Saturday, August 9, 2008

52 52 52 Week #25: Michigan

In which I examine crappy local sports journalism on a state-by-state basis, progressing through the states in terms of an alphabetical ordering of the heights of their tallest points. Because I can.

Wow. Somehow, some way, I am halfway through this little experiment. No, I'm not sure either, particularly since the last few posts have been written using a combinationof Macs and Spanish-language keyboards, which are just different enough to slow me down something fierce (and why some of my previous posts have diacritics where apostrophes should be). But hey, I'm here, and I might as well keep it going a little longer. Especially when we've got Michigan on tap. 1979-foot Mount Arvon, what have you got tosay for yourself?

1. It only recently became the highpoint of Michigan. For the longest time, people thought nearby Mount Curwood was the tallest. But no, a resurvey in the early eighties discovered Mount Arvon was an entire foot taller. That may have been the most exciting thing that happened to that survey team. I'm not even kidding.

2. It's named after slate. Well, specifically the slate found in Carnarvon, Wales. Aren't you glad you now know that?

3. The land is owned by a paper company. Isn't that just hilariously mundane?

Good stuff. I don't know how many of my readers have tried to guess the sorts of ultra-sophisticated metrics I employ to determine which newspaper I'm going with, but I'll give you one huge hint: if your newspaper is the newspaper of record for the town of Bad Axe, Michigan, you're probably getting chosen. Seriously, Bad Axe? I just hope I live long enough to find a reason to move to a town with a name that awesome. Holy shit, man, just...holy shit. If only the newspaper was called The Bad Axe Blade, I'm pretty sure I could just go ahead and die a happy man. Oh well. The town's name is still plenty more than enough.

So yeah, The Huron Daily Tribune is your newspaper, Paul P. Adams is your writer, and EVERYTHING EVER IN THE HISTORY OF FOREVER is your topic. Enjoy!

These are just a few of my thoughts on what has transpired at the state and national levels in sports during the past week.

Oh yeah. Let's do this shit.

...Michigan football officially hit the field with new coach Rich Rodriguez and all the baggage he brought with him from West Virginia.

Baggage aside, Rodriguez is a proven winner who has turned around every program he’s been at.


Care to give some context, some analysis of his previous work? If my Internet were any faster (seriously, it's balls molasses slow right now), I'd look it up myself, but I bet there are some interesting comparisons and contrasts one could come up with if you actually talked about his previous work. Nah, not going to do that? Well, OK...

The Wolverines aren’t in need of a complete overhaul, but they could use some tweaking — and that starts with the offense.

With Rodriguez calling the plays, Michigan fans will see something they’ve never seen before — a wide-open spread offense.


Couldn't I get this from, I don't know, a U of M media guide? Is there content here that I'm just missing? Has Central America driven me stir crazy? Sorry...I mean stir loco.

The transition may take a year or two as Rodriguez recruits the right players for his system.

That transition could lead to a less than stellar year for the Wolverines, who open the season ranked No. 24. They probably won’t contend for the Big Ten title, but should make a bowl game.


So almost exactly like last year, just with more realistic expectations going in? Seriously, preseason No. 5 my ass.

Also working against the team and Rodriguez is inexperience as only two starters return on offense and four on defense.

It’s going to take time, but when things begin to click, Michigan fans will be thankful for the hiring of Rich Rodriguez.


I feel like somebody held in total isolation in a cave somewhere could generate this level of bland platitude. That's right, people - this is Joe Morgan territory. Admittedly, Paul P. Adams isn't a national anything, so I should probably be less pissed. But then this happens...

He will return the program to national prominence, it just won’t happen this year.

That's bad grammar, people! That's like a run-on or some shit! And you know how I feel about people who use bad grammar? Well, I hired a surrogate to emote for me...



New topic!

...Mark it down, the Tigers are officially done!

Since trading Ivan Rodriguez for Kyle Farnsworth and his gas can, Detroit is just 1-6 and now sits 8 1/2 games in back of the White Sox in the division.


Man, I bet Kyle Farnsworth is totally to blame!

That’s not to say Farnsworth is totally to blame, but he hasn’t helped.

Yeah, but how much can he help, really? Dude's a relief pitcher. Those guys rank barely above the equipment manager in terms of impact. Well, mostly.

He debuted on Saturday and worked a scoreless inning, but on Sunday, in a pressure situation, he melted down, giving up three runs in a game the Tigers should have won.

So he pitched really well once and really poorly another time? Why, he sounds like...an average relief pitcher. He's not swinging anybody's playoff hopes. Neither was an over-the-hill catcher like Pudge, of course.

A colleague of mine told me on Friday the Tigers were going to get swept by the Rays in a weekend series.

Come Monday, he was right, and with it all hope of making the playoffs might have vanished.


Your colleague accurately predicted one of the three best teams in baseball would beat a below-average team three times in a row? Is your colleague *HUSHED TONES* Nostradamus?

The team answered back by blowing a big lead in the opening game of a critical contest with the White Sox on Tuesday.

Jim Leyland has been threatening to shake things up, but it’s too little, too late.

The Tigers will make a mini-run here and there, but they’re just not good enough to track down the Twins or White Sox.


Yes. That is in all probability accurate.

The rest is more on Brett Favre, which I'll spare you out of kindness, an obit for Skip Caray that I'll leave alone, and a bit on the Panthers suspending Steve Smith that features this as a complete fucking paragraph:

Smith actually busting Lucas’ nose.

That...I just don't have any words for that.

2 comments:

Passive Voice said...

BWWAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The notion that what RichRod is doing to the Michigan offense is "tweaking" is so fucking absurd it hurts. The Wolverines have like 4 lettermen returning on that side of the ball, and they're all like backup fullbacks, and that's a pretty damn different system.

Passive Voice said...

uhhhhh so he goes on to mention both those things pretty much immediately. and apparently he still stands by his "tweaking" notion.