0310010293
DETROIT FREE PRESS
031001
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM Free Press columnist
Copyright (c) 2003, Detroit Free Press
TIGERS SHOULD STOP PARTY, START BRUSHING
You don't interrupt a child's birthday party to remind him of a dentist
appointment. So we did not interrupt the Tigers' jubilant celebration for
losing only 119 games this year to remind them that they still do, to be
honest, stink.
But the party's over.
The players are gone. The locker room is empty. The stadium crew is prepping
the grass for winter. In all my years of sports, I'm not sure I've ever seen
anything as strange as the Tigers mobbing each other Sunday in unfettered glee
after avoiding the modern-day season loss record set by the expansion Mets in
1962.
If the scene had been a comic strip, the bubble coming up from their happy
pile would have read, "We're not the worst! We're not the worst!"
That hardly seems worth celebrating.
Especially not today. Not when, once again, you pick up your morning paper and
read results from the playoff games -- exciting, autumn baseball -- and you
realize, once again, Detroit is not there and has no realistic plan to get
back.
In the happy locker room Sunday, Tigers pitcher Mike Maroth said, "It's how
you finish."
Well, Mike, you finished last. Dead, dead last. If the Tigers, in avoiding
loss No. 120, felt reason to cheer, here are some playoff reasons to be
depressed:
Excellent role models
The Florida Marlins. This team won the 1997 World Series the old-fashioned
way: It bought it. Florida was Imelda Marcos in a shoe store. A top-flight
free agent? Wrap it up and charge it! Then, once the championship was won, the
team became an outlet mall. The owner marked everything down. Players were
slashed. The Marlins sank. They lost 108 games the year after the
championship. But . . .
They changed ownership. And they slowly came back. The Marlins signed Pudge
Rodriguez from Texas and traded for speedy Juan Pierre from Colorado. They
developed young pitchers and have a 21-year-old star in Dontrelle Willis. What
21-year-old is doing anything for the Tigers? Besides the ballboys?
Florida rebuilt, got faster, played great defense, and is back in the playoffs
-- with a payroll not much bigger than Detroit's. And all this -- the
championship, the collapse, the rebuilding -- happened over the past six
years, while the Tigers were still looking for a winning season.
The Minnesota Twins: Remember the song, "I Got Plenty of Nuthin?" The Twins
and the Tigers could both sing that tune when it comes to making money. But
only the Tigers sing it when it comes to talent.
The Twins are again in the playoffs, thanks to a gradual rebuilding from four
straight 90-plus loss seasons, the last coming three years ago. They developed
pitchers Johan Santana, Eric Milton and Brad Radke, got a budding power star
in Torii Hunter, played good defense, and made the league championship series
last season. Their Opening Day payroll was 15th in the majors, middle of the
pack (just eight slots ahead of Detroit) and they regularly lose between $10
million and $15 million a year. This was a team Bud Selig tried to squeeze out
of existence, remember?
Guess what? They're still here, still in the red -- and still in the playoffs.
The Tigers are on the beach.
Cubs made the right moves
The Chicago Cubs. You know how the hare felt when the tortoise passed him?
Imagine if that tortoise passed another tortoise! That's how the Tigers should
feel watching the Cubs in the playoffs. There are few more hapless franchises
in history than the one that plays at Wrigley Field. They were the Rodney
Dangerfield of baseball. Mike Royko, the legendary Chicago columnist, once
said, "There were years when the groundskeepers were better athletes that the
Cubs players."
But what did the Cubs do last year, after losing a Tigers-like 95 games? They
hired manager Dusty Baker, who had just steered the Giants to the lip of the
World Series title. Meanwhile, the Tigers hired Alan Trammell, a guy we all
like who had no managerial experience.
Look at the results.
You tell me who made the better move.
Of course, the Cubs also groomed great pitching and have a bona fide superstar
in Sammy Sosa. But they're the Cubs, for Pete's sake! In the playoffs?
And I haven't even mentioned the Yankees or Red Sox, who will continue to
outspend the Tigers the way Bill Gates outspends Billie Jean King. Or the
Atlanta Braves and Oakland A's, whose player development operations make the
Tigers' look like a lemonade stand.
"A few years from now," Dmitri Young said Sunday, "I'll look back and say this
was the beginning of a dynasty."
Why? Because you lost one less game than the worst team ever? I don't want to
spoil the party, but here's your dentist appointment: 119 isn't the number the
Tigers should be concerned about. The number is 29 -- which, as of this
morning, is how many of the 30 major league teams are better than they are.
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. He will sign "The
Five People You Meet In Heaven" at 12:30 p.m. today at RenCen Waldenbooks,
Detroit; at 7:30 p.m. today at Borders, 3527 Washtenaw, Ann Arbor; and at
12:30 p.m. Sunday at Little Professor, Dearborn.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
COLUMN;BASEBALL