Making The Designated Hitter Rule Great

Let me pour myself a little Edgar Martinez with some anchovy Tony Olivas and let's have a Frank Thomas discussion about the DH.
Some of you hate it, have always hated it, are never gonna like it and you want it gone. Your aunt with the mole like a corncob pipe that insists on kissing you can have that removed. The DH is not going anywhere, so this whole discussion takes place in the real world...

                                                         Eye black, and she was a
                                                         "free swinger". That makes
                                                         her a DH in my book

...a world where there's no way in hell the MLB Player's Association is gonna allow baseball to cut short the careers of guys who are making 8 figures a year and aren't even allowed to order an Ove Glove from late night infomercials.
And now, according to published reports, the DH is coming to the National League.
If you're into symmetry in general, this is a good thing. Both leagues, same rules, you don't have to juggle your fantasy lineup because that coveted subway series between the Mariners and the Marlins is taking place all weekend.
But what are we gonna lose when the DH hits the senior circuit ?
Strategy, mostly. The artistry of guys like Bruce Bochy, who make lineup cards look like Timothy Leary invented Sudoku.
Managers who don't care about the social media impact of bringing in Perez to pitch to Helton. (Perez Helton! Get it ? Don't get it ? It's funny to your son who is gonna transition to be your daughter in two years, trust me).
Losing that strategy will take away some of the charm of the game, not to mention the extra couple beers you can quaff at Wrigley while the guy who is gonna throw one pitch to a left-hander is taking 45 warmup pitches.
But it doesn't have to be this way: Here is Jimmy Doom's Official Suggestion as to how to have the DH  in the NL and not sink strategy by running into a North Atlantic Blomberg.

                                                                His bat is in the HOF.
                                                                His mustache is not.
                                                                
                                                            
In both leagues (and that's the Kruks of this whole debate, right ?) the starting pitcher bats until such time as the manager removes him for a reliever. The DH then takes the plate appearances for all subsequent relievers, though the DH could be pinch hit for by someone then deemed ineligible to play in the field during that contest.
My idea could change the entire dynamic of the bullpen; make the long reliever not just the guy you go to when your 4th starter is getting shelled like a bag of pistachios on Willie Nelson's tour bus, but a guy you bring in in a scoreless tie because your ace is pitching against Kershaw, who Pharell Williams couldn't get a hit off of, it's late in the regular season, he's leading off the following inning and you might wanna Bumgarner him 3 days from now, so if you keep his pitch count low you have that option. That scenario also makes guys who hit for average a viable option at DH and would still keep the double switch alive.
Whatta ya say, Kenesaw Mountain Manfred ? I think it would work. So do three of my friends and four of my dearest acquaintances.
C'mon, Commish! Don't tell me to go to Hal... Give my idea a McRae of sunshine...

OK Lions Fans, Who Would You Rather Have?

This is a completely unscientific, no-faith based, gluten free, high fat poll: Please post in the comments section of Victory Charade.

Who would you rather have on the Lions roster next year? NO deviations.

                                                "Don Juan" Demarco Murray

or

                                               Darrelle "Fantasy Island" Revis

Your third choice is "Neither".
Don't add other names, but feel free to tell me why you chose who you chose, or why neither. {No, voting neither does not give you the right to tell me why the Lions should trade for Tom Brady, Tom Sizemore, Cindy Brady or Grady Sizemore } If you vote neither, you can explain why you dislike the two other choices, but that's it.

"Sports World Utterly Mystified When Star Athlete Signs The Most Lucrative Contract Offered"

Billboards, to the best of my limited knowledge, are rented by the month. And now billboards are popping up around town taking a rip at Ndamukong Suh for leaving the Detroit Lions and signing a mega deal with the Miami Dolphins.
As routinely maligned as Detroit is, I've rarely been embarrassed by my city. There are a few notable occasions when I cringed at something that transpired here, but I figured that whatever the issue was would be out of the headlines within days. I don't know how many months the billboards are rented for, but I'm already sick of them and embarrassed by them.
I don't think anyone who spends money to rip a guy who is already a millionaire and leaving fucking town for a city thousands of miles away probably has any business commenting on another individual's business decision in private, or in public. But public it is: Honolulu Blue with two vertical lines written through the white S in the big defensive tackle's surname. Here's a single vertical line for ya with two smaller horizontal lines coming off it: "F" for originality.
Do I have to remind you how long the average NFL career is ?
Do I have to ask you what you would do if the car company who you started your career with-why not use Ford as an example ?- allowed you to test the market for your services and GM offered significantly more money and a state-tax free income ? You'd stick with Ford out of a sense of loyalty right ? No you wouldn't. You wouldn't even hesitate to take GM's offer and you'd consider it ludicrous that your kids were crying because they'd miss their friends."C'mon, kids, you'll make friends at our new quad level in Boca!"
Now you're mad at a guy who did the exact same thing you would have done under the circumstances.
I am a Lions fan. I've been called a slappy Lions fan. If the Lions won a Super Bowl, it would be in the top ten greatest days of my life-top five if I didn't father two healthy children. I wanted Suh to stay. Badly.

Almost as badly as I wanna bang Autumn Calabrese on a ferris wheel with a faulty bolt so I can die really, really happy.
 But I cannot fault Suh for his decision to leave.
People are constantly bemoaning their high taxes and can't wait to axe a film tax incentive because they think it's gonna save 'em a couple pennies are furious at a guy who decided to move to a state that doesn't have an income tax ? Here's two vertical lines bisected by a tiny horizontal line for your fucking billboard: The H in Hypocrite.
The same town that vilified him for his stomping incidents is now pissed that he left ? A town whose kids are gonna be hunting for easter eggs in snowmobile suits while icicles are still hanging from the gutters is hurt and dismayed because someone got offered a gig in Miami ?
The same Miami that happens to have a pretty rich football tradition itself, even if they have blown goats and tweeted about it for the last few years-they have '72, we had '57. Fans in Miami aren't any less hungry for a Super Bowl than we are, and in the scheme of things, Suh can do far more good with all those millions than just a damn Lombardi Trophy and a parade. This is a guy who gave over two million bucks to his alma mater before he signed his first pro contract. He endows an engineering scholarship. His father was raised in Cameroon, where the average per capita income doesn't even crack $4000 a year. Was he supposed to turn down millions of dollars out of some intangible sense of right and wrong and "honor" when he can take that money and do tangible and honorable things with it ?
You want to hate him ?

                                             This photo is about as close as I get to disliking him.
{If you mention the occasional unsportsmanlike behavior incidents, there's a little Teddy Roosevelt speech I'd be happy to share with you}.
 Wanna like him more, or at least understand him better ?
Here's a link to his charitable foundation http://suhfoundation.org/about-nsff, though you probably don't care and you're probably content with your 672 square foot, 14 x 48 idiotic pout. Honolulu Boo Fucking Hoo.
Congratulations on the new contract Ndamukong, and best of luck in Miami.

Strange,Because Her Dad Rarely Missed a Period

This guy

…is a grandfather.

Congratulations to The Great One, Wayne Gretzky. His daughter Paulina

who is getting cannonballed by suspended pro golfer "Dustin" Johnson

gave birth to a baby boy, who is gonna have a way easier time in pee wee hockey with the name Johnson than he would have with the name Gretzky.

Last Time Someone Laid Down Like That, Darren McCarty Was Beating His Head In

"Unforced error" is now part of the sports lexicon. It originated either in the tennis world or Bruce Jenner's face, but wherever it came from, the biggest one I've seen in decades was one that occurred Sunday night during the NFC Championship Game on the frozen latte of CenturyLink Field.

In the 4th quarter,Green Bay Packers strong safety Morgan Burnett picked off Russell Wilson, who spent most of the day playing catch with the Packers secondary like they were his nephews.

Burnett is known as a "ball hawk", one of those talented individuals who always seems to get to any nearby balls. Like Troy Polamalu. And Cameron Diaz.
So Burnett picks Wilson and:
A. Runs for a touchdown as 22,000 Green Bay residents simultaneously choke to death on bratwurst and die happy
B. Runs 40 yards then out of bounds directly for Erin Andrews and wins an Emmy for his Richard Sherman imitation

                                              This is a running shoe. As in "running 
                                                               with the football"

C. Flops on the ground like masked gunmen just rushed into his Wisconsin Savings and Loan branch after he cashed the check he earns for intercepting footballs and running with them toward the goal line where the fucking points are scored!

 Morgan… Dude... There's five minutes left in the game you have to win to play in the Super Bowl! The Seattle Seahawks can score four times in 5 minutes and learn two Mother Love Bone songs while they are doing it. You run a 4.5 40, which isn't completely blazing for your position, but it's still probably faster than the 360 lb. O-Linemen that are standing between you and at least a freaking Dave Krieg Used Car Lot commercial.
Your quarterback has been stumbling around like FDR is his partner in a 3-Legged Race and you flopped on the ground seventy yards from your end zone so you could put the ball in his hands ??
How many times in post game interviews have you heard players on the winning team say "We took advantage of our opportunities."
I'm sure I've heard your own quarterback (whose calf muscle is fluttering loose like Tara Reid's bra strap after 2 beers) say it about a half dozen times.
You had the opportunity to score a touchdown or at least get America to tune into the Crosby show, and you slid like Tom Brady up 52-0 in the preseason. So Aaron Rodgers could face the best defense in the league. At home. Artie Lange makes better decisions.
At least Goat of All Time Leon Lett was trying to make something happen. You were trying to make nothing happen. The more I think about it, the angrier I get and I'm a Lions fan. If I was a Packers fan, I'd never date a brunette again because it's almost an anagram of your name. I'd write Ted Thompson a letter begging him to trade you for a bamboo draining mat. At the very least I would toilet paper the hell out of your house. (And I'd be able to find it, too, because you play for Green Bay and Aunt Bea would tell me where you lived if I painted her fence).
The Seahawks won in large part because their punter threw a pass and one of their linemen caught it for a touchdown. Neither of those things is in their job description. The Packers lost, in large part, Morgan Burnett, because you chose not to do what is in yours.

                                   

If I Was German, I'd Be Even More Aneuered

The Victory Charade blog would like to extend our sincere congratulations to Cristiano Ronaldo

                                                        for winning the Ballon d'Or.

My Ass is Bleeding, and Pete Morelli Didn't Leave Cab Fare on the Night Stand

The NFL owes me and every Lions fan an apology. Pete Morelli owes us a huge apology for being a deceitful, disingenuous, hyperbolic ("a hundred miles away"), sorry excuse for a sports official. He's either completely incompetent, or he's covering for someone above him. {If you haven't seen the play, you can find it all over this happy little glowing box. The play in question occurred at 8:18 of the fourth quarter of the Lions vs the Cowboys 1/4/2015..
Fuck it, I'll link it for you even though I'm feeling about as charitable as Ebenezer Scrooge on tax day in divorce court.
We could have gotten an apology last night. We didn't. We are not going to get one, verbal or otherwise. But much like Kobe Bryant allegedly banging that Colorado hotel worker in the ass without consent, then buying his wife a diamond the size of section 102 of the Staples Center, a verbal apology would not have been enough. I don't care if Roger Goodell delivered the apology while getting an Eminem tattoo on his neck and drinking a Faygo.
Here are just a few suggestions as to what the NFL could do to mitigate their guilt and ease the pain of a city and Lions fan around the globe (maybe there are none in Marrakech, but there are Lions fans a bunch of places).
In no particular order:
- Make what Anthony Hitchens did legal for the entire 2015-2016 season. Allow defensive players one tug on the receiver's jersey per play, with no limitations (yards from the scrimmage line, ball in the air, etc). Allow them one shove with the ball in the air, and allow them to flail wildly in any manner without ever attempting to even look at the football. If the play by Hitchens in the wild card game was legal, regardless of the fact that many officials on the field felt that it wasn't, accept those actions as legal across the board. The league's competition committee has done everything to boost scoring other than adding a 5th down, outlawing punting (though after Sam Martin's shank that went three and a half Tyrion Lannisters I might not mind that so much)

 or making the field 80 yards. If Hitchens play is truly legal, aggregate scoring will plummet. But Jimmy, that's not what the league wants, you just said it.
No, it isn't what the league wants. So why, then, did they want it last night ? I could list dozens of conspiracy theories, and they'd all come back to one thing: Money. Jerry Jones's money, the league's TV and merchandise money, and more importantly, Vegas's money. Simple math: More people live and work in the greater Dallas area and identify with advertisers/focus groups as football fans than there are in the greater Detroit area. The reason that there is not greater uproar is that the call did not fuck the Vegas sports books. Detroit was getting a minimum of 6 points and leading by 3 at the time. If they continue to march down the field and score, Vito Abramowitz and Schmuley Rigatoni at the Mirage don't care because the Lions are already up. If Dallas gets the ball back and scores a touchdown to win it, they still don't care because the Lions still win on the point line (which, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is exactly what happened). It doesn't affect them in the least. If it did, you can bet your Joique Bell replica security guard uniform that the party boys in the NFL "Officiating" War Room never would have let that decision happen. Did you know that NFL on field officials wear communications headsets ? You do now. So it smacks of being scripted, much like pro wrestling and 99% of the reality shows out there. So bag it, change the storyline and let defensive backs flail around Like DiCaprio looking for driftwood in the North Atlantic. Make what Hitchens did legal, and it will be fun for Lions fans who can still stomach the WWEFootballShow to see Tony Romo and Jason Witten throw tantrums for half a season until they realize how Matt Stafford and Brandon Pettigrew felt.
-Hire full time officials. My buddy Mike Grose from NBC Sports Radio 1060 in Phoenix is the guy who brought this up to me. All the guys on the field in the black and white do it as a part time gig. In other words, they are civilians with real life responsibilities. The NFL can more than afford to hire full time guys, who have to answer to some sort of governing board made up of retired players and coaches operating independently of the soiled panty shield of the NFL. (Mike is far too mature to make a crack like that. That's all me. I'm pissed and depressed and I'm manstruating and I'll use all the prurient sophomoric references I want, thanks).

-Wanna talk money ? The NFL has an enormously well funded charitable arm. Divert some of that money to the Detroit area. Why ? That decision cost thousands of Detroit area service industry personnel hundreds of thousands of dollars. It wasn't exactly BP turning every oyster in the Gulf into 10W30, but trust me, most Detroit area sports fans are not gonna make a special trip to their local tavern to watch Richard Sherman go Straight Outta Compton on some smokin' hot sideline reporter after pickin' Cam Newton. I'm not saying Roger Goodell should start sending checks to every bartender at The Townsend, but as a gesture of goodwill and an admission of guilt, it would be nice if The Capuchin Soup Kitchen got a fat check. Yeah, I know, dream on.

 If you're so inclined, you can write 'em one yourself.
So the Lions season is assassinated, thanks to an obviously, perhaps purposely botched call . Jack Ruby ain't gonna shoot Pete Morelli, though I would laugh if I heard Morelli passed a kidney stone the size of a dinner platter sharpened like a bo shuriken. Because that's pretty much what it felt like for Lions fans yesterday.