Roar of the Tigers is a blog about the Detroit Tigers for strange people, or perhaps for mostly-normal people who have the ability to appreciate a little strangeness in their lives.
As a consequence of this, a page of Frequently Asked Questions and their answers has become a necessity.
I need/want to get in touch with you! How do I do this?
You are always encouraged to use the comment sections if you have something to say that relates to a specific post. If you would like to email me, I can be reached at bluecatsredsox at gmail dot com.
RotT? BCRS? MVN?
RotT: Roar of the Tigers. I know, I know, awful acronym. It is what it is.
BCRS was my other blog back in the day, Blue Cats and Red Sox. You may see it occasionally referenced over here, especially if you are going through the dark, distant reaches of the archives for some unnameable reason. BCRS was defunct for a long time but nowadays has new life as a Tumblr.
MVN was the Most Valuable Network. RotT was on MVN from June ’05 to December ’09, at which point MVN died a horrible death. RotT, like all good cockroaches, kept on truckin’.
Who’s in charge of this thing?
An ‘about the author’ section is forthcoming. Until such time as I bother to write it and get it online, suffice to say that the blogger/illustrator/photographer responsible for this mess is Samara Pearlstein. That’s me. I have a cactus named Mortimer who lives in Michigan and a cactus named Craig Counsell who lives in Massachusetts. I studied art and biology at the University of Michigan, I work in an art-related field, I like cats, and all these things are often reflected in the blog. Sorry.
Where’s my comment?
Occasionally comments go into moderation before being posted right away. Maybe you accidentally used a key word that makes the commentbot think you’re spam, maybe the commentbot is just in A Mood on that particular day. I try to catch legit comments and get them online as soon as I see them, but since I’m not watching the comment queue 24/7, sometimes there’s a bit of a delay. Usually this is not a problem.
Comments with more than one link in them tend to go into the moderation queue. So if you linked a couple things in a comment and it doesn’t show up immediately, that’s probably the issue.
Why’d you delete my comment?
Because it was racist/sexist/homophobic/otherwise discriminatory or offensive or pointlessly inflammatory. I will NEVER delete a comment simply because it disagrees with me. I WILL delete a comment if you’re being an offensive jerk. You’re obviously allowed to hate on a player if you want to, but hate on the PLAYER, not on his race or ethnicity or religion or perceived sexual orientation/gender assignment or anything else like that. Same rules apply to comments about any other people. This shouldn’t even be an issue, folks.
I also delete spam. If I erroneously killed your comment because it looked like spam to me… well, stop leaving stupid spam-lookin’ comments.
Can I comment anonymously?
Sure. Just fill in a random name and use a fake email address. So long as you aren’t violating my already-lax comment policy (as detailed above), I don’t care.
Can I use one of your photos/drawings/images?
Depends on what photo/drawing/image you’re talking about, and what you want to use it for. If you just want to post it to your own (nonprofit) blog, or share it on a messageboard/Reddit/whatever, it’s almost always fine so long as you credit me and throw me a linkback.
If you post a photo or drawing from here on Tumblr, PLEASE link back to the site.
If you want to use something as a Facebook profile photo, that’s fine, so long as you don’t claim you made it yourself. A linkback would be nice. If you want to use a SMALL CROP of something as an identifying icon, as on a message board or Twitter or other blog comment section that uses avatars, that’s fine and DOES NOT have to be linked back.
If you’re using Livejournal (or an LJ clone such as InsaneJournal, Dreamwidth, etc) and want to credit me in the icon keywords, that would be awesome, but you don’t have to do so.
For other stuff, especially use on for-profit and MSM-affiliated websites, please email me before using any of the images found on RotT.
Can I get a print of that photo/drawing/image?
Usually, yes. I keep meaning to set up a shop, but as of right now, this is still in the works. If you are interested in a print, please feel free to email me for sizing, matting, and pricing options.
Note: Some of the images on this blog are only made in a web-ready size. This means they do not exist anywhere in the universe in a higher resolution and therefore poster-sized prints cannot be made of them (well, they could be made, but they would look terrible). Others start out as very high-res images and are resized considerably before being posted here, and thus CAN be printed at large sizes. Inquire after specific images for more info.
Haven’t I seen you elsewhere on the magical Internets?
Maybe so! I’m @RoarTigers on Twitter. If you’re familiar with me as a photographer, I’m Boston Wolverine on Flickr. I comment somewhat infrequently over at the Motown Sports board as Panthera Tigris. Blue Cats, Red Sox is my Tumblr.
Holy cats? For cats’ sake? Coprolites? Badgertoes? What do these and other similar phrases/words mean?
First, you have to understand that MVN used to have a strong anti-swear policy, and even though MVN has passed into the internet ether, I’ve mostly adopted the policy for myself. Sometimes, however, the games or specific Tigers players will require sweary reactions. This is a fact of baseball. Phraseology like ‘badgertoes’ and ‘scrod vomit’ (and a variety of others) will be used in place of other, more common (and thus banned) swear words.
A ‘coprolite’ is a piece of fossilized dinosaur excrement. You can guess what it is a stand-in for.
I’m not a huge stickler about swearing in the comment sections, but please try to keep it to sane levels.
As for ‘holy cats’, ‘for cats’ sake’, ‘Praise be to Paws’ and other similar phrases, well, you may or may not believe in God, but everyone around here believes in cats and in Paws. This is definitely a pro-cat blog. If you don’t believe in cats, you can get out right now.
Dude I have this great blog, will you link to my blog, it is pretty great, hey wanna link to my blog?
Depends. Is your blog primarily about the Detroit Tigers? If it isn’t, I probably won’t be linking it here. This is nothing personal; it’s just that this is a Detroit Tigers blog, and has a Detroit Tigers blogroll to go with it. I’ll occasionally link someone who writes about the Tigers in addition to other things on their blog, if it strikes my fancy, but this is haphazard and totally dependent on how I feel about it at any particular time.
Is your blog brand new? If you have no content, or very little content, I will probably not link it. Again, nothing personal. Give it a few months and get back to me.
Does your blog suck? If so, I will probably not link it. This is totally personal. Sorry.
Do you want to write for my blog/network site?
Are you going to give me money? If not: probably no. I already write over here, thanks.
If you’re just talking about a guest post, or participating in a round-table or something, obviously that’s different and I may well be happy to do so, depending on what else I’ve got going on at the time. Feel free to drop me an email.
How did you make that image/take that photo/draw that thing?
Any number of ways. I use an incredibly ancient version of Photoshop. I shoot Canon. I generally draw with Uniball and Micron pens and Prismacolor and Artwin markers and when I paint it’s usually in acrylics. I’m always willing to talk technique with people, so if you have specific questions, feel free to email me.
I have this awesome advertising proposal for you! Whaddya say?
Unless it’s really, really, REALLY awesome, I’m probably going to say no. I hate ads.
There’s a suspicious lot of Red Sox chatter over here for a purported Tigers blog, isn’t there?
I am a fan of the Red Sox and the Tigers equally. I know this is hard for some people to understand, or believe, but so it is. I’m from Massachusetts. The baseball-pushing parent in my house growing up is a Michigan-native Tigers fan. I’m a Wolverine. I’m a fan of both teams. You can argue with me about this if it will make you feel better about yourself, but that’s not going to change anything.
So what do you do when they play each other?
Curl up into a ball and cry. Well, not really. What I try to do is root for whoever needs it more in the standings at that particular time. This is OK in theory, but in practice I usually end up rooting at-bat by at-bat, switching back and forth pretty freely and generally dissolving into a huge incoherent mess. Cognitive dissonance builds character!
You can check out the Tigers/Red Sox brain ‘splodey category for more on this fascinating phenomenon (although what I write here, obviously, tends to skew very much towards the Tigers fan side of things).
So, um, this Spazzosaurus…
The Spazzosaurus looks like an orange dinosaur and is a creature who feeds off of spazz-energy. Baseball players emit spazz-energy when they spazz out, which means that they’re giving up a ton of hits and walks and hit-batsmen, or making a load of errors, or they’re punching doors, or having dramatic crying breakdowns in the player’s parking lot… things of that nature. A feeding Spazzosaurus will open up more wounds and let more spazz-energy out, which is why little issues can lead to these players having meltdowns.
It’s not enough for a player to have, say, a bad inning, or to throw his helmet in the dugout. That won’t bring out the Spazzosaurus. He only shows up when there’s a lot of spazz-energy being released, i.e. when someone REALLY goes off the rails.
The post introducing the Spazzosaurus, which contains a lot more information about him, is right here, and for a list of all posts featuring the Spazzosaurus, I suggest you check out the Spazzosaurus category.
The plural of ‘Spazzosaurus’ is ‘Spazzosauri’.
I also see something about hamsters. What?
This has a simpler explanation. I was listening to Detroit sports radio, and some guy called in to grumble and complain. He said that Jim Leyland didn’t have any answers, only between his midwestern accent and the radio distortion I momentarily thought he had said that Jim Leyland didn’t have any HAMSTERS. I figured, well, that may ALSO be true, and may be the larger issue here. Maybe if we had all the hamsters, we would be winning.
Unbeknownst to me, people were REALLY into the concept of a hamster wearing a Tigers hat. The hamster has become a sort of victory symbol on RotT. It sometimes helps if you think “answers” when you see “hamsters”, but sometimes that may only confuse matters further.
Hamster-related posts can be found under the hamsters category.
Why do you keep talking about Dave Dombrowski’s shirt?
The GM, president, and CEO of the Tigers likes to wear striped shirts. He ESPECIALLY likes to wear striped polo shirts. He wears them ALL THE TIME. It is the business of this blog to note new occurrences of this phenomenon, so that all may share in the joy of the Mr. D’s wardrobe.
I think it’s really awful that you call the Cleveland Indians ‘the Racist Logos’. Why do you hate the history of baseball?
I am so sick of arguing about this that I don’t even want to get into it in my FAQ section. You people are idiots if you cannot see why Chief Wahoo, and to a lesser extent the team name, is problematic. I am not aiming to pick on all Cleveland fans for this; it is perfectly possible to be a Cleveland fan while still acknowledging that the team’s attachment to Chief Wahoo is gross, and I understand that some Cleveland fans hold this view. The rest of you: shut up.
Will you be my friend?
Are you a cat? Then yes. Otherwise, I can only say maybe.
Roar of the Tigers 