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Had to share...

Are all our teams in the minors done now? Time to close this thread? If so, Kudo’s and other chocolatety-covered granola treats to LongLiveMaroth for his daily commitment in providing summaries for all of our minor league games this past season. Sir, you are a scholar and a gentleman!

I'm not sure I like being ranked a rookie again... Apparently I need 14 more points to reach the next level, whatever that may be. Help a guy out and LIKE this post (and my others please)!

I have been off the grid in terms of my interest level in this team this season — and all sports related passions — but from a distance I have enjoyed this latest run. My son who just turned 21 a few weeks ago has now become a true Tigers fan, a man of the cloth, whose young heart is bursting with love for this team, and he’s talking about the playoffs with an endearing sincerity that makes me fear for his sanity and well-being. He listens to all the games on his phone and he’ll call me and tell me passionately about all the good things that have happened as of late. Having been there myself, I have no right to tell him that he’s kind of like the school nerd who’s trying to get the hottest cheerleader in school to date him and that the results will be humiliating. Right now he’s excited that the MLB free game of the day on Friday will be the Tigers against the Mariners and he wants to watch it with me and I told him that it will most likely be blacked out because we live in the Mariners TV area and he doesn’t believe me because he can’t believe MLB would be that mean. He’s that sincere. He’s like a bumpkin who’s in Paris for the first time in the 1880s to hang out with the Impressionist painters and when he sees the pretty prostitutes on the Rue des Lorettes he thinks they’re just nice girls who honestly like him and want to have a good time. I want to tell him “been there done that and learned my lesson” but it’s something he just has to learn for himself. Cheers to you all.

My wife Mary (27th anniversary was a couple of weeks ago) has breast cancer. She found out she had it on the same day she found out that I likely gave her Covid, in late April. She was detected early, thank god, but it took 2 surgeries for them to get rid of the cancer, and now she is going through chemo. She's now more than halfway done with the chemo, so she's rounding 2nd base in a way. We are holding up well. It's been a big help having my son home during this trying time. We appreciate any thoughts and prayers. Thank you.

a good time (and snacks) was had by all.

So the Monday after Father's day my grandpa went shopping at Jos A Bank in Birmingham. Afterwards he forgot where he had parked and was wandering around looking for his car when a lady carrying a baby saw him and offered to help. After driving him around for a while without finding the car my grandpa said to just drop him off so she could take the baby home. She refused to just leave him walking around during the heat wave so she took him to her house where her husband was working from home. The husband then drove my grandpa around to look for his car, but they still couldn't find it. My grandpa had left his phone in the car so eventually they called my uncle who was able to give them the location of the car. Anyways, it turns out that it was Scott Harris and his wife who drove my grandpa around Birmingham to help him find his car.

I was born in 1952 and started following the Tigers in 1961 and was huge huge into it through 1968 — baseball cards, glossy photographs of the players on my wall, pennants, all the paraphernalia symbolizing magical amulets that sort of it made me feel good made me feel a part of something bigger and better than myself. After the World Series victory in ‘68 I had got what I needed in life and was generally disinterested because I was a young man living a young man’s life and that was more nourishing than being a boy and liking a baseball team. It was like in the Bible where you put away childish things. In 1973 I moved to Arizona couldn’t pick up Ernie on the radio and the team sucked so often even a box score disinterested me. I pretty much missed The Bird and only saw him on national TV broadcasts. I was in my 20s and livin’ the life in the mountains and desert and it was better than the baseball team I worshiped as a child In 1984 in Tucson where half of my best friends were from Detroit we followed that magical season with shared passion. After games my friends who had lived in Detroit would tell me about going to bar in Corktown and seeing the players there. Gibby once crashed at friend’s house after a night of partying in Ann Arbor. I felt like I was sort of in the mix with my pals that year. I moved to Idaho in my mid-30s and ‘87 was a good year then hugely disappointing and I totally forgot about the team. Then in 2004 a fast and surprising start and my discovery of MTS through the Internet brought me back into the fold. The responsibility of life in my 30s was exhilarating and oppressive and going back to something from my childhood made me feel better. Now I’m back to generally not giving a shit. I’m 70 years old I could die in the blink of an instant because people I know are doing that all the time and my time could be better spent on something other than a profoundly unsatisfying team. The only thing that keeps me interested is you morons because I love you more than this stupid blanking team.

They also get burned every time they jump into the drafting and developing of players to fix their problems. They also get burned every time they jump into the trading of players to fix their problems. I think their problem may be with the people who are doing the jumping into things, not the things that they are jumping into.

Schools that get to select their students do well. one reason public schools always score worse than private is because they have to take every student. Many students have disabilities across the board along with language barriers and horrible home lives. Many are homeless. It might surprise you to find out they don’t do as well. They also cost more to take care of. So when you callously speak about bloated budgets you should understand what much of that money goes to. It’s not an apples to apples comparison. 60-70 years ago these kids were discarded and thrown into institutions and forgotten about. You know…back in the “good old days”. It takes a special kind of cruelty to ignore our most vulnerable kids and citizens but with today’s GOP that’s ultimately the point isn’t it?

Hey Everybody, Not sure who remembers me, I was a regular on MotownSports and joined way back in like 2003. I remember the countless inside jokes over the years, SlickNickShady's 'hat on bed' pictures, Library Monkey/Titus Tigers famous animated gifs in the game threads. And so many more memories of the old days. I really miss all the sabremetric discussion. There were some really brilliant math-oriented people who used to post here. Hope there is still a lot of that. I remember most of the old posters, Yoda, Biff, Yooper, Chasf, Oblong, Tiger337, etc. I hope many of the old crowd is still around. Unfortunately, life just got in the way and I had to step away for a long time, but seeing this run the Tigers are making inspired me to make my return. Anyway, sorry for the useless thread, it will be the only one of it's type that I create, I just wanted to say I missed you all and am happy to be back.

Jim Price after reaching heaven: "Nice Area"

Look who I happened across! Or is it “whom”

I can’t lecture anyone who faces this slam dunk series with some trepidation. Because nothing is for certain. But we have earned the right to be hopeful. It’s even an obligation. This team is its own fierce beast. It is not haunted by the spirit of previous clubs which have either charmed or dismayed us. All of that is in our heads, and none of that is in their’s. They live in an eternal present of their own making, with its own pulse, tempos, and potential that exceeds anything of our own manufacture, but which does in some mysterious fashion, feed upon our enthusiasm. They are an assemblage of new players led by a forward-looking staff and upper-management which daily creates and re-creates its own internal reality, its own energies of propulsion. They are a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. They are not obligated to carry or endure the burdens of our past. If that were the case, this recent miracle would never have occurred. Because it is no “miracle.” It has been done on purpose. It is completely intentional. Our memories of previous failures do not pierce the bubble in which these 26 young men and their leaders thrive. But they do in some mysterious manner feed off our hope. They have surprised and delighted us for the last 40+ games and we are honored to savor the dignity of their unique momentum wherever it takes us. LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

Just got back home. Electric atmosphere down there. Just awesome.

It’s always a mistake when I go on a Tigers-oriented Facebook page and read the blathering idiocy of ordinary fans. It makes me appreciate this place even though we are Morans. Two or three months ago, scores of ordinary fans on a Facebook Tigers page were venting their rage at Verlander claiming that he had left the team in free agency for more money and they could never forgive him. There were so many of them almost no one could be heard over their grunts that simulated reasoned discourse Just now it was white hot rage at the Jack Flaherty trade that anyone with brain tissue knew was inevitable. Even though we are fewer than we once were, I’m glad the few of us who remain are still together.

If I were a manager I would just start pulling guys mid game to mess with everybody.

My wife had a biopsy of neck lymph nodes about two weeks ago. We have been on pins and needles. Reults came back benign today!

Five more days for me. Almost 67 and hoping SS plus some investments cover me. Both my parents lived well into their nineties.

Folks, this is Lucy. We just got home so she's a little anxious and she's exploring the whole house. She's a very mellow girl

Another gem from The Ghost of Ernie twitter feed

Got to see my oldest and her high school choir perform at Carnegie Hall earlier this week. It brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. I’ve never had any interest in going to NYC, but ain’t no way I was missing this. Obviously the theater has its history and ambiance. Fortunately we were able to easily see her from our balcony. Then we hustled her down to Philadelphia for her final matching band performance in the Thanksgiving Day parade. It was raining and we got a bit of a late start to walk to where we thought would be a good viewing spot. We literally got to the spot just before the float in front of them. As we were approaching and couldn’t really see much, I thought for sure I heard one of their usual parade songs. We kind of lucked out to see/hear them perform one of their Christmas songs, too.

If you say you're afraid of Sarah McBride because of an assault in high school, but not of actual men like Matt Gaetz who preys on teen girls, Brett Kavanaugh, who sexually assaulted a teenager in high school or Donald Trump who publicly stated he likes to leer at naked young girls, sit down and shut the **** up. Not only is at insult to sexual assault victims to use her experience for a political stunt, but she's putting actual vulnerable human beings who are already at high risk for attacks even more at risk. Deplorable.

Not directed at you individually, so please don't take this as such.... There is tons of help on the ground in NC....and in VA, and in TN, and in SC, and in GA, and in FL. Any assertion otherwise is complete and total BS. I haven't seen my family in three weeks because I'm on the ground providing support. I know.

and I will tell you that as a woman, I didn’t say a word about a sexual assault that happened to me until 50 years after it happened. edited to delete my second paragraph, and to say, the hell with this. Sexual assaults happen. Sometimes with witnesses, more often without… and because you know that the pushback and ridicule you encounter if you dare bring it up, often you just bury it in your own mind.

So this setup is similar to ALDS against the Yankees in 2006 - Tigers up 2 games to 1 with a chance to end the series with a Game 4 win. We remember how great that turned out. Everyone remembers for the Kenny Rogers et al. post-game celebrations with the fans, as do I, but I also remember it as the last game I ever attended with my dad. And I think it was his final time at a Tigers game, ever, even though he lived another 6 years.

The gambling stuff is out of control. It needs to go the way of tobacco advertising.

I have concepts of a plan!

Deep-seated fears of a Trump autocracy have led me to this path. It started when I first saw him in a debate in 2015 and I thought "nobody could be this stupid and still have so many people cheering him on" but then I saw the people cheering him on. His background in professional wrestling and his association with Playboy magazine were things I felt would be handicaps but the rubes loved him. That scared me a lot. It indicated that the base of the Republican Party was damaged. I looked across the aisle at the democrats and they also seemed chaotic but there was always an appeal to reason in their sometimes-emotional responses to issues. I started seeing the crazy manipulative messages in online fora. I saw them in the firearms community which I participated. You couldn't go very far without some discussion about the government taking your weapons. Then 2016 came and I didn't love Hillary. She is and always seemed like Richard Nixon in female form. I voted third party in the 2016 election assuming she would win. Watching my wife lose the first chance at a female president was shattering for her. I grieved for her pain. And to lose to such a hustling liar. We spent 4 of the most painful years with him as president. I worked in a field where I engaged with presidential threats that crossed over from Obama to Trump. The threats changed from unhinged racists ones against POTUS to unhinged racist threats against the people who didn't support "our president." And of course you were around, so you saw how terrible he was on the World stage. He hated our allies. He tried to create rifts where none needed to exist. He actively denigrated alliances. He curried favor with his benefactor in the 2016 elections Vladimir Putin, he leaked classified intelligence programs from the Israelis. He empowered the rise of a warlike PRC and his response with some whack-a-mole tariffs allowed corrupt people to game them so that instead of goods being traded at value they were sold below value to a country like Argentina which then in turn pivoted and sold them (still under market value) to the PRC. His response to COVID 19 was a nightmare of bungling and he created the conditions where statistically many hundreds of thousands more people died because they resisted the correct responses to a pandemic. Then the George Floyd response. He didn't offer respect to the people angry at the murder. Nah dog...i'm going to turn it into a cosplay autocracy where we have the Gadsden Flag-plated late model pickups bestrewn with NRA and firearms manufacturer stickers unloading their deputized Bureau of Prisons employee owners so they can don body army and face shields so they stand in phalanx on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Because that's what Lincoln would have wanted: a protest turned into a bloody riot. (Irony) So, that misery finally ends with the restoration of decency with a Biden win. Oh, but Trump can't abide that. He insists that Mike Pence carry out an end run on Democracy and install him for another term. So, he gets his rabble to storm the Capitol and tells that group of intellectual heroes that Mike Pence is responsible. And being a rabble they show up with a gallows and proceed to storm the building defecating in the offices of Nancy Pelosi. She of course is also the victim of an assassination attempt later when one of his devotees arrives at her home and tries to nail her husband's head to the floor. This is of course cheered on by Trump's cocaine-fueled son and his other followers because decency is for the other guys. Trump is eventually required to leave office. He begrudgingly does but not before he takes cartons and cartons of highly sensitive classified documents to his Florida golf club/rental property. These documents include details of operations and sources and methods. Revealing the details will in fact lead to the death of programs and people who put their lives and well-being on the line to carry them out. He is caught in this act and fights tooth and nail any effort to return the documents. Then Trump's friend decides that its time to rebuild the Soviet Union and invades Ukraine. Because Trump is not president the people of Ukraine are able to mount a spirited resistance and they are able through the spirit of the nationhood and the support of the NATO alliance resist Putin. Trump hates this because most of his fortune after his multiple bankruptcies was from Russia. Trump is never seen as happy in public as when he is with Putin. Tweedledumb and Tweedleevil Biden and his team have a competency about foreign affairs. He rallies NATO and allows NATO and the EU to help the Ukrainians. Their war grinds the once-vaunted (and believe me I at one time studied the Russian mil closely) armed forces down to where they are conscripting 60-year old men and prisoners. Putin being Putin he arrests American reporters and others so he can use them as trade chips. Trump deciding that he can ignore the Logan Act and says he can get these people out of Putin's jails because he has a special relationship and that he would end the war in Ukraine very quickly...because he would remove the United States from NATO. Which his attempts to do so in his first term are very well documented. So, now we are at the stage where Biden is old. He appears to have lost a step. And the perception of that is as damaging as the reality. So, his trusted understudy appears and she is everything that Trump hates: female, African-American, prosecutor, Californian, a believer in systems of Democracy and the Rule of Law. And for me the "two Corinthians" of an effective system of Democracy is the Rule of Law. If you don't have it you are NOTHING. I hope that bumper sticker of a post tidied it up for you.

I'm hanging up the phone if they don't include Holliday or Basallo. If Im trading the top pitcher in baseball who is under control for 2yrs and 3 postseasons I'm not settling for the other teams prospects that they feel are expendable or what works for them. No you're giving up what works for us and paying the premium of one of your top 2 guys, if you won't then somebody else will....or we'll just keep him and get another Cy Young season out of him.

He has immunity though so it’s all good.

In memory of Brian Bluhm. 17 years ago on April 16, 2007- we lost a treasured friend and member who was killed at Virginia Tech. ”And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.” – Maya Angelou RIP, Brian.

Showing off my new hobby. I posted in the Lions forum some "statues" I make of Lions and I wanted to show off my Tigers too.

Going from Lake City, PA, to this one today with my son. First time at CoPa! Hope I bring the boys good luck!

See ya. 👋🏻 You don’t add to our community.

No offense, but I take an internet poster’s opinion of ERod’s “loyalty and teamsmanship” with a huge grain of salt. It may be very accurate, but is still just an opinion.

My kids a ball hawk. They let us in early and actually get to see Tigers BP.

It seems when a team can't produce home grown talent and has issues keeping players healthy and botching rehabs and the first thing the new guy does is overhaul the amateur scouting department and training staff, it's hard to say nothing has been done.

Huron Valley called me and asked if I could foster Lucy while she goes through her medical crisis. I said yes. If am a foster I won't have to pay for the medical issues but I can give her a home with a yard and a companion. I could adopt her after that if her health allows it. I know I am setting myself up for another heartbreak, but going through what she is, and as sweet as she is, she needs some comfort in her life. If things work out she could survive for a long time. I am going to get her on Saturday morning. I don't think I would experience the kind of heartbreak I had with Diego. He was my best friend for 15 years. If I can make her last months or years happy, why wouldn't I? In honor of Diego.

Right. I want to circle back to this because I think this is a great example of how scouts project a player and often times fans don't necessarily understand why they're quick to tag a guy in a certain role or limit their potential in a write-up, instead of just assuming growth where they need it. With a guy like Flores, I'm not going to project the CV to develop much because I don't have any evidence in the current profile of him being able to manipulate the ball in the way he needs to in order for the CV to step forward. Right now the arsenal has a fastball and cutter, which let's be honest is just a variation on the fastball with grip or finger pressure changes. The CV currently doesn't have the type of spin rate to suggest he's got "it" to snap it off down the line. If, let's say, he threw a competent slider or even a changeup (though this would be a tougher leap), then I have evidence that he can spin or manipulate SOMETHING. In that case, I'm going to at least consider projecting advancement of the CV, maybe not much but some. Instead, I'm left with a fastball pitcher that doesn't yet generate the spin necessary for success with the CV. On top of that, even if he shifts to a slider and somehow finds success, he still doesn't have anything with a significant vertical component. Without that, he's generally working in at best just the vicinity of one plane, maybe actually in just one plane, so he has to demonstrate ability to change planes with location consistently. All that combined, a fastball/cutter arm that needs to elevate to change sight lines instead of utilizing pitch movement, and not seeing any substantial ability to spin the ball, leaves him with a relief profile (for me, anyway). If he breaks the expected path he's on and suddenly finds more spin as he develops, then that's a substantial profile change that necessitates revisiting the overall projection. I'd adjust that projection if that happens, but as it stands now it wouldn't be prudent to project anything more than relief in his future.

More fail as usual. Mark Cuban doesn’t own the Mavs anymore. He sold the majority stake. Making your post even better, the idiot that owns them now is one of Trump’s biggest personal donors.

You know, if you don't care about supporting the team, there are any number of options at your disposal during this time of rebuilding. You can root for the Lions or Red Wings or U of M or other local teams. If you want to still root for a baseball team and don't want to waste your team on what a team you must think of as losers, you can choose to root for a team that has consistent success, like the Dodgers or Yankees, or who are doing well now, like the Guardians or Orioles or Phillies or Brewers or Mariners. Or, hey: how about the Twins or Nationals or Mets? They are all 8-2 in their last ten games, so they're hot. Maybe you can jump on one of their bandwagons for a while. Point being, if you must root for a team that is winning right now, at this minute, and you either don't understand or don't care about the efforts the team you are posting about here is undertaking to make the organization a winner—or, more likely, if you think the team organization is overrun with bad actors trying to undermine it at every turn so they can laugh at you for following them in the first place—then the Tigers probably aren't the team for you. Either way, even though there is a lot going on with this team that can be fairly criticized, the relentless, childish, and unserious negativity is just soul-crushingly boring. You can obviously stay here and post as much as you like, but if this is what we're going to continue to see from you, then I don't know who around here is going to take you seriously. Word to the wise.

Posting early as I will be taking part in the pilgrimage to downtown Deeetroit tomorrow!

I like all of the new guys better than every single guy that Harris replaced.