Detroit Satisfaction Meter
[ - - * - - - - - - - ]
[ - - * - - - - - - - ]
Currently I am a little dissatisfied and embarrassed of Detroit. In the past couple of weeks there have been national news stories that have put Detroit in the spotlight. The first national news story that I saw was a coverage piece on how our nation’s high schools are failing. It spotlighted a couple of cities like Atlanta where statistics showed that only 52% of kids graduate high school there. I was watching as they were going around the map highlighting cities in a cautionary blinking yellow graphic just waiting for Detroit to come up, but it never did. They were all done and had about 7 or 10 different cities highlighted on the map with Atlanta having the worst statistic. Wow, I thought to myself, we don’t suck at education. And then the camera dramatically cut to Wolf Blitzer, and as if FERMI just blew up, a huge blinking red light was going off right over Detroit as the news came in that only 23% of kids living in Detroit graduate high school. You never disappoint, Detroit. 1 in 4 kids graduate from high school in Detroit, what do the other 3 do? I bet you can guess.
Within a week of this story coming out, the mayor of Detroit, Suge Knight err Kwame Kilpatrick, was indicted on 4 felony charges. Perjury, obstruction of justice, ya know the standard mayor stuff. He is still the mayor by the way. So Detroit has got a lot of things going against it;
corruption, unemployment, drugs, homelessness, gangs, all of which are culminated into this. …actually I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing. All of these things are true about Detroit, but there’s one thing that holds the city together, that one thing that prevents the city from imploding on itself. That is of course, Detroit sports. We’ve got the Tigers, the Pistons, the Red Wings, and a football team. And this being “April in the D” we’ve got a very exciting couple of weeks ahead of us. The Pistons and Red Wings are gearing up for the playoffs and the Tigers started their season… which brings us to why the Detroit satisfaction meter is lower then normal. The Tigers started off the 2008 season with a disappointing 0-7 start. On paper they are suppose to be the best offensive team in the league, yet they have only scored 15 runs in the past 7 games. They look horrible at the plate, and every time I see Grilli warming up in the bullpen I just say, “f*ck”. If I could have it so that the Pistons, Red Wings, and Lions never won a single game for the next 5 years, just so that I could live to see the Tigers win a World Series I would do it in a heartbeat. I still think that they are going to make it to the postseason, but they are going to have to make some moves to fix that bullpen… a possible Inge trade? The first win of the season is coming up, actually my money is on tonight. I’m not in panic mode yet, but seriously guys let’s go, stop sucking. I don’t think I could handle another 2003 season so please don’t do this to me.
2 comments :
How dare you, sir.
Ironically, both stories are about dealing with the inevitable.
When you were watching this news story, you knew Detroit was going to get punked. But as they slowly covered the country, you held out hope that the D might get looked over. Maybe it got a pass. Then Blitzer comes on and makes you realize that the Motor City is still America's armpit.
Fast forward to a Tigers game. After returning from commercial, you see Grilli taking his warmups from the mound and know in about five minutes, some lucky fan in right field will have a ball in his hands. But again, you hold out hope. There's no reason. Just like you anticipated, some lefty blasts one into the Pepsi Porch and the Tigers are now losing.
Yet time and time again, we still hold out hope.
Post a Comment