Well folks, it’s that time again… time for a little Sexy Action Sports on your Saturday with IHM. Seems like this week just took FOREVER… am I the only one? Might be the shitty work week, might be the Tigers playing out west and my dumb ass trying to stay up and watch the games… I hate it when my teams are on the west coast during the week.

   Been a pretty crazy week no matter what the excuse is, especially with the Tigers out west facing the Mariners first, and now the Oakland A’s. In Oakland, of course, they are reunited with ex-Tiger Brandon Inge… who hasn’t exactly hit for average in his 9 games with the A’s, but has produced three home runs and 13 RBI, including two grand slams. The second slam came Thursday night against the Tigers, although the Tigers were up 10-2 at the time, and still wound up winning the game 10-6. Still, had to feel nice for Inge to hit a blast like that against his ex-teammates and fanbase, all of which essentially turned on him at the end of his stay in Detroit (yours truly included). Still, I’m not very worried about Inge having any long-term success with the A’s, or anywhere for that matter. No matter what way you look at it, the guy is going to hit closer to .200 than .300, and might give you 15-20 home runs and around 70 RBIs in a full season. Lucky for him he can do it in Oakland, where a .200 average at 3^rd base is actually an IMPROVEMENT over what they had at the position.

   The worst thing about the late starts this week is the lack of sleep… lack of sleep because no matter what the Tigers lead might be, I am never confident the bullpen is going to HOLD that lead. Hell, Jose Valverde for the first time I can remember this season actually held an opponent without a hit or walk in his one inning outing against the A’s on Thursday. The entire bullpen is a mess right now, from the closer to the set up man, to all the middle relief guys. The bright spot has actually been the rotation, even without Fister for around two weeks thanks to the arrival of Drew Smyly in the rotation. Smyly has made six starts, and has an ERA of 1.59, but only a single, solitary win despite not allowing more than two runs in any of his six starts. He’s the first pitcher to do it in the modern era… now hopefully the bats can help him snag a few more wins for his efforts.

  But enough of me yaking about the second-place Tigers… let’s hear it for those 4^th place Yankees. It almost gives me wood just being able to say it. Not only are they in 4^th place in the AL East, they’re without their closer for the rest of the year, and now they’ll be without offseason acquisition Michael Pineda in their starting rotation for the rest of the season. Their misery just makes everything much, much better for me. Ah, haven’t said this in a while, so let’s get it out there… FUCK THE YANKEES.

   Let’s move on to the biggest joke in the world of sports this side of the WNBA… that of course being the NBA. Yeah, guess who won another MVP award this season… Mr.Choke himself, LeBron James. James picked up his 3^rd MVP award in the past 4 seasons. The thing that gets me about this guy winning an MVP award really boils down to what my definition of an MVP is… the most valuable player to his team, let alone the entire league. Without James, the Heat would still be a top 4 seed in the East, they’d still be a threat to win the conference, if not the whole damn thing. Hell, if you gave me my choice of any of the “big three” to build my franchise around, James would not be my choice… I’d take Wade in a heartbeat.

  So, my question to all of you is this… what are YOUR personal qualifications in naming an MVP? My first and most important factor is their impact on their team… i.e. would this team be as successful without this guy on the roster. You also have to consider the stats, sure, and another factor I consider is what this guy does in the big spots. To me, all James has is the stats. He’s not a leader, he’s not a closer, he pads the stats in the first three quarters of the game, and then shrinks into the shadow of Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, hell, even Mike Miller when the game is on the line. He’s got the killer instinct of a fucking koala bear.

   Elsewhere in the NBA… Pacers coach Frank Vogel came out and called the Miami Heat the “biggest flopping team in the NBA”, adding it would be “interesting to see how the series is officiated”. The way I see it, brilliant move by Vogel… you KNOW you’re going to get SCREWED by the refs in this series, so why not call them out on it before it even starts. Of course, the entire league is full of flop artists, which just makes the game its self a fucking joke… but hell, it’s good to see somebody else sees what is going on basically league-wide every time somebody drives to the bucket these days.

  According to reports, the home of Chris “Birdman” Anderson was raided by police earlier this week… nope, not for reasons you would expect, coke for example… but on kiddie porn allegations. If this is true, you have to hope this guy is DONE in the NBA, and hopefully locked up for a long, long time. According to attourneys for Anderson, the charges are drummed up by a scorned female fan of Andersons’. We’ll have to see how it all plays out over the next couple weeks, but what a fucking mess this would be.

  Speaking of pedophiles, more specifically people who HARBOR pedophiles, it looks like Penn State administrators will be let off the hook for the failure to report suspected child abuse because a date was changed, which put it just out of range for the statute of limitations. Wonder how much THAT cost the university. But, more than likely, nobody is going to get any conviction on a failure to report child abuse. The most important thing here, still, is getting Sandusky behind bars and the hell away from ANY child. As for the rest of the people involved, including McQueery, they know what they did… or DIDN’T do… and they’ll live with it on their heads the rest of their lives.

  Finally, before I call it a day, I’d like to spend a minute and address the lawsuit against the NFL that around 100 former players are filing because the league “didn’t properly protect them against concussions”. I’m not saying I don’t feel bad at all for the things these guys are going through after their careers are over… but you can’t blame the league for all of this. These guys knew there was an inherent risk to playing football professionally, and that risk was injury. Hell, Chris Henry, the former Bengal, was never diagnosed with a concussion during his career, but had as much damage to HIS brain as many of those examined post-mortem of ex-NFL players.

   It’s sad to see what some of these guys are going through… but they knew what they were getting themselves into when they signed the contract to get paid to play professional football. Not a whole hell of a lot was known by ANYONE about the long-term impact concussions can have on athletes. It’s not like the NFL was covering it up… in fact, I’d say they’ve been pretty forth-right about concussions since Goddell took over as commish. There have been a LOT of steps taken in the right direction as far as player safety goes under Sherriff Goodell’s watch, some of these steps even bordering on ruining the game of football as we know it.

  At the end of the day, I look at these guys who made good money to play professional football, and it’s a damn shame what they are all going through. But at the same time, these guys bring in $60,000 in pension every year… not to mention what they can make doing autograph signings, public appearances, etc. Does the league owe it to former players to step up their contributions to their healthcare? I say if I can “manage” to pay for healthcare on $25,000 a year, these guys should be able to get their own medical coverage on at least double that. 

   That’s all I’ve got this week, folks. Thanks as always for reading and for any  comments you leave on the way out.