RedRamage

Watching yesterday's game and I was really struck by how much the "Marathon" ad patch on the Guardians' jerseys stood out. Did we just luck out in meijer being nice about a small logo and letting the color match the uniform? I mean ideally there wouldn't be ads on the jerseys, but I get that money talks so the ads aren't going away. We could have gotten a lot worse than what we go in terms of ads: Edit to ad: Just to be clear here... I'm strictly talking talking about the look of the logo and how well it blends in or doesn't blend in with the jersey. This isn't a commentary on any of the companies here.

I thought I remember someone saying like just a week ago that Glenn had "really stepped up this season." Now he's trash that makes other everyone else look like superstars?

This was a pretty bad bye week for the Lions... Vikings win... Bears win... Packers win... Even the Cowboys win. 😞 I guess at least the 49ers lost, so there's that.

Personally I think it Leersehn's work is more of a case of undoing the extremism that Stump painted. Like according to Stump: Ty Cobb was a horrible person because he did W and X and Y and Z. Leersehn seemed to be saying: Well actually he didn't do W. He did do X, but the details surrounding it were reported wrong, everyone of the era was doing Y, and Z's only source is another player who had a long standing grudge with Cobb. Again I'll need to re-read the book sometime because it's been a while. And on that note, I would be curious if you have other books/sources that you'd recommend.

I think this argument would have been much more persuasive 20 years ago. These days with the internet this information is easily available for everyone with just a few clicks and a few google searches. The HOF isn't really a education source... I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of people who learn something new after visiting there, but it's not like the ultimate source for baseball info. Honestly HOF entry is more of a honoring of a player for what he did in/for baseball. In that regard I have no problem with dis-allowing people that baseball doesn't want associated with them.

Now I'm gonna have to re-read it sometime soon... My basic take away was that Cobb was, more or less, about what the average southern man of the era was like... which includes being prejudice/racist to some level. This doesn't make Cobb a saint of course, but the perception that he was MORE aggressive than, or MORE racist than, or MORE sexist than your average baseball player of the era is probably wrong. I don't think the author was trying to paint Cobb as perfect, but just not the extremist that he's been viewed as via the work of Stump. I believe that his showing of the Freep being racist is showing what culture was like at that time. I think the author pointing how some of the stories were inaccurate (the one example being the fight Cobb got into with an elevator operator and with a watchman at a hotel NOT being black men, but instead being white men) shows how Stump created a false narrative. All in all Cobb was almost certainly racist/prejudice to some level and simply saying: "Well, so was everyone" isn't really a vindication. I'm repeating myself here, but I'm not saying Cobb was a great morally upstanding man who we should honor and respect and elevate as a wonderful human. I am saying that probably any sports figure from the era had as much questionable about them as Cobb so if someone wants to shy away from being a fan of Cobb because he was [x] or he was [y] then I would expect them to behave the same way about nearly everyone from this era. (Just to be 100% clear: I am NOT saying you are acting that way towards Cobb while not towards other players of the era.)

https://www.amazon.com/Ty-Cobb-Terrible-Charles-Leerhsen/dp/1451645791/ This is a great read on Ty Cobb where the authors try to get to the source info as much as possible. Their conclusion (if I'm remembering correct, it's been a few years since I read it) is that Ty Cobb, for his era, was not really a stand out. Obviously this doesn't make him a saint, but much of the idea that he was an evil guy who was very racist, very aggressive, hated women, etc. is either greatly exaggerated or straight made up fiction.

I would say yes, it has improved. Dramatically?? Eh, probably not dramatically, but I do believe it's better. Having said that, last night's game did NOT look better.

I did think it might have been a good idea to run more late in the game to eat up clock and try to give the defense a breather, but at the same time I'm not going to complain too much with scoring fast when you're already leading.* *Obviously in select situations, like 4 minutes to go, down by 5 pts, you're prefer to use up as much time as possible before scoring a TD, but this wasn't one of those situations.

Win percentage for the Lions means as much as playoff chances for the Tigers.

Currently: Geno is leaving the league in passing yards (Granted, getting 383 against the Lions helped that). Geno is second in completion percentage for players who have 50+ passing attempts. Geno is first in attempts, and first in completions Smith may not be top tier QB, but he's far from a bottom feeder.

Totally agree. Many times I thought the calls on the Lions were bad and many times the calls on the 'Hawks were: "UImm... o... okay, I'll take it I guess.... it helped us so..." The 2-pt attempted especially... that was pretty clearly a successful try there and I think the refs were so worried about enforcing the penalty on the Lions that no one thought: "Hmmm... should we double check if he made the catch or not?"

Look, I fully get that emotions run high during the game an all, but dude... your flip flopping here is off the charts.

Very much agree on that. Get in the end zone, then celebrate. And speaking of celebrations, why the heck is dunking still a foul? That's beyond stupid. I mean I get why it was a foul back when the NFL was the ultimate No Fun League with cracking down on TD celebrations, but now that they're not doing that anymore (thank goodness), why is dunking still a foul?

I really didn't understand it. I don't know that that decision lost them the game, but it was very odd. I think it certainly changed the attitude of both teams a bit though so I'm glad they tried and failed.

I mean Goff has scored a TD on 50% of his receptions while Jefferson scores on just a bit over 8% of his receptions. It's hard to argue that Goff isn't an elite receiver in the NFL with that kind of production.

Yeah but... he knew that he had a chance for a perfect throwing performance so didn't want to ruin it on his first possession.

I was NOT a fan of the blue helmet when they were revealed, but I think they actually went pretty well with the black unis.

It would not shock me if the Lions lost. If I was betting man I wouldn't bet on that, but I'm also not going to be overtly surprised if it happens. I felt the Lions did quite well last week in containing Murray (just 45 yards), but they haven't historically been great against mobile QBs. Hopefully last week was an indicator that they're putting more importance on containment, but I'll believe it when I see it. So I'm already feeling a bit nervous. And then as you said @Mr.TaterSalad, Geno some how just LOVES playing in Ford Field: Across two games he's 55 of 71 passes complete for 648 yards - 4 TDs, only sacked once, also ran for 69 yards and a TD as well.

I'm sure that's because of the opponents being faced the last three games.

And just because it's fun to kick them while they're down... if you look really closely, there actually are five lines in this graph. Seriously!

As dramatic as that is, this one seems even more amazing: On August 11th, we had a 0.2% chance of making the playoffs. In 47 days that changes rose 99%. On average each day during that span the Tigers added more than 2.1% to their chance of making the playoffs.

Like the 2003 Tigers, the Sox are pushing through a bit of a winning streak to end the years. They are actually 5-5 in their last ten games... a .500 record! They've won two in a row. That's the good news. The bad news is that unlike the Tigers they've already hit 120 losses and even winning out means they'll finish worse than the '03 Tigers and at least tied for the most losses in the WS era. And there does not appear to be any way that the Tigers can clinch a playoff spot prior to that first game against Chicago so the Tigers will not be coasting... at least for that first game. The chance that the Sox don't lose at least one more game is very low. Still, giving them credit where it's due... they've already won as many games in September as they did in all of July and August combined.