George "The Animal" Smith

Those of you that watched the Tigers game tonight know the significance of the post title. I wish I didn’t watch the game by myself so I could share in the hilarity that was Fox announcer Thom Brennaman. The Fox telecast features a “Player Profile” segment that digs into a player’s personal tastes. The 7th inning profile featured Oakland’s Jason Kendall. “Favorite Wrestler” came up and it listed Kendall’s favorite wrestler as Stone Cold Steve Austin. I can’t argue with that. Stone Cold was sweet. I had a giant life-size cardboard cut out of Austin in college. The bad news is that the Stone Cold pin up got more action than I did in college. Anyhow, what I can argue with was Brennaman’s choice for favorite wrestler. He said, “my favorite wrestler was George “The Animal” Smith….” At this point, I thought it was just an honest mistake and he meant George “The Animal” Steele. But, he followed that with “his son James Laurinaitis plays for the Ohio State Buckeyes.” LOL! I have nothing against Brennaman. I just think it’s awesome that he made up a wrestler. In wrestling history, there was George “The Animal” Steele born in Detroit, Michigan home of the Detroit Tigers!) and Animal (of the Road Warriors). Animal (of the Road Warriors) is James Laurinaitis’ dad and Brennamen’s intended answer. There has never been a George “The Animal” Smith. Brennaman was so enthusiastic about his answer that I’m almost saddened by the fact that it isn’t true.

Let’s see how Brennaman used various unrelated people to mix and match to come up with his made-up favorite wrestler (extracted words in bold). Notice that nothing from Brennaman’s intended answer was actually used.

George “The Animal” Steele

Animal (Joseph Laurinaitis)

Smith (most common last name in America)


Also, I'd like to give major props to the "Lost" writers for brilliantly weaving sports into their crazy-freaky storyline. It literally sent chills down my spine when Henry Gale (or Ben Linus) showed footage of the Red Sox winning the World Series to a disbelieving Jack to prove that "The Others" do have contact with the outside world.


The best part about this post is that the Tigers won which allowed me to write about something as trivial as this. Go Tigers and go Mark "the Bird" Ordonez!