This and That Around The Sports World
By: Alex LaGrone
The last two years the Detroit Tigers have beaten the Oakland A's in the American League Division Series. It went the full five games with the A's falling just short. The A's have spent the last month trying to make sure that that doesn't happen again. They have loaded up their pitching rotation with Jeff Samardzija, Jason Hammond and now former Boston Red Sox ace, Jon Lester.
When the A's reached out and picked up Lester, the Tigers said anything you can do I can do better and then went after Tampa Bay Rays ace David Price. The Tigers now have the last three Cy Young award winners. Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer along with Price. The Tigers are sure hoping that the "Price is Right."
It was good news that former Northern High School football star running back Thomas Rawls is going to play football this year for the Central Michigan Chippewas. Rawls didn't receive the playing time he had wished for while at Michigan so he decided to take his talents to Mount Pleasant.
Rawls who graduated from Michigan earlier this year will be eligible to play right away. You can consider Rawls a power back and a wrecking ball at 5-10" and 215 lbs. He can break tackles and use his speed to get into the secondary for long runs just like the good ole days for the Vikings. You can best believe we haven't heard the last from can I say Beast Mode Rawls. Rawls has a tatoo on his arm that reads "Bete noir" which pretty much means stay out of my way.
The College Football polls came out and Florida St. came away as the pre-season #1 ranked team. Alabama was second Oklahoma, Oregon and Auburn rounded out the top five. The Southeastern Conference had five of the top 13 teams in the poll. The Big Ten had Ohio St. sixth and Michigan St. eighth. Michigan was unranked. This will be the first year we will have a college playoff for the national championship game.
