The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

Mania in the Motor City

First off, my apologies for my continued inconsistency in posting to the blog. I normally use a break here and there at work (or my lunch hour) to post, and I'm so behind on my various book projects right now that it's tough to make time. I wish I could say that would change going forward, but one or two posts a week from me is all you're likely to see for awhile.

Aw, don't be like that. Come on now. Dry your eyes.

Anyway, my real life sports watching world has been a roller coaster the past few weeks. First the Tigers can't win a game through most of August and first half of September. I mean they loast in the neighborhood of 20 of 30. That's not just bad. That's horrifying.

Then Michigan has as memorable a victory in South Bend as I think I've ever witnessed. There are no words to describe encourging your 2.5 year-old daughter to shout "Go Blue! Go Blue! Go Blue," while your 18 month old son joins you in signaling touchdown, as Lamaar Woodley sprints down the field for a fumble recovery, game-clincing TD run. It was great. And even though there's a long season left to play, I can't help but have a nice warm feeling down in the cockles (perhaps in the subcockle area) at the prospect of a battle of undefeateds when Michigan makes the trek to Columbus. It's still to early to gauge where the offense is at, but I've seen enough now to firmly believe the Michigan defense is no joke. There are shades of the vaunted '97 D in that group.

Of course, the Lions had to go and take the shine off the weekend by getting drubbed in Chicago. I didn't get to see the game, but I read continuous game log updates on line, so I felt like I was right there. If you've seen one Lions loss, it's not hard to picture the rest when you've got the log text in front of you. That team can't even snap the ball without yellow laundry hitting the turf right now. I still think Marinelli will turn the team around, but it may be a brutal few more weeks before it happens. (If they get crushed by Green Bay this weekend, then the season will offically be over.)

But then the Tigers beat the White Sox last night and, having now won 4 of 6, it seems like their world is finally being set to right. They've all but clinched a playoff birth at this point. In fact, tickets for the divisional series went on sale at 10am through their phone lines and their website. I put in an order for Game 1 tickets at precisely 10:05 and rolled snake-eyes trying to get four seats together in the section I'd specified. Of course, it took 20 minutes for the damn ticket engine to tell me that. So by the time I was able to just run a search for "best available" the games were basically sold out. I could've gotten four standing-room only tickets for game 3, but let's face the facts: the odds of them playing a game 3 in a five game series aren't all that hot, and I'm not driving over four hours to the game for standing room only. (Well, I would. But that doesn't mean my wife, dad and step-mom would warm to the idea.)

Ah well. At least the first Tigers post-season action in nearly 20 years will be broadcast in HD. I'll still feel like I'm at the games. (No, they're not officially in yet, but with two series against the Royals, one against Baltimore and a six game cushion over the White Sox, I'm pretty happy with where things sit. The only thing they had to avoid was a sweep in Chicago this week and with one game in the series gone, they've already done that.)