to move up and down
Shut down the Internet. Shut it down. We’re done here. Pack it up. We don’t need to see it anything else: Detroit Tigers relief pitcher Phil Coke checks out Rocky, a 4-week-old Bengal tiger from the Dade City Wild Things Zoo.
Bottom photo: This real tiger does not like fake Tiger Justin Verlander. (Photo: Carlos Osorio/The Associated Press)
PHEW. Now the Jets don’t have to spend 75% of their lives on a plane. The NHL confirmed their plans for realignment today, and now the Jets are in the Western Conference, which will cut down on their travel. Detroit is finally in the east … where they belong. (Photo: Trevor Hagan/The Canadian Press)
Raptors get the job done: At some point this season, there is likely a major change coming for the Toronto Raptors. Whether it is a resignation or a firing or a trade of a core player, this season started too poorly for all of the figures to remain entrenched within the organization. Probably.
However, everybody involved with the Raptors for the last, let us say, 18 years has spent far too much time focusing on the future and potential change down the road. So, why not celebrate the good times? The Toronto Raptors have won four games in a row.
Now, the Mavericks, Rockets, Cavaliers and Pistons do not represent a murderer’s row of elite NBA teams. However, when the Raptors beat Detroit 97-91 on Wednesday night, it was the first time they strung together four wins since November 2010.
It was far from pretty, and perhaps the Raptors’ worst performance since returning home last week from a nightmarish five-game road trip.
“There are a million different ways to win or lose the game,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “Right now, we’re finding the ways to win. That’s the most important thing for our group: finding ways to win. Now, we’re believing we can win. We trust in each other. We’re pulling for each other.” (Photo: Tyler Anderson/National Post)
We could show you a photo of the Giants celebrating their World Series victory during a parade in San Francisco…but this is much better.
Thousands of fans resplendent in orange and black noisily celebrated the team’s second World Series baseball title in three years on Wednesday. (Photo: REUTERS/Robert Galbraith)
Jim Leyland celebrates his return to the Tigers after his team announced on Tuesday that he would stay for another year.
Oh, wait. Scratch that. This is a photo of a Tigers fan wearing a mask with his likeness as he rides a carousel at the ballpark.
Regardless, the team and its manager quickly ended any remaining speculation about his status by announcing Tuesday that Leyland’s contract was extended through 2013. He managed on a one-year deal this year and led the Tigers to the World Series, where they were swept by the San Francisco Giants.
“Detroit is a tremendous baseball town and I couldn’t dream of a better place to manage,” Leyland said in a statement. “Tigers fans and the people of Michigan have supported us so well during my time here, I can’t even begin to express how much that means to me.”
San Francisco is cleaning up after some revelers celebrating the Giants World Series victory turned rowdy.
KTVU-TV reports a public transit bus was set on fire, a vehicle was flipped over, and the windows of several businesses and vehicles were broken as fans took to the streets following the Giants win Sunday night.
Fans also lit bonfires, fueling them with couches, signs and newspaper racks. Firefighters had to be escorted in by riot police to fight some of the fires.
It had been a World Series with little suspense. But its closing act finally produced a dash of drama worthy of a fall classic.
The Detroit Tigers put up their first authentic fight of the series. They scored as many runs in one game as they had the previous three. With the help of a stiff breeze, one of their prominent sluggers even managed to sweet-talk a fly ball over an outfield wall.
But the Tigers could not postpone the inevitable. Marco Scutaro singled home the winning run in the 10th inning, lifting the San Francisco Giants to a 4-3 victory and a four-game sweep.
The Giants, who won six straight elimination games to reach the World Series, are champions for the second time in three years. They needed five games to dispatch the Texas Rangers in 2010. (Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
How a group of die-hard Giants fans watch the World Series for free:
They’re teens skipping school and adults driving through the night to line up before dawn in soggy San Francisco – all for a chance to watch a few innings of the World Series for free.
The die-hard fans are known as the “knothole gang,” a group prepared to endure all sorts of discomfort for their Giants, just as they did at AT&T Park in 2010 when the team battled the Texas Rangers, and again in September and through the playoffs.
“The wait was worth it,” said Gene Sennett, 19, who skipped college classes in San Luis Obispo about 200 miles south to wait in line for eight hours for a chance to watch the game for free. “I’m a royally broke college student and this is the right price.”
(Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/The Associated Press)
This will be a very hairy World Series. But no one can do it like the master: Giants pitcher Brian Wilson. But his facial hair is like this during the regular season too, and life in general.
Wilson can’t remember when he last trimmed the beard. He figures it’s been at least a year.
“He hasn’t cut it in three years,” fellow reliever Santiago Casilla offered.
Read more about the World Series facial hair (you won’t be disappointed)
Kiss of death? Ideally, Jim Leyland would have everybody hug it out and play ball.
Just as Detroit’s Justin Verlander and Coco Crisp of Oakland did on the field for Monday’s workout day ahead of their teams’ Game 3 in the AL division series Tuesday. The Tigers lead 2-0 and are one win from advancing to a second straight AL championship series.
Leyland insists reliever Al Alburquerque meant no ill will toward the Athletics when he fielded Yoenis Cespedes’ ninth-inning comebacker and quickly kissed the ball before throwing to first. Yet the manager disagreed with the display.
“Everybody always says I’m from the old school, so I’d have probably hugged it first,” Leyland joked. “I don’t think it was the right thing to do. I will sit here today and I will not try to defend it. I will say that I can assure everybody, including the Oakland A’s, Al Alburquerque did nothing intentionally to offend the Oakland A’s. A lot of emotion is shown in different ways in the game anymore. You see a lot of different variations of personal celebrations as well as team celebrations.
“It wasn’t a smart thing to do, but I can honestly tell you that there is no way that Al Alburquerque or any members of the Detroit Tigers would ever do anything intentionally to offend another team. It just would not happen,” Leyland said. (Photo: AP/The Detroit News, Robin Buckson)
