So, I got kicked off while writing, so this is my second run. 

I dedicate this opening to BOB and hope it sums things up for him nicely. I like the fact that the second video features a Canadian ranting about soccer. Good to see them breaking away from Britain a bit.

I, like many of you, played soccer as a kid. I was a defenseman. I played during recess. Then, as I grew, I was taken to other sports. Being a 6'5", 300 poundish guy, I was more gifted for football. There not many folks my size on the pitch. Unfortunately, my girlfriend is down in Brazil and has taken a liking to soccer. Luckily, she's also starting to like baseball more too, so I just have to hope to steer her to the Tigers.

So, I've seen many of you moaning about the draft. Like I said last week, it can be a time of hope. Of course, that hope is dashed pretty quick when your team takes a punter in the third or yet another WR. Still, what gets me most are the experts. Each year, ESPN brings out MeL Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay and they preach the gospil to a world wide audience. What you don't hear are how often these guys get it wrong. 

A quick Google search didn't turn up too much, aside from a hilarious article on The Wayne Fontes Experience. Al Beaton basically rants about how terrible Kiper has been about suggesting picks for the Lions in the past. Some of the gems Beaton brings up are Kiper's love for Andre Ware and Mike Williams, but he also brings up the fact that Kiper hated the Lions picking up Chris Spielman. According to Kiper, the Lions reached on the guy. The Lions got Spielman number 29 overall, while Kiper had him going in the 4-5th round. Ten years and 4 Pro-Bowls later, we all know who was right there.

Still, the lack of knowledge of Kiper's real ability is surprising. I'd like to find a mathematician and have him run the numbers to find a suitable equation to show how off Kiper usually is. Short of that, I thought I'd look at the 2008 draft. Why 2008? Simply put, it's the last draft I sat through in its entirety. It's also far enough away that we can really see how bad or good the picks were. Here are the first 10 picks according to Kiper:

1 ) Miami Dolphins - Chris Long, DE, Virginia
Actual Pick (AP): Jake Long

2 ) St. Louis Rams - Jake Long, OT, Michigan

AP: Chris Long
3 ) Atlanta Falcons - Matt Ryan, QB, Boston College

AP: Matt Ryan
4 ) Oakland Raiders - Darren McFadden, RB, Arkansas
AP: Darren McFadden

5 ) Kansas City Chiefs - Ryan Clady, OT, Boise State
AP: Glenn Dorsey

6 ) New York Jets - Vernon Gholston, DE/OLB, Ohio State

AP: Vernon Gholston
7 ) New England Patriots (via SF) - Leodis McKelvin, CB, Troy

AP: made by NO Sedrick Ellis
8 ) Baltimore Ravens - Glenn Dorsey, DT, LSU

AP: made by Jacksonville Derrick Harvey (sorry to make you re-live that Scotty)
9 ) Cincinnati Bengals - Sedrick Ellis, DT, USC
AP: Keith Rivers

10 ) New Orleans Saints - Mike Jenkins, DB/CB, South Florida

AP: made by NE Jerod Mayo

So, looking at this sampling, we can see that Kiper got 3 out of 10 picks right. He's batting .300. I can give him a pass because no one can see the trades coming, but there's not as much accuracy as educated guessing at work. You could probably get better results from the octopus that picked world cup winners or that girl who wins the NCAA bracket challenge by picking the team with the best uniforms. Kiper gets paid to do this. He's ESPN's weatherman.

 Unfortunately, some teams believe in what he says and draft accordingly. I was shocked to see him call for the Browns to take a QB with the second first round pick. I was even more shocked when the Browns did it. I agree with Beaton on the matter, the only time you should trust Kiper is when you need hair styling tips. 

Back on the subject, I think what weirded me out most was the fact that no team took Kellen Moore. Now, I've found out that the Lions have signed Moore as a free agent. I think this will be good for him. He can learn behind Shaun Hill and Mathew Stafford. He'll be nice trade bait in a few years. Still, the kid deserved a shot to compete for a starting position in my eyes. 

His numbers are too good not to warrant him a look from a team seeking a qb. In four years at Boise State, Moore threw for 14,667 yards with 142 TDs (43 coming this season) and only 38 INTs. Those are some solid stats. A lot of people will diminish them by pointing out that he played in the Mountain West Conference against inferior competition. Really? So Andrew Luck played against superior defenses night in and night out in the Pac-12? Luck had cupcakes. So did RG3. It still takes a special player to get those kinds of numbers.

Next they'll say he's too small. Drew Brees was too small. Not many people think that about him now. They're roughly the same size, being listed at around six feet tall. 

What sucks even more is that the following applies to Moore. You know every little soundbite ESPN uses to defend Tebow? All he does is win? All that crap that flew out of Bayliss's mouth? You can insert Moore's name in for Tebow and make it work. Problem is Moore never had equal footing. The NCAA bent over backwards to keep Moore and the Broncos out of championship contention. 

Still, Boise State did better than anyone would have guessed at the draft. They had two men drafted in the first round. They had six guys called altogether. That's only 1 less than Georgia and 2 less than Bama. Still, Moore should have been given a shot to compete for a starting job. I'm happy Detroit was smart enough to sign him, but he deserves a better shot. The fact that he didn't is only proof of a bias against Boise State in my opinion. 

Finally, my bro (IHM) must be psychic. I talked last week about Albion CB Chris Greenwood entering the draft. My bro said he hoped the Lions took him. At pick 148, the Lions did just that. I knew Greenwood would go on Saturday, but I didn't expect him to go til the 6-7th round. Congrats to that young man and I hope to see him on the field on Sundays.

Sorry if this post seems shorter. My first one got burned up in the blogosphere somewhere. Thanks as always for reading. Feel free to leave me any gripes you had about your draft or any of your thoughts on what I've had to say. I leave you as always with your word of the week.

drafternoon, noun

There are quite a few things I was never sure I'd live to see. I missed seeing the Tigers win a world series by almost two years, since I was born in December 1985. I think they're on a nice pace, but don't want to jinx things. I doubt I'll see another time without some type of war being fought. Not that I'm a fan, but I doubt I'll see the Cubs winning it in October. I doubt I'll see the Browns win anything which sucks even more considering my dad probably won't either and he's been a fan for since he was a kid.

I generally believe I won't get to see a playoff system in the Bowl divisions. There's way too much money involved. I'm sure you all know what I mean and can chime in. Still, there's a slight glimmer of hope on the horizon. The commissioners of the major bowl divisions, and Notre Dame's athletic director, are meeting in Hollywood, Fla with other BCS executives and TV network execs to discuss the possibility of a four team playoff to determine the National Championship. While it's not the playoffs we might want, it could be a start if they actually reach an agreement.

The changes, when and if they can be agreed upon, wouldn't be put into effect until 2014. The original plans of having the two highest seeded teams host the semifinals is all but dead. The new plan calls for the semifinals to be hosted at current BCS sites or be open for bidding. Sources say the National Championship game will be opened up for bidding. Sources have also stated that a previous idea that only conference champions could participate was also struck down. This, of course, opens the door to similar LSU-Alabama type games. 

While this plan is a start, it's far from perfect. There is no established format for choosing the four teams to participate. I imagine it will be done in the traditional fashion, no mid-majors or little guys allowed. It will still come down to money. I don't think i want to know how much the winning bids will be, not to mention what ticket prices will be set at. Tickets for regular season games are becoming ridiculous as it is. Single game tickets to see a game at the Big House in Ann Arbor, MI were around $70 last season. Big Ten or rivalry games sold for $85. Ticket prices are expected to rise again for 2012. Like most sports organizations, the NCAA doesn't get it and almost look like they're trying to price fans out. 

Still, part of me hopes that there is a positive. We could have a playoff, a limited playoff, but still a playoff. Maybe I will live to see it. I can only hope it could lead to the real thing.

As we all know by now, the NFL draft will begin this Thursday. Hope renews. Well, except for B.O.B.'s Miami Dolphins maybe. Still, this is the biggest draft in sports and one of the few that I can think of that draws people inside to watch what is an otherwise tedious and boring affair.

I know exactly who I'm rooting for too. I'm happy to say that Albion College, where I took my undergrad classes, will have a player in the draft. Division 3 All-American CB Chris Greenwood participated in the UofM's pro day and impressed a number of scouts. He ran a 4.34 40, jumped 43 inches in the vertical and 11'2" in the standing long jump. Both the Miami Dolphins and Dallas Cowboys brought him in for private workouts. Since March, Greenwood has also visited the Jaguars, Lions, Titans, Cardinals, and Giants. Junior Clinton Orr, who is now Albion's official career rushing leader, is looking to enter the draft next season. I wish Chris Greenwood the best of luck and hope to see him come off the boards, though I imagine it may not be until Saturday. 

I've also found out Albion has installed stadium lights. Hopefully that means I might be able to get my ol man and IHM out to see a night game this season.

Eli Manning has joked that he's the third most talked about QB in New York. I wish he wasn't right, but he's got a point. Eli throws circles around both of the Jets QBs and doesn't always get a lot of respect. It's a good sign that ELi is putting himself out there. Besides, anything is better than this.

I already shared this on Facebook, but here's a little something for any Tigers fans that are tired of Brandon Inge. 

I have to admit that even though his bat is gone and his glove is fading, I still liked the majority of the years Inge gave us. He does great things in the community too. He strikes me as a rare kinda guy who fought and clawed his way into a starting spot. He changed positions and did everything the Tigers asked him. Still, i have to admit that I am a bit puzzled that Leyland believes in him so much now.

One final thought that I'm sure my partner in blogging Jeff will also touch on, I'd like to thank Ivan Pudge Rodriguez for all the years I was able to watch him, wherever he might've been. Pudge was a huge shot in the arm for the Tigers. Inge was gracious enough to step out from behind the plate for Pudge and the tigers were far better off for it. Pudge was the first big free agent we could sign here. Thanks for all the good times and helping restore the roar.

Thanks as always for reading. Feel free to comment and let me know what you hope your team will do tomorrow. I'll leave you with your word of the week.

drafterglow, noun

There are moments that I really hate our 24/7 information age. 

Maybe not moments, so much as reasons. My biggest current reason is the rise of stories that aren't stories, or at least that weren't stories years back. Not only were things like player-manager spats and clubhouse comments not stories, they weren't heard. Maybe, years later, a big star might include stories about getting dressed down from a manager in a book. I can tell you from experience that Ernie Harwell's books were chalk full of stories like that. 

David Halberstam's The Teammates was full of interesting stories that you never knew about some of baseballs all time greats. Usually, these stories weren't irritating little facts blown up to something bigger, but little know things that made you appreciate the player even more. Did you know that Ted Williams was extremely supportive of the African American players who were breaking into the league? He was more than willing to give anyone pointers and even helped African American teammates get hotel rooms.

Unfortunately, we now need to fill 24 hours of sports programing and while re-airing SportsCenter or games can account for a good number of hours some new stuff needs to be found. Lately, that new stuff has been in two forms: junk that should've stayed in the locker room and reporters v athletes. 

This week the four letter network's biggest story seems to be new Red Sox's manager Bobby Valentine's criticisms of Kevin Youkilis. Valentine has famously called Youk out for not being emotionally or physically into the game. To me, this is standard manager talk. This happened all the time. It's a part of the game. Managers try to motivate guys by calling them out. It's hard not to see why Valentine felt Youk needed some motivation. Youk's hitting .188 with no homers and 3 RBIs. That's a bit of a slow start.

On the other hand, Youk is a proven leader on the team. While he may be the chief "knucklehead" of the group, he's on of the vets and has paid his dues to the team. Still, even a vet needs some motivation. In the past, these conversations have gone on in countless club houses. Usually the manager and players sort it out privately. That is hard to do with cameras and microphones constantly in your locker room.

I'd be curious to see how any of the Sox players would have felt if the story hadn't blown up as it did. I guarantee that Pedroia and others would have been equally upset at the allegations, but not many people benefit from knowing about it. It only serves to make the Red Sox look weak. It's a spark to the other team. It's a black cloud over Fenway's clubhouse.

Following people's recent blogs about Jalen Rose v Skip Bayliss, I made the mistake of flipping to ESPN 2 to catch First Take on Friday. I expected to hear a bit of a recap about how things went, but not a whole show. These guys spent the whole show whining about athletes v. reporters. Two simple ideas can break that down a lot quicker. 1) Athletes are paid to play and so they shouldn't be upset when people criticize their game. 2) While reporters may have played and studied a certain sport, they will never really know what it's like to be out there. They also shouldn't care. Just tell me what happened, not your opinion. Side topic, these commentators like Skip Bayliss just seem to further dumb/water down sports journalism. 

After seeing Beeze's recent article concerning Jackie Robinson, i found just the book for him. Read this to the little Beeze.

I had a great weekend, interesting but in a good way. I went up to a card show. They get smaller each time. I was able to find a box of 1990 Score NFL cards for $5. i split them with IHM and we got some pretty sweat stuff. Hope everyone else had a good one and continues having a great one. Thanks as always for reading.

longversation, noun

So last week's opening day and weekend, since we here at the Gab were less than thrilled with that odd opening series in Japan, was a heck of a show stopper. In the midst of all the crap that went down (Petrino, Ozzie being Ozzie, and Dwight v. Stan Van), we had a bright spot. We also had some alarmsits.

I tuned into ESPN Monday knowing that the sky would be falling. The Yankees were winless. The Red Sox were winless. The Mets were undefeated. ESPN was forced to talk about teams like Tampa, Detroit, and Baltimore. Few people seemed to get that there were still 159 games yet.

Of course folks here were talking World Series. A bit of a blip developed Saturday when Doug Fister went out holding his side in the third. Then again on Sunday when Max Scherzer appeared to pitch underhand with softballs. Granted the offense was awesome. It was, not to rub anything in the face of my friends who root for the Red Sox, an amazing sight to see Cabrerra and Fielder go back to back. Still, the offense may not always be ready to bail us out. Also, it's only May. Let's reign it in folks.

Still, I saw a lot of odd trends. Last Thursday a number of games were awfully tight, mostly of the 1-1 variety, headed into the last three innings. A lot of closers appeared to struggle. Not only did Valverde break his saves streak, but Mariano Rivera looked shakey at best. It's also taking a lot of pitchers some time to get that first win. It might have to do with the shakey start of a lot of bull pens this season.

Of course, just when I pin all my frustrations with the NBA on Andrew Bynum, here comes Superman. Of course, an accurate picture would be similar to the one I have included only you'd need to replace that Heat player with a Magic fan, or Stan Van Gundy, or Magic ownership. I really don't know why they refuse to trade the guy. He's not going to be happy, but he doesn't want to be compared to Lebron. Do him a favor and trade him. That way, he gets to leave and not look like as big an ass as he does lording over Van Gundy at pressers and you might get some kind of compensation for him. It would be a rare instance where the NBA actually benefits more than a player. 

Speaking of Lebron...

Looks likea college football coach finally got what was coming to them too. Arkansas announced Tuesday that they were firing the coach misleading the university. The official statement was they fired him for: "unfairly hiring his mistress and intentionally misleading his boss about everything from their relationship to her presence at the motorcycle accident that ultimately cost him his job". Granted the Hogs were showing major improvement these past few seasons, but I'm kinda glad to see a college stand up to a coach. I hope this is the kinda thing that can spark a trend.

I'd like to close by hoping everyone had a nice Easter out there. Or Passover. Or just a great weekend. I was certainly happy to be able to watch baseball again and watching the Tigers win while eating a bunch of chocolate was just icing. As always thanks for reading. I leave you with this week's vocab and a little pep rally for my fellow Lions fans as we near the Draft.

Egg Salad Monday, noun

Ok, so this is probably going to be shorter than I wanted after I got kicked off while I was writing this the first time.

So, I will admit I barely watched any of the NCAA tourney this year. It might have to do with the unseasonably warm March. Truth be told however, I've kinda tuned all of basketball out lately. I can't say why i tuned out the NCAA, but I have more reasons than I care to list about the NBA.

I suppose I can relate it all to the current state of the LA Lakers. Being that the Lakers are the Yankees of the NBA, I'm normally pretty excited when they are going through rough times. The Pistons beating the Lake Show in 2003 is one of my greatest sports viewing memories. Still, if players can openly revolt against a coach, much like I saw in Detroit last season, even in a relatively successful franchise like LA, I don't know what kind of hope there is for the sport.

What makes things worse is the case of Andrew Bynum. He's made it no secret he's against Mike Brown's attempts to regain control by benching players. Bynum was benched himself for throwing up a three and then jogging back on defense in a close game against Phoenix. A center has no place in three point land, especially a guy who's only made one in 8 career attempts. What's more you think he'd at least try to get what Brown was trying to do, but he played it off like a joke.

Most of you might know the Lakers have taken some heat for how Bynum's come along. A lot of people had questions about him coming out of high school. The Lakers brought him along slow; it took him nearly two seasons to see significant playing time. He struggled some at first and a lot of people thought he looked out of place on such star studded rosters. The fans wanted to trade him for talent now, but the ownership stuck to their guns. Then the injuries started. Bynum found himself missing a lot of games. Fans, being a generally fickle bunch, began to call for trades again, but management stuck to their guns.

Here the story could have taken a great turn. Bynum has been healthy most of the year and he's been thriving. He's averaging about 18 points with 12 rebounds and 2 blocks a game. Jerry Bus and Co. are looking pretty smart. Bynum is rewarding the ownership and even the fans that stuck by him.

Then Mike Brown "steps out of line". To the leagues own detriment, the NBA is a player's league. Coaches have no place trying to discipline players. Bynum has delivered that message lately. He is hurt again and doesn't seem to be hurrying back. He's showing his immaturity. He basically socks that city and its ownership and its fans in the gut. Next year, he'll probably still be on the Lakers. Mike Brown will probably be gone. The NBA will go on.

And here in all of this we see why guys like me and a lot of you have turned away. We're tired of seeing grown men like Bynum pretend to be in high school still. These guys who seem to have no common sense make more than any one of us could fathom. By all accounts except their own, they are over paid. Grossly overpaid. Kids look up to them and it can't help but scare some people. 

It sucks because I'm old enough to remember the NBA being great. I remember waiting for Sunday so I could watch the NBA on NBC. I remember duels between David Robinson and Patrick Ewing. I never remember guys like Karl Malone trying to launch threes just to pad their stats. Reggie Miller didn't take defensive plays off. Charles Barkley and some of the announcers do some diligence by calling these guys out, but I don't think these players care. 

Even these commercials show how things have changed and sucked. Granted Bird and MJ used some trickery, but not all trickery. LeBron and Dwight could have done some actual dunks instead of CGIing the whole thing.

Fans don't have much say or input. Guys like BOB and all of NOCAL deal with perennially terrible teams. I can begin to accept fans booing GMs at retirement ceremonies. Fans need an outlet and booing the players doesn't help because they seldom seem to notice or care. If guys like Bynum don't wake up and just go to work as the 03-04 Pistons used to say, I just don't see guys like me coming back to the league anytime soon.

NBA, noun