The Hammock Papers: Underdog.

11 October 2011

Underdog.

"Guys like Donnie Kelly and John Wehner and Cangelosi … they're always the underdog," Leyland said Saturday. "They want it so bad. They're not great, but they're good enough, and they're always looking for jobs. I've always had a soft spot for guys like that."

Kelly, 31, went from valuable role player to pivotal figure in this series in the time it took the Tigers to assess their latest medical report. The Detroit outfield, already hurt by the loss of Brennan Boesch to a season-ending injury to his right thumb in August, is suddenly a portrait in attrition. Delmon Young is limited in the American League Championship series because of a strained left oblique, and on Saturday Magglio Ordonez re-aggravated an injury to his right ankle to the extent that he's done for the season.

As a lefty hitter, Kelly was destined to see sporadic action in the series. It was a given, for example, that he would start Game 3 against Texas righty Colby Lewis. Now, given the rampant carnage on the Detroit roster, who knows? The only certainty is, whatever the Tigers ask of him, Kelly will be ready.

"He would probably mow my lawn if I asked him," Leyland said.

Kelly's versatility knows no bounds. On June 29, he made his major league pitching debut -- retiring Mets outfielder Scott Hairston on a fly ball in the ninth inning of a 16-9 Tigers loss. Kelly pumped in two straight 86 mph fastballs before retiring Hairston on a 71 mph curve.

Read the rest at ESPN.

GO TIGERS!

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL