Lions, Tigers and arm tears

• I can sense a bit of nervousness due to the Lions stellar MNF performance last night. I can't stress this enough; pre-season football means nothing. The Colts are 0-4. Arizona is 3-0. Don't be the guy that jumps off the bandwagon because of the pre-season. I'm imploring you; just wait until opening day before jumping off the bandwagon. Anyhow, if you need to be reminded of something positive, just remember that the Lions finished 6-10 last year and this year they'll have a better offense and a better defense. Getting blown out by the genius Mark Martz might actually be a good thing. They got embarrassed on national TV in the pre-season. That means they'll probably get fired up without experiencing a meaningful loss. Worse things could happen. It's pre-season football. The only thing more irrelevant is France. I know there's one guy out there that will post a comment about how cool France is. The question is, will there be two?

• I'm starting to think that just the mere mention of Jeremy Bonderman's name on this site leads to very bad things. Bonderman got smoked last night after the Tigers gave him a 5-0 lead in the top of the first inning. He's 1-5 in his last six games and has 11 losses on the season. The good news is that he's only 22 and whatever the Tigers get from him before the age of 24 is just a bonus since most pitchers don't mature until later in their career. The bad news is that Bonderman pitched better in the last month of the 2004 season than he did at any point this season. I don't think this is as much alarming as it is disappointing.

• Much like the 500 foot home run myth that I talked about last week, this article discusses the myth of pitching velocity. The fact that most, or all, athletic records have been broken many times over since the early 1900's has led most people to believe that pitching velocity increases over time as well. I've often thought that it would be far-fetched to think that Walter Johnson and Bob Feller could throw as fast as the Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson. However, it seems that it's more of an issue of kinesiology than athletic prowess. There's really no convincing evidence that suggests that pitching velocity has increased over time. Since reliable methods of measurement weren't available when Johnson and Feller pitched, it's hard to know for sure but Nolan Ryan started his career 35 years ago and he pitched every bit as fast as anyone in baseball today. I wish this article was available for Dave Dravecky before his arm snapped in half while pitching for the San Francisco Giants. Here is a brief account of Dravecky's pitching career; 1). Diagnosed with bone cancer 2). Doctors remove the deltoid muscle in the shoulder 3). Dravecky's arm breaks in half while pitching for the Giants, 4). His arm is amputated. That's just terrible.