The Men of Detroit Will Return

A New Spring Approaches

Son of Grander stepped from his home in Greater Chitown on a brutal February day and let the snow pelt his skin. His long winter’s nap had been necessary, true, but it had numbed his body to the world. Winter’s Breath stabbed through him and made him feel alive again. After a brief time, it was mostly just really damned cold, so he went inside.

The pain reminded him of the battle. He had healed during his hibernation, thankfully. It no longer caused him to wince to lift his arm. He spun his arm around to celebrate this fact. The first sign of the famous Son of Grander smile creeps across his face. However, his joy led to carelessness and he knocked something to the floor.

Son of Grander kneeled down to pick up the item and the smile disappeared. The tomahawk pulled from his side still bore his mortal signature upon its rough blade. Son of Grander touched his side where the scar remained. The battle rushed back from his memory and overwhelmed him for a moment. He sat on the plain wooden floor and digested the past. Then he stood up and began to digest a huge breakfast; hibernation takes a lot out of a man.

As he picked at the scraps that remained of twin hunks of dried and salted beast, he considered his next move. It was hard to believe the battle would be upon him again so soon, relentless like the seasons.

Soon, it was time. Son of Grander packed his warrior’s bag, put on his best walking cleats, and thrust into the sharp cold to walk the land and gather his mates for the next battle.

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Bohemian Rhapstilde

Magglio “The Big Tilde” Ordoñez will likely finish with a batting average of .350something, 20something home runs, and 130whoknows RBI. Those are some goddamn series MVP-caliber numbers. But after being swept in Cleveland — in which Detroit had a 2-run lead in all three games, mind you — they are now 7½ games behind the Indians for the AL Central division, and 5 games behind the New York Yankees. With nine games left in the season, the playoff picture is bleak, if not wholly nihilistic. For this reason alone, it appears The Big Tilde will not be worthy of the American League MVP.

Which is why The Big Tilde and his teammates broke out into song after their 4-2 loss the Indians:

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And a little wave rolled in…

A third-year French student trying to impress a random buxom young co-ed at a frat party will often break out some obscure bit of the language with an unnecessary flourish of his accent. He’ll start by mentioning that he did a study abroad semester in Paris.

Of course, by ‘Paris’ he means ’45 km from Paris’ and by ‘study abroad’ he means ‘did a lot of pot and hung out with all the other study abroad students, barely speaking a word of French the whole trip’.

Still, if she’s already shown a mild interest in him by twisting her flimsy blouse a bit, wiggling her finger at him, or making accidental eye contact, he knows he can break out the litmus test that will tell him to use one roofie or two in her Natty Light.

“Did you know,” he leers, “what the French call an orgasm?”

“No,” she’ll giggle. (She’s always giggling.)

“La petite mort. Do you know what that means?” She doesn’t, of course. He only asks to assert his mental superiority by making her admit her ignorance.

He leans in close in a conspiratorial manner. She leans in to hear his whisper. This helps him see down her blouse so he can prepare for a front clasp or a back hook. “It means, ‘the little death’. You see, Bridget, the French think you die a little every time you orgasm. That’s why your face looks like that when you… you know.”

Hand goes down on thigh; blushing (from booze and guilt) commences; deal is done. If she doesn’t find that impressive, move on to a more impressionable subject until you settle for the one that thinks France is near Russia. After all, Napoleon seemed to share this opinion and he got laid a lot, too.

Tonight, Timo Perez made another bid to become Los Tilde Pequeño with a two-run single in the sixth to deliver another little death to the fading Twins and put Tigers up for good, leading to the 4-2 final margin. He had three total RBIs on three hits. A win by the Indians and a win by the Yankees leave the Tigers 3.5 games out of the AL wild card spot and mumble mumble games out of the AL Central lead.

Still, the Very Large and Original Tilde is the only MVP candidate in this Tigers organization. Let’s peek at Los Tilde Grande’s night, shall we?

The Big Tilde’s day: 1-4
Season to date: .357/.428/.593, 27 HR, 132 RBI

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Tilde Twin Powers, Activate (Form Of … Dingers!)

In John Hodgman’s book The Areas Of My Expertise, he lays out a table of omens and portents that is used to predict the future. If you think it doesn’t apply to sports merely because he only has two sports references, you’re wrong.

Gary Sheffield’s two-run home run in the first inning of Wednesday night’s game was an omen. Texas Rangers pitcher Edinson Volquez used his table of omens and portents that he keeps underneath his hat, and combined it with the portent he saw earlier that say — an obese kid he saw eating corn on the cob. He did the math, and … Ragnarok.

But Volquez merely thought the kid was obese and eating corn. It was actually Andy Milonakis eating a jar of mustard. What he should have tabulated was “A ballplayer of Tildean descent will own your ass in the sixth inning.”

Sure enough, with one of the Three Tenors, Placido Polanco, and the aforementioned Field of Sheff on base, Tilde of The Mountains crushed a ball that soared over anyone wearing a Rangers uniform that night, landing in the bullpen and scoring three runs with just one handy dandy swing. The 5-1 win was theirs.

Those daggum Yankees won as well, keeping the AL Undomesticated Card race lead at 3½ games. The Indians, however, lost. The division lead slips to 5½ games. The Yankees play one more game Thursday against the Blue Jays, but the Tigers don’t play at all that night, so why on Earth would you ask such a stupid question?

Tilde’s Night: 1-for-3, HR, 3 RBI, R, BB, GIDP
Tilde’s YTD: .358, 27 HR, 132 RBI, Ragnarok

That photo was by Duane Burleson. Associated Press Rush Chairman. He’s damn glad to meet you.

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TILDE FORCE!

HUZZAH!

Our beloved MVP candidate, Los Tilde Grande, hit the game winning single tonight off of Casey Janssen! With a clutch two out hit that scored The Son of Grander and The Big Cabeza, the Tilde continues to flex his lovely locks of power in a Most Valuable Manner. Three Cheers for Magglio!

The Tigers improve to 78-66 and have shockingly managed to win five of their last six. They currently sit 3.5 games behind The Evil Empire for the AL Wild Card slot.

Maggs went 4/5 with those 2 GWRBI and a double.

For the season The Big Tilde is hitting .359 and has 128 RBI and 26 HR.

He also says A-Rod can suck it long and suck it hard.

The Big Tilde may not actually have said this, but your editors have.

EDIT: Tuffy has added a photo of the last event in the game.

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This Tigers-Mariners Recap Contains Two Holy Grail References

It’s not that Jeremy Bonderman hates Magglio Ordoñez and his MVP-confiscating ways. Or Detroit and its game-winning methods. But it sure appears that Bondo isn’t helping either cause. The fleshy righthander only went 1⅓ innings, allowing six runs in a 14-7 loss to the Seattle Marine Biologists.

He’s been, to put it nicely, horrible as of late. His arm must be hurt! No it isn’t, claims Bonderman in Black Knight fashion. **reference #1**

He’ll get his arm checked out this week, and if they find, say, a family of millipedes in his elbow (or something similarly painful), Bondo could be shut down for the year and placed in a cryogenic chamber right next to fellow hurty pitchers Jair “Flurgenyurgen” Jurrjens and Jason “Limp Nostrils” Karnuth.

For Seattle, King Felix Fernandez won the game, despite allowing six runs in five innings. Wait … “King” Felix? Does he really deserve the win, let alone the moniker, with that kind of performance? Strange women in ponds distributing nicknames is no basis for a system of government **reference #2**

The Tigers play a make-up game with the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday. Foundation and mascara sold separately.

As for Tildeberry, R.F.D.:
Sunday’s Game — 2-for-4, 3 RBI, 1 run
YTD — .355, 26 HR, 126 RBI

Yes, Duane Burleson of the AP took such a good photo, and I had to go use my new Photoshop CS3 and ruin it. You hate to see that.

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Those who are about to fade…

…we salute you.

The battle for the playoffs has been rather crowded for the Tigers. If it wasn’t Indians over one hill, it was Mariners just over the horizon or Yankees charging at them with $200m bayonets. It would be quite understandable if a poor kitty would feel just a bit paranoid about its current situation.

Today, though, one of the teams jostling for position in the American League has unofficially retired their claim on playoff glory. The Mariners turned their flag to declare distress tonight in Detroit, went down for the third time, flipped the ship upside down and turned to Gene Hackman to lead them to oxygen, etc.

Losers of 14 of the last 15 contests, the Mariners found their strategy of “Felix and pray for lots of rain which should totally work because we play in Seattle oh hell we play in a dome never mind” to be lacking in finishing kick. Jeff Weaver provided a Jeff Weaver-like performance in a 12-6 drowning in Detroit Saturday night. Nate Robinson did the same, but the Detroit bats were far less forgiving of a weary Mariner ‘pen.

The Big Tilde did his share of damage on a day where most Tigers got their shots in on the fresh seaman’s corpses, knocking in two runs (one in the RBI column) and scoring one of his own before getting a well-deserved rest for that omnipresent swollen left knee. The Tigers will now focus on those land-based enemies and can be forgiven if, wedged between the natives on one side and the imports on the other, they break out the Stealers Wheel.

The Big Tilde’s day: 1-3, 2B, BB, RBI,
Season to date: .354/.427/.590, 26 HR, 121 RBI

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Magglio Doesn’t Need No Stinkin’ 20-20-20 Club

Pictured to the left here, Miguel Batista threw not a round, spherical ball to Magglio Ordoñez, but rather a whitened potato. Legend has it that potatoes will not travel over 410 feet when struck by a wooden bat, nor are regulation baseballs. It was this cunning strategy that the Seattle Mariners’ Batista utilized when Tilde Of The Mountains launched a double to center field, eventually scoring on a hit by … oh, for the sake of simplicity, let’s say Pudge Rodriguez.

In the 6-1 win over the Mariners, Curtis Granderson also reached the elusive and thereby not stationary 20-20-20 mark, the sixth baseball-type-person to accomplish the feat since 1900. That means this season he has 20 home runs, 20 triples, 20 doubles, and 20 strikeouts with runners in scoring position¹. Not anyone can hit 20, 20, and 20. He joins the ranks of the immortal Jeff Heath, Jim Bottomley, and Frank Schulte.

Ordoñez has always been in his own 20-20-20 club. Those are the height, width, and length of his sultry afro, measured not in inches or centimetres, but in Maggliotrons.

TBT Daily Line: 2-for-3, single, double, walk, run, RBI
TBT Numbers YTD: .354, 26 HR, 121 RBI, 46 doubles

Also: Ichiro went 0-for-4 in the game, increasing Tilde’s lead in the batting average race to five-hundredths.

(Why, yes, Paul Sancya of the Associated Press took that photo. How did you know?)

¹ – Guesstimate. Not verified.

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Detroit Ñews Columñist Still Uñdecided Oñ MVP Race

Tilde-cision ’07 is a wandering glance around America, compiling writers and their sentiments on the American League MVP race. Who is calling the race for Magglio Ordoñez? Who is defiantly opposing the Tildish ways and naming someone else the MVP? TheBigTilde.com grades the writers and their pro- and anti-Tilde arguments.

Today: Lynn Henning of the Detroit News. He is waiting until the end of the season to defer final judgment between TBT and Yankees third baseman Alex “Torch For An I” Rodríguez:

It will be extremely tough to give Magglio Ordonez of the Tigers a backseat vote here … [But] his problem — and it is very much a problem for him — is that guy with the Yankees.

…

I would be happy to wait for September to determine my final vote here. If the Tigers should make it into the playoffs, and if Ordonez’s bat would be the biggest reason why — and that makes sense — he could yet edge out A-Rod.

Scorecard

+ Since we all know the Tigers will make the playoffs, this means Henning is voting Tilde.
- But he’s waiting until September. Classic bandwagonner.
+ Lynn Henning wants to give credit to Ordoñez and his batting average.
- Lynn is a girl’s name.

Prognosis

He writes for the Detroit News. If our homers aren’t throwing their support behind Ordoñez, who will? We give Henning a final grade of two-and-a-half tildes out of five.

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Hitters Caught the Katy

…left the Tigers to lose.

When I was in the first grade, I had a huge crush on Katie. She was a little blonde fair-skinned lass whose greatest quality was that she knew I existed. Unfortunately, she also had an especially keen mean streak, even for a six-year-old.

The best example of her cruel intentions could be found on the teeter-totter. We would try our level best to sit perfectly still and balance the teeter-totter longer than anyone else. All of us in the first grade tried it at one point or another, really. You’d let your legs dangle limply, doing your best not to twitch or breathe too heavily.

Katie wasn’t so good at this game, though. She’d lull you into a false sense of security with her porcelain smile and her twinkling blue eyes. Then, just when you were reaching a meditative state quite unheard of for first graders, her patience would give out and she’d either jam her feet into the ground like piledrivers or fling them up into the air. You’d lurch out of your dreamlike state just in time to smash to the ground or bounce out of the seat midair and then succumb to gravity’s charms with painful results.

The Tigers have subscribed to Katie’s game theory recently. Last night, Jeremy Bonderman and Zach Miner heeded the call and only gave up three runs throughout, only to watch the bats go limper than if they had been slammed into the ground by Katie’s mechanical whim. They lost 3-1 as home runs by Alex Cintron and Josh Fields were far more than the Tigers could muster on offense.

The Big Tilde managed a single hit to left in the bottom of the sixth, but it wasn’t enough. Wins by the Indians and Yankees put the Tigers back 7 games in the AL Central and 3 games in their wild card aspirations.

The Big Tilde’s day: 1-4
Season to date: .354/.426/.590, 26 HR, 120 RBI

(Duane Burleson took that there still picture for AP Photo.)

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