By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
August 16, 2o14
Look, I think it is [mentally challenged] when sports talk radio listeners call in to their favorite mind-numbing show and start listing off their fandom curriculum vitae.
“This is Bob from Trenton and I have been a Wings season-ticket-holder since 1981 ….”
Shut up. Nobody cares. It doesn’t make what you’re about to say any more relevant and the fact you are listening to Benedict Karsch and the 42-year-old Virgin Whale probably impeaches whatever brilliant comment is going to follow that preamble.
Unfortunately, for the purpose of today’s article, I think starting off with my Tigers fan resume might be appropriate. Only because I believe it is relevant in responding to a blog post by everyone’s favorite pedophile-looking creep, Kurt Mensching of the Bless You Boys website.
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There are two things I don’t want to know: What this dude is squinting at and what is on that MacBook Pro hard drive.
In that above-referenced piece posted on Thursday, Mensching compared Tigers supporters to Yankees fans and ended the moronic blog by calling us “spoiled.”
Spoiled. Yes, SPOILED. Right, because of all of those World Series trophies we have racked up over the last 30 years. We’re SPOILED. Yeah, we’re spoiled and Oliver Twist was pampered. What fucking planet are you living on and is that haircut of yours in style there?
Comparing Tigers fans to Yankees fans? That franchise has won FIVE WORLD SERIES since Kurt Cobain died, while Tigers fans have been subjected to an ongoing, eight-year lap dance in which the VIP Room stripper still hasn’t unbuckled our fucking belt and our balls are bluer than Smarty Smurf.
Like most of you reading this article (probably all of you), I didn’t start following the Tigers in 2006 when they got good again. I will be 42 years old next month, which means I remember going to Tiger Stadium to watch Mark Fidrych pitch.
I remember the 1981 split-season; the ’84 title; Darrell Evans getting picked off third base in the ’87 ALCS; the disappointment of “only” winning one title in the eighties; the decade-long debacle during the early years of Mike Ilitch’s ownership; and everything that has occurred since the franchise became relevant again.
And if you think I am SPOILED because I am not satisfied with the 2009 collapse; the humiliating World Series losses as prohibitive favorites; and the stinging bullpen collapse of 2013 …. well …… go fuck yourself.
Or are Tigers fans spoiled because, in the years since we won it all and turned over some cop cars, 10% of all World Series championships have been won by teams that DID NOT EVEN EXIST during the year of George Orwell and Van Halen??????
There is a growing segment of Tigers fans that is frustrated with this franchise and it goes far beyond what occurs on the field for roughly three hours a night.
Are we SPOILED by the atrocious media that cover this team for a living? By the castrated beat writers who chase this team all over the country and NEVER write a scathing article? By fat and lazy columnists like Bob Wojnowski who refuse to take the opportunity to rip the management of this organization when it is deserved and instead make awful no-hitter jokes in the first inning of games?
Are we SPOILED by the constant barrage of “down-on-the-farm” articles by Lynn Henning, invariably accompanied by dire warnings that any prospect the Tigers trade is going to end up coming back to haunt us — even though that has NEVER OCCURRED in the Dave Dombrowski era?
@MattCrepeau So did scouts. Sometimes they don’t work out. But if you think that’s the fate for Thompson, Kbebel, and Adames, think again.
— Lynn G. Henning (@Lynn_Henning) August 13, 2014
This imbecile is like the unholy love child of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Chicken Little and the lunatics who follow the Mayan calendar. The guy has NEVER been right about ANYTHING EVER (unless, of course, I misread yesterday’s news that Rob Manfred was named the next commissioner of baseball and not Dombrowski). Yet we still have to tolerate his horrid opinions on a daily basis. HAVE YOU NO SHAME, MR. HENNING?!?!!!?
Are we SPOILED by a balding dolt (Drew Sharp) who continually defends the Doug Fister trade and mocks Tigers fans by derisively nicknaming the team’s former pitcher “Cy Fister”?
ONLY IN DETROIT could a columnist for a major daily mock a pitcher by calling him “CY” when the dude has like … ya know … actual Cy Young numbers.
Are we SPOILED by the FSD announcing crew of Rod Allen and Mario Imbemba — who are given marching orders by the team to spin and propagandize us? Just this week “Bojangles” Allen placed the Pirates’ Gregory Polanco in the same “young phenom” class as ROBBIE RAY!!!!!!
Are we SPOILED by Trevor Thompson’s refusing to ask Brad Ausmus why he didn’t pull a double-switch in a National League park; why he didn’t use Joakim Soria in a one-run game; or why he has a loser with four extra-base hits and five RBI batting SIXTH in a lineup midway through AUGUST????!?!!??!?
Intelligent Tigers fans are abused from the moment we wake up and read a Mitch Albom column mocking Wins Above Replacement until the time we go to bed – after Craig Monroe lies to us about something we watched just minutes earlier.
Not only are we NOT SPOILED, we are the motherfucking facilitators of ALL of this. I’ve got news for you: Mike and Chris Ilitch aren’t benevolent billionaires who are willing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on a baseball team for our pleasure.
There is a reason the Tigers’ payroll is almost DOUBLE that of their AL Central rivals: US. You and me.
The three million fans who annually pass through the Comerica Park entrances and get our tickets zapped. The hundreds of thousands of Tigers supporters who — when they aren’t trekking downtown – are listening to games on the team’s flagship station. Ya know, 97.1, the station that loses HALF OF ITS AUDIENCE the minute the Tigers’ season is over.
SPOILED Tigers fans are why 97.1 posted a 4.6 rating in January of this year and a 7.2 last month — good for NUMBER ONE in the market.
ALL because of US. The privileged and overindulged.
You can call Detroit a football town all you want but it is our BASEBALL team that makes Sam Bernstein throw his slip-and-fall money around like he is making it rain at the Landing Strip.
The Tigers are almost always the most-watched program in Detroit when they are playing. Furthermore, Detroit’s baseball team is the most-watched locally in ALL OF BASEBALL!!!!!
We’re not just fans. We are CUSTOMERS also and we have every [Trout] damn right to insist on excellence in our baseball team that we so loyally support.
We have high expectations because — due to our viewing, listening and attendance habits — the Tigers are one of the most fortunate franchises in all of sports. Detroit started off the 2014 season with a $162 million payroll. The Royals were next in the AL Central with a payroll of $92 million.
And at the trade deadline — while Dayton Moore twiddled his thumbs –Dombrowski went out and traded for one of the best pitchers in baseball. While Kansas City did nothing — unless you count losing Eric Hosmer to injury — Detroit added the 2012 Cy Young winner.
But we are SPOILED because we demand better than this??? On Wednesday night the Tigers came home from an awful road trip where they went 2-7 and lost both Anibal Sanchez and Joakim Soria to injury. The only thing missing from that miserable nine-game excursion away from Comerica Park was Rusty Griswold getting kidnapped and anally raped outside of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
When the team finally returned to Detroit, half of the city was underwater. The communities of Royal Oak, Huntington Woods, Berkley, Oak Park and other surrounding areas were devastated. Thousands of people without insurance for this type of catastrophe were throwing out their precious belongings and trying to figure out a way to dry out their house and rid it of fecal matter without any financial assistance.
And yet, 41,043 Detroiters STILL showed up to the Tigers/Pirates game even though many were living under a State of Emergency and didn’t even know if freeways were going to be passable.
And this shitbag who LIVES in MARQUETTE has the nerve to call us spoiled because we desperately want the Tigers to win. Because we aren’t satisfied with JUST GETTING CLOSE. He compared us to Philadelphia fan for Christ’s sake. I’d like to drown this asshole in some raw sewage off of Catalpa and throw some D batteries at his grill.
We aren’t spoiled. We are diehard fans who have absolutely no platform in the media where our grievances can be aired. Nobody is speaking truth to the power of the Detroit sports organizations on our behalf so we have to do it ourselves through Twitter, fan-run websites and yes …. booing the home team on occasion.
Ah yes, the booing and fan unrest — another topic that gets misconstrued by the Uncle Tom’s like Kurt Mensching who suck up to that media power structure in return for a weekly web column.
99% of the time when we are booing a player we aren’t booing that person at all. I’ve never harangued Don Kelly because I think he is a bad guy or is doing anything other than TRYING to help the team when he is out there flailing. I AM TRYING TO SEND A MESSAGE TO MANAGEMENT TO GET RID OF A GUY WITH A .290 SLUGGING PERCENTAGE ON AUGUST 15TH WHO CONTINUES TO BAT SIXTH IN THE LINEUP!!!!
We boo Phil Coke because we don’t want him on this team, and especially not in close games. We’re spoiled because we show angst when Coke gives up a 400-plus-foot bomb to Travis Snyder, who hadn’t homered off a lefty in two years and is SO ANEMIC in said match ups that the outfielder only has 45 at-bats versus southpaws in that timeframe.
We show our displeasure for moves like this even when we are in first place because we ALL KNOW that this stuff has occurred in October and that nobody else is going to say a word if it happens again.
Which brings us to the Joe Nathan situation. What are the spoiled and pampered fans supposed to do in a situation like this? Just ignore the man’s behavior and performance and blindly cheer for him like a bunch of saps.
This asshat was our foil for years. In his career against the Tigers, he enjoyed a 1.44 ERA, a WHIP of .89 and 36 saves. We were Joe Nathan’s bitch for YEARS.
THEN he comes to Detroit, loses his fastball velocity; blows six saves; has an ERA of over 5.00; throws a rookie (Nick Castellanos) under the SEMTA; mutters “fuck off” to his manager; stares down Miguel Cabrera; refuses to take responsibility; and tells the fans that a late-inning loss isn’t going to ruin his evening.
And that all occurred BEFORE he gave us the “Go Fuck Yourselves” address via sign language. Then he gave an awful apology that was surely mandated from the front office in which he told the media eunuchs in attendance it wasn’t “FAIR” to him that he was being judged based on past closers in Motown and that he had pitched “good” lately.
This delusional lunatic has given up 13 hits and walks in 5 1/3 innings pitched in August. He thinks that is good.
Yep, we’re so spoiled in Detroit.
We’ve now gone through almost an entire era of Cy Young winners; multiple AL MVPs; and the greatest hitter to ever wear a Tigers uniform — with a payroll advantage in the division that is almost like a bye into the postseason — and all we have to show for it is this loser’s ring …..
And because we don’t want to be remembered like the 1990s Buffalo Bills, the Moneyball-Era Oakland Athletics or Charles Barkley, that makes us spoiled.
Well, if wanting ONE World Series title every 30 years — with all of the inherent advantages the Tigers enjoy — makes me a brat …. well …. label me a five-week-old carton of Vitamin D Milk.
And please, stay away from the Marquette-area Montessori and KinderCare.
