Archive for July 18th, 2007

18
Jul
07

Peter King gets called out; proceeds to lose it

Wrong pickYou may recall a few days ago when we called out Peter King for his pre-preseason NFL rankings.

Pete had the Colts first, New England second, San Diego third, so on and so forth. Anyway, we weren’t so much frustrated with the teams (or their order) – just that there were actually power rankings of NFL teams in July.

And, evidently, readers of Kings column weren’t too happy with his predictions either. That’s what you get for midsummer power rankings Pete.

Anyway, he kind of went off in his rebuttal column, which is fairly funny in itself.

Granted, he does do a mailbag often, but this one is basically him defending every pick he made as readers call him out. Good stuff.

Before King explains his picks, he tells the readers why the rankings aren’t the way people thought they should be:

And before I get to your e-mails, I’d like to point something out about columns like mine. It would be fairly easy and extraordinarily uninteresting to take last year’s standings, figure in the offseason moves each team has made, and put the teams in logical order based precisely on what appears to be the way the season will go. It’d be a cookie-cutter exercise.

Wouldn’t the definition of “preseason power rankings” be taking “last year’s standings, figure in the offseason moves each team has made, and put the teams in logical order based precisely on what appears to be the way the season will go”?

Basically, Pete is saying he didn’t do that just to shake things up. I’m not sure about you, but that strikes me as odd. It’s writing something just to get a response – even worse than cookie-cutter writing.

Continue reading ‘Peter King gets called out; proceeds to lose it’

18
Jul
07

The Tigers will not allow you to score runs

Great NateThe Tigers have been anything but Grrrrreat this year against the Twins. In April, Detroit welcomed Minnesota for the first series of the year between the two clubs, and promptly dropped two of three.

So, any win (ugly or not) would be news…

Tigers 1, Twins 0: Detroit got its first shutout in the Homer Dome since 2004 with a little help from the pitching staff. Although both starters were fairly stellar (Nate Robinson and Matt Garza each gave up 3 hits in 7 innings of work), Magglio Ordonez’s RBI single in the sixth was enough to keep the Tigers a game up in the Central despite…

Indians 6, White Sox 5 F/11: Say what you want about the struggling Sox, but they’ve at least kept this series entertaining. Down two heading to the bottom of the ninth, the Tribe called on Ryan “Free” Garko to pinch hit. Two-run shot, tie game. Fast-forward two innings and Garko is back at the dish. This time, it’s a GW single that drives in Jason Michaels.

Yankees 3, Blue Jays 2: Don’t look now (seriously, don’t), but the Yanks have won four in a row, and the lead in the A.L. East is down to 8.0. Jeremy Accardo’s balk in the ninth walked in the tying run before Robinson Canoe proved himself clutch with a 10th-inning, walk-off RBI single.

Phillies 15, Dodgers 3: The Phillies just can’t stop making history. Fresh off their 10,oo1st loss, Philly destroyed L.A. for 26 hits, tying the most the club has ever given up. (The Brooklyn Dodgers gave up 26 hits against the Giants in 1958.) Dodger manager Grady Little had the most positive outlook on the evening’s events…

“At least nobody got seriously injured,” he said.

More scores after the jump…

Continue reading ‘The Tigers will not allow you to score runs’