Bids adieu; leaves mess on table

This is the scene where the heroes stumble off stage right.  Which is… your.. left?

Anyway.

As some of you may have known, we’ve been contemplating a sort of blogging-career-direction decision (if there is such a thing) over the last few months. Some of us have wanted to hone our focus a little more, while others of us prefer to hang up the ol blogging boxing gloves altogther.

About a month ago, we got an offer to move over and cover college sports for a new network called Bloguin.  As professional bloggers, if you will (that phrase is quite funny when one reads it in print) we’d get an opportunity to become more involved in the sporting arenas we care about the most.  And it sounded fun.

Some of us are choosing to retire, while others are looking forward to the new obstacles and spectacles that lay ahead.

All of us, however, want to say thank you for the past 2 1/2 years on APIAS.  All the pickem scrambles, road trips, prognostications, cursing of our favorite teams, cursing in general, making fun of local and national media, and trading jabs with friends and foes alike in the comments.   If I had to guess, I’d say this site won’t go completely dead–after all, I’ll need somewhere to curse the Tigers bullpen–but at least for the foreseeable future, those of us moving on will be focused on the venture at hand.

It’s been a hell of a ride.  If we pissed you off along the way, you probably deserved it.  Sorry anyway.  It was all in fun.

If you want to come along for the shiny new ride, it can be found at Stadium Drives.

If I may, I’ll leave you with two small bits of wisdom:  “Make sure your bed is always made,” and “Keep Billy Gillispie away from your women.”

Peace, I’m outta here!

-TGC, 2SL, Smooth, and Eday
The APIAS Crew

*tear

A summer plea for college sports

Nobody needs to see this

I thought I’d take a quick look around this morning to see how college sports blogs are handling the dry “boys of summer” months.

How’d it go?  Er, make your own calls.

Take a look at Rocky Top Talk’s Jimmy Clausen fashion exposé… if you dare.

Over at EDSBS, examined are the merits of Ben Franklin, The Kool Aid Man, Fried Chicken, Evil Knievel, coitus with old ladies, and Raising Arizona.  Yeah, I don’t know either, but it made me feel a little more patriotic than I was before I read it.

We Want the Lion takes a look at tailgating games, so that you may be more prepared the next time you go to Lowe’s (and with plenty of notice no less).  Washers, Ladder Golf, and (our favorite) Cornhole are covered.  All of which can be built in your garage with PVC, 2×4’s, plywood and elbow grease.  If you are the type of pretentious jerk that buys them pre-made, steer clear of our tailgates this fall or risk wearing the residuals of a Jack & Coke on your Lacoste shirt and croakies.

I’ll keep looking around the web in search of College Sports news for you guys as we plug through the humidity and dial in to August.

Happy 6th of July, all.  May your weekend hangovers end promptly before dinner tonight.  And let’s all pray the hillbillies a block down from me have finally extinguished their 2009 firework allotment so I can watch baseball outdoors in peace tonight.  Assholes.

Doing my part for the D

It’s not often we as fans get the chance to directly affect a player or a game (bleacher seat heckling notwithstanding).

Now is one of those times, and for my favorite MLB player no less.

Go VOTE INGE into the All Star Game.

Now, probie!

Oh you know what it means

The A’s manage to take game 3 and the series (2-1) on a hell of a performance by Dallas Braden to beat Cy Young candidate Justin Verlander yesterday, 5-1.   The season series (barring a playoff meeting) ends at 4-2 Tigers.

 TGC and Joel Zumaya take exception to the Short Message Service correspondence received from one EdayStat after the game.

GFY, good sir... GFY

 Oh yeah… how’d game four in ’06 work out for you?

To Battle We Go Again My Friend

That's the kind of fire we need!

That’s right, it’s time for Tigers – A’s tonight.  The A’s are riding the coattails of a 5 game losing streak and need to turn things around against TGC’s Tigers.  Detroit on the other hand is 8-2 in their last 10 and will have the luxury of Rick Porcello going against Josh Outman to start things off in Oakland tonight.

Game time is 10:05, who knows when a live blog might pop up.

2009 NBA Live Blog; Rufio!

8:03 eDay –  Don’t worry folks, Smooth will be along soon.  I have paged him.  4 picks in and the Spaniard is still up for grabs.  So is Jodie Meeks.

7:50 TGC – The smooth one will be with you soon. Since the power is out at headquarters I’m starting this bad boy off from a Max and Ermas in the Cincinnati airport to pass the time while my flight to the west coast is delayed. No real surprises so far. Clips take Blake. Grizz takes Thabeet. And barmaid, I’ll take another six dollar Dos Equis!

8something TGC the best player in the draft Rickey Rubio goes 5th or something and the bartender informs me that she can only sell 2 beers to a person at a time… And then offers me a shot a 3.50. Yes please.

852 TGC Flight changed. Gate changed. Bar changed. Smaller TV. Suns on the clock. Early money has them taking Jared Carter. Too bad Michael Jackson isn’t around for this.

913 TGC live blogging from airplane. The hot Asian beside me is wondering why I’m giggling. Next up on the board, Delta Airlines, who select Jack Daniels from Tennessee. Good choice all around. I’ll have the fish!

925 TGC next up is the overweight stewardess with an attitude. She informs me that blackberries are not allowed on the plane in the on position. I inform her that this is a live blog, not a phonecall, and that seems to appease her. She apologizes, Dos Equis in tow.

931 TGC I don’t know what timezone I’m over anymore. where the hell is smooth?? This was his idea.

Still earning his money the hard way

The Tigers manage to hold on, despite Fernando Rodney’s best Todd “Rollercoaster” Jones impersonation NATE ROBERTSON PITCHING IN THE GAME.

This is my favorite line of the night:  Nate Robertson, 1 batter faced, 4 pitches, 1 hit, YANKED.  

Second best stat line: The Bullpen.  Miner (BS)(W), Seay (H), Lyon (H), Zumaya (H), Rodney (SV).

I guess he should feel good he got to play in a game that the good guys won for the first time in months.  It’s probably fair to say that ol’ Rod got some help with high strike calls, but once you’ve seen them called on the previous 2 hitters (I’m looking at you Kosuke), you have to SWING THE BAT.  Or get a Magglio haircut.  He found 2 hits tonight.

Sorry for the yelling, but I was sure that after a leadoff walk in the 9th, Fernando had his first blown save of the year.

Pic of the night?  Poor old Bartman still wearing that inside pitch, 5 years later, on an AWAY (!) broadcast.

The guy just wanted a souvenir.

I still maintain the Cubs will take tomorrow, but tonight was big for a few reasons.  1.  The Tigers now have the 3rd best record in baseball.  2. They have their largest lead of the year (5 games) 3. It was the 40th win and secures the best home start in the history of Comerica Park.

Also, apparently Fernando hit 104 tonight, in addition to Zumaya… again.  May want to get that gun checked out, FSD.

[Bless You Boys]

That’s just not fair

More on perennial Toledo Mudhen Ryan Raburn’s pinch hit walkoff later, let’s focus on this for now.

Right or wrong (and I bet if you ask Milton Bradley he’d say it was dead on) check out the strikeout pitch Zumaya threw by Bradley in the 8th.

Dayyummn

He then proceeds to throw the go-ahead homerun to a guy most of you have never heard of in the form of a change-up.  Detroit4Lyfe has a great recap you should read, while Cubs announcer Bob Brenly had the sentiment right.  Which was the same thing I screamed at the screen (insert your own profanities where you deem appropriate… I deemed them a lot.)

“That’s one of the stupidest pitches I’ve ever seen. How does a guy that throws a 104 mph fastball with a snap curveball think its smart to throw a change in any situation?” 

Brenly was right.  After all, it wasn’t like Nate Robertson was calling the pitches.

[Detroit4Lyfe]

Oh My! (Lions unavailable)

Clark, Addison, Michigan, Trumbull... Check

Today starts the mid-week series between two APIAS homers in my Tigers and 2SL’s Cubbies.  Obviously this is an interesting interleague matchup between 2 historic teams.   It is also a rematch of the 1945 World Series, which I’m sure you all remember, was won by Los Tigres 4-3.  This was the same Series Cubs’ writer Warren Brown called “The World’s Worst Series.”  Seems like there may have also been somewhat of an international conflict going on around then, but who can say for sure?

The 1935 classic  was also won by the Tigs (4-2). 

You have to go all the way back to 1908 to locate a Cubby win against the boys from Motown.  Something sticks out about that year… but I digress.

More interesting these days, however, might be the pitching matchups those in the Chicago and Detroit metro areas (and all of us with MLB.tv) will get to enjoy.

Let’s take a look at what we’re getting this week.

Tonight:  Carlos Zambrano, RHP (4-2, 3.44) vs Edwin Jackson, RHP (6-4, 2.39)

Big Z is looking more like his old self after a quick stint on the DL.  He’s rocking a 2.20 ERA since rejoining the team.  Jackson, on the other hand, continues to be the horse everyone thought he was coming over from Tampa last year, only more impressive.  He is currently #1 on the team in ERA and has thrown more innings than Tiger ace Justin Verlander.

Tomorrow: Rich Harden, RHP (4-3, 5.27) vs Rick Porcello, RHP (8-4, 3.54)

This battle of relative newbies should provide plenty of contact but not much scoring.  Harden has held his spot nicely since coming over from Oakland and 20 year old Ricky P is doing nothing but validating his enormous signing bonus in 2007.  He may wear down sometime toward the late summer (having never pitched above single-A before this year) but don’t tell him, with his 8 wins and sub-4 ERA.

Thursday: Ted Lilly, LHP (7-4, 3.04) vs Armando Galarraga, RHP (3-7, 5.62)

Galarraga is one more bad outing from losing his job in the rotation.   The Tigers have hit LHP’s well this year, but Lilly has been consistently solid, with a team-leading 11 quality starts.  I’ll take the Cubs to win here, but the story really will be: Can Armando find the 5th inning?

Get ready for some good-time historic baseball this week.  I’m a sucker for tradition, so you can bet I’ll be on the porch watching this one.

Friday Afternoon Questions: There They Go

Here’s a quick peek at what APIAS writer’s are wondering this afternoon.  Step into their brains for a moment.

TGC wonders, “will Tiger make a come back at the Open?”  Well Mike Weir is eating Beth Page Black up with a 6 under 64 in his first round and Phil is one under.  Tiger’s opening round +4 leaves him a lot of work but we’ve all seen the guy catch fire before and the playing conditions for his first round were not ideal.  The magic eight ball says “outlook not likely” but we say don’t count that man out until Sunday comes and goes.

Smoothron ponders, “now that Kobe has finished off the Magic what will I do with my sports viewing time?”  Well Smooth you’ll just have to tune in to the Metros games a bit more often.  But with them sitting at 4-6 their last ten you might as well watch A’s games with myself because it’s going to be a long summer for us both if this continues.

eDay thinks to himself, “why are elephants scared of the National League?”  That’s simple, the A’s are 8-3 against the AL in the month of June and 1-5 against the NL.  The bats put up only 14 runs in 6 games on the NL road trip.  That will not win you ball games no matter how good your young pitching is (only given up 27 in that time frame).

2SL would like to know, “how sweet are the beaches in San Diego and is Iowa really that boring?”  Our fourth writer is about to hit the road for a couple weeks so you won’t be hearing from him much over that time.  But to answer his questions, the beach in San Diego is about as awesome as the California burritos and I had a brother that lived in Cedar Rapids so yes, Iowa is that boring.