Author Archives: AD

Autumn in ALDLAND?

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Football season is in full swing, the U.S. Open is coming to a close, and hurricane season (hopefully) is wrapping up. Summer won’t quite go away, though, as evidenced by the perfect baseball weather (along with its accordant short sleeves, sweat, and sunburns) at yesterday’s Tigers and Twins game in Detroit— more on that game later today. 

There were two week-one blowouts yesterday in the NFL: the Ravens beat the Steelers 35-7 and the Peyton Manning-less Colts succumbed to an Arian Foster-less Houston team 34-7. While the scores were similar, and both outcomes were somewhat surprising, I think everyone believes the Steelers will have a successful season this year. When I saw the Houston-Indy score, though, I said that the Colts might lose every game this year, and I think we’re going to find out just how much Manning meant to that team. Beyond the obvious– his complete control of the offense– Manning also set up the Indianapolis defense. Like a dominant pitcher who can influence other games by allowing his team’s bullpen a day off, Manning kept his defense off the field, thereby allowing them to pursue a more aggressive (and energy-draining) approach when the other side did control the ball.

Fall ball: ALDLAND takes you to the action in Motown

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Tiger Stadium (1912-1999)

This afternoon, the Detroit Tigers will try to sweep a three-game set against the Minnesota Twins at Comerica Park in Detroit. I will be on hand for the game, so stay tuned to this site, twitter, and flickr for updates.

Doug Fister is scheduled to start for the Tigers, and although his record on the year is 7-13, he struck out thirteen in his last start (against Cleveland) and took a perfect game into the seventh inning in his previous start (against Kansas City). The Tigers have won ten of their last eleven games, including a current eight-game winning streak, so this should be a fun one.

Short weeks’ Fridays are the best week Fridays

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The four-day week that follows a long weekend is like the power play after a long-delayed penalty, and it’s an underappreciated calendaric gift.

To the point: I was going to use John Conlee’s “Friday Night Blues” as this week’s Friday jam, but it turns out he really was a one-hit wonder. Instead, and in reflection of last weekend’s Nashville jaunt, here’s the Station Inn’s own Mashville Brigade with their rendition of Conlee’s hit, with a bonus tease of a planned future Friday jam:

Who first owned the G?

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In case you were wondering which team first sported the elongated G the Green Bay Packers are wearing on their helmets tonight, the answer is the Green Bay Packers, who started using it in 1961 and, further according to the internet, trademarked the symbol and licensed it to the University of Georgia in 1964 and Grambling University after that.

The NFL kicks off in less than two hours

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Two months ago, who would’ve thought there would be a season this year? Well, probably everybody who actually thought about it. The NFL never was going to cancel this season, just like the NBA won’t miss theirs, and from the fan’s perspective (if not the media’s), the work stoppage wasn’t that big of a deal. But who would’ve thought the 2011 NFL season would look like this?

Probably not too many of you. Moreover, if told that, as work resumed and the season approached, Brett Favre was in talks with another NFL team, who would guess that the once-retired, greybearded quarterback starting in week one would be Kerry Collins?

Keep reading…

Album review: Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator

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I have been meaning to review Revelator since before it came out earlier this summer, and I was excited when my vinyl/CD package finally arrived a couple weeks ago. Revelator is the Tedeschi Trucks Band’s first album, though it’s hardly the first release for any of the eleven members of the band.

To understand this band and this recording, you have to know that the named members of the band, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, were independently successful musicians before they got married in 2001, a matrimonial match made in music heaven. Tedeschi sang the blues with soul and fire as a solo act. Trucks, the nephew of Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks, has been wowing audiences with his guitar since he was a child, later joining his uncle’s band and leading his own outfit, the Derek Trucks Band. The two did collaborate over the last ten years. The DTB didn’t add a permanent lead singer until Mike Mattison joined for 2006’s Songlines, and Tedeschi sang a track on 2002’s Joyful Noise and 2009’s excellent (and Grammy-winning) Already Free. The two also joined their guitars with Eric Clapton’s as a part of Slowhand’s Crossroads tours. Although they followed the wedding ceremony, these and other collaborations were like musical flirtations or dates between the two, who largely appeared to live separate, if overlapping, professional lives.

Revelator, though, represents the marriage. Keep reading…

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Lion: A tale of two teams?

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The NFL’s as-yet-unabridged preseason finished up last weekend, and the Detroit Lions turned in another dominant performance, posting a 4-0 record and notching an especially impressive win over the New England Patriots. Analysts and commentators repeat the common mantra that the preseason doesn’t mean a lot, but in the same breath, many of them are pointing to this year’s Lions as a team that could be a surprise success.

While it’s hard to see any strong statistical correlations between performance in the presesason and regular season– mostly because the team has been consistently bad in the regular season and bad overall– a few observations are possible. The most obvious one is that the last time Detroit went 4-0 in the preseason was 2008, a historically bad year in which the Lions became the only team to go winless in a 16-game NFL regular season, also therefore setting the record for most losses in a single season. Moreover, they won more preseason games (10) than regular season games (8) over the last three years.

What to make of this? The Lions haven’t been above .500 since 2000, when they were 9-7 (2-2 in the preseason), and they haven’t been to the playoffs since 1999, the year after Barry Sanders abruptly retired, so it’s tough to believe the popular predictions of greatness this year. It does feel like a lot more pieces (on the field and sidelines, and in the front office) of a winning team are in place this year, but many fundamental ifs remain for a team playing in the same division as the defending world champions. Predicting which Lions team– the successful preseason version or the perennially disappointing regular-season version– will show up this year may be even more difficult than predicting which Eddie Murphy will show up to host the 2012 Oscars.

S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C!: That inescapable chant and the “new” southern pride (via Grantland)

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When I first heard the chant, I was sitting in the Rose Bowl with a Mangino-sized scowl on my face. My Texas Longhorns had gotten their legs (and arms) broken by Alabama. Crimson Tide fans — thousands of them in white button-downs and khaki pants — were hugging each other and laying their cheers on us: “We’re gonna beat the hell out of you!” That’s when I heard the chant. “S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C!” … Read More

via Grantland 

Summer of Mailbag V: Passing the Buck (via Grantland)

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Basically, the Tigers give up five runs per start unless Verlander is pitching. They’re 21-8 when he starts and 54-54 when he doesn’t. Fourteen times, he’s followed a Tigers loss by winning the next game. He’s pitched at least six innings in each of his 29 starts. He’s thrown 104 pitches or more in every start. He’s first in wins (20), WHIP, strikeouts, innings pitched; second in ERA (trailing Jered Weaver by just 0.10) and WAR (trailing only Bautista). You can only pick him apart because he’s pitched half his games in a pitcher’s park; that’s why his ERA+ is only 168 (barely ahead of Weaver’s 164). By pure numbers, Bautista’s season is a little more impressive than Verlander’s season, which is why the WAR differential (8.0 for Bautista, 7.3 for Verlander) makes sense.

Then you consider the pressure Verlander faced for five months (and counting) as the ace of a mediocre team. Every time he pitched, he HAD to go seven or more, he HAD to save their bullpen and they HAD to win. What it’s like to fall asleep every night knowing that every teammate, coach and fan is counting on you, that you’re basically holding an elaborate stack of Jenga blocks together by yourself, that you can’t escape, that you can’t have a shitty day, that you can’t check out, that you can’t do anything other than keep pitching at an extraordinarily high level or your team’s entire season is going to fall apart? Is there a bigger responsibility in sports? If Bautista had been “average” this season, Toronto’s fortunes wouldn’t have changed. If Verlander had been “average” this season, Detroit would be headed for fourth place and total obscurity. Instead, nobody in his right mind wants to see Justin Verlander in a seven-game series right now. … Read More

via Grantland