AL Central Suddenly A Race?


Not quite Manny enough to score...

Oh boy, we were waiting for it.

After losing two of three to the Minnesota Twins and then getting swept by the Chicago White Sox, the Detroit Tigers, this season's golden boys who could do no wrong, were suddenly looking like they'd been caught by an upper cut, perhaps a little wobbly on the feet, shaking the cobwebs from the head.

Sure they still had a 5 1/2 game lead over the White Sox. But that had been whittled down from double digits in record time and the Tigers were traveling all the way to Boston in what appears to be a quasi crucial series, if not for the Tigers then certainly for the Red Sox.

"You're going to hear everything. From a manager's standpoint, you're going to hear, `Oh the Tigers are going to hang on, they're going to win.' `The Tigers are choking,' blah, blah, blah. `They don't know what to do, they got too many young guys who haven't been in this situation.'

"You're going to hear all this, and what does it mean? It doesn't mean anything. What it means is that these guys have to go out, between the lines, play the games, and see if we're good enough."

-Marlboro chain smoker and Tiger Manager, Jim Leyland

*****

The Tigers took round one last night at Fenway with a 7-4 win over free agent super signing Josh Beckett. The Red Sox now lead the Tigers, 995-936, since 1901.

But in recounting the past there were several pivotal moments in this rivalry, recently:

The Red Sox and Tigers went eyeball-to-eyeball in the magical summer of 1967. The Red Sox won that pennant while standing in their Fenway clubhouse, listening to the redoubtable Harwell describe Dick McAuliffe's game-ending double play grounder in Detroit.

In 1972, it was Billy Martin's Tigers taking the division by beating Boston in the first two games of a season-ending series (that's when Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio fell down twice rounding third base for the Red Sox).

Meanwhile the White Sox were winning again, this time 12-2 over the lowly KC Royals. The Sox's five-game winning streak is their longest since they won nine straight in late June and trailed Detroit by a half-game.

They further extended their lead in the AL wild-card race to three games over Boston and Minnesota.

*****
BUS-TED



It's funny - Mr Starbucks, SI's Peter King just got done noting in his most recent column that Jerome Bettis had perhaps upset the applecart with his off hand comments about Bill Cowher's career and potential retirement after this season:

Bettis' statement about feeling that this is Bill Cowher's last year coaching the Steelers really took me by surprise.

Ok, took alot of people by surprise? Not really because it was already news but as King notes, surprising that Bettis would spill the beans like that on national tv.

King went on to speculate:

I asked him if it was tough for him to say it on national TV. And he said he wondered if Cowher would view this as a violation of their relationship, that maybe he shouldn't have revealed what he thought from their conversation. But he said he thought Cowher would be fine with it. Well, I'm going to Steelers camp later on Monday, and I'll be interested to hear how Cowher addresses it.

Well it wasn't long coming.

"I was very disappointed in what Jerome said,"

Cowher said late Monday afternoon after the Steelers' lone practice of the day at training camp.

"Jerome and I talked back in March and there was no confidential information shared. There has been a lot of speculation about my future, and that's what it is -- speculation. I have not made a decision about my future beyond this year."

Not exactly explosive but not fine with it either.

*****

Looks like Korn Dog's MNF debut hit the right notes for some.

It must be related to the plethera of shitty people they had doing the announcing all these other seasons making people giddy about this new crew. Kornheiser claimed he needed Theisman to clarify for him what the silent snap count was. This guy has been a sports writer for like a thousand years, has followed football, written about the Redskins, held court over an idiotic ESPN show with co-idiot Mike Wilbon and is now one of the voices on MNF and he doesn't know what the silent count is? Give us a break - either Kornheiser is even dumber than he comes off or he's pulling everyone's leg trying to earn the stupid little brownie points everyone gave him after Monday night - oh gee, the guy is honest enough to admit he doesn't know a rudimentary term in football -- look, if this mutt doesn't know what a silent snap count is he should try and learn on his own bloody time, not during a game, even if it was a crappy little exhibition game.