On Grantland’s sports blog, The Triangle, Adam Moerder has a post today entitled “Don’t Make Me Hate You, Detroit Tigers.” The uninspired text-drop begins with what actually is a fairly bold proposition: “More than any other MLB team, the Tigers probably have the best odds of becoming a dynasty this decade.” Moerder quickly confesses, “that thought sickened me.”
Why? A Tigers’ dynasty, Moerder asserts, “would be a pretty boring, hollow accomplishment.” Because? Because Moerder thinks it’s likely, apparently. In other words, Moerder is bored (sickened!) by his own prediction. If he feels that way, why strike ahead with the rest of his post? Because sickening boredom is only a stop on the path to hate.
Most sports critics hate teams with neglectful, disinterested owners who do little more than bleed their organizations for cash and refuse to lift a finger towards making an effort to build a winning franchize. The trouble here is that Moerder hates the Tigers because their owner actually is willing to spend money to improve his team. He fashions the Tigers some sort of Rust-Belt Yankees who bought a lineup of expensive free agents (“there’s no elegance”!), except that that doesn’t accurately describe how this team was built, and he even admits that their farm system is strong (a weak one is hate-worthy in his book).
“Boring” also cannot be a characteristic of a team that includes Justin Verlander, Prince Fielder, Jose Valverde, Miguel Cabrera, postseason heroes like Don Kelly, almost-eccentrics like Delmon Young (and, by association, his more borderline-eccentric brother, Dimitri Young), and an entertaining manager in Jim Leyland.
Moerder closes by repeating that he finds the Tigers’ “roster be constructed in an aesthetically unpleasing manner.” He hinted at this earlier, when he wrote that “the current infield defense, led by Miguel Cabrera at third (!), is an abomination.” It’s an abomination because it reminds Moerder of an “amoral” (not immoral, mind you) video game world he experienced two decades ago. That’s really what he wrote. A virtual lack of elegance indeed. He also said the roster “reeks of hubris,” and only one of those words has been accurately used to describe Detroit in the last thirty years. Please.
Since Moerder can’t even express what he doesn’t like, attempting to figure out what he does like probably is pretty fruitless, but it seems to have something to do with an environment of baseball competition in which a down-and-out team can get its act together by building a winner through development of its prospects and some “elegant” acquisitions. If he were to grab a little perspective, he might really like this team out of Detroit.
What a waste of e-space.
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While reading Moerder’s non-sequitorious and circularly inconclusive chaff, Justin Verlander and the Tigers blew a 2-0 shutout in the top of the ninth against the D-Rays and suffered their first loss of the season in a game in which former Tiger Fernando Rodney got the save, so you can bet that I didn’t proofread the above, although I’d contend I still put more thought into it than Moerder put into his bit.
It was unfair to call Lidstrom “The Perfect Human.” Nobody’s perfect, not even him. And sometimes his spotless performance and quiet personality worked against him. He was too often taken for granted because there were no downs to illustrate the ups. He was never beloved quite like his predecessor as captain, Steve Yzerman, who transformed himself from a slick scorer into a gritty leader. Who can relate to perfection? How can you celebrate a triumph over adversity when there isn’t any?
ALDLAND 