Good news from afar: The Tigers and Wolverines

One benefit of the Internet is being able to listen to live games of one's favorite teams. Having grown up inside and outside of Detroit, my first team loyalties were to those of teams in Michigan. These include the Detroit Pistons (basketball), Red Wings (hockey), Lions (football), and Tigers (baseball).

During the my lifetime, the Pistons won the NBA championship in 1989, 1990, and 2003. The Red Wings have won several Stanley Cups. The Lions haven't won the NFL championship since the 1940s and are still in the basement of their division.

The Tigera won the World Series in 1968 and 1984. They also have qualified for the divisional playoffs in 1972 and 1987. Since 1987, they have generally been very bad. So consistently bad, in fact, that I remember disowning them in 2000, buying a New York Yankees cap, and declaring myself as a Yankee fan. I lived outside of New York for a number of years, so allegiance to the Yankees wasn't that strange, as they were generally good and the Tigers were generally bad. However, I still felt funny cheering for a team owned by George Steinbrenner.

3 seasons ago, the Tigers nearly set a record for ineptitude and just missed by 1 loss tying the record for the most losses per season. Yesterday, the Tigers beat the Yankees and won the series 3 games to 1 over the Yankees. Now they play Oakland for the American League title. Go Tigers!

While I was in 3rd grade, I became a lifelong University of Michigan Wolverine football fan. My teacher that year was an Ohio State graduate. That year, Ohio State had what some called the team of the century. This was Bo Schembechler's first season as Michigan coach. One November afternoon in 1969, the Wolverines pulled off a huge upset over the Buckeyes and a yong boy became a loyal fan.

Over the years, I still have closely followed my Wolverines. My dad took me to 3 games at the Big House for my October birthday during grade school and junior high. While a student at the Ann Arbor campus 1980-81, I had season tickets to the games. Even while overseas during pre-Internet days, I used to buy the International Herald Tribune on Mondays to find out how they did.

Besides the Buckeyes, Michigan's other biggest rival is the Michigan State Spartans. In Michigan, people tend to either like Michigan or Michigan State and dislike the other. Michigan, which academically is up there with Ivy League schools, is your more white collar school, while MSU (which is sometimes called Moo U because of its agricultural school) is more blue collar. I have friends who graduated from both these schools. However, my loyalty is toward the University of Michigan, which has consistently fielded good football teams for nearly 4 decades now.

Yesterday I got to listen to Michigan's victory over Michigan State. The game started at 10:30 p.m. Central European Time, which is 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. During this game, it was announced that the Tigers beat the Yankees. So it was a great day for me from a sports perspective. After going 7 and 5 last season (and losing most of them at the last minute in some close matches), the Wolverines are 6 and 0 this season.

So...Go Blue!