The Fat Lady Is In Fine Form Tonight

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/6/06 at 11:14pm

Yankees lost

They could be eliminated tomorrow night

You could probably fry an egg on Steinbrenners head about now

Updated On: 10/7/06 at 11:14 PM

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 10/6/06 at 11:16pm

1. Really offensive thread title.

2. How many threads do you need to start about the same thing?

[jimnysf]

Posted: 10/6/06 at 11:17pm

Some people are too easily offended. The fat lady is about ready to sing and the Yankees are sinking fast.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 10/6/06 at 11:19pm

Unless Barbara Cook is standing at the mic at Yankee Stadium right now, I stick by my original statement.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/6/06 at 11:33pm

I stand by the title

Some people are indeed easily offended as Jim said. I am offended by many threads but I do not make a federal case out of it. Your offense has been duly noted

Updated On: 10/6/06 at 11:33 PM

[StageManager2]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 5:42am

Mr Roxy: Maybe you should change it to "The Overweight Lady is Warming Up." You know, to be PC. *sarcasm*

Updated On: 10/7/06 at 05:42 AM

[adamgreer]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 8:16am

Oh lord. It's an old cliche. Get over it.

[iHeartMyGeek]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 8:46am

Oh, SM2, "owerweight" wouldn't be PC either. It would have to be changed to "The Obese Woman Is Warming Up."

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 8:51am

As a chunky gal, I can tell you that obese is MUCH more offensive than overweight. I was just going to pop into this thread to say that I am actually rather chilly.

I am not offended by the title, but I don't really see the need to start a new thread every time a baseball player scratches himself.

[iHeartMyGeek]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 8:53am

Aww, I'm sorry, JG2--it's just whenever I hear someone talk about "overweight" people in a professional setting, it's usually "obese." I'll remember that from now on.

As much as I'm sick of baseball, I'm all for people bashing the Yankees!

[StageManager2]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 8:55am

Clearly, my statement was said tongue-in-cheek. I'm surprised you all took it seriously, especially with the sarcasm in asterisks.

[iHeartMyGeek]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 8:57am

I was ADDING to the sarcasm, actually

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 9:51am

The PC title might be The Calorically Challenged Lady

[StageManager2]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 9:52am

LOL!

Good one, Mr Roxy!

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 9:54am

Someone above mentioned why the need for a new thread

There has to be almost 20 different ACL threads

The defense rests

[hannahshule]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 10:28am

Horizonatlly challenged perhaos. And one of my favorites, pleasantly plump.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 10:35am

Not agreeing with the number of ACL threads either, but it is a Broadway board.

[vmlinnie]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 10:36am

Can we stop the bitvhing now and talk about the Yankees?

And come on, seriously, do you really think anyone is going to say "It's not over until the obese/overweight/slightly plump/chunky lady sings". Get a bit lighter you people! I mean, don't be so easily offended, I didn't mean that as in 'lose weight'...!

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 10:39am

Did anyone who asked why there had to be all these baseball threads say they condoned all the CHORUS LINE threads? Although, it is a Broadway board. This is the O-T board, yes, but that should cover a range of topics.

My point is that there are two threads about the Yankees losing last night. This one and the Yankees are Losers. Really, there COULD be one Yankees thread, or at least only one thread for one game.

And sorry, I totally forgot that fat people are the last group it's okay to make fun of. Carry on with your outdated phrases.

Updated On: 10/7/06 at 10:39 AM

[vmlinnie]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 10:47am

Rath, I agree on the multiple threads of the same topic.

However...

i just don't see why you're so worked up. It's just a phrase. I've heard politicians using outdated phrases which nowadays would be seen as blatently racist, and so on. I'm not launching an attack on everyone who isn't under 150 punds, that would be ridiculous. In fact, many of my relatives are not exactly slim, but they wouldn't kick up such a fuss as you are doing now.

But, if anything surprises me right now, it's that not one person, despite all the fighting, has tried to change the thread title. Until Now.

Posted: 10/7/06 at 10:58am

Uh, I am gravity-challenged, calorically-challenged, and I always said if I couldn't be the best, I'd be the biggest. I am plus-sized, and that's all there is to that. :) Getting back to the Yankees (who are um, offense-challenged or whatever)...as a Red Sox fan, you gotta know I am SOOOO loving this: the Yankees on the verge of being eliminated.

I consider myself larger-than-life. Deal.

[vmlinnie]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 11:00am

Well said.

[jimnysf]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 11:25am

MITCH ALBOM: Motown mow-down!
Rogers pushes Yankees to the brink

Kenny Rogers pushed the dirt from his coffin and rose to take the mound once again. He had been buried many times before. Overpaid. Bad temper. Too old. Fades down the stretch. On Friday night, his grave was to be dug by his nibbling pitches, his crafty but slow-ball approach. Won't work, they said. Not against the Yankees. Rogers hadn't beaten the Yankees in 13 years, remember? These are the Yankees. Can't you see they're the Yankees?

Yeah, yeah. We know they're the Yankees. And these are the Tigers. And before you bury a player -- or his team -- you had better make sure they're not still squirming.

On a chilly autumn night, under a full moon, in a stadium that had never played host to a playoff game, in a city that had waited 19 years to see one, the Tigers, behind a masterful and most unlikely performance by the 41-year-old Rogers, took a huge step forward in the race to eliminate the Yankees in this first-round series.

And they proved an axiom. Joining the circle of winning playoff teams is a bit like joining a church: Before you belong, you have to believe.

How's your faith now?

"I wanted this game as much as I ever wanted any game in my life," Rogers said after the 6-0 victory that gave him his first career playoff victory and the Tigers a 2-1 lead in this division series. "A lot of people may have had us like David vs. Goliath, but I think we all felt we had a chance."

A chance? They just shut out the Yankees! And Rogers, with whiskers as gray as the Yankees' road uniforms, was the story of the night. He kept New York scoreless into the eighth inning and allowed only one hitter to get beyond second base. He was smart, he was gutsy, and he was as determined as, well, as a fighting man keeping a coffin lid from being closed.

"Maybe it comes from failing so much," Rogers said. "I'm not afraid to fail. I'm still here for a reason. I like the challenge. I know I'm fortysomething and don't have a lot of talent left ... but I do believe in myself."

Rogers, in allowing five hits and striking out eight over 7 2/3 innings, was everything the Tigers hoped he would be when they signed him last winter -- and nothing like the last time he pitched.

Remember that game? Just six days ago? Rogers had played the reliever in extra innings and was tagged with the loss in the final game of the regular season, the loss to Kansas City that cost the Tigers the Central Division.

That performance, you could say, was what led to the Tigers playing the Yankees. So it seemed only fitting that Rogers turn that into a positive.

And man, did he do that.

Baffling the New Yorkers

Time after time on this memorable Detroit night, Rogers got some of the biggest bats in baseball to look as if it were their first day in the school play. Pitches were missed, tipped, chopped, topped or hit harmlessly to the gloves of waiting fielders.

In four different innings, Rogers got batters to strike out with a man on base, taking the steam out of any potential rally. He whiffed Johnny Damon. He whiffed Hideki Matsui. He whiffed Bernie Williams. He whiffed Bobby Abreu twice.

Even more amazing, he seemed to get stronger as he went along! Since when is that allowed to happen?

"No pun intended," manager Jim Leyland said, "but I think tonight was a case where Kenny definitely got better with age."

Rogers, who threw 113 pitches, was supposed to wither as the game went on. He is, after all, a senior, senior citizen by baseball standards.

But age does many things. For one, it makes you impatient. Rogers, who bristles at critics who say he fades in the late months, has said on many occasions here he doesn't want to talk about how he pitches in September, "I want to talk about pitching in October."

And he has been waiting to beat the Yankees forever.

The last time he did it was 1993, the first year he became a full-time starter. Thirteen years without beating the Yankees? That kind of record scares even stalwart managers, and Rogers was deliberately denied the chance to pitch at Yankee Stadium in favor of a home start Friday night. Maybe he didn't like that. Maybe his pride was hurt. If so, the chants of "KEN-NY! KEN-NY!" from the sold-out Comerica Park crowd probably eased the sting of that.

"I just tried to show what I could do," he said, "and show that I'm a different guy because" the Yankees "have shown they can wear out the other guy."

Well, this guy had a hell of a night. And when he walked off the mound in the eighth inning, he tipped his cap to a thunderous standing ovation. That's a great moment in baseball. A moment worth waiting for, even if you had to pass your 41st birthday to see it.

There's work to be done

Now, this is hardly a done deal. Someone was going to be up two games to one today, and if you count the Yankees out you haven't seen the Yankees play.

But Friday was one of those nights where the game was a little more than a date on the baseball calendar, it had a ring of pixie dust around it. Remember, playoff baseball has been dormant in Detroit since Ronald Reagan's second term.

"It will be a whole new chapter tomorrow," Leyland predicted.

But Friday night, with autumn air so cool and crisp, all that was missing was the smell of burning leaves. The Four Tops sang the national anthem, Al Kaline threw out the first pitch and Ernie Harwell was heard on several broadcast outlets -- including the national ESPN telecast -- his sweet voice reminding people that Detroit not only was a great baseball town, it still is.

We've just been waiting for the team.

Maybe this is the one. You can say this much. The Tigers are not intimidated by their circumstances. Not only did they win Friday night, they did it smartly, patiently, collectively, and they did it against Randy Johnson. You remember him? The Big Unit? Supposed to mow people down?

Instead, the Tigers nickel and dimed him for run after run. Seeing-eye singles. Line drives just over the infielders' gloves. The Tigers didn't just hit the ball the right way, they hit it at the right time. They got three runs in the second inning with a collection of timely hits, and they scored two more in the sixth, both with two outs.

And every time they took the field, they were boosted by the wizardry of Rogers, who rarely threw over 92 miles an hour but made batters look as if they were swinging at comets.

"If I was going to get beat, I was leaving it all out there," Rogers said. "I couldn't put more effort into the game than I did tonight."

It showed.

And Game 4 this afternoon is gonna be some kind of scene at the ballpark.

They shut out the Yankees? They chased Randy Johnson? They mowed down Murderers' Row? They're one victory from the American League Championship Series?

Yep, yep, yep and yep. Let the Yankees, for once, worry about dirt being tossed on their coffin. No Tigers will die tonight.




Motown mow-down!

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 11:57am

Methinks the woman in the thread is finished warming up & is merely waiting in the wings to step on stage & sing her heart out

It is going to be very ugly (aftermath) for the yankees. The seismographs worldwide will register large readings once Steinbrenner blows his top

The $ 64,000 question: Will Torre survive the massive purge that will follow ?

[iHeartMyGeek]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 1:17pm

I am lovin' the Yankees losing. They irritate me to no end. It might be a factor of jealousy, since my home team is in LAST PLACE in the National League...or second-to-last, I think...either way. But I could never stand the Yankees.

And I love Mitch Albom, so yay.