I disagree with you. Phillips rattled off a laundry list of players from different countries, including America. If you have a good baseball team with players from Panama, Venezuela and the United States, how is that not a "pretty good international team?"

Same here, I think that your beef should be more with Phillips as opposed to Thorne for the Granderson and Jones mixup. And it would be more embarrassing for Thorne to call him out on it right then and there.

Then again as a Met fan, I relish every opportunity for Phillips to look stupid on a televised stage.

Umm ... you completely missed the boat here.

Phillips was listing off minority players, of which African-Americans would count. Usually, you're right on point, but not this time.

It certainly sounds like a good international team to me.

I agree with Anonymous ... Steve brought up a list of international players first then mentioned Jones and Granderson. What was wrong with Gary's comment ?

As they say in baseball....



Swing and a miss (for AA).

AA--Did you get enough sleep last night? You've put up some bizarre posts today.

Um... how many of you guys calling out AA read the Sports by Brooks post? If you want to call out anyone, call out SbB - and the commenters there, for that matter.

Or are you just going to use this as evidence that AA's commenters are so much better than SbB's commenters?

Well I guess that they're both at fault. Where does the crap end and the nonsense being? It's like a which came first...the chicken or the egg kind of argument.

And yes...I'm trashed. I drink jager bombs from 6pm to 6am every night. I really need help.

Steve Phillips does make a dumb mistake by assuming Placido Polanco is from Venezuela when in fact he's Dominican.

Let's be honest, both Thorne and Phillips are half-wits.

Thorne is wrong, obviously, but I don't see how this even compares to the clip you posted earlier. He actually thinks Canseco is the Yankees' first baseman.

"A. A." stands for 'Alcoholic Analysis', I guess.

Canseco played for the Yankees 2000 World Champs AA. Still - top notch work 99 out of 100 times - I'm down with that.

don't think you should really have a beef with either announcer. Yes the civil rights movement in baseball was, in a more immediate sense, about African Americans, but it opened the game up to people of all races, as well.

The international comment is a little off-putting as African Americans clearly aren't international, they're just a different skin color, but I think it's more a testament to clumsy diction than boneheadedness.

I don't have a problem with the comment, but I can see where the confusion rests.

"Thorne is wrong, obviously,"

nope. He's not. Phillips: rattles off a team with many different nationalities.

Thorn: "pretty good international team" (referring to the tigers)

Pretty straightforward if you ask me. Glad to see AA posted an update to try to vindicate himself. Just admit you screwed up.

If anyone's talking out of their ass, it's Phillips. As someone pointed out, he completely got Polanco's nationality wrong. He also said Edgar Renteria was from Panama when he's actually Columbian. Phillips had good intentions but he was quite uninformed. I also thought Thorne's comment made sense.

Phillips is talking about growing the game internationally and domestically, then lists minority players (from home and abroad) on the Tigers, and Thorne comments it's a pretty good international team. That may not have been Phillips' main point in listing the players he listed, but Thorne certainly isn't wrong and was probably just trying to end Phillips' story and get back to the game.

Nothing to see here. Thorne's comment was hardly out of the ordinary or inappropriate given what Phillips had just finished saying.

Piling on is fun. At least have the good sense to pile on for a good reason.

I can forgive an announcer some mix-ups, especially Thorne. He has a proven track record in both hockey and baseball. I admit to not having heard him much recently, but he's always been a favorite of mine.

I disagree with Thorne. That isn't a pretty good international team. That is a very good international team.

You know...with lots of players...from different nations...on the same team. INTER-nationally.

There seems to be a great mix of guys from different nations...who are on the same team. Together. From different nations. A variety of different make-up of countries on one team.

Should I keep going?

"Update: Okay, for all of you people that think that Steve Phillips is the one to blame for this transgression you need to watch again."

AA, I think the comments section has been pretty thorough in defending Thorne here. This is hardly a "transgression". It's not a big deal, not worthy of such a post.

Love your website, and most of the time you're on mark, but I think this is a stretch. Tigers have lots of international players, I think that's all Thorne is trying to say here.

Yea love AA as well but sometimes you can tell he's reaching for stuff just for the sake of making a post.

Honestly, I'm more impressed by the fact (and surprised Steve Phillips didn't mention it) that the all-minority lineup that the Tigers are capable of fielding is actually THEIR REGULAR LINEUP. Their opening day lineup will probably be almost identical, except that Granderson is hurt and will be subbed for by Brandon Inge (and they could easily have moved Jones to center field and put Marcus Thames in left, and would still have had an all-minority lineup, but they're trying to give Inge playing time so he can develop beter utility skills and/or make a case for some other team to acquire him). THAT'S impressive, whereas Thorne's comment was kind of dumb, but still true, and very brief; it's difficult to draw any conclusions from it.