Which Season Was More Painful in Detroit?

by Ian Casselberry on Dec 30, 2008 3:00 PM EST in News Comment 6 comments

At Ball Star, our buddy Sam Mellinger asks his Kansas City readership a question that could also be posed to Detroit sports fans:

So what we'd like to do here in this little corner of the internets is ask you a simple question: is it worse to watch and root for a miserable football team or a miserable baseball team?

I realize that just because you're a Tigers fan doesn't mean you support all Detroit sports teams. After baseball season ended, many in the BYB community scattered to follow other football teams besides the Lions, and thus didn't endure 0-16. But you suffered through 74-88. (Unless you checked out around, say, August. Or even before then.)

But I'm curious how you'd answer Sam's question. I'd say it was worse - much worse - to watch the Tigers this year. That was an day-by-day slog through losing, carried throughout a long, hot summer. Of course, I was admittedly obliged to follow the team every day as a consequence of authoring this blog. If I was "just a fan," maybe I would've checked out, too.

And that's not even factoring in the expectations that the Tigers carried into the 2008 season. The losing was so much more painful, the disappointment that much more acute because of the championship hopes and aspirations.

Yet the Tigers also managed to pull us back in throughout the season, tantalizing us with the possibility that they might actually get it together and make the competitive run we expected.

Compare that to the Lions, for whom nothing was expected this year. Especially after that Week 1 stomping by an Atlanta Falcons team that was (mistakenly, as it turned out) thought to be equally inferior, if not worse. It was easy to write them off. The Lions only played once a week. Go do yard work instead. Go to a movie. Read a book. Hell, watch a different football game with more competent teams.

To me, it's a comparison between taking a slow roll down a mountainside covered in broken glass and getting blown up by dynamite. Either way, you're screwed but one is probably going to be much more torturous and painful than the other.

Nice thought to go into the New Year with, eh?

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The Tigers

Because of their “Thousand Run Offense.” The Tigers season had so many excruciating twists and turns, whereas you Lions fans probably weren’t expecting much, and had your suspicions confirmed in Week 1.

Off the top of my head, here are some of the painful events from the Tigers season:

Grandy’s injury just before the season began. The 0-fer start. They were on Sunday night baseball that week, and were still winless, and as I recall, got spanked. D-Train’s 7 walk first outing, and knee injury second outing. The atrocious infield defense followed by several defensive realignments (anyone else remember the “Carlos Guillen is moving to left field” movement that they stuck to for ONE DAY?). Jason Freaking Grilli throwing the team under the bus from Colorado. Bonderman’s injury.
Todd Jones blowing a save in game one of a crucial series against the White Sox by giving up a 2 out, 2 strike home run. Every Robertson outing, he had the highest (starter) ERA in baseball last year. Every Rogers outing, hoping the other team wouldn’t be able to catch up to a 78 mph fastball. Every time Fernando Rodney or Joel Zumaya came out of the bullpen, with the fans having absolutely no confidence in them.

And so on, and so on. Heck, I was pretty disappointed Cruceta stunk, I really liked the nickname “Caped Cruceta.” The point is, we all had such high hopes for the Tigers, and it was death by a thousand cuts throughout the year. That was much worse than 16 bad games by a team pretty much everyone knew would stink.

by ThaWalrus9 on Dec 30, 2008 5:32 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

not to mention

having to watch the loathesome Kyle Farnsworth fail repeatedly for a few months, knowing he hated being in a Tigers uniform as much as I hated him being in one.

by ThaWalrus9 on Dec 30, 2008 5:34 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Definitely, the Tigers

The disappointment almost killed me. They let us down big time!

by densogirl on Dec 30, 2008 7:42 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Without question, the Tigers season was more painful to watch. Any idiot could’ve guessed the Lions were gonna be bad; just not 0-16 bad. Not only did the Tigers not meet World Series expectations, they fell short of every expectation imaginable. Without a doubt, the Tigers’ season was more painful to watch; it was a 6-month nightmare that resulted in me holding this extremely intense vendetta against them.

by BigDaddyJC on Dec 30, 2008 7:47 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

The aforementioned vendetta

If you haven’t read the FanPost.

Bless You Boys

by Ian Casselberry on Dec 30, 2008 7:56 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

As someone who speaks from first hand experience...

I say a losing baseball season, especially this last one by the Tigers, is worse. Not far worse than the Lions historic 0-16 season, but worse all the same.

When you combine the ultra high expectations, the hanging on the outskirts of contention until August, the night after night after night implosion by the bullpen and the roster busting injuries, the Tigers’ season was crushing in its disappointment.

On the other hand, I knew going into the season the Lions weren’t world beaters. No one was fooled by the 4-0 exhibition record. The Lions were short on talent, and it was just a matter of how bad they would be. I figured worse case was 4-5 wins. The NFL is too balanced a league to not win a couple of games, if only by accident. Shows what I know.

But once it became obvious exactly how bad the Lions were going to be, and history could be in the making, there was a perverse fascination in watching them. You can’t say the Lions’ 2008 wasn’t memorable. But I’d rather try and forget the Tigers’ 2008 ever happened.

waynefontes.com

by BigAl on Dec 31, 2008 12:47 AM EST reply actions 0 recs