Justin Verlander Throws Second No-Hitter Of 2011 MLB Season

Earlier in the week, Minnesota Twins pitcher Francisco Liriano throws a no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox.

Well, just a few short days later, Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander threw the second no-hitter of the season and the second of his career versus the Toronto Blue Jays.

Below are the final three outs he recorded:

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In Memoriam: Ernie Harwell (1918-2010)

Yesterday, we lost one of the greatest Major League play by play commentators of all-time when "The Voice of the Detroit Tigers", Ernie Harwell passed away.

Harwell began his Major League Baseball broadcasting career back 1948 when the Brooklyn Dodgers traded for him (yep, that's right they traded for him) when he was working for the Atlanta Crackers, minor league baseball team. Harwell broadcasted the Dodgers through 1949 until he was given the play by play job for the New York Giants and is most known for his call of Bobby Thompson's "Shot Heard Round the World".

Harwell eventually moved to Baltimore to cover games for the Baltimore Orioles from 1954-1959 along other professional sporting events including the Masters and pro/college football games. However, he will be most remembered for his time spent as the play by play man of the Detroit Tigers from 1960-1991. In 1992, Harwell was infamous fired by then team president Bo Schembechler but was eventually brought back from 1993-2002.

Harwell delivery is mostly known for his low-key style and catch-phrases including, "That one is long gone" to describe home runs and "It's two for the price of one" to describe double-plays.

During his career, Harwell covered baseball for NBC/ESPN/CBS Radio along with covering two World Series and two MLB All-Star Games. Harwell was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame back in 1981 when he received the Ford C. Frick award.

Ernie Harwell passed away at his home in Novi, Michigan of incurable cancer. Harwell was 92 years old.

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Did the Twins win or the Tigers choke?

In one of the most astounding comebacks in baseball history, the Minnesota Twins won the AL Central after taking out the Detroit Tigers in stunning fashion after beating them in a AL Central tiebreaker by the score of 6-5.

To make this comeback more astounding, the Twins came back from a three game deficit in the AL Central with only four games to play. This is the first time that it has happened in baseball history.

Fans of both teams are probably trying to ask the question, "What Really Happened Here, Did the Twins deserve to win or did the Tigers choke?"

Here are argument for both schools of thought:

Twins win: The Minnesota Twins were pretty much left for dead a couple months ago as the Tigers appeared to be in full control of the AL Central.

The Twins were behind as many as 6 1/2 games in September as the Tigers magic number continued to dwindle.

The Twins reeled off 16 wins out of their last twenty games to pull within striking distance and still needed to win the AL Central tiebreaker to make the playoffs. With the victory, the Twins clinched the AL Central for the fifth time in the past ten years.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire deserves a fair share of the credit for keeping this team alive even with a season ending injury to Justin Morneau and Twins catcher Joe Mauer should have wrapped up the MVP award with eye-popping numbers during this run.

The Twins combined solid pitching, timely hitting (the team is 5th overall in runs scored), and a solid defense to steal the AL Central crown away from the Tigers. It was pure baseball at it's finest.

Tigers Choke: Let's be honest, when you have a three game lead with four games left, you probably should close the deal. Hell, you can even split those four games and still win by two.

The Tigers have only themselves to blame since they also had numerous opportunities to seal the AL Central crown before the tiebreaker and during the tiebreak game.

In their final five games (which includes the tiebreaker), the Tigers gave up a total of 30 runs. No matter how good your offense is, your still not going to win many games giving up an average of six runs.

The offense during that final five game stretch only mustered a paltry total of 14 runs. When you are getting only decent pitching and an average offense output, you can fail to win a certain amount of games and give a team the opportunity to comeback.

The Tigers really were in control of their own destiny and failed to capitalize when they were in the cat-bird seat and only have themselves to blame for watching ALDS on television.

Conclusion: To be honest, many writers have piled on the city of Detroit for their lack of success recently in the world of baseball but this can be seen as a pure choke on their part.

There is no discounting that the Twins were the better team and should be commended for it but when you were leading the AL Central for most of the year and had a three game lead with four games left, you have only yourself to blame if you miss the playoffs.

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I Love the Internet: From Covelli Crisp to Harry Pelotas

So I was looking up Coco Crisp to start a new Great Sports Name Hall of Fame Wannabee post, mostly because every time I tell people I have this Hall of Fame they recommend Crisp as a nominee. And thank you for the suggestion, but only birth names are allowed, and therefore Covelli Loyce Crisp is not eligible (not that his name isn't sweet without the nickname).

So anyways, Crisp's Wikipedia mentions that he supplanted Matt Lawton while he was with the Indians. Lawton used to be a favorite player of mine as a lesser, outfield playing version of Fred McGriff (my all time favorite player by the way). That is to say, like McGriff, Lawton was consistently pretty good and appeared in a few All Star Games but saw his playing ability tail off very quickly late in his career. Reading Lawton's Wikipedia page, however, I came up with two interesting tidbits. One explained why Lawton's career may have tailed off, while the other explains the length of this post.

Tidbit one is that Lawton tested positive for steroids late in his career. Since he kind of sucked from then on out, one assumes that steroids and Lawton's All Star Games may have been connected. I died a little bit inside, as that sucks to know.

For two, Lawton used the fake name "Eleven Fifty" when checking into hotels.

This of course made me curious, as I wondered what that meant. Some claim it is a reference to the fact that he wore mostly 11 and 50 as jersey numbers during his career. Others claim it has to do with the slang term "Fifty-Eleven." I really don't know which it is, but then THIS got me interested in finding the aliases of other current or former sports stars. And I found a few (mostly former), with highlights including:
Harris Smith - Plaxico Burress
Ricky Ricardo - Jorge Posada
Harry Pelotas - Luis Sojo
Turd Ferguson - Jaret Wright
Austin Powers - Ruben Sierra
Lt. Frank Drebin - Brian Anderson
Bugs Bunny - Michael Jordan
And my personal favorite, George Jetson - CC Sabathia

Pretty funny stuff, though obviously it's hard to find the aliases of current players because then people would know how to find the players attached to them. But it was still cool to find some of these names, and Lt. Frank Drebin and George Jetson both come from the same article and have good stories attached to them.

Regardless, that's about the end of my trip through the internet. But the trip truly ended when I remembered why I loved Lawton so much. My first MLB game was a Twins-Tigers game as an eleven year old. Thanks to the internet, I now have the box score from that game. Tigers 7, Twins 6, with former Rookie of the Year Bob Hamelin hitting 2 doubles, Brent Brede hitting one of his 5 career homeruns, and Chuck Knoblauch hitting a foul ball caught by a guy one row behind me. Good times, and I have the internet to thank for bringing that memory back.

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