I’ve just returned from a two-week vacation and high school football is ready to start tonight.

Normally, I send the two weeks leading up to the season preparing the annual Evening News football section.

I feel a little out of the loop this year, but it’s kind of fun, too. I will be finding out about the local teams as the season unfolds.

I’ll leave the expert’s role to my friend and boss, Ron Montri. Here is a link to his Week 1 predictions:

http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080828/SPORTS/108289954

I have no idea what to expect.

Granted, exhibition games are meaningless and nearly unwatchable, but I am intrigued about the changes that will be made now that it appears that coach Rod Marinelli is firmly in control.

Will his running scheme work? Is the Tampa Two defense finally taking root?

The talent level does not appear to be great, but the Lions seem to have added some character to the roster. The question is whether that will make any difference.

It was Troy Percival.

You might remember that Percival briefly played for the Tigers. The Tigers signed him as a free agent before the 2005 season and paid him $6 million.

What did they get for their investment? A total of 25 innings and 8 saves before he got hurt. The Tigers paid Percival another $6 million in 2006 even though he never threw a pitch.

You can’t fault a guy for getting hurt.

But what I do fault Percival for is a lack of loyalty. When he felt healthy enough to pitch again in 2007, he chose to return with the St. Louis Cardinals instead of the Tigers. He moved on to Tampa Bay this year and has 24 saves.

All of you Todd Jones bashers will enjoy the final irony of the story. It was largely because of Percival’s injury that the Tigers signed Jones to take over as closer before the 2006 season.

It is Percival who led to all of those roller coaster rides that Jones has given us over the past three seasons.

http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080731/KRUGERSPTSCOL/519096041/-1/COLUMNISTS

Yes, Jones screwed up. He nearly had a 1-2-3 ninth, but a seeing-eye single by Carlos Quinten somehow found its way into right field. Then Dye blasted his homer.

But I thought the game was lost earlier than that.

The White Sox looked dead until the seventh inning when Joel Zumaya struggled and Pudge Rodriguez threw a ball into left field allowing the tying run to score.

Jones deserves his share of the blame, but he simply made the last mistake.

The young man was all set to begin his first NFL training camp. He agreed to contract terms with the Detroit Lions earlier this week. He was supposed to start practice today.

But the Army pulled the rug out from under him.

After giving Campbell a special waver to entry the NFL Draft and pursue a career as a professional football player, the Army informed the Lions at the last moment that a change in Department of Defense policy required Campbell to report for regular duty.

The Lions had to break the bad news to him. Team officials said he took it like a good soldier. He signed up to serve his country. He is ready to fulfill his commitment.

Still, you have to feel bad for him.

There must have been a lot of complaining behind the scenes that led to this about face at the last moment.

I think the decision is short-sighted by the Department of Defense. Campbell, the Lions and the Army all suffer.

In all honesty, Campbell was a longshot to make the team. He was a seventh-round draft choice. Guys drafted that low rarely make the team. But he was denied his shot. He will never know whether he could have made it or not.

The Lions have wasted a draft choice. Of course they have done plenty of that in the past, but it would have been nice if they had known before the draft that something like this might happen.

And the Army missed a great opportunity. Campbell could have done a lot more good for the Army as an NFL player than he will in active service. The Army would have gotten loads of free publicity as the media followed Campbell’s bid to make the team. And, if he had made it, he would have been invaluable as an Army recruiter.

This is a case where everyone loses.

The Wings will not play their traditional New Year’s Eve game at Joe Louis Arena.

That’s too bad. I’ve always enjoyed watching the Wings on television before ringing in the New Year. It was developing into almost as nice a tradition as the Lions on Thanksgiving Day.

But it would have been unfair to ask them to play on New Year’s Eve, then travel to Chicago for a game the following afternoon.

Let’s hope the New Year’s Eve game is back next year.

The pre-game festivities were nice, but Major League Baseball knew that they were going to take a long time. Why not get them started at 7 or 7:30 p.m. Then, the game could have gotten started at 8 or a little after.

Even if it has been a nine-inning game, it probably would have stretched past midnight. Doesn’t baseball realize that people have to work the next day? And what about the people at the game. If they stayed until the end, they probably didn’t get to bed until at least 3 a.m. I bet a lot of people in New York called off work this morning.

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Cleveland Indians signed free agent pitcher Jeff Weaver to a minor league contract on Saturday, giving the veteran a shot at making his sixth big-league team.

Weaver will report to Triple-A Buffalo of the International League.

The 31-year-old Weaver is 93-114 with an ERA of 4.72 in 284 appearances over nine seasons from 1999-2007. He’s pitched for Detroit, the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis and Seattle. He had a career-best 14 wins for the Dodgers in 2005 and won three games for the World Series champion Cardinals in the 2006 postseason.

Weaver was 7-13 with a 6.20 ERA in 27 starts for the Mariners last year and pitched this season for Triple-A Nashville from May 1 to June 11 when he was released by the Milwaukee Brewers.

With the problems the Detroit Tigers have been having with their starting rotation this season, I wonder if they had any interest in Weaver.

It might have been worth giving him a look at Toledo, but perhaps he burned too many bridges in his first stint in Detroit.

You get to put your name on the greatest trophy in the world, you get a swell parade and you get to bask in the glory of being a champion.

Another less obvious benefit is that players want to be part of your team.

That seems to be what happened Wednesday when the Red Wings signed high-scoring winger Marian Hossa (for more details go to http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HKN_RED_WINGS_HOSSA?SITE=MIMON&SECTION=SPORTS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-07-02-15-54-00)

Hossa had offers for more money elsewhere, but wanted a shot at the Stanley Cup.

This is another brilliant move by Detroit general manager Kenny Holland. He swooped in to grab one of the plums of the free-agent crop when no one expected the Wings to be interested.

And the real beauty of this deal is that it is for one year. It will not interfere with the Wings signing some of its own players after next season.

If Hossa is a bust, they can just let him walk away. If he helps them win a Stanley Cup, they can worry about finding the money to re-sign him later.