Tata Is God

The Tigers are saved. Jordan Tata threw a good, and more importantly, long game last night to give the Tigers a much needed win, and the bullpen a much needed break. Of course, Tata's arrival means the Tigers can finally afford to unload Verlander for that power-hitting first baseman. I also expect the playoff rotation to look like this:

Tata
Bondo
Tata
Rogers/Tata

In, um, real news, word on the street is that the Tigers are looking at a shortstop from Pittsburgh? Good move I guess. I wonder if, with Raburn doing what he's doing, this means Omar Infante is approaching the end? Maybe he'll go in the trade?

Versus sucks. But they're apparently (via BTJ) not the network the NHL is thinking about dumping to go back to ESPN. My guess is, if the NHL is replacing NBC, and not Versus, with the Every Sport Possible Network, it's not to get the games themselves out to wider audiences, but rather in the hopes that Sportscenter coverage will pick up and NHL Tonight will make a comeback.

The Wings are on to us. A few weeks into the Chief's scathing indictment, via Photoshop contest, of the Wings PR machine , it seems they've hired some fellows to help out and sell tickets. Wait. Let me get this straight. The Wings are... spending money... in order to... sell more tickets. Hold on. I have a plan.

Take the money you would spend on an ad agency. Use that money to reduce the cost of tickets. Tell people what you have done, and it will make the front pages of every sports section. Here's my guess for the Freep's front page, in huge, world-end sized font:

ZOMG WINGS LOWER PRICES ZOMG

(For the less educated of you, zomg is a completely technical term that you'll learn all about if you spend a few more years in college like I'm doing.) But of course, that's not what they're doing. Instead, they're hiring somebody to try and sell the Wings. How do you do that? I mean, how do you sell the idea of going to a Wings game? The most consistently dominant hockey team in the world in the past decade? And we're not talking Spurs/Patriots/Pistons/Devils dominant, we're talking good and also entertaining to watch. To say nothing of Hasek. The Wings sell themselves. You don't need to advertise the Wings. If people are not going to Wings games it's because they CAN'T FUCKING AFFORD IT AND A NEW AD CAMPAIGN WON'T CHANGE THAT.

It's time for the Captain to get in there, and bust some fucking skulls.