Interestingly I have been planning to write a blog entry on this topic for months now. Lazy me of course never got around to it, but now that the Sporting News has agreed with me I guess I kinda have to write up something. Their take:

Say this about your sports teams, Detroit: They reflect the show-up-for-work-every-day-and-punch-the-clock roots of your city. And in a Best Sports City year in which championship cities’ “sportfolios” had gaps, Detroit’s regular-season efforts and thisclose success in the playoffs pushed it to the top of our annual rankings, even sans title of any kind.

Visit Detroit these days and you’ll see that this is a baseball city out of hibernation and filling Comerica Park. The Pistons and WNBA’s Shock put a spring in a hoops fan’s step. Yes, it’s still Hockeytown, same as it was when Detroit was our Best Sports City in 1998. Yet on an unseasonably warm Saturday in April, with the Wings facing the Flames in the playoffs at The Joe, you were as likely to see an old English “D” on a cap in downtown Detroit (the Tigers were playing the White Sox) as you were a winged wheel on a red sweater.

I think it is about time we get credit where credit is due. Last season the Pistons had the best regular season record in the NBA and made it to the Eastern Conference Finals. The Pistons btw have been in the Eastern Conference Finals for 5 straight years, winning them twice, and winning an NBA championship once in 2004. No other team in the NBA (including San Antonio) can boast a similar record of consistency.

The Red Wings had the best regular season record in the NHL for the last three seasons, and have made the playoffs for 17 years straight. In that time the Wings have won the Stanley Cup 3 times and played in the Finals 4 times. They have been the team to beat for over a decade.

Detroit’s WNBA team, the Detroit Shock won a championship last year, beating out Sacramento 3 games to 2 in the finals. I was gonna say that the WNBA was the 5th biggest league in the country, but Major League Soccer actually beats it out. Go figure.

Last but not least, the Detroit Tigers went to the World Series last year. We lost, sadly, but after almost two decades of losing seasons to not only have a winning season but an American League Championship is just amazing. As the article said, Detroit is a baseball town that has just been reawakened. For much of last season we had the best record in baseball as well, and have been contenders all this season as well.

Near dominance in three out of four of the major sports? That is pretty damn significant imho. Attendance is

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 11:42 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.