished taking German class all summer where we did a fair amount of discussing WWII and Hitler.
What is Triumph about? Basically, the book takes a brief look at Jesse Owens’ childhood. The book then focuses on his career in college (he ran for OSU) including the day when he broke three world records and tied another in 45 minutes at the Big Ten Championship held in Ann Arbor, MI.
Triumph goes into the greatest detail around Owens making the Olympic team, traveling to Germany, and then performing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In Berlin, Adolf Hitler wanted to use the Games as a chance to sell Germany. The army was building at that point and he didn’t want Germany to look like it was preparing for war. Instead, he wanted to use the Games to lull people into a false sense of security.
For Hitler and his colleagues, the Berlin games were the ultimate opportunity not to promote their agenda but to hide their agenda under a cloak of hospitality, prosperity, and efficiency (p. 155).
I would encourage anyone interested in the role of sport in history or a fan of track/Jesse Owens to read this book. It isn’t the most scholarly book in the world especially with some scenes of “imagined dialogue,” but it was an enjoyable read and I felt that I took a lot away from the book.
I’ve read another book entitled Hitler’s Olympics and while I learned more about the setup of the Games and Hitler’s role in that book, I enjoyed Triumph more because you could follow one black athlete’s quest to win gold in Nazi Germany.
Redwings.nhl.com = Sharks website?
So I went to search for Detroit Red Wings news and accidentally hit search before clicking the news tab on Google. I was surprised to find this:
How does that happen? I know that the teams have been using the same overall template, but modified slightly for each team. But you’d think they’d catch this!