Clips from Justin Verlander's appearance with Conan O'Brien

Our own Justin Verlander was on Conan last night, as you can probably tell by all the Twitter, Facebook and front page updates. Yeah, it was kind of exciting news because we're in the month of January, there haven't been a lot of rumors to chase, and spring training is still nearly 40 days away.

Video is embedded under the jump. If you can't view them, here is a link to Conan's site and the individual posts.

Take 3 on writing this post. The browser keeps eating it and I don't know why.

Anyway, our Mr. Verlander was very dapperly dressed, though he seemed to clash a bit and his lapel was of grave concern to at least one Tigers blogger who draws cartoons of such things. Verlander spoke about his preseason preparations and slowing down on the mound so he pitches rather than throws. All stuff we've heard before.

Then he dropped the bomb. His ritual before pitching is to eat at Taco Bell. This just opens entire lines of jokes. I'll give you a moment or two to prepare yours.

...

...

...

Mine: If Justin Verlander eats Taco Bell before the game, it's not only Don Kelly's foot that is hot.

I've typed that line three times now. I groan louder each time. Surely you can do better.

Speaking of, Verlander also shared just how he got Kelly's foot to burn and why Verlander feared he'd blow up the entire dugout.

All in all, a good time. It's nice that Detroit has this kind of athlete playing baseball for it. As I grew up with the Tigers of the late 80s and the 90s and the '00s -- cringe -- I was pretty much resigned to the fact baseball games would never have any real meaning in the standings and the baseball players who have star power always play for somebody else. My, how far we've come. Verlander is key to that in all aspects.

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!

On Twitter Justin informs us his suit was navy blue with brown accents, and his shoes were brown, so it works. "#knowwhatimdoing," he hashtags.

I'm glad we've got that settled.