Detroit Athletic Co. Blog » Miscellaneous

Big Ten Fails Again

Jeff Lutz — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:53:28 +0000

The Big Ten has surprised me recently with their grasping of the college landscape spotlight. They somehow took the normally quiet off-season and made it all about the Big Ten and possible expansion. Commissioner Jim Delany used his network and found a way to be the top prince in the ballroom. Unlike recent lack of relevance during season’s end for football and basketball, the Big Ten looked to make the biggest splash as of late. Instead, they turned a division announcement into a major failure.

Splitting Michigan and Ohio State in divisions is a catastrophic mistake. The chances of these two teams meeting in the Big Ten title game are extremely minimal. Look at Florida State-Miami (never), look at Nebraska-Oklahoma (once in 15 years). Conference title games are a money-grubbing, competition diluting event that does not help out as much as “the experts” make it out to be. With Michigan and Ohio State meeting in the final game every year, even if they do play each other the next week in the title game, the first edition could be relatively meaningless.

The league that is known for its basketball championship game taking place during NCAA tournament selection, and ending its football season nearly two weeks before others, did not do anyone a service by not having a name for the divisions. In the meantime, divisions will be known simply for the teams that are contained within.

Who knows whether this call was intentional or not, but one would have to guess so with all of the contained questions during the “news conference.” I know a bad publicized event when I see one and the 11 (soon to be 12) commissioners should question the leaks and the way that this was rolled out to the public. With the excitement surrounding the divisional announcement, one would have to believe that the 2010 season is a mere throw away for the league.

Big Ten Realignment Sure to Disappoint

Jeff Lutz — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 04:26:22 +0000

When the Big Ten divisions for 2011 are announced in the next few weeks, there will surely be quite a discussion about how it impacts ongoing rivalries. While the Michigan-Ohio State game has drawn most of the headlines, the head Big Ten offices are juggling traditional rivalries with geographical ones. No matter the result, fans will see some Big Ten schools in a different light.

I believe there’s only one result to the alignment discussion, break the teams up East-West. Place Michigan, Michigan State, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio State and Penn State in the East division, and Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Northwestern in the West division. This keeps a high percentage of the traditional rivalries in the same division and potential final divisional games would be Indiana-Purdue for the Old Oaken Bucket, Michigan-Penn St. for the Land Grant Trophy, and the infamous Michigan-Ohio State game.

The result of this split will ultimately focus on potential matchups in the championship game. I don’t believe that divisional matchups should be made with this one game in mind, especially if they are only theoretical. This is very similar to why it doesn’t matter whether current powers are in the same division, especially with a team like Nebraska looking to find their identity within their new conference. Michigan and Ohio State need to be placed in the same division, just as Michigan and Michigan State need to be placed together. Big Ten championship games, like any other conference, may not demonstrate the most ideal two teams every year, but the results will remain unpredictable.

Georgie: A Friend’s Tribute to the Late George Cantor

Tom DeLisle — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:15:52 +0000

The Detroit Tigers played at Chicago Sunday afternoon, taking on the White Sox as funeral services were being held in Southfield for George Cantor. I found the co-existence of the two events almost unreal; incongruous. I guess I thought that when George died … he would take baseball with him.

If you were fortunate enough to be a Tigers fan in the 1960s, and a reader of the Detroit Free Press, then you were treated to some of the finest and most original baseball writing and reporting in the history of the game. George brought his genius and an encyclopedic mind — along with his gentle and omnipresent wit — to every facet of his long writing career, but it was baseball that was the beneficiary of his passion for analysis and clever study.

It was my great fortune to know Georgie for 45 years. I was in awe of him before I ever met him. As a college student majoring in journalism, a Detroiter who lived and died with the Bengals each summer, I marveled at his brilliant and atypical baseball writing. When I first joined the Free Press in 1966, I was pleased to find myself working not far from his office in the sports department. We met through our involvement on the newspaper’s softball team, and his easy and charitable acceptance of me as a fellow and peer led to a friendship that lit up almost every aspect of my life.

George was the right man at the right time when the Tigers turned the Detroit sporting scene on its ear with their magnificent attainment of the 1968 World Series crown. He and the ‘68 Tigers were made for each other; Cantor hit his own personal peak as an artist the same year that Kaline, Lolich, Freehan, Northrup, Cash, Horton, Stanley et al. ascended to local immortality in a baseball season for the ages. George was there to paint their picture.

Cantor was that rare bird; an intellectual in the locker room. Some Free Press readers, even some of the Tigers, resented his references to literary history and his citing of Shakespearean examples in his coverage of hits, runs, errors, and the inanity of characters like Denny McLain on the Detroit baseball club. But that was George. Nobody loved baseball as he did; no one cared more for the honor and magic and traditions of the game. No one knew more, about Tigers history, about the individuals who had graced the game, than he.

I think it was during the 1966 season that the Tigers played a game in Kansas City when a tornado struck part of the stadium, stirring up debris and suspending play. Everyone — fans and players — ran for cover. At the funeral Sunday, his brother Michael recalled how George — noting that the telecast back to Detroit was ongoing as the dangerous winds howled — maneuvered to get himself interviewed by George Kell for a lengthy period of time during the suspension of play.

Georgie was playing the odds — he later said that by his figuring no one had ever been struck by a tornado in the history of live television, so he was safe on the air. In fact, when the Tiger team plane took off from KC that night, corkscrewing skyward in the still-dangerous high winds that were raking across the midwest, George situated himself on the bouncing aircraft so he could see Al Kaline seated in the forward section of the plane. His calming explanation — and his reason for flying in eyesight of Kaline whenever he traveled with the Tigers in the years to follow — was that he was in good and secure company as long as he had his eye on Al. Nothing bad, he figured, could ever happen to the magnificent and graceful #6.

George and I stood up in each other’s weddings in the 1970s. He couldn’t dance a lick, and when they were introduced for their part in the Wedding Dance at my nuptials, he and my sister-in-law went bouncing around the floor in an odd and clumsy style. “Is there a name for this dance?” she nervously inquired of him. “Yes,” George replied, “it’s called The Fiasco.”

George and I were fellow city desk reporters from 1969-71, variously monitoring local mayhem and interviewing talking dogs, after he left the Tigers beat. He subsequently became a terrific travel writer, and then a general columnist for the Detroit News for almost 30 years. He was not only a keen observer and intriguing analyst of the local and national news scene, he was also rigidly honest and completely scrupulous in his life as a high-profile Detroit journalistic personality … something quite unusual in his day. With the advent of television and the onslaught of instant communication, hustlers and corner-cutting opportunists served themselves under the guise of supposed journalism. Not George.

He wrote 30 books in his time, most of them about sports because he could never separate himself from the drama and lure and personalities of the games. Our lives evolved and changed with the decades, but our friendship — we never had even a disagreeable word in 45 years — was rock solid and undiminished by age. That connection took us back, again and again, to Michigan and Trumbull downtown. In 1972 we sat limp, in shock, in our seats at the stadium after the Tigers lost an excruciating playoff series to Oakland by one lousy run. One. Through the 1980s and early ’90s, we often met at our local cathedral — in rain, in snow, under sunny skies — to share the unique buzz of Opening Day.

In 1984 I was thrilled to take my father down to the fifth game of the World Series on a foggy and gray Sunday night. After parking our car and beginning a long hike to the stadium, whom should we encounter but George. And on our delightful trek up Michigan Avenue, we marveled, over and over again, how the Tigers … our Tigers … would inevitably secure a World Series victory that night. Which of course they did. OUR Tigers. Over-powering everyone. Incredible.

Finally, on the night they closed the old ballpark, a 1999 date which shall live in infamy, I wandered down onto the field following the long game and post-game ceremonies. There had been the almost mystical appearance of former Tigers stars, as they seemed to just suddenly appear, one after another, on that oddly warm late September evening . Again I encountered George, this time on the perfect grass of the infield. We both understood, and were attempting to savor, what we had experienced that night.

They say you shouldn’t look back in life, but when we slowly walked out of the ballpark around 11 p.m. — he had been interviewed “live” on the field by ESPN — George and I stopped at every corner on Trumbull, and took one long look after another at the magic that had been Detroit’s stadium. All the lights were still blazing, and the place we had come to as children, as professionals, as fans, as friends … was slowly fading into the misty night behind us. We stopped; we turned and looked. With the crossing of every street. Again and again. Peering back in an attempt to preserve something that had been so important to our lives.

George Cantor’s soul was part and parcel of that place. The stadium ultimately came down; our friendship never did.

How Clean Are Our Stadiums?

Jeff Lutz — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:04:59 +0000

ESPN, the sports entertainment outlet more known these days for publicity stunts, recently released a study on the cleanliness (or lack of) at various sports venues throughout the country. Not surprising, the study came back with many findings that food venues in our stadiums are filled with one health violation after another. While this won’t cause myself to make a personal change when I go to my next sporting event, I will likely be doing some extra scanning when I step up to the counter.

Before I discuss the Detroit findings, a quick story of an interesting food experience I had at a sports venue. I was at Alliance Bank Stadium in Syracuse on opening day and I decided to order the chicken finger basket from the food stand. They said it would take a minute or two and my food would be ready. Upon completion, I grabbed some ketchup and headed to my seat, where I took a massive bite into the tender in my hand. To my surprise, the hot outside was a drastic contrast to the completely raw/half-frozen inside. I was able to get my money back, but I remained in shock that they would actually serve something like that to the public.

Detroit’s stadiums did not fare well at all with The Palace being the “big winner” in the findings. Here are the results by stadium and the quick lowlights from the study:

The Palace of Auburn Hills (39% vendors in violation): Inspectors found food debris on a countertop slicer, which was a repeat critical violation for this stand.

Comerica Park (51%): One pizza vendor incurred 12 critical violations, mostly for improper food temperatures and for not preventing possible contamination.

Joe Louis Arena (52%): Poisonous or toxic materials were stored atop items used to serve customers, posing a potential risk of contamination. Inspectors also found roaches below a soda dispenser at one location.

Ford Field (70%): Inspectors cited one location 11 times in the past six years after seeing employees who didn’t wash their hands. At another stand, they found an employee’s half-eaten hamburger in a warming unit.

The Unwritten Rules of Sports

Jeff Lutz — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:20:23 +0000

I’m making a pilgrimage for the fifth time shortly to one of my favorite American cities – Las Vegas. The city is so outrageous and unrealistic that it actually becomes a well received break from the daily grind. Much like I’ve learned during my previous visits to Sin City, casino and club goers have a set of unwritten rules that they need to abide by with the threat of being ridiculed by fellow patrons. Sports are no different and those rules can have bigger payback than a scowl from a blackjack dealer.

Here are some at the top of my head. What other rules are unwritten?

BASEBALL – Announcers, players and fans do not mention a no-hitter that is in progress; a bunt cannot end a no-hitter and an intentional hit-by-pitch cannot end a perfect game; when coming to the plate you do not cross in front of the catcher; when waiting for a pitcher to warm up, the player waits near his own dugout; when blowing out a team you do not take multiple pitches; a pitcher waits in the dugout until his stat line is completed

HOCKEY — When a fight is about to begin, do not fake out dropping your gloves; do not celebrate an empty net goal; don’t shoot the puck on net after the whistle blows; do not intentionally slide snow into the goalie’s face

BASKETBALL — Do not make plays to specifically enhance your stats; do not shoot 3-pointers with a big lead and plenty of time on the shot clock; don’t use a full-court press when your team has a large lead

FOOTBALL — Always take a knee when you have the ball and the lead late in a game; never keep all of your starters in when leading by a lot; never call for a fake punt or onside kick when leading by a lot

Sympathy for Our Cleveland Friends

Jeff Lutz — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:55:20 +0000

Soon reality will begin to sink in. Every hardcore sports fan has that one player on your team that will surely leave for another team and break your heart. When the 2010-11 NBA season begins, basketball will now have an “us vs. them” mentality. We want our players to pull an Yzerman, Dumars or Thomas and spend their entire playing careers here in Detroit, but that is no longer a realistic mentality.

As I watched LeBron James attempt to turn his words into sentences during a ridiculous “interview” with Jim Gray, it needed to be said that sports are a business and James’ loyalty to Cleveland, and Ohio, was only by birth alone. James always wanted something bigger and who are we to suggest otherwise? We take for granted seeing Matthew Stafford or Chris Osgood wear Tigers hats, but it was James proud to wear a Yankees hat when they came in town to play his “hometown” Indians. This free agent season was merely a game for James to yet again get what he wanted, and for another moment, another Midwest city is impacted in both spirit and economically.

When Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez essentially began the transition of the Tigers from a bottom-feeder to a contender, he simply went to the city that gave him the most money. This was in a stark contrast to the pursuit of Miguel Tejada and Carl Pavano, who seemingly wouldn’t sign with the Tigers under any conditions. It’s my belief that even the most money-hungry athletes will feel a sense of loyalty when a team throws a bundle of money at them. In the Pudge deal, and the Ordonez deal that came shortly after, those players did demonstrate some loyalty to their new franchises through their deals.

For our friends in Cleveland, we know what it’s like to have odds seemingly against you. Cleveland, much like Detroit, is a constantly evolving city with a passionate sports base. The right people are leading those sports teams and it will only be a matter of time before that nearly 50-year drought comes to a halt.

The Incredible Story of the Friendship Between a Fan and His Hero

Bill Dow — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 08:00:07 +0000

During my experience of playing a reporter as an extra for the Billy Crystal produced HBO film *61 about the 1961 home run race between Yankee teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, I heard some very interesting stories on the set at Tiger Stadium ten years ago this summer.

Andy Strasberg and his hero Roger Maris at Yankee Stadium.

However none was as moving as the story I heard from Andy Strasberg who was hired by Crystal as a consultant for the movie. Strasberg is considered THE authority and the all time number one fan of Roger Maris, the man I still consider to hold the legitimate single season record holder for most homers in a season. (61 in ’61) (No steroids for Roger)

While sitting in the home dugout during a lunch break, Strasberg shared with me his incredible story of the friendship he developed with Maris that began as a kid growing up near Yankee Stadium.

When Maris was traded to New York in 1960, Strasberg took an instant liking to Roger Maris and when he was old enough to go to Yankee Stadium himself he would always sit in rightfield and speak with Roger during pre-game practice. At one point Strasberg worked up the nerve to ask Maris if he could have one of his game used bats and Roger said he would give him the next bat he cracked.

While the Yankees were out on a west coast trip, Strasberg was listening to the game on his transistor radio while under the covers when the Yankee broadcaster announced that Maris had broken his bat and was going back to the dugout to get another one. Sure enough, on the next home stand Maris ran out to right field prior to the game and told Strasberg he had the broken bat waiting for him at the lockeroom. The bat would become the first of many Maris game used items that Strasberg would eventually acquire, but more than that, he had acquired a friend for life.

This is how Strasberg told the rest of his amazing story.

“In 1966 I went off to college at the University of Akron, in Ohio. My roommate had a picture of Raquel Welch on his wall and I had a picture of Roger Maris. Everyone in the school now knew that I was a big Maris fan. Some of my friends said, “You told us that you knew Roger Maris. Let’s just go see.” So one day six of us drove 2½ hours to Pittsburgh to see the Cardinals play the Pirates. It was May 9, 1967. We got to Forbes Field two hours before the game, and there was the red number 9. It was the first time in my life I had ever seen Roger Maris outside of Yankee Stadium, and I figured he wouldn’t know who I was because the setting was different. I was very, very nervous. Extremely nervous, because I had five guys with me. I went down to the edge of the fence, and my voice was quavering as I said, “Ah, Rog…Roger….”

He turned around and said, “Andy Strasberg, what the hell are you doing here in Pittsburgh?”

That was the first time I knew he knew my name. I looked at him and I looked at my friends and I said, “Well, Rog, I’m with some guys from college. They wanted to meet you and I just wanted to say hello.” The five of them paraded by and shook hands and they couldn’t believe it. I wished Rog the traditional good luck and he said, “Wait a minute. I want to give you an autograph on a National League ball.” And he went into the dugout and got a ball and signed it. I put it in my pocket and I felt like a million dollars.

I’m very superstitious when it comes to baseball. That day I sat in row 9, seat 9 out in rightfield. In the third inning Roger hit his first National League home run, off Woodie Fryman.

I caught the ball.

It’s the most amazing thing that will ever happen to me in my life. I caught the ball and tears were rolling down my face. I couldn’t believe it. He came running out at the end of the inning—you’ve got to remember that Rog knew where I was, and it wasn’t crowded that particular game—and he said, “I can’t believe it.” I said, “You can’t? I can’t!”

After all that, Strasberg and Maris became very close friends, so much so that one of Roger’s son’s named their child Andy after Andy Strasberg.

In the movie, Crystal had Strasberg play the fan who actually jumped out of the stands to shake Roger’s hand after hitting his 61st home run. Today Strasberg, a former San Diego executive owns a sports marketing company in San Diego. One of his current ventures is the website, http://fantography.net — a site that posts photos taken by fans at major league ballparks.

Detroit’s Most Glorious Sports Moments

Tom DeLisle — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:20:39 +0000

I recently compiled a list of the most exasperating defeats and disappointments in my long observation of local professional sports.

In the interests of fair play and balance, it seems only fair to also look back at the greatest moments I’ve experienced in following our local teams, reflecting on the finer times I’ve witnessed across more decades than I’d like to count. My Worst Moments list constituted a baker’s dozen of defeat and despair; this compilation of golden memories will stop at ten. This IS Detroit, after all:

1. December 22, 1957: Lions at San Francisco, Western Division playoff. This is surely the greatest game in Lions history. Down 27-7 in the third quarter of this championship confrontation, the Lions roared back for a 31-27 victory that left ‘em weeping at Kezar Stadium, with Detroiters delirious in front of their TVs on a Sunday night. The then-never-champion 49ers didn’t recover until the Montana era. Tobin Rote, Joe Schmidt, and Tom Tracy led the Lions in their stunning comeback.

2. December 29, 1957: Lions vs. Cleveland, World’s Championship game. The gashouse gang that was the ‘57 Lions topped a season of miracles with an astonishing 59-14 rout of the favored Browns at Briggs Stadium. Everything they tried worked. Yup, the LIONS. Personally, my first attendance at a Lions game. I thought they’d all be this wonderful and joyous.

3. December 4, 1960. Lions at Colts. Down 15-13 after a spectacular Unitas-Moore TD pass, the Lions have time for one play. It’s a beaut–a 65 yard Morrall to Gibbons TD pass that deflates Baltimore, 20-15, and brings an end to their two year domination of the NFL, and the Lions. The Miracle on Turf.

4. Thanksgiving Day, 1962. Detroit vs. Green Bay. The Lions, again. Yes, they really USED to be that good, that colorful. This time it was the Thanksgiving domination that was as good as the historic hype. I was attending my third Lions game. It was the last great moment of a once-great NFL franchise. The Lions threw the elite Packers around like they were tackling dummies. Plum to Cogdill; Brown, Karras, Schmidt et al. to Starr. The 26-14 final was illusionary, this was 59-14 all over again.

5. October 1964, Red Wings Opening Game. One of the most amazing comebacks in major sports history begins when Ted Lindsay electrifies the opening night crowd at Olympia by skating out as a surprise member of the ‘64 Wings team. Leader of the Red Wings in their glory years, the 39-year old Lindsay had retired in Chicago following the 1960 season. Second only to Gordie Howe in local hockey esteem, the scrappy Lindsay (at 5-8 and maybe 160 pounds) helps lead the Wings to their first regular season championship since 1957 with 14 goals and 173 penalty minutes.

6. April 1966, Red Wings vs. Chicago, Stanley Cup semi-final. In the deciding game of a classic and dramatic series (remember Bugsy Watson vs. Bobby Hull?) the Wings are down 2-1 in the waning minutes, when Dean Prentice scores two electric back-to-back goals that ignite Olympia and propel the Wings into the ‘66 Stanley Cup final. A victory reminiscent of the team’s glory days, it was the last hurrah at Grand River’s glorious old barn.

7. October 1968, Game 5 of the Detroit-St. Louis World Series. Down 3-1 in the Series, trailing early in the game, the Tigers are poised at last to take the lead. At bat is Al Kaline, with everything on the line. His unforgettable single into short right/center, connecting on a wicked low-outside strike pitch, sends the Tigers ahead to stay for this game and the two that follow in St. Louis. As important as Horton’s throw to Freehan earlier in the game, it is the single that saves the Series. And a golden moment of salvation for the greatest Tiger of our time.

8. October 14, 1968, Game 7 Detroit at St. Louis. Mickey Lolich strides into local lore with the greatest pitching performance in Tigers history. His magnificent third Series victory — mowing them down at the plate and on the basepaths, cool as a cuke — reduces what Denny McLain did during the regular season nearly to insignificance. Better, our town gets to finally shove it to the Cardinals IN St. Louis some 34 years after the Cards embarrassed the Tigers in the 1934 World Series in Detroit. Real Detroiters never forget.

Okay, I was wrong. I’m not even half done, not even out of the 1960s yet, and already nearly out of space here. Who’da thunk we’d have so many glorious local moments worth recalling? Certainly not a naysayer like myself. This has been more fun that I figured. But it will have to continue with more Glorious Moments in Part Two ….

Izzo’s Legacy Forever Altered

Jeff Lutz — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:57:39 +0000

Tuesday evening was a time for celebration and relief for Spartan fans – Tom Izzo had declared himself a Spartan for life. His record and success in the NCAA tournament have created this situation, and he undoubtedly deserves much of the credit that goes with all of those wins. As a graduate of a different university, I have great respect for the success Izzo has had with Michigan State. It is this same success that I now look differently at, especially after seeing how the Tom Izzo brand took a big hit this week.

As mentioned in previous blogs, I went to Syracuse, and my legendary basketball coach of choice – Jim Boeheim – has 829 wins or 73 from Bobby Knight’s all-time total. In a recent interview he did around his 800th win, he mentioned that he had received an offer to coach the Atlanta Hawks (same team that offered Izzo a contract in 2000) in the early ’80s. This was a revelation to Orange fans who had considered Boeheim a Syracuse-lifer. Boeheim has also had a great deal of run-ins with the media, but he always calls out the media member to their face, not hiding behind blanket statements.

What I’m trying to get at is that accountability should no longer be a word used in the home locker room at the Breslin Center. During his conveniently timed press conference, Izzo and MSU brass put the blame on the media for inappropriately handling their roles over the past two weeks. Izzo’s rambling speech quickly turned from celebratory to accusatory towards media and those who thought he would leave. Nobody asked Izzo to point and lecture media while he was running a youth camp. Nobody told Izzo to stay silent until his primetime news conference.

I can’t help but think what these latest moves did for a lot of us once-neutral fans that respected Izzo for the work he has done with the Spartans. With his recent actions it is hard to separate the coach from the personality, from the team. There’s no doubt that college basketball season will heal all wounds, but until then, Cavs and Spartans fans will weight the consequences of one person’s actions.

When Pontiac Hosted the World

Jeff Lutz — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 04:44:09 +0000

You could see the giant Swiss flag from miles around upon approach to the Pontiac Silverdome. The stark reminder that this was the world’s game, and seemingly one of the very few things that hadn’t been dominated by Americans over the years. As anticipation continued to build upon entering the stadium, my childhood eyes were fixated on something beyond the screaming Swiss fans or the pageantry before the game. For me, it was the sight of a grass field inside the building where Barry Sanders had run wild and monster trucks had run wilder. For one month in June of 1994, the United States was at the epicenter of the soccer world.

The World Cup begins on Friday in South Africa, and the event has a totally different attitude for Americans following winning hosting rites for the ‘94 Cup. Americans almost take for granted the appearance every four years in the World Cup, but it was the preceding Cup in 1990 that began the current run of participating in six straight World Cup finals. Also, it was the 1994 World Cup that made the idea of somebody buying the Silverdome for soccer purposes seem somewhat reasonable. Now that we’ve seen it can be done, and successful for major events, there is no reason why soccer can’t be as big at the professional level as it is for kids in grade school.

It’s also interesting to look back and think of how that moment in June of 1994 was a high point for Pontiac that would begin a significant downfall. The hotels and businesses in the area see the occasional traffic, but the events don’t come to the Silverdome like they used to. The drive-ins are being cleaned up for use again, but the empty Big Buck Brewery and the continuously shuttered Showcase Cinemas remind everyone of what was. The city of Pontiac is such a history-filled location at the other end of Woodward from Detroit, but for one sunny afternoon, history was made anew in its largest venue.