Former Michigan Wolverine Tom Brady is appearing in his fifth Super Bowl.
Fielder’s kid comes to town and Inge cries foul
The Tigers pulled the rabbit out of the hat, signing their “Prince,” Mr. Fielder” for $214 million dollars. This signing does a few things. First, Brandon Inge is “not a happy camper”. This according to Jim Leyland at the press conference unveiling the Prince. Who the hell cares if Brandon Inge is upset? He’s a 180 hitter. Never has a .180 hitter received so much attention. Can he make this team? I guess when you have the Prince and Cabrera you can “carry” a guy who really hasn’t belonged in the big leagues for more than a few years. We were fed up with Inge a few years ago, when he returned from an injury and stated (and I paraphrase): “they can’t win without me.” Inge can stop this whining any time. Most people are tired of it. Leyland said he has to hit to make our team. He got lucky. Now he just has to mop up for Cabrera when the Tigers are leading in a game. All Inge is trying to do is position himself to get a Tiger job in the organization when he more than likely is released or quits. Want some advice, Brandon? Just do as they say, stay quiet as a mouse, and they will get you a ring. There’s nothing like that ring!
The third base situation
Cabrera may not be Brooks Robinson at third base, but who would you want to play there, a guy who hits over .300 with power or a guy who hits .180? No brainer, huh? By the way, Cabrera has great hands, has played first base like a gold glover, and with his athleticism, the big guy can play the position. Cabrera is going to boot a few more than likely, but he won’t boot so many that he will cost the Tigers the division.
Prediction for 2012
I am going to also tell you that the Tigers are “LOCKS” for their division. They could have the division tied up by the end of May, that is how potent they are at this time. The Tigers start the season with everyone they picked up last year and all are healthy with the exception of Victor Martinez, who may not be ready to play next year cause he needs at least two operations now for his injuries. They’ll miss him, but not half as much as they would have had Fielder not arrived on the scene.
Stafford and the Pro Bowl flap
There has been a lot of complaining about the fact that Matthews Stafford failed to make the NFL All Pro team. Folks, in the interests of all of us who are pulling for the Lions after these past 55 years, let’s only have him play in games that count. The Lion QB has been hurt a couple times already, and let’s not allow him to do anything stupid like playing in an All-Star Game, especially the way that they play the Pro Bowl. The game is purely an exhibition, no one is putting out at a 100%, and when you are not playing 100%, just kind of going through the motions, injuries have a tendency to occur. If he stays healthy and gets some help on the offensive line, he could pit up Tom Brady numbers, and possibly – if he stays healthy – do things that no one around here ever thought about.
Super Bowl XLVI and Brady’s place in history
How can you not bet on Tom Brady? If he wins this one, he becomes without argument the greatest QB of all time, in my opinion. You know his stats, he is all everything, and he promised his owner that he would play better in the Super Bowl than he did in the last playoff game. The most amazing feat of his career is how he takes mediocre players and makes them great and sustains that greatness while they are catching his pinpoint passes. If he leads the Patriots to victory in Super Bowl XLVI, don’t be too surprised if he retires on top. He has been one hell of a gladiator, and a gladiator with super intelligence, that is what makes him so different from all of the others. I’m not saying that Eli Manning hasn’t been a great QB, but he is more the working man’s QB than Brady. Tom kind of sits back there and just does it smoothly and quickly. Eli kind of “works” at it on every play, but he too has been great this post-season. I think it will be a 38 -27 game in favor of New England, who have too many weapons and experience for the Giants. Plus, they have Tom Brady!
Cecilia
Dear Mr. McLain,
I think we are agreeing again, for the most part. Brandon Inge has not sustained himself with his bat for quite some time. His batting numbers remind me of Ray Oyler. As I recall, Mr. Oyler did not complain so much when the Tigers tried other players at shortstop. He simply accepted his role. I doubt he was happy with his new role, but I don’t recall him bellyaching about it. And, for a while at least, management went back to giving him more playing time.
Miguel Cabrera at third base seems to me to be a throwback. Not so much to Brooks Robinson, who was that amazing guy who could both hit well and field third base like a vacuum cleaner. He reminds me more of Harmon Killebrew, a big man whose play at third base was never gold-glove caliber, but who played an acceptable third base. He was more the prototype of a thirdbaseman in the day; a big man with a big bat. The shortstop and secondbaseman were the defensive infielders, while third base and first base were for hitters (generally power hitters). I may have a post-hoc falacy going here, but I think that the advent of artificial turf made it necessary to get better defense out of corner infielders. Once the ball started zipping through the infield, it became necessary to get all four fielders involved in picking off the ball. Now that artificial turf is a rarity, perhaps a team can trade off some agility at third base for a good bit more offense.