Ahira's Hangar

The Tigers decided to eat the $14 million dollars today in order to cut out the clubhouse cancer and cut Gary Sheffield.

And there was much rejoicing in the D.

The MLB season is underway!

Unfortunately, the Tigers had a horrible season opener up in Toronto, with a bad loss, and a horrible start from Justin Verlander. He had looked great in spring training, per all reports, but somehow started right back where he left off last regular season, being shelled.

CC Sabathia reportedly looked really bad in his first start for the Yankees, too.

Hopefully both of these guys will get back on track, for their teams and for the fans of their teams.

Out home opener is on Friday afternoon, with rain in the forecast. At least it isn't snow. We have already had a lot of snow this week - and we are actually having snow flurries as I type this.

very sad news today, as a pitcher for the Angels, Nick Adenhart, only 22 years old, was killed in a car accident

Sounds like a drunk driver killed the young pitcher and two other people as well in the crash.

Home opener for the Tigers today.

Home baseball opener is a huge unoffical holiday here in Detroit Metro. Thousands of kids play hooky from school and tens of thousands of adults call in sick to work to either gather in the streets around the stadium and party, or go to a local sports bar and meet up with friends and party.

It marks the hoped for end of a long Michigan winter, and is a celebration of the eventual arrival of spring. While our hopes are usually in vain, we always hope it means there will be no more snow until October or so.

This year's opening day ceremonies at the stadium marked two great losses.

We lost a decades' long member of the Tigers family in Hall of Famer player and long time TV announcer George Kell. They raised a flag in his honor which will fly in the outfield all season long.

I grew up with George Kell and Al Kaline doing the Tigers TV broadcasts, and feel like I lost a piece of my childhood.

They also had a moment of silence for the young Angles pitcher who was just killed by a drunk driver. What a tragedy.

The game itself went well and was a huge blow out in favor of the Tigers. Since it was the fifth game of the season (in five days), they saved our best starting pitcher, Armando Galarraga, for the game, as they wanted the best guy to start at the home opener. He pitched a gem of a game, with only one earned run and something like eight strike outs in seven full innings. And this was after they worried he might not be ready because he pitched for Venezuela in the WBC, and missed innings in spring training. No one needed to worry. Armando was great today.

We are finally getting to see Miguel Cabrera in a Tigers uniform while he is healthy. The guy is a beast - a monster - a born hitter - a genuine stud. Holy crap, he can hit a baseball.

It's been bad times in baseball lately. The Tigers lost George Kell recently, and now Mark "The Bird" Fidrych has died in an accident today. The Angels lost that promising young pitcher to a drunk driver a few days ago, and now today the longtime Phillies radio announcer Harry Kalas collapsed in the booth and passed away.

Bad times, sad times.

At least the Phillies announcer passed away doing what he loved...

Another great start for Armando Galarraga today for the Tigers. After the last disastrous game against the White Sox (featuring a Tigers pitching Hall of Shame performance by Zach Minor who gave up career number 300 home runs to two consecutive Sox in back to back at bats ) they have decided to go with a four man rotation for a while, with Galarraga as number one, Verlander as number two, Edwin Jackson as number three, and rookie Rick Porcello as number four.

Galarraga deserves to be our ace - he has earned it with his work last season and so far this season.

And the highly touted pitching of the Indians has not been on track thus far this year - I blame the former Tigers pitching coach who now works for the Tribe. He was terrible here and messed up our staff beyond belief - he might well be doing the same down there.

More A-Rod drug scandal stories/rumors breaking today. Is anyone else as sick of this as I am? The player is out hurt, but he is still all the national media talks about.

Just wait till Vick gets out of his correctional facility, that along with the resurgent rumors of Favre coming back out of retirement will lead to a horrid triumvirate or all the over-hyped sport stories we hoped we'd never hear about again.

Man, with his last three starts it has been freaking wonderful to see Justin verlander getting back to good form.

They have only had one truly good season in the last twenty or so - 2006. 2007 was OK, but marred with a lot of injuries, or they might have had two really good years in a row there.