TSDMike | June 9, 2009

Basketball has the Lakers. Baseball has the Yankees and football has the Patriots. The Detroit Red Wings are the NHL’s counterpart to the perennial winners in the other major sports. But the Wings are the only one of the group that has a legitimate chance to win the championship every single year. Detroit is about to put the finishing touches on what will very likely be their fifth championship in 12 years, in this, their sixth Stanley Cup Finals appearance in the last 14 years. The road to winning the cup almost always goes through Hockeytown.

If you look at the Stanley Cup Finals history since 1995, only four times were the teams to make the finals not required to defeat the Wings en route. The Red Wings are the only team to make the playoffs every single year during that period.

While this is obviously awesome for Red Wings fans – arguably the most popular team in the league – is this a good thing for the sport as a whole?

Category: NHL | Comments Off
Tags: dan wetzel, detroit red wings, dominance, hockeytown, MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, parity, pittsburgh penguins, popular team, stanley cup finals history, wings fans

TSDMike | May 8, 2009

I almost didn’t write about this.

It seemed redundant. Didn’t we just go through this? Aren’t we still going through this? The Alex Rodriguez debacle has even totally played out yet and now we’re pounded with this: Manny Ramirez tests positive for steroids and receives the automatic 50 game suspension.

The sad thing is that I still haven’t decided how I feel about the A-rod thing. He juiced for a couple of seasons, had some inflated numbers while playing for a last place team, then quit taking performance enhancing drugs. His power numbers declined, but other than that, he’s still a helluva baseball player.

Man-Ram falls into the same category. Did steroids made him a better player? Do steroids make anyone a better player? I actually don’t think that they do. Steroids enhance performance. The key word is enhance. The ability to perform has to be there first.

Category: MLB | 4 Comments »
Tags: alex rodriguez, Baseball, baseball stats, commentary, home runs, major league baseball, manny ramirez, mark mcgwire, MLB, sammy sosa, steroids, strikeouts

TSDMike | April 29, 2009

The last line of Rob Deer’s Wikipedia Entry really struck me funny:

Source: sportsillustrated.cnn.com
Source: si.cnn.com

Robert George Deer (born September 29, 1960 in Orange, California) is a former U.S. baseball player. He attended Canyon High School in Anaheim and Fresno City College, and was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the 4th round of the 1978 amateur draft.

Deer is famous for hitting the game-tying home run on Easter Sunday in 1987,[1] to give the Milwaukee Brewers their 12th straight win to start the season.[2] The home run was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated.[3][4] He also carries the dubious honor of having the lowest official batting average while still qualifying for the batting title when he batted .179 in 1991. He is the only player since 1910 to have a batting average less than .220 in at least 400 at-bats in at least four seasons.

A notorious free swinger, Deer held the American League record for strikeouts in a season (186 strikeouts in 1987) until being passed by Jack Cust in 2008, and had at least 140 strikeouts on seven occasions.[5]

Deer currently serves as a roving hitting instructor for the San Diego Padres minor league system.

Category: MLB | 5 Comments »
Tags: Baseball, milwaukee brewers, MLB, rob deer, strikeouts, wikipedia