Madden, Montana, and Martin, Oh My!

Last month I went to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as part of my trip to Ohio (which was supposed to include Cincinnati and an Indians game with really good seats).  I held off on this post until the Hall of Fame festivities this weekend (half procrastination, half planned).  Back in May, I made it to the Hockey Hall of Fame.  Last summer I got to the Baseball and Basketball Halls of Fame.  So now I have the four major sports covered.

After going to an early mass in Akron, my dad, my brother, my uncle, and I headed to the Hall of Fame in Canton.  It was about a 30 or 40 minute drive from where my uncle lives.  The first thing we saw was an exhibit on the history of the NFL by decade.  Right in the middle of all that was a statue of Jim Thorpe.  The NFL was founded in Canton in 1920.  I knew there were a lot of defunct NFL teams, but I didn't realize how many.  Many of them played in small Midwestern cities (Canton, Kenosha, Muncie, Racine, etc.).  The Providence Steam Roller won the last NFL championship won by a defunct team in 1928.  Of course, my favorite defunct team was the Brooklyn Dodgers.  They lasted from 1930-1944 (they were the Tigers in 1944) and played their home games at Ebbets Field.  They were not very good, with only four seasons about .500.  The New York Yankees only lasted for three years (only two in the NFL).  The 1934 Cincinnati Reds might have been the worst NFL team of all time.  They went 0-8 and scored only one touchdown and one field goal.  Another thing I learned was the two oldest franchises in the NFL are the Bears (I would have guessed that one) and the Cardinals (I would not have guessed that one).  The Bears started in Decatur and the Cardinals started in Chicago.  The Packers came into the NFL a year later.

Jim Thorpe

Most of the stuff to see is on the second floor.  There are displays on the Super Bowl, other professional football leagues, the NFL today, and the busts.  There was some good stuff on the Super Bowl, but that's one exhibit where I would have liked more.  They highlighted the first few Super Bowls and then a few other ones.  They had Eli Manning and David Tyree's helmets from Super Bowl XLII.  It would be nice if they had a display for each Super Bowl (maybe with bigger ones for Super Bowls like III, XXIII, XXV, XXXIV, XLII, etc.).  They do have the Lombardi Trophy that will be awarded to the winner of Super Bowl XLIX.  That was pretty cool, but of course, it's behind glass.  The exhibit on the other leagues was cool.  There was good stuff about the AFL (and Joe Namath's Jets in particular).

Super Bowl XLII was awesome.  Too bad it's not Justin Tuck's jersey.

Shea Stadium must have been so bad for football.

This Lombardi Trophy will be given to the team that wins Super Bowl XLIX.  Hopefully that won't be the Patriots, Seahawks, Raiders, Dolphins, Cowboys, or 49ers.  You can see my reflection in several places in this picture.

We saved the busts for the end.  As John Madden said in his induction speech, "At night, when the fans and visitors all leave, then the workers start to leave, then just one person turns out the light, locks the door, and I believe the busts talk to each other. And I can't wait for that conversation."  The busts look really cool.  They're easily more visually impressive than what the Hockey and Basketball Halls of Fame have.  The Baseball Hall of Fame has really nice plaques, which probably aren't as impressive as the busts, but they have a lot more information.  That's my one complaint with this part of the Hall of Fame.  You get the busts and below them are the name, position, team(s), and years in pro football.  You can go over to these touchscreens and search for a player and get a lot more information, but I wish there was more information right there with the busts.  It was very cool looking through everybody there.  The three that I wanted to see most were John Madden, Joe Montana, and Curtis Martin.  I grew up with Madden and Summerall calling big NFC games and the Madden video games.  Joe Montana was the quarterback on the 1977 National Championship team at Notre Dame and he became the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL.  Curtis Martin was the greatest Jet I ever saw.  He was probably the greatest player ever to play for the Jets.  Sure, everybody thinks of Joe Namath.  I would argue that Namath is the most important player in Jets history, but Curtis Martin was a better football player than Namath was.  Namath's best years were early in his career.  After winning the Super Bowl, he wasn't really the same.  He put up some big numbers in 1969 and 1972, but other than that, he dealt with injuries and/or his numbers really didn't compare to what he did early in his career.  Curtis Martin was incredibly consistent.  His only bad year was the last year of his career (before his last year, he only missed one game in seven seasons with the Jets, that's amazing).

Boom!  Here's a guy that's in the Hall of Fame.

Joe Montana was the best.

The greatest Jet I've ever seen and one of my favorite players of all time.

So besides Madden, Montana, and Martin, there were other players I wanted to see.  Joe Namath, Don Maynard, and Weeb Eubank from the Super Bowl III champions, of course.  Heisman Trophy winner/fellow former St. Edward's Hall resident Paul Hornung, Alan Page, and other Notre Dame alums.  By the way, USC has the most Hall of Famers with 11 and Notre Dame is second with 10.  But one of USC's Hall of Famers is a murderer, so let's call it even.  Then there's the most underrated quarterback in NFL history/my birthday buddy Bart Starr.  Then there's Vince Lombardi, who once practiced at Camp Alvernia.  My former roommate's father is a Hall of Famer (Dwight Stephenson).  Bill Parcells, the coach who turned the Jets around.

Joe Namath led the Jets to victory in the most important Super Bowl ever.

Vince Lombardi, the greatest professional football coach of all time.  Of course, Knute Rockne is the greatest football coach of all.

Murderer/USC alum O.J. Simpson

After the Hall of Fame, my uncle directed us past LeBron James's house and high school back near Akron.  I was driving, so I didn't get pictures.  The house was big, but not gigantic.  It did look like security was very tight.  We ended the day with dinner at Rockne's Pub.  I don't know where it got the name, but I like to think it's named after Knute Rockne.

Now that I've been to the Halls of Fame for the four major professional sports, it's time for my Hall of Fame Power Rankings:

4.  Basketball.  I love basketball, but it's clearly the worst of the four.
3.  Football.  Basketball is way behind the other four.  I have football third, but it's really close to the top two.  As I said, the busts are great, but I'm giving hockey and baseball the slight edge overall.  It is a little difficult to take it seriously without Vinny Testaverde, though.  Just kidding (but not really).
2.  Hockey.  On the one hand, it's not in the United States.  On the other hand, it's the only one located in a big city.  If you're going to go to Canada, Toronto is probably a place you would go.  I can't think of a reason to go to Cooperstown, Canton, or Springfield other than for the Halls of Fame (maybe Cooperstown for other baseball related activities since it's such a baseball town, but it's such a baseball town because the Hall of Fame is there).  It's close between hockey and football.  The fact that you can touch the Stanley Cup is what puts it ahead of football.
1.  Baseball.  The original.  The museum is outstanding.  The Hall of Fame Gallery with all the plaques is the best of any display of Hall of Famers.  As I said, the Football Hall of Fame comes pretty close with the busts, but I'm giving Baseball the edge.  I think I've covered it before, but the first class is five of the greatest players of all time.  The Football Hall of Fame's first class has some really big names to be sure, but it also has some guys I've never heard of.  I guess the biggest difference is that it's easier to learn something at the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Maybe that appeals to me as a teacher.  If you have kids, imagine taking your kids there.  Let's take the year I was born.  If I had a son and he saw Mike McCormack's bust from the Football Hall of Fame's class of 1984 and asked who that was, I would have no idea.  If he saw Rick Ferrell's plaque from the Baseball Hall of Fame's class of 1984, again, I have no idea, but I could just read the plaque.  And Cooperstown is great.  It's just baseball everywhere.  You can't beat that.

Kershaw Above Replacement

Clayton Kershaw pitched another outstanding game last night.  It got me thinking about the statheads' favorite statistic:  WAR.  Wins Above Replacement.  I hate this stat as it's entirely theoretical.  How many more theoretical wins does a player contribute to his team than a theoretical replacement level player would?  I listen to a few baseball podcasts that I like, but sometimes they'll talk about players and all they'll talk about is WAR.  For example, instead of talking about Ted Williams hitting 38 home runs, driving in 123 runs, and hitting .342 in 1946, they'll say he was a 10.9 win player in in 1946 (his best season according to WAR, but not his best season according to statistics that are based on things that actually happen in baseball games).

The good thing about starting pitchers is that they actually are replaced (although not by a "replacement level player") each day.  So let's compare the Dodgers' record during the last 10 starts for each of their starting pitchers:

Clayton Kershaw:  10-0

Zack Greinke:  4-6

Hyun-Jin Ryu:  6-4

Josh Beckett:  5-5

Dan Haren:  4-6

If they gave a replacement level pitcher ten starts, what should you expect?  Read this if you want to read more about replacement level.  Here's the important line:  "replacement level is now equal to a .294 winning percentage."  Now, the rest of the team would not be replacement level.  The rest of the Dodgers are pretty good, so let's say we'll add about .100 points to the expected winning percentage for the Dodgers with a replacement level starting pitcher.  So let's we can expect the Dodgers to win four out of ten games with a replacement level starter.  So in Kershaw's last ten starts, the Dodgers have won six more games than you would expect with a replacement level starter.  They've won four more games than they have with Hyun-Jin Ryu, five more games than they have with Josh Beckett, and six more games than they have with Zack Greinke and and Dan Haren.  Now, before you tell me that there's more to that than just Clayton Kershaw, I agree, but look at Kershaw's game log.  If you want to throw out his game against the Cardinals (7 innings, 3 earned runs, no decision), I'm fine with that.  Kershaw had something to do with that win, but he definitely wasn't the only reason for it.  But look at his other nine starts.  He's given up five runs in 70 innings in those nine games (0.64 ERA).  We can give Kershaw credit for those nine wins.  Nine wins compared to 6 with Ryu, 5 with Beckett, and 4 with Greinke, Haren, or a theoretical replacement level pitcher.

So in that ten game stretch, let's say Kershaw has contributed five more wins to the Dodgers than a theoretical replacement level pitcher would.  He's made six other starts.  The Dodgers are 3-3 in those starts.  In the three wins, Kershaw was excellent (0.46 ERA, but he didn't go more than 7 in those games).  Let's give him credit for two wins there (the Dodgers only scored more than 3 runs in one of those games and he pitched a total of 19 and two thirds, a little more than two full games).  So that gets him to seven wins above a replacement level pitcher.  The losses are a little more complicated.  In one game, he was terrible (seven runs in one and two thirds).  Let's subtract that from his total.  His other two starts were both 7 innings and 3 earned runs.  The Dodgers scored two and four in those two games.  Those aren't bad performances, but they certainly weren't great either.  The National League average ERA is 3.69.  Kershaw's ERA in those two games was 3.86.  If you have a 3.86 ERA when league average is 3.69, you're probably a little bit below .500.  I'm not going to pin either loss on Kershaw (just like I didn't give him credit for the game the Dodgers won when he pitched 7 and gave up three runs).

Where does that leave us?  Kershaw contributed seven wins above a theoretical replacement level pitcher and he contributed one loss that a theoretical replacement level pitcher wouldn't have (the Dodgers scored seven runs in that game, you should win when you score seven).  So his WAR should be 6.  What do the stats say?  Baseball Reference and ESPN have him at 4.9.  (The idea of decimal numbers here is pretty stupid.  What's 0.9 of a win?  I know, Clayton Kershaw can be partially responsible for a win and Yasiel Puig, Dee Gordon, and Adrian Gonzalez can all contribute to that same win, but for starting pitchers, it's pretty stupid.  Either you were a big reason they won, you were a big reason they lost, or you were just decent and really didn't have much to do with who won or lost.)  4.9 is not that far off from where I have him.  Let's round up and say five, but I definitely think it's too low.  Fangraphs has him at 4.1 (if you're reading this after Kershaw has pitched more games, the numbers are likely to be different).  What?  The Dodgers have only won four more games with Kershaw than they would have with a replacement level player?  No way.  In his last ten starts, he's definitely been five games better than replacement and he definitely wasn't -1 in his first six games.

That illustrates another problem I have with WAR.  You go to different sites and you get different numbers because it's all theoretical.  I can go to any site I want and find out that he has a 1.76 ERA, 0.80 WHIP (ridiculous), 11.3 strikeouts per 9, a .186 batting average against, .217 on base percentage against, and .285 slugging percentage against.  Why are those the same no matter where I look?  Because they're all based on things that actually happened in baseball games and can be calculated exactly.

I'm sure WAR is generally accurate.  Mike Trout and Troy Tulowitzki are really good, but I don't need WAR to tell me that.

KAR (Kershaw Above Replacement) > WAR.

LeBrontown

After our nightmare travel day on Friday, we had planned to spend the next two days in northeast Ohio, but that didn't go entirely according to plan either.  My uncle lives right outside of Akron, so the plan was to stay with him and go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday and the Indians game on Sunday.  The Indians had day games both days, but the forecast for Sunday was calling for severe thunderstorms.  I really didn't want to go to Ohio for two baseball games and not get to either.  With the good weather on Saturday, I made the decision that morning to go to the game on Saturday and then the Hall of Fame on Sunday.  The bad news was that I had really good tickets for Sunday (I was supposed to have this view, Section 152, row AA in case the link doesn't give you the view that I want it to), but Saturday's tickets were more expensive on Stubhub because it was Kenny Lofton jersey day.  It was actually cheaper to buy tickets directly from the Indians.  So I got some cheap tickets and sold my Sunday tickets on Stubhub.

We picked up my brother Sean at the Cleveland airport around noon and headed to my uncle's condo.  After relaxing there for a bit, we headed to the stadium.  It was a 3:05 or 3:10 game and we got there about a half hour early.  It was the first time I've ever just had my tickets on my phone and it was not as convenient as it should have been.  The guy scanning tickets had a lot of difficulty scanning my phone (I've used my phone for boarding passes on flights a bunch of times and it's always been easier than this was).  Eventually we got into the stadium and took a walk around the lower level.  Lots of people were wearing old LeBron James jerseys.  We heard somebody saying that he was going to wear 32 now, but I just googled it and apparently he still doesn't have a number.

Bob Feller statue right outside the stadium

We got to our seats right as the first pitch was happening.  Early in the game, Sean and I went back down to the lower concourse because the beer options were limited up top.  There was a bar in center, but the best option was this area near home plate that had a few different craft beer stands.  Sean got something from the Great Lakes Brewing Company and I got a Sam Adams Summer Ale (shocking, I know).  After three scoreless innings with Scott Carroll and Zach McAllister (whoever they are) on the mound, Jose Abreu hit his 29th home run of the season to give the White Sox a 2-0 lead.  Eventually the White Sox went up 3-0.  The Indians cut it to 3-2 in the 8th, but that was as close as they got.  In the ninth, Austin Adams came in to pitch for the Indians.  He was making his Major League debut.  They listed his ERA as 0.00 on the scoreboard, but since he hadn't pitched, he had no ERA.  Gordon Beckham doubled to drive in two before Adams had recorded an out, making his ERA infinity, but it was still listed as 0.00 until he recorded an out.  He ended up being charged with three runs in a third of an inning, making his ERA 81.00.  The White Sox held on for the 6-2 win.

Not quite as good as the view I was supposed to have the following day.

Looking at the hourly forecast for Sunday, I figured there was a good chance that they would get the game in, but I didn't want to take the chance.  There was a decent chance of a rain delay with the severe thunderstorms in the forecast, so that wouldn't have been fun.  Even though it would have been nice to have really good seats, I figured it was worth it to take the sure thing in the good weather.  Of course, they did end up playing the game the next day and it was a good one.  The Indians led 1-0 going into the 8th inning, but the White Sox scored two runs to take the lead.  Yan Gomes hit a two run homer in the bottom of the 8th (with Flynn's favorite player on base) and the Indians held on to win 3-2.  So I missed a more exciting game with better seats.  Oh well.

Anyway, Progressive Field reminded me a little bit of Oriole Park at Camden Yards (which was opened two years before Progressive Field).  The way the lower concourse is laid out is very similar.  You only really have a view of the field from the concourse when you're in the outfield.  So there are some similarities between the two stadiums, but Oriole Park is nicer.  I happen to think Oriole Park is overrated so I'm not going to have Progressive Field ranked too high when I redo my rankings, but there are certainly worse stadiums.  I'm sure it is much better than Cleveland Municipal Stadium (my uncle said he saw games there and it was terrible).

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

After the game, my uncle showed us some places in Cleveland.  We drove right over by Lake Erie and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  There were lots of signs around welcoming LeBron James back to town.  Cleveland fans weren't going to get too upset about a loss to the White Sox the day after LeBron James announced he was coming back to town.

My thoughts on LeBron James:  I'm glad he went back to Cleveland.  When he went to Miami, the Heat became my second least favorite team in the NBA (after the Lakers of course).  Now I don't have to despise the Heat anymore (the Knicks are once again my second least favorite team) and there's no reason to despise the Cavaliers.  I'm not going to root for them, but I won't be upset if they win a championship.  So I went from three NBA teams I despise down to two.  The Knicks aren't going to win a championship anytime soon.  I would say the same thing about the Lakers, but I can't rule out the possibility of the NBA rigging things for them to end up with some combination of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis, and/or Stephen Curry in the next few years.

We ended the day with some grilled meat at my uncle's condo.  Baseball, beer, grilled meat.  That's a good summer day.

No Cincinnati

My dad and I had planned an Ohio trip to get to games in Cincinnati and Cleveland as well as the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  The original plan was to fly to one city, rent a car, and fly home from the other city.  It turns out that renting a car is a lot cheaper when you return it to the same location.  So the plan was changed to flying to and from the same city and driving back and forth across the state.

A little background:  the only other time I've ever flown to and from the Cleveland airport was 2007.  I flew there and my friends picked me up to go to the Notre Dame-Penn State game at Penn State.  We lost 31-10.  Evidently, bad things happen when I fly to Cleveland.

Back to last week.  We were supposed to have an 8:30 flight on Friday morning that would get to Cleveland at 10:21.  The plan was to go to the Reds game on Friday night and then we'd drive back north for the Hall of Fame and the Indians the next two days.  Driving from the Cleveland airport to our hotel in Cincinnati was supposed to take about three and a half hours.  So if our flight had been on time, let's say it takes a little while to rent a car and get on the road, we should have gotten to Cincinnati around 3:00.  That's fine for a game at 7:10.  Our flight was about 15 minutes delayed when we got to the airport.  No big deal.  We got on the plane and sitting behind us were a mother and two kids (about one and three) that screamed the whole time.  Not fun.  A little after 9:00, we were ready for takeoff.  The plane accelerated, but quickly slowed down.  The pilot said there was some problem that forced him to abort the takeoff.  We had to go back to the gate to get it checked out.

So we got off the plane and sat and waited.  A little before 11:00, we were told that they were going to take the plane for a test drive and if that was good, we'd leave in about a half hour.  After that, the pilot came in and said the plane was good to go, they just had to finish up some paperwork and then we'd board.  Annoying, but we'd still get to Cincinnati in time.  Five minutes later, he came back in and said they found another problem and we couldn't take off.  United's next flight to Cleveland didn't leave until 2:29.  That would not get us to Cleveland in time to get to Cincinnati for the game.  So I started figuring out what to do.  We had plans already for Saturday and Sunday, so it wasn't like we could go to Cincinnati another day.  Cincinnati was out.  I sold our tickets on Stubhub.  I took a decent loss on the tickets.  Maybe I could have gotten a little more, but I wanted to try to sell them before I got on the plane and had to turn my phone off.  I booked a room for us at the Days Inn by the Cleveland airport.  I tried to get a refund on my room in Cincinnati.  I explained my whole situation on the phone to hotels.com.  Earlier this year, I managed to get a refund for one night at a hotel when my Boston plans got altered because of snow, but they called our hotel and couldn't get a refund.  Of course, we could have still driven to Cincinnati and stayed in the room we had, but that would have made no sense since we weren't going to do anything there and we'd just be driving back the next day.

While we were waiting, it was announced that LeBron James was going back to Cleveland.  It made it an interesting time to be going to Cleveland.  Eventually, we got on the plane for our 2:29 flight.  When we got on the plane, we ended up sitting right in front of the same mother and two kids from before.  They screamed the entire time.  I get that if a one year old is going to be in a bad mood on a plane, there's probably not much you can do.  But the older kid was worse.  We had a long wait to takeoff.  The pilot estimated that we were 15th in line for takeoff.  When we were finally in the air, the mother and father switched spots.  The kids were even worse sitting with the father.  Across the aisle from them was a grandfather with his grandson, who looked to be about one also.  That kid was totally calm the entire flight.  But the two kids right behind us, not so much.  Fortunately, it's not that long of a flight.

We considered going to the Indians game that night, but by the time we got to our hotel and I checked Stubhub, they weren't listing tickets for the game anymore.  We were both tired after a miserable day of traveling anyway.  So we just hung out at the hotel and watched LeBronCenter on ESPN.  I also introduced my dad to Chipotle for dinner since there was one within walking distance of our hotel.  He was a fan.

As I mentioned in my post about Detroit, I had met an Englishman who was a baseball fan who was trying to get to all the stadiums also.  I gave him my email address because we were supposed to be going to the same Reds game.  He emailed me on Friday afternoon to see if I wanted to meet up before the game.  I wrote back and told him a short version of our miserable travel story.  I had the thought that we were going to miss something interesting in the game in Cincinnati.  And we did.  Besides this Billy Hamilton play, the Reds came back late in the game from 5-1 down and won 6-5.

So we wasted a decent amount of money thanks to United Airlines.  When you add up the loss on the tickets, the hotel room in Cincinnati that I couldn't get a refund on, and prepaid parking (which wasn't that expensive, but still we paid for it and got nothing out of it) and subtract the $14 dollars in vouchers United gave us for lunch at the airport, they cost us a total of $123.30.  In fairness, they did save us money on gas since we wouldn't have to do as much driving.  But in reality, they cost me (at least) a good deal more than that since now I still have to get to Cincinnati.  At some point (probably next year), I'll have to pay for a flight, hotel, tickets, etc. for another Reds game since United Airlines prevented me from getting to one this year.

I've already put some thought into getting to Cincinnati next year.  One thought is going to the All Star Game.  I would love to go to an All Star Game, but I'm going to say that's unlikely (after seeing ticket prices for the All Star Game at Citi Field last year, I assume it would be really expensive, even in Cincinnati).  Another thought is going to a Dodger game in Cincinnati.  We might have tried to do that this year, but the Dodgers played a Monday-Thursday series in Cincinnati in the middle of June, so that didn't work.  I could also try to include Cincinnati in another trip, like when I went to Milwaukee on my way home from Los Angeles or when I went to Atlanta after going to Seattle last year.  So I could to to combine Cincinnati with Anaheim, Texas, or Minnesota next year.  The last possibility is combining it with a trip to another place I want to get to.  I want to get to all fifty states.  One idea I have is to fly to New Orleans and drive to Mobile, Alabama for some minor league baseball (that would get me to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama for the first time).  So possibly, I could combine that with a trip to Cincinnati.

Thanks, United Airlines.

"You could probably buy an entire city block."

That was my friend John's reaction when I told him I was going to Detroit.  It wouldn't have been a good investment.  I wanted to spend as little time as possible in Detroit so I was in and out as quickly as I could be (I took a 6:00 flight the morning after going to the Tigers game).

I went to Detroit on July 8 to see the Dodgers play the Tigers.  It was my third and, most likely, final Dodger game of the year.  I saw them in Los Angeles and New York.  Looking at the Dodgers' schedule, I won't get to another regular season game.  A playoff game is very unlikely since the only teams I could easily see the Dodgers play against are the Mets and Yankees.  I could make a weekend trip to see them play the Phillies, Red Sox, or Nationals in the playoffs.  The Nationals seem to be the only somewhat likely possibility, but even if that happened, I still probably wouldn't go since that would interfere with watching college football.  Going into the game, they were 0-2 with me in attendance this year.  The last season that I didn't see a Dodger win in person was 2008.  Since Clayton Kershaw wasn't starting, it meant that I wouldn't see Kershaw in person this year.

When I got to Detroit, I went to American Coney Island and Lafayette Coney Island just like Adam Richman did in the Detroit episode of Man vs. Food.  They are right next to each other and they are known for their Coney Island dogs which are hot dogs covered in chili, mustard, and onions.  According to Adam Richman, the hot dogs were the same, but all the other ingredients were a little bit different.  He didn't say which one he liked better, but from the way he described them, Lafayette Coney Island sounded better to me.  First I went to American Coney Island and it was good.

Lafayette Coney Island on the left and American Coney Island on the right.  American Coney Island is much bigger.

American Coney Island dog

Then I took a walk down to the Detroit River.  You look south across the river and you see Canada.  I could clearly make out a Canadian flag on the other side.

I was facing south in the US and looking at Canada.  I guess you can do that somewhere in Alaska also (you could at least stand right by the border facing south and Canada would be on your left).

Then I walked back to Lafayette Coney Island and tried their Coney Island dog.  The only ingredient where I noticed a difference was the chili.  Lafayette had a meatier chili which gave Lafayette the edge, but both were good.

Lafayette Coney Island dog.  Lafayette wins the Year of Jim Award for best Coney Island dog in Detroit.

Walking around the city was weird.  John asked if it was like Gotham and I said it had a very Batman Begins Gotham feel to it.  It was weird walking around and nobody was around.  Imagine walking around a city like Philadelphia in the middle of the day and nobody is around.  That's what it was like.  And I feel like I was in some of the nicer parts of the city.

Anyway, I went to the game at night.  I walked around the stadium before going to my seat.  I have a couple of thoughts.  There were rides for kids to go on (like a merry-go-round).  You don't find stuff like that at Fenway Park.  It's a baseball stadium, not an amusement park.  The outfield area was unimpressive.  They had some statues of famous Tigers, which was nice, but I didn't like anything else.  Behind the batter's eye was just like a tunnel.  You walk through and there's nothing there.  On either side of the batter's eye, you can stand along the wall and watch, but the angles are weird.  The walls in left center and right center are parallel to the front of home plate, which makes for a weird angle for watching the game.  Also, as you're walking around the concourse, there's just a lot of stuff that blocks your view of the field from the concourse (especially near home plate).

Ty Cobb was a terrible person, but he was probably one of the five greatest hitters of all time.

One of the rides at Comerica Park.

I had a black bean burger since I wasn't in the mood for anything meaty after the Coney Island dogs.  It was fine.  To drink, I had a Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy.  One thing I liked about Comerica Park was that there was a bar on the upper level.  Citi Field has a bar on the upper level, but you have to be seated in certain sections to get in.  The one in Detroit was open to everybody.  So I walked in, got a beer quickly, and walked out.  My criticism is that they should have had a better selection.  I don't mind a Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy on a nice summer night, but they didn't have a wide variety of craft beers available.

The game got off to a great start.  In the first inning, Adrian Gonzalez drove in two with a double, Matt Kemp singled in Gonzalez, and then Juan Uribe hit a home run to make it 5-0.  But Hyun-Jin Ryu couldn't hold the lead.  He gave it all back in the second inning and after four innings, the Tigers were up 11-5.  Justin Verlander settled in after a terrible first inning.  I think at one point, the Tigers had 16 hits between Dodger hits.  What looked like it was going to be a good game for the Dodgers turned into a blowout for the Tigers.  Late in the game, I was just checking stuff on my phone.  One of the highlights of the game was Don Mattingly getting ejected.  There was some good stuff on Twitter about that.  Somebody mentioned that the umpire told Matting to get rid of his sideburns.  One other thing that was cool (one of the few good things about Detroit) was that it got dark so late.  Since it's so far west and north in the Eastern time zone, it wasn't totally dark until about 9:30 or 9:45.  The final score was 14-5 (making the Dodgers 0-3 all time when Hyun-Jin Ryu pitches and I'm in attendance).

My view of the game.

It was a good crowd of 36,912.  One of the people in the crowd was an Englishman named Rich.  He was three seats away from me and we talked for a little bit at the end of the game.  He became a baseball fan when he was in the US in the late 1990s and now he's trying to get to every stadium.  He's been to about as many as I have.  He started this trip over to the US in Boston and he was finishing it up in the Midwest.  Actually, we were supposed to go to the same game in Cincinnati on Friday so I gave him my email address to try to meet up there.  But that never happened.  I'll save that story for my next post.

World Cup Wimbledon NBA Draft

I have few rules in life, but one of them is this:  Any time it's my first day of summer vacation and we have Wimbledon, a huge US soccer game, and the NBA Draft going on, I have to keep a running diary.  Being used to waking up at 5:15, I had a little trouble sleeping in today.  I woke up at about 6:45, but then went back to sleep until about 8:30.  I got in a little exercise and now I'm ready to just enjoy my first day of vacation.  I haven't watched much Wimbledon so far today, but I did see the end of American Sam Querrey losing to a French guy (14-12 in the fifth set).  That was disappointing.  Anyway, let's pick up the action about 19 minutes into this game between the US and Germany:

12:19- Germany has played better than the US so far, but (you're not going to believe this) this soccer game is tied at 0.  This US controls its own destiny, but I have Portugal vs. Ghana on my phone without sound.  You're not going to believe this, but that soccer game is tied at 0 also.  We're rooting for a draw in that game.  The next best result in that game would be Portugal winning a low scoring game.

12:22- Graham Zusi just misses high on a good chance for the US.

12:24- The rain is coming down in the US-Germany game, but it is bright and sunny for the Portugal-Ghana game.  I like that they play in the rain like they do in football.

12:31- Portugal just scored.  The TV is ahead of my phone so the play by play guy mentioned it in the US game and then I saw it happen on my phone.  So I want Ghana to even it up and then no more scoring.

12:34- Nice save by Tim Howard.

12:36- Kent Brockman calling the game.  How did I not get that clip into this post?

12:40- Corner coming up for the US.

12:40- The corner goes through untouched.

12:42- We're a couple of minutes away from a rant about one of my least favorite things about soccer.

12:45- One minute of additional time.  Hey, soccer, I have good news:  Clocks can stop.  Just stop the clock instead of this ridiculous extra time nonsense.  They say one minute, but it's never exactly one minute.  Do we have any idea if they actually add the right amount of time?  What if there are stops during extra time?  Do they add more extra time?  The US lost two points in the last minute of five minutes of extra time against Portugal, but even if that hadn't happened, I would still hate the idea of extra time.  You would think this was a group of friends playing and not having an exact clock.  "There was that one time when somebody kicked the ball way out of bounds and then we had to chase it.  That took like a minute.  And then somebody got hurt and was down for about a minute and a half.  And it went out a few times.  That sounds like three minutes.  Let's just keep playing for three more minutes."  Just stop the clock when play is stopped.  Every other sport has figured out that clocks can be stopped.  Why hasn't soccer?

12:46- The whistle blows after 58 seconds of extra time and we go to halftime tied at 0 (shocking, I know).

12:52- With both games at halftime, I'm watching Wimbledon.  Maria Sharapova is up three games to one in the first set against some girl from Switzerland with a last name that I don't feel like typing.

12:57- American Madison Keys won her first set against a Czech girl.

12:58- Top-ranked American male John Isner is in a second set tiebreak against a Finn.

1:00- I'm having salad for lunch.  Don't worry, I already know.  But I'm going to get Mexican for dinner, so we'll keep it light for lunch.

1:03- Isner wins the tiebreak and is up two sets to love.  Where does that term come from?  Here are Jerry Seinfeld's thoughts on tennis.

1:07- I'm back to soccer.  One thing I've noticed during the World Cup is that broadcasters will say things like, "Germany have played very well today."  Germany is a singular noun.  Germany has played very well today or the Germans have played very well today.  There was an example of this at the beginning of the game today, but I hadn't started the diary yet.  At least if you're talking about the United States, you could make the argument that "United States" is a plural noun.

1:11- Free kick for Germany is headed away by the US.

1:12- Now we have a corner kick coming up for the Germans.

1:12- Howard made one nice save, but Germany scores on the rebound.  Nuts.

1:15- Ghana scores on a header.  A draw in that game would be great.  Ghana winning could be problematic.  So either that needs to stay tied or Portugal needs to score again.  Or we could just score and tie it.  That would be cromulent.

1:17- Substitution for the US.

1:17- We have a German writhing on the ground.  The referee is from Uzbekistan.  Borat is not a fan.

1:19- Ghana just had a good chance on a header, but it went wide.

1:20- Yellow card on the US after they missed a foul on Germany.

1:21- If we finish tied with Ghana in points and tied in goal differential, they could advance by scoring more goals.  Why isn't the tie-breaker that we beat them head to head?

1:28- The US has a corner kick coming up here.  We need a goal.

1:28- The corner is headed away easily by Germany.

1:29- Notre Dame alum/my favorite soccer player ever Matt Besler clears the ball for the US.  I'm wearing my Notre Dame stars and stripes shirt for him/the United States.

1:31- We have two Americans down after a collision.

1:32- They're still down.  Why is the clock running?  This is so stupid.

1:37- Corner kick for Germany.

1:38- Portugal scores!  USA!  USA!  USA!

1:40- Another nice clear by Matt Besler.

1:41- Deandre Yedlin is in for Graham Zusi.  What up with that?

1:47- We have a fan on the pitch.  And the clock is still running.

1:48- Four minutes of extra time in both games.

1:49- We're likely to play Belgium if we advance.  As one of my students pointed out as we were watching Andy Murray take on some Belgian guy at Wimbledon, they make good waffles.

1:51- The US had a good chance to tie, but the shot was blocked.

1:51- Clint Dempsey just missed on a header.

1:52- Germany wins 1-0.

1:53- Portugal wins 2-1.  The United States advances!  USA!  USA!  USA!

1:55- I'll stay with Wimbledon for a little while and then I'll take a break until the NBA Draft.  Roder Federer is up a set on a Luxembourgian (apparently that's the right word, I had the red squiggley line under it until I fixed the spelling).

1:58- Here's my account of my day at Wimbledon last year.  It was July 1, the second Monday of the tournament.  The highlight of my day was seeing American Sloane Stephens win.  This year she lost on day one.

2:08- John Isner won.  He's the only American male left.  Lame.  I remember the good old days of Pete Sampras dominating Wimbledon.

2:14- Madison Keys is serving for the match against the 31st seed.

2:15- Madison Keys wins.  USA!  USA!  USA!

2:17- Rain is affecting Wimbledon.  They're closing the roof in the Federer match, but this seems like a good place to take a break.  I'll be back for the draft.

7:29- And I'm back for my second NBA Draft Diary.  Here's last year's diary of a terrible draft.  The highlight was Bill Simmons's reaction to Cleveland taking Anthony Bennett with the first pick.  For tonight, I'm joined by my dad and my good friend Sam will be making an appearance later.

7:32- Adam Silver makes his first appearance.  This is the first NBA Draft of my lifetime without David Stern.

7:33- Silver reminded us that the Spurs' stars were taken 1st, 15th, 28th, and 57th.  They know what they're doing.

7:37- David Blatt is the Cavaliers' new coach.  I've never heard of him.

7:39- We've heard some crazy ideas about how to change the draft.  My only change would be that you can't get the number 1 pick two years in a row.  If you win the lottery the year after winning it, you get the second pick.  Cleveland is making their second consecutive number 1 pick.  Minor change.

7:41- Andrew Wiggins is our second consecutive Canadian drafted number one overall.  This isn't the NHL.  The US needs to reclaim the number one spot next year.  Stephen Abootman is proud.

7:47- The Bucks take Jabari Parker.  We knew that was going to happen.  Now things start to get interesting.

7:48- Bill Simmons compares Parker to Paul Pierce.  That makes me think of the 1998 NBA Draft (it was only a matter of time until I referenced the 1998 draft, my favorite of all time).  I had my kids do reports on presidents and we had a presidential draft so that everybody had a different president.  It was like the 1998 draft.  Franklin Pierce went first (Olowokandi) and Lincoln and Washington went ninth and tenth (Nowitzki and Pierce).

7:53- The 76ers take Joel Embiid.  They show him on camera.  He looks about as excited as I was to be surrounded by hippies in San Francisco.  The 76ers might be going with the Houston Astros strategy of just not caring for a while and stockpiling early picks.  Not a bad strategy.  If he recovers, it's probably a good pick.  If not, he could be Greg Oden.

7:55- They show a happy Joel Embiid.  Rece Davis blames it on the the satellite delay.

7:57- Joel Embiid quotes the great philosopher Kevin Garnett in his interview with Rece Davis.

7:59- The Magic make a surprising pick with Aaron Gordon.  My dad is excited because he didn't want the Celtics to take him.

8:04- The Jazz are about to pick.  I don't think they're taking Doug McDermott, but we can't rule it out.

8:06- Aussie Aussie Aussie!  Oi Oi Oi!  The Jazz take Dante Exum.  I was kind of hoping he'd end up with the Celtics so that I could root for an Aussie.

8:08- The Celtics are on the clock.  My dad worries that they will take Marcus Smart.  I would not be excited about that.

8:09- Dante Exum is being interviewed.  The Australian accent is the best.

8:12- Simmons wants the Celtics to take Julius Randle.  I agree.

8:12- Marcus Smart.  I'm not a fan.

8:14- Jay Bilas likes the pick.  Jay Bilas is going to like every pick.  And I like Jay Bilas, but ESPN needs to find people who will criticize teams during the NFL/NBA drafts.

8:16- The advanced stats show that Marcus Smart is a great prospect.  NBADraft.net's comparison for him is Dwyane Wade.  I'm going to talk myself into being excited about this by the end of the night.

8:17- The Lakers take Julius Randle.  I wanted the Celtics to take him five minutes ago, but I despise Kentucky basketball and I despise the Lakers.  This is a match made somewhere and it's not heaven.

8:20- Only Michael Beasley had more double doubles as a freshman in NCAA history and we know how well he worked out in the NBA.

8:22- The Kings take Nik Stauskas.  And now I have a reason to root against the Kings.

8:28- The Hornets are about to pick.  Major upgrade in team name for the Charlotte professional basketball team.

8:29- The Hornets take Noah Vonleh.  His suit is appropriate for the Hornets.

8:31- Noah Vonleh has some big hands.

8:36- The 76ers take Elfrid Payton from Louisiana Lafayette.  I hadn't heard of this guy until two days ago.  I'm glad they didn't take Doug McDermott because I don't want to root against Doug McDermott.

8:37- When asked by Rece Davis what the 76ers are getting in Payton, Jay Bilas responds, "A great hairdo."  He then gave a serious answer.  He should have just stopped there.

8:42- Denver takes Doug McDermott.  I'm a big fan.  I'm not a big fan of Denver, but there are a lot of teams that would have been worse.

8:45- I love McDermott, but he looks pretty ridiculous with his hat on during his interview with Jay Williams.

8:51- The Magic take Dario Saric.  Where's Fran Fraschilla to tell us about him?  Because nobody has ever seen this guy play.  Or if you have, you're spending too much time watching basketball highlights on the internett.

8:52- There's Fran.

8:55- The Timberwolves take Zach LaVine while I'm on the phone with my brother Tom.  He's a Knick fan and he likes the trade they made yesterday.  I agree, but when getting two second round picks is one of the best things that's happened to your team lately, I think that tells you all you need to know about the Knicks.

9:02- The 76ers are trading Payton to the Magic for Saric, who won't be coming to the US for a couple of years..  The 76ers are definitely going with the Houston Astros strategy.

9:03- The Suns take T.J. Warren.

9:05- T.J. Warren's suit looks fine, but his shirt and tie combination is atrocious.

9:10- The Hawks take Adreian Payne.  He's wearing ridiculous purple pants, but he stayed in college for four years, so I guess I should root for him.

9:12- Rece Davis talks about Payne's relationship with a girl who died of cancer (the only person that Jay Bilas followed on Twitter).  I thought I had a reason to like this guy.  Okay, I'm in on Adreian Payne.

9:14- Isaiah Austin is recognized by Adam Silver.  He was expected to be drafted, but now his career is over because he was diagnosed with Marfan syndrome.  That's an excellent job out of the NBA in that scenario.

9:19- The Bulls take Jusuf Nurkic from Bosnia and Herzegovina.  He's going to the Nuggets as part of a trade for Doug McDermott.  I'm much less excited about McDermott going to the Bulls, even though I am a Tom Thibodeau fan (2008 Celtics defensive architect).

9:21- The Celtics are on the clock and I'm joined by my good friend Sam, who is also a fan of the Celtics (he's from Boston).  I like Sam all year long, but he's at his best during the summer.

9:23- They're talking about the possibility of the Bulls amnestying Carlos Boozer.  Simmons thinks Jerry Reinsdorf might not be willing to do that.  You have to get Carlos Boozer off the cap for the chance to get a big free agent.

9:25- The Celtics take James Young.  My dad likes this pick.  Simmons is excited as well.  I don't know much about him.  The Celtics are loading up on guards, but when you're as bad as they were, you take the best player available.  If James Young was the best player available, I'm cool with that pick.

9:28- Simmons wants to do shots.

9:32- The Suns take Tyler Ennis.  This leads to a discussion of how Canada is dominating this draft.

This is the best day for Canada since they got all that gum and those Bennigan's gift cards.

9:35- The Bulls take Gary Harris for the Nuggets.  Simmons and Rose think it's a steal for the Nuggets.

9:39- Either Mitch Kupchak is really tall or Ramona Shelbourne is really short.  Boo Lakers.

9:41- The Heat want to move up to get Shabazz Napier.  I want the Heat to end so I hope it doesn't happen.

9:44- The Raptors take Bruno Caboclo.  Who?  Rece Davis says he was the MVP of Basketball without Borders.  Is that a thing?

9:45- Fran Fraschilla says he's the Brazilian Kevin Durant.  If you say so.

9:46- "He's two years away from being two years away."  So maybe Fran Fraschilla isn't so high on Bruno whoever.  And who had their money on Fran Fraschilla giving us the line of the night?

9:51- They just reviewed the James Harden trade, which is why the Thunder are picking now.  I made fun of them last year when they took Stephen Adams (who turned out to be better than I expected).  Now the Thunder take Mitch McGary.  I never had anything against the Thunder until now.

9:58- The Grizzles take Jordan Adams.  Jay Bilas says he's a scorer.

10:02- The Jazz take Rodney Hood.  Bilas says he knows how to score.  I've known how to score probably since I was four, but that doesn't mean I was good at it.

10:06- The Hornets take Shabazz Napier.  Simmons says they have a chance to be a top five team in the East next year.  Pretty low bar to clear.

10:09- Andy Katz says Shabazz Napier is going to the Heat.  Nuts.

10:11- Rece Davis says "calorie scap" instead of salary cap.  It's getting late.

10:14- Simmons predicted a foreigner for the Rockets and he was right.  They take Clint Capela, who Simmons says is one of the best 50 players ever from Switzerland.  The Rockets don't want to pay him yet.

10:15- Fraschilla says Capela is the second best player to come from Switzerland.

10:17- Josh Beckett gets a strikeout to end the top of the first in Los Angeles.  No runs, one hit, and nobody left for the Cardinals.

10:20- The Heat take P.J. Hairston for the Hornets.  And my good friend Sam has been replaced by my casual acquaintance Coors Light Summer Brew.

10:27- Adam Silver announces the 76ers-Magic trade from before.  The Suns take Bogdan Bogdanovic.  That has to be a made up name.

10:33- The Clippers take C.J. Wilcox.  We have two picks left in the first round.  Who's handling the second round?

10:38- World Cup talk during the NBA Draft.  I'm opposed to this.  Two hours of soccer today was enough.  Rece Davis says, "I embrace football all the time," talking about real football after Jay Bilas mentioned Americans embracing "football."  Good job, Rece.  But way too much soccer talk.  If you want to just mention it quickly, fine, but it shouldn't be a long discussion during the NBA Draft.

10:40- Oklahoma City takes Josh Heustis.  Bilas says he can really defend.  I say they'll regret not taking whoever the Spurs take with the next pick because whoever that is will be a good player because it's the Spurs.

10:42- Highlights of the Spurs dismantling the Heat.  That was fun.

10:43- The Spurs have $9 million in cap room.  They know what they're doing.

10:44- Simmons points out that Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili made less than Kobe Bryant last year.  That's why the Spurs won the championship and the Lakers stunk.

10:46- They're talking about the Heat while the Spurs are on the clock.  Of course they are.

10:46- The Spurs take Kyle Anderson.  He'll be a contributor.  I played basketball with a guy named Kyle Anderson.  I don't think it was the same guy.  Adam Silver informs us that Mark Tatum will handle the second round.  I know last year I covered the entire draft, but I didn't do the World Cup and some Wimbledon before that.  It's time to call it a night, but hopefully Marcus Smart and James Young turn out to be great players for the Celtics.