Hey, don't put those brooms away -- St. Louis might need 'em

It was more than Verlander. Detroit had throwing errors, fielding errors, mental errors. Hung pitches. Out-of-position fielders. And that was just the sixth inning. That inning was so bad, the sellout crowd of 42,479, watching the first World Series game in Detroit in 22 years, jeered sarcastically for the first out of the inning.

Nice home crowd. At least they weren't burning people's cars.

That could still happen. St. Louis could cool off. The pleasant Pujols could get surly and sore and come down with that mysterious hamstring injury that gets mentioned only after he has gone 0-for-4. Edmonds' concussed head could turn foggy. Rolen's shoulder could get half as sore as the television knuckleheads are trying to have you believe.

Until then, it's going to be ugly for Detroit. And this World Series started ugly before the first pitch. Detroit native Eminem, the most talented writer in the stadium -- I mean that -- tried to fire up the crowd with a pregame monologue shown on the scoreboard. Eminem can rap like an SOB, but his motivational speech was more embarrassing than ESPN's "world exclusive" of that Jay-Z video on Monday Night Football. And that thing was ridiculous.

The scoreboard put the crowd through an even more awkward moment after the fifth inning: a public service announcement against steroids.

"Steroids don't make great athletes," the solemn voice intoned, "they destroy them. ... Talk to your kids."

Baseball, which rebuilt itself in the 1990s on the bloated shoulders of blatant steroid users, has no shame -- but that's a topic for another day. It's a topic for when the 2006 World Series ends ... in four or five days, if this St. Louis team sticks around.