The Lightning Round: Detroit Sports, the World Series of Poker, and More

Some more thoughts with no real connection between them, so as is the Quo Vadimus tradition, we'll go through another Lightning Round.

** Christy of Behind The Jersey has put together a great feature over at her blog (and it's not just great because it features me, though that helps obviously), where she spoke with numerous Detroit sports bloggers, asking them why Detroit is such a great sports city. She's posting the answers in a five part series (one part for each of the five questions) and the answers are pretty thoughtful and give you a great diversity of viewpoints from the various bloggers around the state of Michigan. Aside from my answers, Kurt of Mack Avenue Tigers, Sean of Michigan Sports Center, Matt of Let's Go Wings, Paul of Kuklas Korner, Al from The Wayne Fontes Experience, and RipIsMoney from Detroit Sports Unleashed all chime in as well. You can check out the first part of the roundtable discussion right here.

** Speaking of blogs, thanks to Yzerman Is God and Other Thoughts on Hockeytown for the plug this week on my Trade Rasheed Wallace post.

** I'm watching the Tigers as I type this, and even though Nate Robertson was awful tonight, giving up six runs without recording an out in the first inning, the bullpen responded in resounding fashion tonight, shutting down Texas after that (and until this point, which is the top of the 8th). The Tigers still trial 6-4, but they've had their chances and have kept Texas at bay. From a bullpen which has been horrid lately, even if the Tigers lose this game, there are a lot of positives to take out of tonight's game.

** The World Series of Poker has started, which is pretty cool to follow for poker fans. While the "Main Event" which gets most of the national publicity does not begin for another month or so, all of the "smaller" tournaments (which in some ways are more exciting and show a much broader depth to the game of poker other than just no limit hold 'em) are going on right now. I love following the WSOP. Gives me a chance to live vicariously through Daniel Negreanu. For those unfamiliar, Negreanu is one of poker's top stars, and he's just an all around cool guy. He hangs out with Boston Rob of Survivor/Amazing Race fame, is a huge hockey fan (he's Canadian), and is married to a woman from the state of Michigan. Can't go wrong there. During the entire World Series, he posts video blog updates at his website, Full Contact Poker, and I love following along. Just like in sports, poker is more entertaining when you have a "rooting" interest.

Last year I had a true "rooting interest" in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. While Daniel Negreanu is featured in the center of the photo posted above, the player on the far left, with all the chips, is my buddy Brian who I went to undergrad with. He won an online qualifier into the Main Event, and ended up not only outlasting Negreanu, but outlasting over 8,000 others, finishing 126th out of 8773 entrants. Not bad at all. That was fun too. Every day, Brian kept hanging around, increasing his chip stack. He was featured on ESPN.com. Pretty cool.

Okay, time to see if the Tigers can launch a ninth inning comeback.