2/28 Notes

The Lions signed center Dominic Raiola to a 5 year deal worth about 17.5 million with a 4.6 million dollar signing bonus. The Lions are now assured of having three of their five starting offensive linemen back for the 2005 season-Jeff Backus, Damien Woody, and Raiola.

The Pistons continued their hot streak with another win on the road. They beat the Warriors 94-88. Tayshaun Prince led the way with 23 points. This was the Pistons 12th win in their last 13 games.

New Site

I just got my new site running. The address is http://detroitsportscentral.com. It will cover Detroit Sports and also national sports. I will continue to run this site but probably not as much. Please check out the new site. I am still working out a few problems but it is pretty much good to go. I am running it with two other Detroit Sports bloggers and I am looking for more writers, mainly for the national sports. Please email me if you are interested. We hope to post a lot on the new site so you will get a lot of sports news. I hope you enjoy it.

No Deal!

Yesterday it looked like the NHL was going to uncancel the season and agree to a 45 million dollar salary cap. The owners and players talked for 6 1/2 hours on Saturday but no deal got signed. That is all that I can think of saying. Click here to get a full report on this whole mess.

Breaking News

This is breaking news as of a few minutes ago. The NHL is going uncancel the season tomorrow according to the Hockey News. The players and owners have already agreed in principle to a 45 million dollar salary cap. They are probably going to get the deal down tomorrow. Click here to read a full report on it.

Wow, that is all I can say about this. I hope this report is legitimate. We will have to wait till tomorrow to see what goes down.

Quick Notes

We will find out today if there is going to be a NHL season this year or if it is going to be canceled. The players and owners have agreed on a salary cap but they are about 7 million dollars apart on how much it should be. The deadline for a deal to go down is 11 a.m. today. Click Here for a full report. A deal probably won't get done but there is still a slight chance it could happen.

Update: The NHL season has officially been canceled. The players and owners could not agree on the amount of money a salary cap would be. I am not all that suprised that this happened. This season is over but hopefully they can at least get a deal done for next season.....R.I.P. 2004-2005 NHL season.

Also, there is a very good article at the freep about the Tigers upcoming season. Click Here to read it.

Weekend Notes

This story is a few days old but I would still like to mention how the Tigers traded a few minor leaguers to the Cubs for relief pitcher Kyle Farnsworth. Farnsworth is a fairly good pitcher who has a fast ball that can reach 100 MPH. His era has bounced up and down over the years so you never know what you will get out this guy. His best year was in 2001 when he had a 2.74 era along with 107 strikeouts in 82 innings pitched. This was a good trade for the Tigers. They did not have to give up much for him. He is solid and he should help out the bullpen. This was probably the Tigers last move before spring training starts.

I have not mentioned anything about the NHL in a long time. The NHL is in a lockout this season. The owners want a salary cap and the players don't want a salary cap. The season is pretty much done. Even if a miracle happened and the players and owners reached an agreement, the season would have less than 30 games(per team) before the playoffs started. The future of the NHL is unknown right now. This season is shot and next season might not happen either. What might happen is that the NHL will put in replacement players to play a season. That is a dumb idea and even less people will watch it. If they want to save the NHL they need to have the best players in the world playing, not replacement players who nobody gives a care about. It is sad to see a great league going down the tube but hopefully it can come back better than ever over the next few years.

One Year in the Making

Today is this site's one year anniversary. Today exactly a year ago I started this site with this post.

This is my brand new detroit sports website. I will be bringing all the detroit news right to you.

I started very slow with some very very bad posts. My first half way decent post was perhaps this one.

This season the detroit tigers have made some incredible acquisitions. I have been so amazed how Mike I. has finally used some of his money to get some good players. They acquired Fernando Vina a very good defensive shortstop ,Carlos G. A good hitter and fielder, Jason J. probably going to be their number one starter, and Al Levine a good middle relief man. But the player who has been the biggest signing, of course, is Ivan"Pudge"Rodriguez. He is their biggest free agent signing in the club's history. He brings leadership and puts people in the seats. Now many people don't realize that their second biggest signing was Rondell White. He had incredible stats for how little money the tigers signed him for. He had 22 home runs and 85 rbi. last year. For the tigers that would have been their second best hitter behide Dimitri Young last season. This is going to be a fun year for the tigers,but I don't expect them to contend for the division title just yet. They are 1 year away I think. They will be much improved from last year and I'm expecting them to win around 68-75 games. Hopefully I'm wrong and they can contend for the title in the weak division they are in. All I can say is that I can't wait for opening day.

My site slowly got more visits and it now averages about 30-60 unique visitors a day and about 275 unique visitors a week. My highest day was right around the time of the big brawl at the Palace a few monthes ago. That day I got 456 visits and that week I got 1434 visits. I have gotten 10,000 visits or more since starting this site(probably around 13,000). I am linked to almost every Detroit Sports related site and I am linked to over 70 sites total.

I do not consider my site an excellent one and I know it could be a lot better. I know I could post a lot more and I am sorry for not doing that. However, I do think my site has gotten better over the past year. I have learned more and more about how to write at a quality level. I am still learning and I am still trying to improve.

I have enjoyed running this site very much. I have even made some money from advertisers, something I thought would never happen. I hope at least a few of you read my site on a regular basis. My site is small and it will probably never contend with the much bigger sites but I am still happy at how far it has come(in my mind). I am probably going to end this site and start fresh with some other Detroit Sports bloggers so you the reader can have much more coverage of the Detroit Sports scene. I am also probably going to incorporate some national sports as well. It should fun but I will be sad to see this site end. It was a good year long run here and I hope at least a few of you have enjoyed it.

I want to say thanks to a few people who have majorly helped this site. I mostly would like to thank Matt from On the Wings for helping me out with my site a ton when it first started. Also I would like to thank Evan at Firebrand of the AL and Randy from Red Sox Haven for making the cool banners I have used.

Finally I would also like to say thanks to the people who have read, praised, and yes, even criticized my site.

Here are some of my best posts(in my mind).
Detroit Sports:A year in review
Williams and Jones
A Dark Day in Detroit
Carlos Guillen
An Era Ending
Darko Who?

The 05 Lineup

With the recent signing of Magglio Ordonez, the Tigers can now start to think of their starting lineup for the 2005 season that is coming up soon. Here is the projected lineup as well as the best stats for each player from last season.

1) Alex Sanchez CF (.322 batting average, 19 stolen bases)
2) Carlos Guillen SS (.318 batting average, 97 RBIs, 20 homeruns, 97 runs)
3) Ivan Rodriguez C (.334 batting average, 86 RBIs, 19 homeruns)
4) Magglio Ordonez RF (.317 batting average, 99 RBIs, 29 homeruns)
5) Dmitri Young DH (18 homeruns, 60 RBIs)
6) Rondell White LF (19 homeruns, 67 RBIs)
7) Carlos Pena 1b (27 homeruns, 87 RBIs, 70 walks)
8) Brandon Inge 3b (.287 batting average, 64 RBIs)
9) Omar Infante 2b (55 RBIs, 13 stolen bases)
Note-I used Ordonez's stats from 2003 because he was injured for most of last season.

Unless there is an injury, that will be probably be the starting lineup on opening day. Here is the bottom line, the Tigers lineup will be very good this year. Everybody up there can hit. The Tigers hit pretty good last year and this year they will be even better. The addition of Ordonez will be a big help. This is their best lineup in years and it will be exciting to watch.

Tigers Land Ordonez

The Detroit Tigers went after almost every big name free agent this offseason but they all turned down the chance to play in Detroit. The Tigers finally got a big name player to sign in Detroit. The Tigers signed Magglio Ordonez to a 5 year deal worth 75 million dollars. The Tigers can void Ordonez's contract if he is on the disabled list for 25 or more days due to his left knee injury reoccurring. Ordonez was injured for most of last season(he missed 110 games) but he still managed to hit .292 with 9 homers and 37 RBIs. Before last season, Ordonez's stats have been awesome. For every 162 games he plays in(on average) he hits .307 with 30 homers and 114 RBIs. His best year was in 2002 when he hit .320 with 38 homers and 135 RBIs.

This signing is huge for the Tigers. They needed another big bat in their lineup. Ordonez is a 4 time allstar who will help them out greatly. He is getting older(31) but he still should have some gas left in the tank. A lot of Tigers' fans might be thinking this was a waste of money for the Tigers to sign a slightly older player who just came off an injured plagued season. I do not think it was a waste of money to sign Ordonez. I trust that this was the right decision by Dave Dombrowski to sign Ordonez. They did not rush to sign him and they got a contract where they are protected against his knee injury. The Tigers may have overspent on Ordonez but who else are they going to spend their money on? There are no other free agents left out there that are nearly as good as Ordonez. Maybe the Tigers will regret this signing in the future but we will have to just wait and see. This signing has already made them better and it will help them improve on their 72-90 record from last season.

Pistons Top Wizards

The Detroit Pistons, behind heavy scoring from four starters, topped the Washington Wizards 105-96.

Chauncey Billups led all scoring wtih 28 points. Backing him up was Tayshaun Prince with 25, Rip Hamilton wtih 23, and Rasheed Wallace with 18.

The Pistons shot well throughout the first half. They were ahead 52-47. They struggled a bit in the third, but surged into the fourth and never looked back.

Washington played a fine game as well. They got 26 points out of Antawn Jamison and 21 points out of Gilbert Arenas. They lacked rebounding and had trouble with fouls.

Detroit improves to a 27-18 record that puts them 1/2 game up over the Cavaliers for first place in the Central division.

ESPN.com: Recap - Pistons at Wizards