Well, today is as good as any for a standings update for my teams:
The Delmarva Shorebirds (my hometown team, low-A Orioles affiliate) finished their first half with a 30-40 record, 12 games out in the South Atlantic League's Northern Division.
Toledo (my old hometown team, AAA team of the Tigers) is 40-28 in the International League's West Division, 2 1/2 games out but they lead the IL wildcard race by .002 over the hated Columbus Clippers. Tonight they're beating Ottawa 10-2 late, Columbus is up 3-2 on Scranton in the 9th as well.
And the Tigers enjoy an off day at 33-33, 12 games back of the White Sox but only 4 1/2 back of Minnesota for the wild card. This is the latest they have been at .500 since September of 2000. That was when what I call the "curse of Al Gore" started.
On September 6, 2000, the Tigers were possibly the hottest team in the big leagues. After being left for dead in early August with a 52-60 record, they went on an 18-7 surge to put themselves 5 games back in the wild card hunt, picking up 4 1/2 games in the stretch.
It was that day that Al Gore came to pitch batting practice at the invitation of fellow Tennesseean Phil Garner, the Tigers manager at the time.
That night, they lost to the Anaheim Angels 1-0, managing only 2 hits in the process. It was the start of a 6 game losing streak that eventually stretched to losing 9 of 10 - after that, their playoff hopes and chance to get a .500 season for the first time since 1993 were about expired. They would finish 79-83 in 2000, slumping to 66-96, 55-106, and that horrible 43-119 season over the next three years.
Much as Al Gore in 2000, the Tigers just kept finding ways to lose when it counted.
Now, I'm not sure how manager Alan Trammell leans politically, but I'm hoping that the longer President Bush is in office, the less this curse remains in effect. Tiger owner (and pizza magnate) Mike Ilitch is definitely a switch-hitter politically, although maybe it's a question of whether free pizza is a political contribution. (He has some interesting contribution amounts on opensecrets.org.)
All I hope is that my Tigers can keep up their good work this season. The Olde English "D" is basically about the only "D" I want to succeed, the ones on the ballot can be losers like Al Gore.
Late edit: baseball history courtesy of retrosheet.org - one of my favorite non-political websites!
