Pistons 94, Grizzlies 67

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I attended tonight’s Pistons game against the Memphis Grizzlies and as the score indicates, it was an easy Detroit win, 94-67. My last game at the Palace was a 2OT victory in the ECF against the hated Cleveland Cavaliers so this game seemed not so exciting. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the game but it only reaffirms how much I love hockey more.

A couple notes about the game:
- Darko Milicic (a former center drafted by the Pistons) had four turnovers in the first half. The entire Detroit team had just four turnovers in the same timespan. Darko was booed pretty much every time he touched the ball, unless he made a mistake and then he was cheered.
- Tigers pitcher Dontrelle Willis attended the game and was nicely applauded by the fans in attendance. He recently signed a three year extension and hopes to reach out to the African American community in the metro Detroit area.

Attendance problems too?
The Detroit Red Wings aren’t the only Detroit team with empty seats. While NBA.com is reporting a sold out arena with 22,076 in attendance, you can see that definitely is not the case in the following cases. These photos were taken right before the start of the game, around the midpoint of the game, and then with three minutes left.

Yes, it was a game against the Grizzlies who have a poor 8-18 record, but it was a Friday evening game over the holidays when you’d think people would have more time to go to the games. The crowd reminded me of the Joe last year when it was officially sold out, but looking at the arena it was anything but sold out.

Pistons vs. Grizzlies

The Memphis Grizzlies come into town tonight to take on the Detroit Pistons at 8pm. I will be taking my brother to the game since we found cheap $18 seats (that were $40 face value) center court in the upper bowl and I couldn’t turn them down. As always, Detroit Bad Boys and Need4Sheed have got you covered with the latest Pistons’ news.

On Sunday, I will watch the Lions take on the Kansas City Chiefs at Ford Field. If they lose Sunday, they will end the season with eight straight losses (because there’s no way they’ll win in Green Bay in their last game). If that happens, they will be the first team to start a season 6-2 and lose the next eight games. That’s the Lions for you. Fortunately, they will be honoring Barry Sanders on Sunday so it won’t be a complete loss for those in attendance.

I spent three hours last night working on the re-design and I finally found a template I liked and modified it to fit BTJ’s style and needs. It’s still not ready to go yet, but I wanted to keep you all posted.

Tigers’ trade boosted ticket sales

Yes it’s another Detroit Tigers post, but things are kind of exciting right now after that big deal went down earlier this week.

According to the Detroit News, the Tigers have sold over $1.28 million worth of season tickets on Wednesday and Thursday. Wow!

“In my 12 years with the Tigers, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bob Raymond, Tigers vice president of marketing and ticket sales, said Thursday. “Since I got into the office yesterday, the phones have been ringing nonstop. It’s almost 7 (p.m.) now, and the phones are still ringing.”

On top of that, TigerFest (the team’s annual winter event) sold out in just over 24 hours. The tickets went on sale at 10am on Tuesday. The big trade was finalized around 3:30pm on Tuesday. The event did sell out last year.

I know personally, I would love to get out to Comerica Park more often and I would like to buy some single game tickets when they go on sale in March. Unfortunately between not knowing the Wings playoff schedule and my own summer schedule, I’m not going to be able to do that and will likely have to rely on my friends taking me since their families have had season tickets for years.

I think that it’s safe to say the Tigers are the new hot item in town.

Tigers make a blockbuster trade

It’s on days like today, I miss the big signings or trades the Wings would do before the lockout and consequent salary cap. The Detroit Tigers, the other Ilitch owned pro Detroit sports team, made a blockbuster trade sending away their gems in the minor league in exchange for a great player who makes Detroit a World Series contender before the season even starts. I’m no Tigers’ expert and I definitely don’t know much about the other MLB teams so I will leave analysis to other bloggers who know more than I do.

What was the trade?

Detroit got Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis.
In exchange, the Florida Marlins received blue chip prospects in Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller, and Mike Rabelo and 3 minor league pitchers.

Pat @ AOL FanHouse:

First up you’ve got Cabrera. He’s 24-years-old and while a lot is made about his weight, check out his Baseball-Reference page and the age similarity comps. Yeah. I know. Fact of the matter is, he could be one of those players that only come along every twenty years or so at the plate, and he’s joining a lineup that’s already got Gary Sheffield, Magglio Ordonez, Curtis Granderson, Carlos Guillen, Edgar Renteria, and Placido Polanco. Yikes. I’m not nearly as high on Wilils, but at the age of 25, he’s only two years removed from finishing second in the NL Cy Young balloting. He’s tailed off since then, but he’s still worth taking a flyer on.

In return, the Marlins have extracted a king’s ransom. Miller was the Tigers’ top pick in the 2006 draft and he’s flown through the minors. He’s really a top shelf pitching prospect and has mostly dominated in the minors. He’s struggled a bit in some brief appearances with the big club in Detroit, but remember he’s only a year and a half from being drafted. Maybin is every bit as good of a prospect. He’s flown through the minors since being drafted out of high school in the first round of 2005’s draft. The Marlins couldn’t ask for two higher ceiling players.

Two-big time prospects for two young stars. Trades simply don’t get bigger than this.

Billfer @ The Detroit Tigers Weblog:

When Dave Dombrowski decides to go for it, boy does he go for it. Like in 1997 when he loaded up for a run at the World Series, Dombrowski has quickly put together what has to be considered the best line up in all of baseball. To do it they had to give up 2 of the blue-est of blue chippers. Normally I frown on such a move, but rarely do you get in return a 24 year old with 138 career home runs and a 313/388/542 line in 2700 at-bats either. The Tigers had to have emptied their farm system, but this isnâ€™t for a player on the wrong side of 30. This is someone who has yet to enter his peak. The Tigers have to sign him to a long term deal for this to work, but I canâ€™t imagine they make this trade without some sort of frame work in place.

As for Dontrelle Willis, his 5+ ERA in a pitchers park in the NL is certainly disconcerting. But the Tigers were giving up a player that was likely to be in their rotation next year, and they had to fill that spot and there are certainly worse ways to do it than with Willis.

The Tigers gave up some seriously talented players, but if youâ€™re going to do it, do it the way the Tigers did and get a couple guys in their mid 20â€™s in return. Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller are tremendous prospects, but Cabrera is a rare, rare player and for the Tigers to acquire him is a major coup.

I know that for me, a Tigers’ fan but not a superfan, it’s an exciting trade and will get me to Comerica Park even moreso than last year (7 games). I can only imagine how excited the superfans must be right now.

Detroit News reporter hates bloggers

A Detroit News beat reporter who covers the Detroit Pistons, Chris McCosky, went on a rant in his latest opinion piece targeting sports bloggers, Detroit Tigers bloggers in particular. His piece has gotten plenty of responses out of the blogosphere so I really don’t have anything extra to add to the discussion, but I wanted to round up the responses to the piece.

Let’s start with the original column (here’s just a snippet).

A lot of times these bloggers use the work of legitimate reporters. They will lift facts and segments of stories and cut and paste them onto their blog. Rarely, if ever, though, do they bother to credit the source.

They will write something like, “I am hearing the Pistons are going to start Antonio McDyess this year.” Well, wonder where you “heard” that. It was reported in the darn newspaper. Yet, the same blogger will go out of their way to ridicule the source they stole from.

Bloggers are having a field day speculating on how Joel Zumaya really injured his shoulder. Nobody believes a heavy box fell on him. So the Internet is rife with stories about how he fell off his dirt bike.

Now unless one of these bloggers knows Zumaya, or has seen him or knows somebody who saw him crash his bike, they don’t know anything.

But because there is no accountability, because there are no repercussions for being wrong, because they will never have to look Zumaya in the face, who cares? Make up whatever you want.

So in a span of five short paragraphs, McCosky criticizes both Detroit Pistons and Detroit Tigers bloggers. He says these bloggers essentially steal information from beat reporters and pass it off as his own. These bloggers also are busy reporting a different account of how Zumaya got injured.

As a Detroit sports fan, I regularly read Pistons and Tigers blogs including my favorites Detroit Bad Boys, Need 4 Sheed, Mack Avenue Tigers, and Bless You Boys. None of those blogs use information gathered by beat reporters and then fail to give credit where credit is due. Except for the rare exceptions, the popular sports blogs tend to be ones who are credible to some extent and cite their sources (moreso than some reporters). I can’t account for every single Pistons and Tigers blogs, but all the ones that I have read so far link back to articles they use quotes and whatnot from.

McCosky then argued that Tigers blogs have been speculating about Zumaya getting his serious shoulder injury by a dirt bike accident instead of a box falling on top of it. I don’t think McCosky understands the difference between bloggers and message boards. Some boards have definitely been discussing this rumor that originated on an ESPN message board (but you wouldn’t know that reading McCosky’s article because he didn’t reference any blogs that started/talked about this rumor). However, this rumor was not a popular item discussed by Tigers blogs.

There is not a single Detroit Tigers blog that posted this rumor about Joel Zumaya injuring his shoulder while dirt-biking. And if I’m wrong about that, McCosky didn’t bother to point me to where I’d find this theory. As far as I can tell, the closest anyone came to that was me addressing that conspiracy theories were being floated out there and linking to a couple of places where such rumors could be found. I also said that such conjecture was irrelevant. And do you know what opened the door to such a subject being approached in the first place? An article by McCosky’s colleague at the Detroit News, Lynn Henning.

McCosky then goes on to write:

And what they do is vastly different than what the clever dude in his pajamas is doing on his computer, down in his basement.

Yeah, there are so many sports bloggers that sit in their PJs blogging all day making up rumors just to spite reporters. A majority of sports bloggers, I would say, have a job outside sports blogging to pay the bills or are a student, like myself. Unlike sports reporters whose sole purpose is to cover the team or sport at hand, most bloggers do this as a hobby. I take 18 hours of class every week. I work 15-40 hours per week depending on how many Wings games there are that week. I blog when I can. Yes, I do make some money from advertising, but we blog because we felt something was lacking in the coverage of the team and wanted to add our own opinion to the mix. I think the coverage provided by the top sports blogs is truly impressive since a lot of them do have other jobs and responsibilities, but are willing to spend the time and effort to write and analyze their team.

And it’s not like most of us bloggers go around claiming to be journalists. Some of us have moved from merely blogging as a hobby to writing for the Sporting News (ie. Eric McErlain at Off Wing Opinion), but we blog because we’re trying to fill a void left by the mass media. Some bloggers don’t even have the tiniest desires to be journalist-like. I think it’s safe to say a majority of our readers realize that we are not affiliated with a news media organization and are not, ourselves, journalists. Many of us bloggers have an about us page saying how we’re qualified (if we even are) to talk about the team or sport(s) our blog covers. We’re pretty up front about our background (ie. freelance writer or random guy with a job unrelated to sports but has lots of opinions about his favorite team or a student trying to break into the sports business).

Other reactions after the jump…
Read the rest of this entry »

Lions win to go 6-2

The Detroit Lions are now 6-2 this season. Wow!

As such, I have ended my personal financial boycott of the team. Until today, I refused to purchase tickets or Lions items until the team went .500 or fired Matt Millen. I have been quite impressed with the team’s play and decided to celebrate by purchasing two tickets to their game on December 23rd against the Kansas City Chiefs. I’ve attended at least 5 Tigers, Pistons, and Wings games, but this will be my first Lions game ever. I also just ordered a Calvin Johnson jersey so that I have something to wear to my first game.

Update: I posted some comments about the game over at one of my other sports blogs, Lions Den.

Lions beat Vikings in OT, 20-17

So the Lions have started off their season, 2-0. Both wins were by no means pretty, but they are undefeated. I did a brief write up of today’s football game over at MVN’s Lions Den.

Ilitch pleased with Tigers turnaround

Yesterday at a team photo, Red Wings and Tigers owner Mike Ilitch posed with his baseball team and then answered questions afterwards. After owning a successful hockey team for so long, it has to feel great to have your baseball team start to turn around with games selling out for the most part.

On how this season will be the first in which the team draws three million fans: “Isn’t that something? I used to look at the Red Sox (who sell out every game) and say, ‘I’d love to be like that one day.’ “

On how the Tigers remain in the wild-card race despite many injuries: “It’s incredible … and we didn’t get the pitching and hitting coinciding. You feel you should be 15 games out, or 12.” …

On whether drawing 3 million instead of 2.5 million increases the club’s spending power for next year’s roster: “Yes, but not that much to make a difference if you want to sign a real big player. … If a player comes along and we need him, somehow you always try to figure out how you can get him.”

I’d love to attend one more Tigers game this season, but it’s hard to get decent seats for face value and the Wings first home preseason game is next Thursday so I’m going to get pretty busy with work (I have this week off because they’re all up in Traverse City for training camp).

The Tigers have won 7 of the last 10 games, but are pretty much out of reach in their division race. In the wild card race, they’re four games back from the NY Yankees. They have 15 games left in the season so it’s going to be a very tight race to the finish and it’ll definitely keep us Tigers fans on the edge of our seats.

Lions’ game could be blacked out

Yep, you read that headline right. For a change, the Detroit Lions are having a slight struggle with ticket sales. As of yesterday afternoon, the team needed to sell 3500 more tickets by Thursday at 4:05pm in order to prevent a local blackout of the game.

There are still 3,500 tickets remaining for Sunday’s game with the Minnesota Vikings and if it’s not sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff — 4:05 p.m. Thursday — the game will be blacked out.

It’s possible the Lions might get a 24-hour extension by the league, moving the deadline to 4:05 p.m. Friday.

Fans who want to purchase tickets online can do so by either going to detroitlions.com or ticketmaster.com. The phone number to TicketMaster is 248-645-6666.

If the game fails to sell out, it’d be the first time since moving into Ford Field in 2002.

As much as I’d love for the game to sell out so I could actually watch it on TV, I think it’d be better for the team if it doesn’t sell out. Maybe team owner William Ford would actually take note and if he notices a slight pinch in his pocketbook, maybe he’ll fire Millen?

If you didn’t already know, I’m partaking in my own personal boycott of the Lions in a financial sense. Yes, I do watch the games on TV and blog about the team at MVN’s Lions Den, but I have not and will not buy a ticket to a game (even though I’d like to go) or buy any kind of Lions merchandise/memorabilia until Matt Millen is fired or the team is over .500 at the completion of a season.

Update: The NFL granted the Lions a 24 hour extension so they have until Friday at 4:05pm to sell out (around 2000 tickets are left). If they do not sell out, it would end their 40 game sell out streak.

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…