So, Do We Have Plans For Tiger Stadium NOW...???

((HT: WXYZ-TV))

They're on, they're off...

They're on, they're off...

The plans for the renovation, rebirth, and renewal of "The Corner" at Michigan and Trumbull...

The city of Detroit has plans through their Economic Development folks to renovate for a $30-plus million pricetag.

The cool part would be the Police Athletic League using the field for youth sports

Let's see what they have in mind...


The HQ hopes that everything works out- FINALLY!!!

But, we're not really holding our breath. We do like the idea of Detroiters investing, but we're still not holding our breath.

Sunday MLB Recap: The Wild, Weird, And Effective

((HT: MLB.com))

Yasiel Puig's enigmatic hustle took another star turn today- against Bartolo Colon and the Mets of all teams...

A 5-4-3-2 triple play that he was the end of...


Omar Vizquel is a coach these days for the Detroit Tigers and still can flash some defense...


Someone in Boston almost went all Bartman on a ball down the left field line...


What would have happened if Stephen Strasburg actually had to make a hard stop...???


And a fan in Arizona made a point to use his tools in the best manner possible on a foul ball...

Romine's Rough Outing As Reliever

((HT: MLB.com))

With the Tigers down 17-6 to the Twins last night, the tigers threw in the towel after their bullpen took a beating all night long.

Infielder Andrew Romine made his first career relief appearance in the bottom of the eighth inning, but he left with an ERA of 27.

He gave up a double to Kennys Vargas before giving up back-to-back home runs to Oswaldo Arcia and Trevor Plouffe. Arcia hit his second foul pole of the night in the right field bleachers.

The up side was that Romine retired three out of the next four batters, including a strikeout of Kurt Suzuki.

What Is This About 19 Inning Games These Days...???

((HT: MLB.com))

This time it was Toronto and Detroit going 19 innings...
Jose Bautista was the lucky winner this time for the end of a long-day game


Now, the details...the short version...

8 pitchers for each team
Rich Porcello pitched the last two innings for Detroit while Chad Jenkins went 6 for the Blue Jays

39 hits total- 22 for the Tigers
6 hours and 37 minutes total- the longest game in Blue Jays history

Tigers Bust Out The Infielder-Reliever

((HT:MLB.com))

This is what happens when your bullpen is taxed and you don't think you have any other options...

The Tigers trotted out infielder Danny Worth with a special weapon for an inning of work

Cleveland Wins on Extra Inning Walk-Off Balk

((ht: mlb.com))

Haha! Yeah, this really did happen.

The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers 11-10 in 13 innings Thursday afternoon when Tigers relief pitcher Al Albuquerque balked home the winning run.

Huh?

Believe it or not, this did happen because Albuquerque went and shook his body in a move that appeared to signal he was going into his motion. And according to the rules of baseball, once you start, you can't stop. The balk is called for essentially deceiving the runners. Asdrubal Cabrera strolls home to a jubilant Ryan Rayburn. The fans and the announcers celebrate....

But hey, a win is a win and the struggling Indians we're sure are more than happy to take it.

Prince Fielder For Ian Kinsler...Done...

The Detorit Tigers have, apparently, gotten fed up of waiting on Prince Fielder to produce...

He has been traded to the Texas Rangers for Ian Kinsler...
No word on if any other players have been put in the deal or if it's just straight up with cash thrown in...

Kinsler is under contract through the 2017 season. Fielder's contract still has $168 million remaining and runs through 2020.

To make the math work, the Rangers will receive $30 Million. If this is close to being true, the Rangers would be adding 138 million dollars in salary over seven years (averaging just under $20M) while dealing away 67-million over five years (averaging a little over $13-million).

Fielder’s contract also included a limited ‘no-trade’ provision which gave him the ability to block the trade.

Which could mean...

The Tigers could re-sign pitcher Max Scherzer who is eligible to become a free agent after next season. Miguel Cabrera is expected to move back to first base. Kinsler would take over at second and the team's top prospect Nick Castellanos would take over at third. The team would then presumably be in the market for a left fielder.

The Rangers would then put Jurickson Profar at second and second base alone...

Here's evidence of what the Rangers hope they're getting...
((HT: MLB.com))

BREAKING NEWS: Jim Leyland To Step Down As Tigers Manager

[HT: Fox Sports]

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports is reporting that Jim Leyland is stepping down as manager of the Detroit Tigers.

The Detroit Tigers have called a 11:30am news conference Monday.

According to Rosenthal, Leyland told his team after the American League Championship Series and informed the Tigers is was time for someone younger to manage the team.

In 22 years as a manager Leyland has won 1,769 games.  Leyland managed the Pirates, Marlins, Rockies and Tigers.

Leyland won a World Series as manager of the Florida Marlins in 1997.  He led the Tigers to the World Series in 2006 but lost in five games to the St. Louis Cardinals and again in 2012 but lost to the San Francisco Giants.

More on this story to come.

A's Rookie's Team Up To Down Detroit

((ht: mlb.com))

For those of us on the east coast, it's tough, even on a Saturday night to stay up and watch west coast sporting events.

And it appears for those of us sleepyheads, we missed a lot.

The Oakland A's evened up their best of 5 ALDS series with the Detroit Tigers late Saturday night after rookie Stephen Vogt's single in the bottom of the 9th off Rick Porcello scored Seth Smith.

The hit sort of overshadowed an amazing pitching performance by the Tigers Justin Verlander and A's rookie Sonny Gray. Verlander did what he does, only giving up 4 hits, striking out 11 in 7 innings.

But Gray was better, 8 innings, 4 hits before giving way to Grant Balfour to finish the 9th inning.

Your game winner from Vogt (thanks MLB.com):

Henderson Alvarez Throws No-Hitter and Wins on Wild Pitch

This is crazy, but it really happened.

Henderson Alvarez of the Miami Marlins made a bit of no-hit history this Sunday afternoon. The 23-year old Marlins pitcher not only threw a complete game one-walk, no-hit shutout, he had to wait until the bottom of the 9th inning to get the win.

The Marlins beat a Detroit Tigers lineup filled with back-ups 1-0.

That winning run scored ironically on a wild pitch by Detroit reliever Luke Putkonen. Giancarlo Stanton scored from third base while Greg Dobbs was at bat.

According to reports, not only was it the first no-hitter to end on a wild pitch, it was also the first walk-off no-hit win since 1952.

The win ended an otherwise dismal season for the Marlins who end with a 62-100 record. But with Alvarez and a host of other young pitchers including probable rookie of the year Jose Fernandez, the future for the Marlins may foretell of better days to come.

Video of the final pitch and end of the game:

Why Was The Singing Vendor Canned...???

((HT: Model D Media/Detroit News))

Charley Marcuse has made a bit of a career of belting out tunes at the top of his lungs at Detroit Tigers games- as a singing hot dog vendor. He's done it for 15 years at Tiger Stadium and Comerica Park and is either revered or reviled for his approach...

Like this...


But, after a 10-minute meeting with the folks who run the vending operation at Comerica, Marcuse got fired.

“It was general employee conduct,” he told Tony Paul of the Detroit News, relaying the reason he was given. “I’ve vended the same way for the past 15 years, so there’s nothing new to any of this.”

There's talk that Marcuse was fired for not putting ketchup on his hot dogs and allegedly squawking if anyone wanted ketchup on their dogs in the first place. He has always maintained that mustard and mustard only is the way...

Which the HQ has a lot of merit behind in the argument...

But there is also no secret that the Tigers thought his singing was a distraction and you could hear his tunes on the microphones that FS Detroit was using for their broadcasts...

So, there are a lot of theories. But we may never know the reason that creativity was stifled in Detroit...

Ryan Raburn's 1-2-3 Inning...

((HT: FS Indians))

Ryan Raburn was brought in by Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona in a blowout so as not to blow out his bullpen...

Evidence below of a new stop-gap measure for the Tribe...


Well done, Raburn...
And don't think that Matt Tuiasosopo will ever live it down...

Or anything...

The Bourn Conundrum: Cabrera Gets HR With Help

((HT: FS Detroit/MLB))

The first thing that comes to the HQ's mind is this...


But Miguel Cabrera hit a blast in Cleveland last night and it turned into a home run...
With some help...


What is it about Cleveland and fly balls turning into home runs, anyway...???

Man Grabs Foul Ball Without Endangering Baby

((HT: CSN Houston))

It's well known that it's easy to get seats at Houston Astros games these days...
And there are plenty of seats even more available in extra innings...

Evidence last night when the Tigers and Astros are in extras and a new dad gets to field the grounder with a babe-in-arms...

Here's the grab...


Looks like he got away with one... just watching the wife's reaction...

Denard Robinson: Not to be Confused With Good 1st Pitches

((ht: cbssports.com))

It might be a good thing that now former University of Michigan QB Denard Robinson is trying to ply his wares in the NFL as a Wide Receiver.

Because had he stayed at quarterback, he'd probably never live down the 1st pitch he threw Tuesday afternoon at a Detroit Tigers home game.

Well, okay, this is making the rounds on the Interwebs right now, so he may not live it down either way.

Check out the GIF from CBSSports.com:

Ian Mendes: Real Pro!

((HT: Sportsnet))

Ian Mendes gets the HQ's MVP for today...
Why, you may ask...???

He's this/close to being live when the evidence below happened...
State your case, counselor...

See...???
See...???

Real pro!!!

He took the shot a lot better than a lot of us would have...

NY Media proclaims end of world after Yankees lose

And we are pretty sure that this will all be blamed on Alex Rodriguez.

The New York tabloid media continues having a field day with the New York Yankees after they were swept by the Detroit Tigers in the American League Championship series. Of course, one must remember that in New York World, they are supposed to be in and win the World Series every year.

Now back to the rest of the known universe.

The Yankees went into a huge batting tailspin during the series, but you can attribute some of that to some very good pitching by Detroit.

Of course the man most New York media folks blame for all of this is the beleaguered A-Rod. Rodriguez, who gets paid $25 gazillion dollars a year, basically no-showed in the series and was ridiculed for allegedly hitting on a fan in the stands while on the bench.

And he wasn't the worst performer on the team. Not even close. But he's being blamed.

Never does anyone in the "Big Apple" acknowledge that they may have been beaten by a better team. Never do they recognize that Detroit played pretty good baseball.

But the other team never wins...the Yankees just lose.

Any way you slice this, we find humorous. We have many friends who "Swear" by the Yankees. And while they are usually a pretty good team, they are rarely a "Great" team. And that alone makes us willing to post such funny stuff.

Check out the New York Post from today--hilarity! And the main reason for this post.

Jose Valverde: Spittballer? So say Reds fans

((ht: wcpo.com))

Hmmm....

Video evidence might....keyword MIGHT, support the theory, though we suspect it wouldn't change the outcome of Sunday nights game.

Cincinnati Reds fans are screaming "Foul" this morning after a video appearing to show Detroit Tigers closer Jose Valverde spitting into his glove appeared on YouTube.

Valverde struck out Reds catcher Devin Mesorasco to end the game, a game won by the Tigers 7-6 on national TV.

Valverde has 12 saves, a 3-1 record and a 3.95 era this season for the Tigers, which would indicate...at least circumstantially that if he indeed has gone Gaylord Perry, he has only been moderately effective at it.

Either way, it is one of those things that makes you raise the proverbial eyebrow. No Reds fans, the commissioner is not going to look at the video and overturn the game on your behalf, but we would not be surprised if the Umpires start observing Mr. Valverde's behavior while pitching, a bit more closely.

And yeah, we're betting the opposing Managers will be asking for the ball to be checked quite frequently also.

JIm Leyland Goes Nuts

((HT: FS Detroit/MLB.com))

First... just watch...


The above is what happens when umps miss a call...
Do not miss a call in front of Jim Leyland...

That is all...

Calvin Johnson Shows Off His Baseball Skills, Crushes Home Run During Batting Practice

Those of us at the OSG HQ have been aware of Calvin Johnson's athletic ability over the years. We knew he was more than just a football player and a pretty fair baseball player at Sandy Creek high school.

Friday during batting practice before the Detroit Tigers game against the Pittsburgh Pirates Megatron displayed his batting skills.



Johnson has some power to left and center field. His shot to center travelled over 400 feet. It's 420 feet to center field at Comerica Park.