betterREDthandead

Pope did get the ball though. He clearly, at least on replay, knocked the ball away before any contact was made. Correct me if I'm wrong (you're the referee, I'm the guy who looks at a soccer game once every four years), but if the defender gets the ball, isn't any foul nullified, no matter how bad the appearance of the contact?

The nice thing about the result is that now Italy is up against it. That's from Buffon, their goaltender. We need to beat Ghana, and we need Italy to beat the Czechs. Italy knows they can't afford to lose - they'd be eliminated with a Ghana victory, or tie if the goal differential is right. They have to go out and beat the Czechs, and what's better, they're probably pissed and a little bit embarrassed about the tie. In order to advance, we need Italy to win their next match, and I think that part will be taken care of - we just have to take care of business against Ghana without Pope or Mastroeni. Not easy.

Thanks to getting smoked by 3, the US would lose any goal differential tie breakers unless they somehow really pour it on against someone. So assuming the US would lose all tiebreakers, there's only one scenario in which they could tie Italy, beat Ghana, and still advance: the Czechs would have to lose to Ghana and Italy. If they tie Italy and somehow beat Ghana by 6 or something, then maybe. Gotta pull hard for Ghana today.

Dombrowski has been a trading machine the past couple years. Only thing about Miner right now, you have to wonder if his success stems from the fact that nobody has a scouting report on him. The real test of his abilities comes when he faces someone for a second time.

Lemme start by saying I like Todd Jones, I really do. He seems to be a genuinely good guy who always gives his all, and really cares about his performance. That said, I think it's time for him to hang it up.

*sniff*

Rather than complain about "bad" showings in all these sports, maybe we should take note of the fact that the United States competes and competes well in all these sports. Name another country that can expect to go into all these tournaments in all these different sports and do so well. Very few can say they are contenders in even two sports. Italy might be the only other country that can put itself on a level with the US in that respect, since they play soccer, hockey, basketball, and baseball, although only soccer well. And our national passion is football anyway, which the world doesn't share. England has the Premiership, Italy has Serie A, Sweden has the Elitserien, Russia has the Superliga, and the USA has the NFL. Also, our best athletes are spread out among all the different sports, especially football and basketball. All the best Dominican and Cuban athletes play baseball. All the best Brazilian and English athletes play soccer. We spread 'em out to all the different sports. All the best Swedish and Russian athletes play hockey. So instead of feeling like we should be embarrassed, how about staying proud that we're so good in so many different sports, none of which are our primary sport, when everybody else is a one-sport wonder.

I prefer to think of Ghana's decent showing against Italy as evidence the USA has a chance against the Azzurri rather than being at risk of losing to Ghana

Verlander vs. Kazmir tonight. Fun matchup.

Still not sold on the Netherlands - in fact I still think the Ivory Coast will get past instead of Holland. Beating Serbia doesn't impress me much, and the Dutch did control the play, but they couldn't finish. Despite spending most of the match in Serbia's end, they didn't even get many quality shots on net. I bet Ivory Coast ties them and advances on tiebreaker, either by beating Serbia by more than one, or Argentina beating Holland by more than one. Question is can England get past Germany in the Round of 16? I say yes, but that's shaky.

Rob Deer baby! One of my favorite Tigers ever. Anyway, I think the very point of trying to get another lefty bat is to have a power bat, because the right field fence is very, very reachable, whereas left field obviously is where home runs go to die. But Jenkins wouldn't be the guy I want - as you said, strikes out a ton. He might reach 200 this year. And if Granderson cuts down on the K's, he's got career leadoff hitter written all over him. A slight boost in batting average would be nice, but he's got the best eye for the strike zone of anyone on the team. On pace for about 90 walks, which is way above the major league average.

A tie for England against T&T (which would probably cause the stadium to explode) wouldn't guarantee anything for England, because they could lose to Sweden. But England will probably win out. Three days of games are done now - Mexico over Iran 3-1 and Portugal squeaking by Angola 1-0. Best performance so far has easily been Hislop of T&T, just brilliant in net. I'm just mad that the USA-CR game tomorrow is at noon rather than being the later game at 3. If this were England I'm sure I could get off of work for it, but not so much here. Have to settle for Italy-Ghana and root hard for the Africans.

One guy to keep an eye on at Toledo might be Victor Mendez. Called up from Lakeland a couple weeks ago. He hasn't gotten into many games, but when he has, he's done some good hitting. He's a switch-hitter, so if he starts to earn regular playing time in Toledo and makes the most of it, I say use him to fill Gomez's role.

Trinidad & Tobago with the upset of the tournament so far. Sweden's got nothing but tougher matches coming up now. Suddenly T&T vs. Paraguay gets interesting.

Nice pitching by Miner today - looks like he got the first-game jitters out of the way and will be a solid replacement for Maroth. I still am rooting for Thames to get into the everyday lineup ahead of Monroe. Nothing against Monroe, but Thames can flat-out hit. 12 HRs in 115 ABs this year. One per 9.5 ABs. That works out to 57 jacks over a full 550 AB season. His .313 BA sure is nice too. Of course, Leyland seems to want to put that schmo Gomez in sometime around the 6th or 7th. Stop it. Yes, we need a left handed bat - a good left-handed bat.

I think he means that physically, anyone can learn to play, not referring to whether or not anyone has the means.

Well well well....Ecuador shuts out Poland and shows once again that many European teams are overrated for being European. That's why I'm not at all convinced the Czech Republic is superior to the US.

I still don't see why a sport is better the harder it is to play. That's an annoying thing I see out of some hockey fans - they look down on other sports because "anyone can play them."

Man, finally got some runners home last night. Fantastic baserunning by Pudge and Guillen to put the pressure on the Sox and win the game. And by the way, Marcus Thames is going to play Monroe out of a job. He'd better. Thames would hit 30 home runs if given a regular spot in the lineup. Rough spot, but still in first. Tough series against Toronto coming up, but we dodge Halladay. I'm going to the June 14 game against Tampa Looks like it'll be Bonderman's turn in the rotation for that one, against Mark Hendrickson.

Other than Andrew Miller (again: HUGE STEAL, I think) Baseball America had some nice things to say about some of the Tigers' other picks: Ronnie Bourquin, second round, a 2B from Ohio State: "Might have found another gem" as he hit .416 with 66 RBI for OSU. Ryan Strieby, fourth round, 1B from Kentucky: "one of the draft's most powerful hitters" Chris Cody, eighth round, LHP from Manhattan: "plus changeup and a very advanced feel for pitching", pitched nine shutouts this season for Manhattan. Still pretty pleased with the Miller pick. Best pitcher in the draft. Can't wait to see how he looks in spring training.

One thing that's really kinda flown under the radar is the Lions' signing of Ross Verba. That guy had a big nasty streak when he was protecting Brett Favre, and he's been working out at left guard with the first unit. Left guard has been so bad the past couple years, the Lions might as well have requested that opposing defensive tackles simply count "three Mississippi" before rushing the QB, and forget about running to that side at all. Verba will start this year and he'll probably turn out to be the Lions most important offseason pickup.

What other draft blunders? Hell, Munson actually played in the bigs! By the Tigers' standards of the '90s and early '00s, that's a huge pickup. Off the top of my head, there's Cade Gaspar and Mike Drumright, who never made it; Seth Greisinger, who probably would have been decent but blew out his elbow; Kenny Baugh, same, only his shoulder instead; Matt Anderson, who could throw 103 but never over the plate. If you really want a kick in the shins, Mark Mulder was a Tigers pick who never signed. Want more? Richard Greene and Matt Brunson from the early '90s, who never saw the light of day. Matt Wheatland from 2000 never made it to the Show either. Scott Moore from 2002 couldn't even hit A-ball pitching. Kyle Sleeth from '03 could still be a good pitcher, but he's just now coming back from Tommy John surgery, which Greisinger never could recover from. In 1990 the Tigers picked up Tony Clark. Since then, the Tigers first rounders who have played in the bigs are: Munson, Anderson, Greisinger, Justin Verlander, and Jeff Weaver. That's it. Five in fifteen years. Randy Smith's real legacy wasn't his trades, it was his complete inability to stock a farm system. Only now, with David Chadd running the draft, are the Tigers doing it right.

BIG TIME STEAL, in my opinion....Miller was considered the consensus #1, even more so than "Greedy Luke" Hochevar. Hopefully signability doesn't come into play - the Tigers have had a real tough time with their last two #1 picks - both Verlander and Maybin broke off talks at one point. But for now, every Tigers fan should be salivating at the idea that Dr. Destroy is a future Tiger! Verlander hit the rotation as a regular in just a year and a half....I suspect Miller might be half a year to a year behind that, since he doesn't have Verlander's velocity or pinpoint control, so how does a September '08 callup sound?

I actually see Argentina and the Ivory Coast coming out of that group. My vast soccer experience and knowledge tells me so.[/sarcasm] No, just my feeling that Ivory Coast is* this year's come-from-nowhere African Cinderella. That, and I hope it's not Ghana. Guvnor, you aren't one of those 3,300 hooligans that can't leave the country and has to go hang out at the police station during England's games, are you? *Am I supposed to say "are", "Ivory Coast are", not "is"? What's up with that? Is that a British thing, or do the French also say "La Cote d'Ivoire sont la Cinderella de cette annee" instead of "La Cote d'Ivoire est la Cinderella...." Or maybe "Les Cote d'Ivoire sont...."?

Sheed's performance before and after the ankle injury was night and day. I think with a healthy Sheed, the Pistons host Dallas on Thursday. Garnett is about the only player who might be available that I'd want back if Sheed were to be traded.