Gay-Rod fails again

The surprise-a-minute Detroit Tigers eliminated the over-priced, under-achieving New York Yankees from the playoffs today, convincingly winning Game 4 of the best-of-five ALDS, 8-3. The Tigers, who seemed to be fading down the stretch, found some of their early-season fire and took care of the Yanks, winning three in a row after losing Game 1.

I have some sentiment for those wacky Tigers. Ivan Rodriguez, of course, is still a favorite around here. Craig Monroe is a Texas dude who got his start in the Rangers' system. There's not much to dislike about this team, with the notable exception of miserable human Kenny Rogers.

The Yankees, on the other hand, are an easy team to root against. The Onion once ran a fake news story along the lines of "Yankees sign every player in baseball", and it's not too far from the truth. And Alex Rodriguez, our old pal Gay-Rod, is very easy to dislike.

By all accounts, Detroit's pitching was too much for the Yankees' fearsome offense. Gay-Rod in particular had yet another failed October. After the up-and-down season he had this year, along with past playoff failures, it's going to be interesting to see what, if anything, the Yankees do with him. I can't believe anyone is going to trade for him with that ridiculous contract, even though Tom Hicks is still paying a bunch of it, but you never know.

So, now Detroit is off to the ALCS to face Oakland. I think the Tigers are a pretty cool story, so I'll be pulling for them to continue the run.