Jim's Gym

condor · All-Star Joined: 01 May 2007 Posts: 163 Location: Michigan

Motown is the town for sports in 2007

August 1, 2007
Bob Hille

Say this about your sports teams, Detroit: They reflect the show-up-for-work-every-day-and-punch-the-clock roots of your city. And in a Best Sports City year in which championship cities' "sportfolios" had gaps, Detroit's regular-season efforts and thisclose success in the playoffs pushed it to the top of our annual rankings, even sans title of any kind.

Visit Detroit these days and you'll see that this is a baseball city out of hibernation and filling Comerica Park. The Pistons and WNBA's Shock put a spring in a hoops fan's step. Yes, it's still Hockeytown, same as it was when Detroit was our Best Sports City in 1998. Yet on an unseasonably warm Saturday in April, with the Wings facing the Flames in the playoffs at The Joe, you were as likely to see an old English "D" on a cap in downtown Detroit (the Tigers were playing the White Sox) as you were a winged wheel on a red sweater.

This is a city immersed in its teams, living and dying with them -- mostly living, but there's even a hint of optimism about . . . the Lions?

So, pop the World Series bubbly, St. Lou.

Celebrate your Super season, Indy.

Drink from the Cup, Anaheim.

Parade an NBA title down the river, San Antonio.

You each deserve rich notice, same as Gainesville's historic collegiate double dip. But, if we're to believe the car ads, then life is as much about the journey as it is the destination, and Motown's sports scene was a trip these past 12 months.

Three teams -- the Red Wings, Tigers and Pistons -- finished no worse than fourth-best in the workaday world of regular-season standings in their respective leagues.

In fact, even with the 3-13 Lions skewing the percentage, Detroit's major professional sports teams in their most recently completed full season won at a .588 clip. How's that for packin' your lunch every day?

more ...

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=248801

Jim · Gym Leader Joined: 30 Apr 2007 Posts: 471 Location: PA

Congratulations!!! the closest i ever got to a real "live" Detroit football fan was probably a Michigan/Penn State game at Beaver Stadium... i don't like 'em. j/k. the ones near us had some balls... i'll give 'em that! Laughing

i have always believed that you are not a "true" sports fan unless you root for the home team. why on earth would you NOT like the team that you can see on the local news every day... the team that is probably a short drive from where you live (2 hours isn't short enough in my case, though!).

what always kinda irked me about pittsburgh is we don't have an NBA team. although... i can't even imagine a Steel Town flash 'n dash style of play.

when i was growin' up the pirates were winning (Sister Sledge and "We Are Family" is forever embedded in my brain), culminating in the '79 series, after we won the Super Bowl AGAIN, earlier that year.

then the Pirates slid and the Penguins started to emerge a decade later as the NHL's best.

as much as we still love our Buccos, and try to love our Pens enough to keep them around.. there is still only one season that trips our trigger far more than the other two, these days...

so let's pull back the Steel Curtain, and get the show on the road already!!! Smile