Today's Detroit Tiger boxscore was clicked on, and immediately clicked off in disgust. Their performance the past couple days show that first place may not be theirs for long. Since Monday, their play has been wretchedly 2008 again: they can't hit, pitch or field.
Continuing my recent rants on the legitmacy of response blog accuracies, I find it funny to see how many fair-weather fans will go to such extremes: Lose one game, fire everyone. Win one game, GO TIGERS! Win, and new pitching coach Rick Knapp looks like a genius. Lose, and old pitching coach Chuck Hernandez must still be giving the pitchers bad pointers from the other dugout.
I originally took offense at local columnist Terry Foster, and even Mitch Albom to a degree, when they complained about regular people blogging sporting events. They claim that the average fan knows nothing about the teams, and that any argument, from any stance, is baseless. We are to rely on the paid sportswriter if we are to read anything believeable.
Responsible people are out there blogging, guys. Feverish fans know what they're talking about. Ultimately though, Foster & Albom do have a point, as the blogs are overloaded with fair-weather fans. You can spot their posts a mile away.
Realists such as myself post realistic blogs, trying to allow a little wiggle-room for someone to logically debate a differing view. Citing pitching coach Knapp, people lauded him a genius last week when the Tigers took the AL ERA lead. But now I know I'll be reading buckshot in the blogs tonight saying he's worse than Hernandez ever was.
"Jim Leyland's got the fire!", followed by "Leyland's too old," followed by "Leyland's on top of his game," followed by "Leyland smokes too much." This is why I don't take offense at the named columnists anymore. You don't need a stat sheet with winning & losing streaks to find out if the team is winning or in a rut.
Keep plugging away, Foster & Albom. Perhaps your view has merit, and you can provide solid pedestals those other bloggers can't.
Just don't forget the credit to those who are knowledgeable, unjudgmental, and calls them like they see them. Wish the response blogs had more of them.
