Kuzul

It has been the location of baseball’s glamour profession, the real estate of Cobb and Speaker, annexed by DiMaggio. Hallowed ground fought over for supremacy by Mays, Mantle and Snider, who all played a subway ride away from each other.

Its vastness has both swallowed the slow and incompetent whole and enabled the fleet and light-footed to appear as gazelles with mitts. John Fogerty wrote a song about it.

There’s a mystique about baseball and center field. It ranks in sexiness with the football quarterback. You think of a center fielder and a bunch of other s-words come to mind.

Sleek. Silk. Smooth. Slender.

The ace center fielder stands six-foot or a tad taller, has the body fat of Jack Sprat and lopes. He is the robber of home runs, the snagger of triples. He covers more of the diamond than a tarp. He’s not only the center fielder, he’s half a left fielder and half a right fielder, too.

It’s a position that is unforgiving to the butchers who would give it a go, because center field isn’t played, it’s conquered. Many an incompetent have dared wander into its jaws and were never seen again. Speaking of which, anyone see Ron LeFlore lately?

No position in baseball can rival center field when you’re talking style points.

The Tigers’ Austin Jackson is a conqueror. He’s the best center fielder in Detroit since Cobb. And I’m not forgetting that Al Kaline played a couple seasons in center.

Jackson is a loper. He possesses that brilliance all the ace center fielders have had since the dawning of the 20th century: the innate ability to break for the baseball at the crack of the bat, take the most efficient route and arrive just in time for the ball to settle into the glove.

Center-field greatness is passed down, like an Italian family business.

It was early in the 2006 season when I cornered Tigers first-base coach Andy Van Slyke in the glorified closet that passes as the coaches’ office at Comerica Park. The main topic of discussion was his then-new job as coach, but I had to bring up center field.

Van Slyke, in his prime years with the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1980s and ‘90s, was widely renowned as one of the best center fielders in baseball. He was a tall, galloping man who held dominion over the position.

I wanted to know how he learned to play center field so damned good.

“Well, I used to work with Bill Virdon a lot in Pittsburgh,” Van Slyke told me, and he needn’t have said anything else, though he did.

Virdon, with the Pirates in the 1950s and ‘60s, was one of the premier center fielders of his day, though he was far overshadowed by the New York trio of Mays, Mantle and Snider. Virdon could go and get it, so when Van Slyke mentioned Virdon’s name as a tutor, I understood completely.

Van Slyke told me that Virdon worked with him for several years every spring training, imparting his wisdom about routes and jumps and footwork, about angles and awareness.

Virdon passed center field down to Van Slyke. I’d be beside myself to find out from whom Virdon learned.

Third base, on the other hand, is a position that a century’s worth of players have spent making look easy, when it’s anything but.

Third base can’t match center field in sexiness, and part of that is because where the center fielder can take, ahem, center stage for what seems like an eternity as the lofted baseball heads for the deepest part of the ballpark, the third baseman has a split second to make his move.

The third baseman has to have the reactions of a hockey goalie and the fearlessness of a fighter pilot. He can spend half a game on his stomach.

But a great third baseman makes it all look so easy. No matter how hard hit a ball, no matter if it’s skidding along the grass or bounding rapidly by, the great third baseman gloves the ball with seemingly routine effort and rifles a throw to first base to nip the runner by a quarter step. Every time.

It can be very impressive, but it’s rarely sexy. Center field is sexy.

That’s part of what Miguel Cabrera is up against, in his apparent two-man race for the AL MVP with the Boy Wonder Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels.

Trout plays center field, Cabrera third base, and I believe that’s a big reason why Cabrera isn’t considered a shoo-in for the award, despite being on the cusp of capturing baseball’s Triple Crown (leader in BA, HR and RBI) for the first time in 45 years.

Trout is a marvelous baseball player. He is, at 21 years of age, one of the very best players in the game, already. He hits for power, for average and occupies another glamour position—that of lead-off hitter.

“Batting lead-off, and playing center field…”

There is still magic in those words.

Cabrera is having a season that would be a runaway MVP year in just about any other, except for the kid Trout and his highlight-reel play in center field, which has combined with the power and cunning batting eye to give Cabrera a run for his money.

Trout has dropped off, however, at the bat in recent weeks. He hit .284 in August and is at .257 in September. His team is still in the playoff hunt, as is Cabrera’s, so that’s mostly a wash.

It would be easy for MVP voters to become enamored of Trout’s position of glamour, to recall the feats of derring-do he’s accomplished in center field, look at his total offensive numbers (not just the ones since August), and award him not only the Rookie of the Year, but the big enchilada, too.

Those voters will try to justify their vote by pointing to Cabrera and his sometimes uneven play at third base, which isn’t as sexy as center field to begin with, and offer that up as a reason to go with Trout as MVP.

If a man can win the Triple Crown, or come so damn close to it that we’re still wondering if he can do it on Sept. 22, his defense would have to be a combination of Dave Kingman and Dick Stuart’s to cancel it out enough to take him out of the MVP race.

Cabrera is no Brooks Robinson at third base, but he’s not a butcher, either.

If, as an MVP voter, you’re insane enough to wonder whether Cabrera’s glove has actually robbed the Tigers more than his bat has provided, then your vote should be revoked post haste.

Mike Trout has had a brilliant year, maybe the best of any AL rookie in decades. He has Hall of Fame potential. And he plays center field.

Miguel Cabrera might win the Triple Crown. He plays third base. So sue him.

Just be sure to vote for him as MVP before you do.

You can read more Greg Eno at www.GregEno.com!! 

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It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.

As August turns to September in this sometimes God forsaken 2012 baseball season, this isn’t what Tigers fans had in mind for Labor Day weekend.

The worries were supposed to be the usual for this time of the year: getting the kids back to school; figuring out what to throw on the grill as the outdoor cooking season winds down; wondering what you have with the Lions—playoff contender or pretender?

And hey, can you really not wear white after the first Monday in September?

Maybe there’d be lawn work to consider or an oil change for the car or one more trip to the zoo to hastily plan.

The baseball fans in this town didn’t figure on worrying about the boys with the Old English D sewn on the front of their creamy white uniforms.

This was supposed to be a cake walk. There wasn’t a more sure bet since Ali over Wepner, or Nixon over McGovern. The Tigers were a lock to win the AL Central. The bookies in Vegas all but took the division off the board. You could have gotten more action on a playground at recess.

When those baseball preview magazines started hitting the shelves over the winter, the experts with “so-called” before their moniker all liked the Tigers—and I do mean all. The Tigers cruised to the division title in 2011 and no one saw any reason to feel that 2012 would be any different.

Then Victor Martinez, the switch-hitting RBI machine signed as a free agent prior to last season, wrecked his knee in January. For about two weeks, the Tigers’ place as cemented division champs became slightly wobbly.

Until the team signed Prince Fielder; after that, the bandwagon became overfilled again.

The question wasn’t whether the Tigers would win the AL Central—it was by how much. Baseball pundits from Bangor to Seattle—across the board—treated the Central as if the Tigers were the Harlem Globetrotters and everyone else was a version of the Washington Generals.

The lineup looked deep. Fielder was plopped into the middle of the batting order, behind Miguel Cabrera and ahead of Delmon Young. Fans saw the growth and maturity of catcher Alex Avila and pegged him for a breakout year in 2012. Brennan Boesch was penciled in for 20 homers and 80 RBI and a .275 batting average.

Jhonny Peralta may not know how to spell his first name, but he could hit and that’s all that mattered.

Avila and Peralta were All-Stars in 2011—so why not expect more of the same in 2012?

The pitching staff, from the starters to the bullpen components, appeared to be battle-tested and ready to go—a wonderful blend of youth and experience. To be safe, the Tigers signed nomadic reliever Octavio Dotel.

Last season, the division was in doubt in late-August, and then the Tigers pulled away with a 12-game winning streak.

But that kind of hot streak wouldn’t be needed in 2012, to hear everyone from award-winning journalists to your neighbor to YOU say it.

Back in April, when the Tigers got off to a 9-3 start, you can imagine what the images of Labor Day brought to the minds of Detroit baseball fans.

This was going to be a relaxing, care-free weekend.

The Tigers would be making mincemeat of the Royals, Twins, Indians and White Sox. There would be no “race,” per se—only a wake for the other teams.

Labor Day would come along and it was going to mean just one measly more month before the excitement of playoff baseball would be returning to Motown.

No worries, no angst, no hand-wringing. A division sewn up, a playoff spot assured. You want drama? Look elsewhere for it.

It was going to be a fun, frolicking summer of baseball in Detroit. The Tigers were too deep, too powerful, too experienced to be challenged seriously. The “race” would be over by the All-Star break, tops.

There weren’t going to be any worries this Labor Day weekend. The sizzle of the brats and the hot dogs on the grill were going to match that of the baseball team in town.

1984 even came to mind—the year the Tigers ran away and hid from the pack, making a mockery of the AL East.

If they played baseball on paper, the Tigers would be leading the division by 10, 12 games.

Paper baseball assumes that the numbers put up by certain players would be replicated the following year.

Avila, Peralta, Young and Boesch haven’t produced anywhere near the performances turned in last season. All four, you could say, have regressed as hitters.

The White Sox, not the Tigers, lead the AL Central as the calendar flips to September. The White Sox, a team buried like Caesar before the season, is the squad getting big years from unexpected sources. They lead the Tigers by two games after Friday’s loss in Detroit—but they still lead, when most observers would have left them for dead by now.

The Tigers, on the other hand, have put their fans through a meat grinder this year.

There was that 9-3 start, highlighted by a three-game sweep over the Boston Red Sox on opening weekend, the third game of which featured a monstrous late-inning comeback and a walk-off homer by Avila.

It all appeared to be a grand omen and a division title seemed fait accompli.

But 9-3 suddenly turned into 10-10 and from there on, the Tigers have been a maddening, sometimes gut-wrenching team to follow.

Sports talk radio and the blogs have blown up with vitriol for this baseball team. The fans come off as having been duped—even betrayed. Sometimes they swear they are done investing their emotions into the Tigers, yet every night at Comerica Park, the joint is packed.

Baseball isn’t played on paper. The seasons are like snowflakes, to be frank—each one is different, no matter if the players are mostly the same.

If you’re a baseball fan, each season means 162 times you’re either giddy or snarling mad. Like the great broadcaster Red Barber once said about the Brooklyn Dodgers and their boosters: “When the Dodgers lost, a lot of suppers went cold and uneaten in the borough.”

This wasn’t supposed to be a summer of cold, uneaten suppers in Detroit. Everyone figured on eating just fine, thanks.

Especially on Labor Day weekend.

Baseball on paper, indeed!

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January is a safe time to talk about baseball. There are no games on the schedule, no performances to track. The dead of winter makes a very comfortable backdrop against which to make declarations, bold predictions and lofty promises.

Few are the wintertime bon mots that get remembered much past spring training. Even fewer are those that actually come true.

The Tigers winter caravan was about to get into full swing last January. The annual tour through the state, designed to warm the hearts of the baseball fans and to attempt to break up winter’s cold and doldrums with an opportunity to wax about the National Pastime.

Nothing better than some baseball talk in mid-January to put the cold temps and chilled bones on hold, or at least in the background, if even momentarily.

As the caravan was about to rev up, there came a news item from Tiger Land.

Austin Jackson, the center fielder who just completed his pockmarked sophomore season, was the center of the news item.

Jackson was a riddle wrapped inside an enigma. He was the Churchill’s Russia of the Tigers. After two seasons, most followers of the team were scratching their heads.

He belonged on To Tell the Truth, playing the two impostors and the real guy, all by himself.

In 2010, his rookie year, Jackson batted .293. Even though he struck out a lot, he wasn’t out of place in a big league batter’s box. His fielding was exemplary, loping around in the majors’ vast center fields like a gazelle with a mitt.

In 2011, Jackson still patrolled center field like an Irish cop does the Bowery, but his hitting tailed off dramatically. The average sunk to .249 and the strikeouts became more viral—and less tolerable, thanks to the 44-point drop in his BA.

In the playoffs, Jackson batting leadoff seemed to help torpedo the Tigers more than helping them win. He seemed to be regressing as a big-league hitter, especially when the spotlight’s glare was brightest.

So that was the situation with Jackson when the January announcement came that hitting coach Lloyd McClendon was working with Jackson on the young hitter’s batting stance.

You could almost see the collective eyes of Tigers fans rolling.

If you’d like to get into a business where the adulation is rare and the bitching from the populace is constant, you might want to consider becoming a big league team’s hitting coach—that is, if you can’t make it to manager.

The slumps are all yours. And the success stories?

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the credit.

McClendon, we were told, had seen something he didn’t like with Jackson’s stance. Something caught on that new standby, videotape. Of course, it’s not even tape anymore—it’s all digital.

McClendon didn’t like Jackson’s high kick before the swing. There were other things, stuff that only hitting coaches see, and McClendon went to work on those, too.

Some of it, McClendon said he had tried to correct on the fly during the 2011 season. Clearly those fixes didn’t take; Jackson was a shell of the offensive player he displayed in 2010.

Last offseason, brilliant bloggers such as the one you’re reading right now suggested that Jackson was no longer suited for the Tigers’ leadoff role. We keyboard bangers declared Jackson and his .249 batting average were No. 9 material in the batting order, not No. 1.

I showed my genius by pushing for the Tigers to use Brennan Boesch at leadoff in 2012.

Of all the things that can make you smarter, a keyboard isn’t necessarily one of them.

So McClendon did his thing with Jackson’s mechanics, whether the fan base or the media or the wretched bloggers bought into it or not.

It’s been one of the most shameful parts of this rollercoaster 2012 season that McClendon has been given no credit—zero, zilch, nada—for the resurgence of Austin Jackson.

Jackson is even better than he was in 2010, when he burst onto the scene as the kid from the Yankees organization who would replace Curtis Granderson in center field for the Tigers, and who put together a season worthy of Rookie of the Year status.

This year, whatever McClendon did with Jackson has been Midas in nature.

Jackson still strikes out more than the average, but he is doing so less frequently, mainly because he’s cut down on swinging at pitches that aren’t strikes.

Sounds simple, but if hitting were simple, everyone would be Ted Williams.

The biggest improvement has been Jackson’s laying off the pitches high in the zone—pitches which ate him up nightly last year. Gone is the high leg kick, which McClendon suspected was throwing everything off in Jackson’s swing.

A baseball swing is not unlike a golf swing. The hitter moves more parts of his body than an exotic dancer during a businessman’s lunch.

Just like in golf, the baseball swing is a precision instrument of hips that either open or close too much, hands that either stay in or fly out, shoulders that are balanced or not, and eyes that either stay on the ball or don’t.

And that’s before the bat even makes contact with the baseball—if it does at all.

The result of McClendon’s tutoring of Jackson is that the Tigers have one of the premier center fielders in all of baseball. They have a triple threat at leadoff: a guy who can hit, hit for power and run. Jackson can take you deep or take you shallow. He can pull you down the line or shoot you up the gap.

Jackson is, simply, a complete hitter who is light years ahead of where most thought he’d be in 2012 after last year’s struggles.

Austin Jackson is the poster boy for the phrase, “Sometimes you have to take one step backward to take two steps forward.”

Think of that the next time a TV shot of Lloyd McClendon in the Tigers dugout causes you to hurl invectives.

But don’t worry—I’m not holding my breath.

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Russell Martin, a good baseball player having a bad year, almost poisoned the Tigers earlier this week.

Martin, the New York Yankees catcher, is hitting below .200 for the season—well below his career mark (going into this year) of .272. But despite his failure to get a hit rate of over 80 percent, Martin shot the hearts of Tigers fans into their throats on Tuesday night.

It was the ninth inning, the Tigers clinging to a 6-4 lead, and closer Jose Valverde was having one of those ninth innings that all closers sometimes have—the kind where he leads the fans, like a demented pied piper, to the gates of Hell and back again.

Valverde was as wobbly as a punch-drunk prize fighter. And even the weak-hitting Martin wasn’t an antidote.

With runners on first and second and two outs, a run already in, Martin laced a Valverde fastball deep into the left-field corner. For sure, it was a double; the only question was: Would the hit score both runners and tie the game?

Raul Ibanez scored easily from second base. Chugging around second and heading for third at full speed was the recently acquired, future Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki.

Would Ichiro round third and dare try to score the tying run?

He would have, without question, had it not been for one very well-timed defensive replacement.

Quintin Berry, so fleet of foot, had been sent to play left field in the eighth inning by manager Jim Leyland, bumping the competent but slightly slower Andy Dirks over to right field.

And it was because Berry, not Dirks, was the one who raced to field Martin’s double, that Ichiro was unable or unwilling to try for home plate.

Even the fact that Berry is left-handed, which meant he’d have to turn his body after scooping up the baseball before throwing it, didn’t sway Ichiro toward going for it.

Even though there were two outs, and baseball axioms say that making the final out of the game at home plate in a one-run contest is not without honor, Ichiro still wasn’t convinced to lower his head and try to score the tying run.

All because the sprinting Berry was upon Martin’s batted ball as if he was wearing a red cape and a big “S” on his chest—for Speed.

Ichiro stayed at third base. The score stayed 6-5. And that’s where both stayed after Valverde managed to strike out the next batter—Curtis Granderson, the kewpie doll center fielder for the Yankees, who still makes the women swoon in Detroit.

After the game, the dunderheads who call into the sports talk radio shows lit up the switchboard with venom.

The Tigers had won a big game over the vaunted Yankees—two in a row to open the four-game series—and better yet, they kept the pressure on the first-place Chicago White Sox.

You wouldn’t know it by the cranks with their cell phones.

The Tigers won, but it was all about Leyland—as usual.

A baseball season allows for Monday morning quarterbacking 162 times a year—and more if your team gets into the playoffs. It’s part of the fun—I get that.

But sometimes, those calling into the talk shows ought to press their phone’s mute button before opening their mouths. They’d save themselves some embarrassment.

The Tigers won Tuesday, and right away the callers to the postgame show on 97.1 The Ticket started laying into Leyland.

Why didn’t Leyland leave Octavio Dotel, who pitched a perfect eighth inning, in for the ninth inning? Why does he keep using Valverde at all, for that matter? The Tigers won despite Leyland! Why is Leyland even around to make these decisions to begin with?

And so on.

I listened to the drivel for about 30 minutes and not once did a caller chime in and say, “Thank goodness Leyland put Berry in the game! If not, Ichiro would have scored and maybe the Tigers would have lost!”

Heaven forbid someone give the skipper some credit.

It may have been Managing 101 to some, to insert the lightning-quick Berry into the game as a late-inning defensive replacement, but Leyland did it and it worked, no matter how elementary of a decision some may think it was—and upon further review, it wasn’t all that elementary.

Because, with someone like Dirks, who’s not a slow poke, already playing left field, some managers might have stayed with the status quo. They may have figured they had enough speed and range out there with a player of Dirks’ caliber. Berry might have been on the bench instead of chasing down Martin’s double.

Yet there was Quintin Berry, bless his jackrabbit soul, pouncing on Martin’s hit and doing it so fast that Ichiro, another non-slowpoke, was forced to remain at third base.

The decision to put Berry into the game kept the tying run 90 feet from home plate. It was instinctive, thinking-ahead managing at its best.

But again, not if you listened to the blowhards talking into their cell phones after the game.

Leyland is fired everyday in Detroit. The fans have been firing him for years. He was fired even last year, when the Tigers ran away with their division with a second-half blitzkrieg that folks (like me) had been bitching hadn’t occurred in the Leyland Era prior to 2011.

There’s a Facebook page devoted to firing Leyland. Entire blogs exist with firing Leyland as their theme.

Few of the wannabe Leyland executioners have any replacements in mind, but that’s another column for another day.

To the manager’s credit, Leyland not only doesn’t mind the monotonous second-guessing, he actually seems to like it.

Speaking to Mike Stone on The Ticket Thursday morning, Leyland said, “We’re in a pennant race. Everyone’s into it. Everyone’s a manager. I think that’s great, I really do. I have no problem with that whatsoever.”

Leyland knows, too, that the second-guessing is only going to get worse and more pervasive—and, in a lot of cases, more asinine, as the race heats up down the stretch.

Another longtime baseball manager once summed up second-guessers thusly.

“A second guesser,” legendary Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda once said, “is someone who needs two guesses to get it right.”

Leyland needed just one guess Tuesday night with Quintin Berry. It’s one reason why Leyland has 1,649 big league wins—and counting—as a manager. And not one of those 1,649 wins came with the crutch of a second guess.

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It’s not Quintin Berry’s fault that he’s not Austin Jackson, just as it’s not saccharin’s fault that it’s not sugar, not Dan Quayle’s fault that he’s not Jack Kennedy and not analog’s fault that it’s not digital.

Berry played the role of Jackson, the Tigers’ dynamic center fielder, for a couple weeks and the reviews were rather kind. Too kind, in fact.

Berry, 27, is on his fifth MLB organization with the Tigers. He’d never set foot on a big league diamond until the panic call went out a few weeks ago, the Tigers in Cleveland.

Jackson, in the third year of a career that has more upside than a room full of first-round draft picks, was being bothered by an abdominal strain. And if you’ve ever strained your abdomen, you know how painful that can be. And you’re not a starting center fielder who bats leadoff.

The Tigers, bereft of position players in their farm system that can actually play in the majors right now, sent for Berry, who was minding his business playing for the Toledo Mud Hens.

That’s how so many Tigers have started this season—as Mud Hens.

Berry wasn’t even Jackson’s understudy, per se. He was grabbed off the bargain rack by the Tigers over the winter, a body to assign to Toledo. His was a minor league contract.

It was like going to a Broadway play and not only is the star ailing, the replacement hadn’t even seen the script.

Berry was put in center field and penciled in to bat leadoff for the Tigers on May 23 in Cleveland. He didn’t even look like Austin Jackson: Berry is a beanpole who bats left-handed. Jackson is a buff, compact player who bats right.

The Tigers, though, were desperate and thus brazenly tried to pass Berry off as a suitable replacement for the bourgeoning star Jackson.

Berry then went out and did his best impersonation of Jackson over the next week or so. He slapped some hits around the park, made some fine catches in the field and didn’t embarrass himself, which was probably the best thing he did of all.

The reviews of Berry were kind because the expectations weren’t exactly high. It would have been difficult for Berry to disappoint, but quite easy for him to impress.

He was following Jackson, but not in the way that a rookie singer follows Sinatra on stage at the Sands in Las Vegas. In this case, Sinatra had laryngitis and the rookie crooner needed to only carry a tune for a few songs, trying not to have the audience members throw tomatoes at him.

The longer Berry stayed in the lineup, the more the mystified Tigers fan base, looking at the rest of the scuffling team with a sour puss, wanted Quintin to stay there—even after Jackson’s scheduled return.

Bench Brennan Boesch! Put Berry in right field!

Bench Delmon Young! Put Berry in left field!

The fans were beside themselves with ideas for what the Tigers could possibly do with Berry once Jackson returned to the lineup.

Then Jackson came off the disabled list last Saturday in Cincinnati, reclaimed center field and leadoff in one fell swoop, and in the five games since that’s happened, the Tigers were 4-1 in no small part because of Jackson’s bat, glove and mere presence.

Berry didn’t get returned to Toledo, but he didn’t return to playing, either. Not as a starter, anyway. And that, my friends, is exactly how it should be.

Berry moved Tigers fans for about 10 days, but let’s peel back a layer or two of skin away from his onion.

Berry bailed the Tigers out for a few games, no question, helping the team to tread water while their All-Star-caliber center fielder recuperated.

But Berry is no Austin Jackson. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and nor has a crime been committed.

The highlight reel catches Berry made in center field looked pretty, but—and I don’t mean to tell tales out of school here—they were necessitated by his poor reads and circuitous routes to the baseball.

But he did make those catches, and for that we all should be grateful. Still, if you put Jackson and Berry in center field for separate teams for 150 games each, it will be very plain who the better outfielder is—and it won’t be Berry.

I haven’t come to bury Berry, but I haven’t come to overly praise him, either. He is a very fast player who is also very marginal. His speed mesmerizes the folks around town because the Tigers have been so bereft of it for decades.

Even the mainstream media—folks who should know better—are being sucked in by Berry Mania.

Just yesterday I heard my friend Jamie Samuelsen and partner Bob Wojnowski on 97.1 The Ticket bemoaning the lack of Berry in the Tigers lineup against the Colorado Rockies, even though a left-handed pitcher was on the mound.

Before Boesch’s bat heated up last week, there were calls for Berry to replace him. Young, also, was being run out of town by Berry maniacs.

Jackson is the straw that stirs the Tigers drink. I’ve said it before and, after the team’s resurgence after his return to the lineup, I’m saying it again. When Jackson is doing his thing at the top of the batting order, the Tigers offense is a different animal, plain and simple.

The Tigers’ fall to as many as six games below .500 ran concurrent to Jackson’s absence. This is no coincidence.

But in Detroit, we get enthralled by the scrappy, by the fast, by the underdog. I can still remember the cries for quarterback Mike McMahon when he played for the Lions as a backup—mainly because McMahon was mobile and ran around the backfield like a chicken with his head cut off. Certainly not for his passing skills.

Jackson, one of the premier center fielders in baseball, went down, and here came Berry, riding in from Toledo on what some people thought was a white horse.

Berry did his best at being Jackson’s stand-in. For a few games the Tigers got a lift from the journeyman. It didn’t hurt his standing that, at the time of his promotion, Boesch and Young were terrible.

But let’s not get carried away. Berry may not even be with the team come September. He might be long forgotten by then, as the Tigers, it is hoped, scramble for a playoff spot. Or, his speed alone may keep him on the roster. We’ll see.

Who will not be forgotten, who will not be a footnote to this season, is Jackson. And, I submit, Boesch and Young, when all is said and done.

Jackson has the potential to be the best all-around center fielder the Tigers have had since Al Kaline roamed there in the late-1950s.

No, I haven’t forgotten about Curtis Granderson.

Berry played his rear end off trying to give the Tigers Austin Jackson when they didn’t have Austin Jackson. For that he should be commended.

But not only is Berry no Jackson, he’s not even Boesch or Young.

Berry is who he is, and that’s OK.

Trouble is, too many fans believe him to be something that he’s not, and that kind of thinking never leads to anything good.

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The Tigers came out of spring training in Lakeland confident of their hitting. Their lineup was rich with veteran bats and some young ones. The offense didn’t figure to be a problem.

But oh, what about that pitching!

The pitching caused some of the so-called experts to make a face that was consistent with biting into a lemon. There were a couple reliable arms but after that, you might have wanted to pray for rain, a la the old Boston Braves of Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain.

Then a funny thing happened. The offense was slow out of the gate, and the pitching—surprise, surprise—actually became the team’s saving grace.

Chalk another one up against the supposed wise baseball minds.

Sound familiar?

It should—if you’re over 45 years old.

If you thought I was speaking of this year’s Tigers, you’re forgiven. You should also be heartened.

This is the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Tigers—who often are nothing more to people’s recollection than the team that came four years after the heroic 1968 Tigers.

But the ’72 Tigers came within a whisker—pun intended—of making the World Series. And the formula they used was the opposite of what was forecast for them.

The Tigers of 1971 were a power-laden team, filled with those same heroes from 1968.

Norm Cash, still raising the right field roof at age 36.

Jim Northrup, another dangerous left-handed bat.

Bill Freehan, still the league’s best catcher.

Willie Horton, always a big bopper.

Al Kaline, another 36-year-old veteran who made the All-Star team in 1971, as did Cash and Freehan.

Off the bench was Gates Brown, who, if he had been born five years later, might have been the greatest designated hitter in history, let alone just for the Tigers.

Then you had the role players, like Mickey Stanley, Aurelio Rodriguez, Tony Taylor and Dick McAuliffe, all of whom could reach the seats more than occasionally.

So it was understandable that the Tigers felt comfortable with their offense coming out of spring training in 1972; the 1971 team had won 91 games and finished a strong second to Baltimore.

On the mound, the Tigers rotation was anchored by veterans Mickey Lolich (lefty) and Joe Coleman (righty), but after that it was a crapshoot. Lolich and Coleman each won 20-plus games. Then you did a rain dance.

The offense bulled its way to the 91 wins—that and the magic of manager Billy Martin.

Martin was, in a way, the perfect manager at the perfect time for the Tigers in those days.

It’s the tenet of hiring and firing coaches and managers in sports that you replace the fired guy with his polar opposite.

If the fired guy is too nice and too much a “player’s manager (or coach),” then you get a tough guy to take his place.

If the fired guy is too strict, you bring in an old softy who the players can “relate to.”

If the fired guy is quiet, go get a loudmouth. If the fired guy has loose lips, hire a clam with lockjaw.

And so on.

The 1970 Tigers played uninspired baseball for manager Mayo Smith, a hands-off skipper whose laissez-faire ways worked in 1968, to the tune of a World Series championship.

But by 1970, the Tigers were cranky and filled with the distraction of Denny McLain, whose escapades often went unchecked by the passive Smith.

As the ’70 season closed, it was terribly apparent that the Tigers needed a swift kick between the back pockets.

Enter Martin, one of the most celebrated butt kickers of all time.

Martin was still a raw manager in 1970, having guided the Minnesota Twins to the 1969 AL East pennant as a rookie skipper. Martin fought the umpires and his own players on his way to glory. A celebrated incident with pitcher Dave Boswell occurred in the alley behind the Lindell AC in Detroit. Martin gave the term “giving the pitcher the hook” a whole new meaning, as he KO’d Boswell after a night of drinking.

Minnesota fired Martin after one winning but notorious season in what would become a career trend for him.

After the 1970 season, the Tigers dismissed Smith, who on his way out of town claimed the baseball fans of Detroit couldn’t tell the difference between a ballplayer and a Japanese aviator. Smith’s words.

GM Jim Campbell brought in Martin, a manager Campbell admired from afar, and a former Tigers player (1958).

Campbell figured—rightly, really—that Martin was just what the coddled Tigers needed in order to awaken their talented roster.

Martin barged in and ruffled some feathers, but also coaxed 12 more wins out of the team in 1971, challenging the Orioles for much of the year.

All this was the back story as the Tigers opened the 1972 season, 40 years ago.

Well, you know what happened—the hitting went south (.237 team BA) and the pitching outperformed the expectations. And Martin’s veteran team managed to stay in the race all summer.

Campbell brought in some graybeards like lefty Woodie Fryman, who was the 1972 version of Doug Fister (2011) and Doyle Alexander (1987); catcher Duke Sims; and slugger Frank Howard.

The season’s final weekend pitted the Tigers against the Boston Red Sox in a three-game series in Detroit. Thanks to a spring training players strike that cut into the regular season, the Red Sox would end up playing one fewer game than the Tigers.

The Tigers took the first two games of the series, and thus clinched the division pennant. The Red Sox finished one-half game back—thanks in part to playing one fewer game.

The offensively-challenged Tigers, who drastically underperformed with the bats, used surprisingly good pitching and their two veteran starters (Lolich and Coleman—1972’s Justin Verlander and Fister), along with Fryman and some unexpectedly strong bullpen arms, to nip the pack at the finish line.

In the ALCS, Oakland beat the Tigers, 3-2 in a heartbreaking series.

A year later, Martin became too much for the Tigers to handle, so he was canned and replaced by his opposite—the more easygoing Ralph Houk.

The 1972 Tigers were the last Detroit playoff baseball team until the 1984 heroes.

Forty years ago. It hardly seems it—if you can remember it to begin with.

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He is the most senior of Tigers, with the cashiering of Brandon Inge a couple weeks ago. He played for Luis Pujols and Alan Trammell. He experienced 43-119 as a starter and the World Series as a bench warmer.

He has, at times, enjoyed the same kind of popularity that the Lions’ backup quarterback has over the years—i.e. it’s sometimes better to be on the bench than in the game. You look more appealing to the fans that way.

He hits from both sides of the plate, as so many players like him do. But he doesn’t necessarily hit from either side terribly well, also keeping with his brethren.

He scores about 30 runs a year and drives in roughly the same amount. He hits a home run every full moon. Though he did once lead the league in…sacrifice hits.

He’s slick with the glove and let’s face it, that’s why he’s stayed in the big leagues every year since 2002.

Ramon Santiago is 32 years old—33 in August—and he’s your new elder statesman on the Tigers, now that Inge has found work in Oakland.

Going from Inge to Santiago in terms of Tigers seniority is like when ABC went from Howard Cosell to Fran Tarkenton in the Monday Night Football broadcast booth.

Everyone talked about Inge. Everyone had an opinion.

Ask a Tigers fan about Santiago and you’ll have your question answered with another question.

“Santiago? What about him?”

If Ramon Santiago were a country, he’d be Switzerland. If he were a jacket, he’d be a 40 regular. If he were a bandleader, he’d be Tommy Newsom.

Santiago’s act has played in Detroit since 2002, with only a two-year hiatus in Seattle (2004-05) in which he had a grand total of 47 at-bats for the Mariners. Speaking of Seattle, the Tigers made a whale of a trade when they dealt Santiago to the Mariners; they got Carlos Guillen in return. Even Santiago would tell you that was a steal.

The Mariners released him after the 2005 season and the Tigers snatched him up—kind of like when you find that old pair of shoes in the closet that you could have sworn you had gotten rid of—the comfy ones that you’re glad to again have in your possession.

Santiago never showed flashes of brilliance with the bat as Inge did. In fact, Santiago doesn’t really show flashes of anything except attendance in the dugout. A typical Santiago year is to dress for almost all of the 162 games, play in about two-thirds of them and actually bat in half of those.

His role is that of defensive replacement, and with the Tigers infield in recent years, that can mean a whole lot of replacing.

Santiago will start maybe once a week and it won’t be memorable with the bat. But, he’ll catch just about everything and make a few nifty plays in the field and all he’ll get is a pat on the rump and be told to stand by until he’s needed again.

Such is the life of the big league benchwarmer.

When Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder or Austin Jackson arrive at the ballpark, they don’t even bother to look at the lineup card that’s taped on a wall near the Tigers locker room. Not only do they know they’re playing, they know where they’re batting.

It’s like the 1920s Yankees, who invented numbers on the backs of uniforms by virtue of where their players batted in the order, hence Babe Ruth being No. 3, Lou Gehrig No. 4.

Jackson bats leadoff, Cabrera third and Fielder fourth—every game.

When Santiago shuffles into the clubhouse, he could make a mint if he took wagers from fans, ushers and equipment kids on his way inside, as to whether he’s playing that night. But the odds would always be 1:3.

The most at-bats Santiago had in any given season was 2003’s atrocity, when he got into 141 games for the 43-119 Tigers, most of them starts at shortstop, and he registered 444 ABs. He still only scored 41 runs and drove in his 29 RBI, even with all the extra appearances. But he did lead the league with 18 sacrifice bunts.

For the next four years combined (2004-07), Santiago had a grand total of 194 at-bats. And it took him 102 games to get those.

Yet the next disgruntled word Santiago utters will be his first. He has shown as much emotion as he’s had playing time. I don’t know if he cusses, but I bet if he does, it’s the Spanish version of “Oh, darn.”

It has taken Santiago 10 years and over 1,800 at-bats to slug as many homers as Cabrera is likely to have by the end of August (25). But when “Santy,” as his teammates call him, knocks one out of the park, it’s a moment as rich with pleasant surprise as seeing a man win a fight with his wife.

If you’re a pitcher who’s surrendered a Ramon Santiago home run, it’s like being an adult duped out of a cookie by a toddler. Like the hare losing to the tortoise.

But it cannot be disputed that Santiago is the Tiger with the most seniority now. He’s the accidental elder statesman.

His teammates love him. They’ve gone on record. They rave about Santiago’s professionalism, his preparedness and his gentle, subtle mentoring of the younger Latin American players on the team.

At times in recent years, Santiago’s insertion into the lineup on a more regular basis has been suggested by a fan base frustrated with second base ever since the Tigers inexplicably let Placido Polanco walk away into free agency after the 2009 season.

As the team has tried the likes of Will Rhymes, Scott Sizemore, Danny Worth, Ryan Raburn and even Inge at second base, Santiago has been the backup and the fans have called for him—albeit in a “process of elimination” kind of way.

But the truth is that Ramon Santiago simply isn’t an everyday player. It wasn’t true when he was younger, and it certainly isn’t true as he approaches 33 years old. And there’s no crime in that.

This is Santiago’s 11th season in the big leagues and his ninth with the Tigers. He is the most senior baseball player in Detroit.

But I know what I’ll get if I ask you about No. 39.

“Santiago? What about him?”

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Two Detroit sports underdogs peeled off their uniforms for the last time as members of their respective teams, and they both did it on Thursday.

While that’s not where the similarities end, the endings couldn’t have been more different. The only thing the cessations of their careers have in common is that they happened within hours of each other.

At approximately 4:30 Thursday afternoon, Brandon Inge was called into the manager’s office, and he certainly must have known what was cooking. When Inge stepped into Jim Leyland’s lair and saw that GM Dave Dombrowski and assistant GM Al Avila were also there, the trio likely didn’t even need to say a word.

Inge was out, given the ziggy by his patient-to-a-fault bosses.

This wasn’t so much a release as it was a mercy killing.

Inge’s baseball career in Detroit had become that rabid dog in “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the trio of Dombrowski, Avila and Leyland had no choice but to shoot it dead.

Detroit doesn’t have the reputation of Philadelphia or other tough sports burgs when it comes to booing its athletes out of town. The Motor City sports fan has a lot of forgiveness in his blood, sometimes to a fault.

But when it comes to Inge, the much-maligned utility man, there’s no question that the people had spoken and the Tigers organization, like any responsible customer service-based business, had no choice but to listen.

Inge, along with his .100 batting average, was jettisoned after Thursday’s game against Seattle. He was the butt of a wry and mean-spirited joke.

“Who bats after Brandon Inge?”

Answer: the other team.

In the end, there were one too many pop outs, one too many strikeouts, one too many mistakes in the field. And each was followed by the cascades of booing in Comerica Park usually reserved for the superstar Tiger-killers from other teams.

I believe that last weekend’s unmerciful booing of Inge is what sealed his fate with the Tigers.

As the Tigers dropped three of four to the vaunted Texas Rangers, and as the entire team struggled to match forces with the two-time defending American League Champions, Inge was hardly the Lone Ranger, as Leyland would say, when he struggled to to scratch out a hit.

But no Tiger was booed as savagely as Inge was as one at-bat after the other of his ended badly. He was the dead man walking—or in his case, striking out.

There was a stirring and murmuring in the crowd every time Inge strode to the plate against the Rangers, kind of like there is in those courtroom scenes in the movies.

A weekend of this and the organization that shuns drama decided to put an end to it on Thursday.

In the end, watching an Inge at-bat was, as the late, great sportswriter Jim Murray would say, like watching a guy walk into a noose.

About three hours after Inge was cashiered, Ben Wallace slipped on his Pistons jersey and his blue headband, and took the floor for what is likely the last time in his 16-year NBA career.

Nine of those seasons were spent in Detroit.

Boos didn’t rain from the Palace, however; far from it.

Wallace, who started the game at the insistence of coach Lawrence Frank, was greeted with a standing ovation by the sparse but grateful crowd. A video testimony of his brilliance as an undrafted player from Virginia Union played during a timeout. His Pistons teammates all donned blue headbands in honor of the man they call Big Ben.

The Pistons won, blasting the Philadelphia 76ers out of the gym, 108-86.

After the game, Wallace appeared noncommittal about his future, but at age 37, and after vehemently declaring that retirement was imminent earlier in the year, who among us will be surprised when he hangs up his sneakers and headband for good?

Inge and Wallace both arrived in town around the same time; Inge in 2001, Wallace the year prior.

Both were blue-collar players in their respective sports with less talent than most of their brethren, but with work ethics that dwarfed most.

Both were, at times, the face of their franchise.

You have now reached the end of the Similarity Zone.

Inge never left Detroit to play elsewhere, even when his bosses tried to show him the door. Wallace, on the other hand, grew mystified by coach Flip Saunders and took his act to Chicago in 2006 via free agency.

Ben Wallace and Chicago weren’t a good match. Just two years after inking a deal with the Bulls, Wallace was shipped to Cleveland. It didn’t work out very well with the Cavaliers, either.

By 2009 Wallace was back in Detroit, yet another prodigal son welcomed back by the sports faithful here.

Meanwhile, Inge was a loyal Tiger and even when the team replaced his star with the likes of Pudge Rodriguez, Miguel Cabrera and, by proxy, Prince Fielder, Inge was like a warped Dickens character.

“Please, sir, I want some more.”

Both Inge and Wallace made All-Star teams playing in Detroit, but while that may appear to be a similarity, it really isn’t, because Inge’s All-Star year (2009) was an aberration, while Wallace was a multiple year All-Star who was Defensive Player of the Year four times.

Then there is the end of their respective careers in Detroit.

Inge was driven out of town, done in by poor performance and customer dissatisfaction. Wallace was lauded and cheered, all the way until he disappeared in the tunnel leading to the Pistons locker room.

But there is one more similarity.

Both Brandon Inge and Ben Wallace wore their team logos as if branded onto their heart. Even though Wallace fled via free agency, it wasn’t anything personal against the city or its basketball fans. It was hardly a surprise when Big Ben returned in 2009.

Inge, for his part, could have done a money grab last summer when the Tigers designated him for assignment. Yet he chose to stick it out, serve his time in the minors, and hope for a call-up, which he got.

It’s ironic that this final similarity did nothing to diminish the extreme disparity of how Inge’s and Wallace’s commitment to their team and their city influenced their exits.

Detroit vilified Inge was vilified, but portrayed Wallace as a hero.

Go figure.

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Somewhere, surely, there was a boy last summer with a baseball glove dangling from the handlebar of his bicycle, on his way to a hastily put together, loosely organized version of our national pastime.

Somewhere a gaggle of fellow boys—friends, acquaintances and even strangers—found an empty diamond and quickly picked teams and went at it under the mid-day sun, and into dusk.

Someone brought a bat, someone brought a ball, right field was out and depending on the rules established, the game was “pitcher’s hand” or “pitcher’s mound.”

The games were announced that way, like they do with poker as the dealer shuffles his cards.

“OK, gentleman. The game is Texas Hold ‘Em…”

Perhaps a foul ball on strike three was a strikeout. An empty potato chip bag, held down with a brick, might have been one of the bases.

They played for hours, until the light of day abandoned them, leaving the boys alone on the pebble-filled diamond, giving each other assurances that the interrupted game WILL continue.

This was, of course, in addition to the “real” games that were played under the auspices of Little League—those matches on a Tuesday or Thursday evening, played out before parents on lawn chairs and interested passers by who parked their bikes or wandered over from their nightly walk to take in an inning or two—or more.

Surely this must go on, somewhere in America.

I still see the occasional Little League drama play out as I drive by a local ball field, but I sure am not seeing the kid on his bicycle with the glove on the handlebar.

Tell me that still happens. Lie to me, if necessary.

Baseball season is coming. The boys are down in Florida and Arizona, working out winter’s kinks and engaging in a very grown-up, very business-sheathed version of the neighborhood pickup game.

But you wouldn’t know that it’s all business. You also wouldn’t know how high the stakes are if you look at the images being uploaded from spring training.

Grown millionaires, giggling and rough housing with one another. Smiles from ear to ear as the millionaires take batting practice, whooping and hollering. Sheer joy of the game exuding from their 6’2”, 200-pound bodies.

Prince Fielder, the newest multi-millionaire Tiger, has been positively a darling so far in his new digs in Florida. Fielder signs autographs every day, until writer’s cramp sets in. Then he shakes it off and signs some more. His has one of those ear-to-ear grins.

And it’s not just that he needs a Brinks truck to cash his bi-weekly paychecks that causes all the grinning.

Big league ballplayers have been at it since age five or six, likely. So even as rookies they’ve been playing organized baseball of some sort for about 20 years.

The fun doesn’t go away, apparently. And that’s a good thing.

But WAS there a boy last year, cruising the neighborhood on his bike, looking to scare up a game of mini-baseball?

I sure hope so. Because I didn’t see one last summer. Or the summer before that.

Do boys even own baseball gloves anymore?

Surely they do. But I’m not seeing them.

Growing up in Livonia in the 1970s, before parents had to pray their kids would make it home from school safely, the bicycle for my pals and me was basically a car for kids.

Your bike kind of defined you, as cars do for adults. The bike wasn’t just a mode of transportation. Kids would compare bikes, like the men do when they look under the hoods.

Bikes were accessorized. Pimped, if you will, to use today’s vernacular.

One of the accessories was the old baseball card attached to the spokes with a clothespin thing. You know, so when you pedaled, the card would make a cool sound as it was abused, spoke-by-spoke.

A good summer’s day for us kids meant some sort of truncated, hurried-through breakfast, a brief announcement to mom that you were out the door to play, and oh by the way—I’ll see you around dinner time. Maybe.

And our moms would nod, tell us to be careful and they wouldn’t be worried about our well being for the entire day. Heck, it was one less thing to be bothered with.

We wore many hats at the ball field, we kids did. We were general manager, manager, player, radio announcer and PA announcer. Even trainer.

“Walk it off!” was our usual medical advice.

We were GMs because we had to choose teams (personnel). We were managers because someone had to construct a batting order. We played, of course. And we announced.

“Two outs! Imaginary runner on third! 4-3 you guys!” was a typical announcement when the next batter strode to the plate. The scenario had to be reset, batter to batter.

Speaking of batters, there were two schools of thought when it came to hitting. Some kids had their own batting stance, while others would mimic those of their favorite players. I liked to be Norm Cash, even though he was a lefty and I wasn’t.

Oh, and we were our own umpires, which would cause the occasional spat.

Rarely did we have enough kids to man an entire outfield, so right field was out. Unless a left-handed hitter was up; then left field was out. You hit the ball to a field that was out, and you were…OUT.

No umpiring needed there. No arguments there.

The big decision was, “pitcher’s hand” or “pitcher’s mound”?

Big difference. Big decision.

The former meant that the baseball need only be in the pitcher’s glove (or hand) before the runner reached first base in order to record the out. The latter meant that the pitcher not only needed the ball, but he needed to be standing on the mound as well.

The “mound,” by the way, was simply a rubber slab on flat ground.

Anyhow, the establishment of pitcher’s hand or pitcher’s mound was like whether a poker game was of “hand” or “stud” variety.

Big doings, I’m telling you.

So these loosey-goosey games would carry on all day. Throughout, there was attrition. Churn. A couple guys would leave. A couple more would take their place—stragglers who were cruising the schools and parks, looking for a game. They were like pool hustlers that way.

If you didn’t secure replacements right away, you played shorthanded, which meant that maybe a team would have to provide its own pitcher. It also meant that the bases would be crawling with imaginary runners. A batting order was maybe sliced down to four people.

But it was baseball. It was three outs per half inning, three strikes and you’re out and the umpire was, as former big league arbiter Dave Pallone once told me, “Maybe not always right. But never wrong.”

At the end of the day, when it was too dark to safely see the ball, we hopped back on our bikes and rode home, where mom was waiting with dinner.

“How was the game?” she’d ask.

“What’s for dinner?” we’d reply.

Tell me this still happens.

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There have been, by my count, three Brennan Boesches who’ve worn No. 26 for the Tigers since 2010.

There was the hotter-than-a-firecracker Boesch who burst onto the scene in May 2010, rocketing moon shots into the baseball night, exhibiting that classic, smooth uppercut lefty swing that has been the trademark of everyone from Willie Stargell to Ken Griffey Jr. to Josh Hamilton.

That Boesch, the first one, hit the tar out of the baseball and for a time was so impervious to big league pitching that manager Jim Leyland nestled him behind perennial MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera in the batting order.

For a short time, Boesch provided some decent protection for Cabrera. No one knew how to pitch this kid Boesch, who hails from California, where so many of the baseball greats have called home. That’s partly because the kids in California are able to wield baseball bats even in the wintertime, instead of shovels.

At the All-Star break of 2010, Boesch No. 1 had American League pitching as his oyster. He was seeing the baseball as if it were as big as that spheroid the folks used to blow up and knock around the center field bleachers at Tiger Stadium.

Boesch, some felt at the time, was a lock for Rookie of the Year honors.

But after the break, Brennan Boesch No. 1 had been stashed away somewhere and replaced by a doppelganger—Brennan Boesch No. 2.

This Boesch was an evil twin. Rather, a wretched one.

Boesch No. 2 couldn’t have hit the ball even if it was placed on a tee.

His numbers sank faster than Newt Gingrich’s in Florida leading up to the primary. He struck out more than the class nerd looking for prom dates.

The second Boesch was a combination of Mr. Magoo, 2011 Adam Dunn and the last kid picked in gym class.

The protection for Cabrera went from Brinks to Barney Fife, almost overnight.

The second Boesch trudged home to California after the 2010 season forced to prove himself worthy to be on the 2011 Tigers. His roster spot, when the Tigers gathered in Lakeland last February, was hardly a given.

Thankfully, here came Brennan Boesch No. 3.

Boesch III made the Tigers quite easily. He was one of the best hitters in camp. Two games after Opening Day in New York, Boesch III went 4-for-4, including a home run, and had four RBI. He also scored four runs.

Boesch III played with a quiet confidence. He didn’t have any more of the first-year jitters that doomed Boesch No. 2. The silky smooth uppercut lefty swing was back.

It was nothing more than rotten luck that took Boesch III away from the Tigers prematurely last year.

A stubborn thumb injury, suffered in August, was the only thing that derailed him. This time it wasn’t pie eyes or a feeling of being overwhelmed by big league pitching that shook Boesch back to Earth.

The Tigers cruised to the AL Central title with Boesch in the dugout, cheering instead of playing.

But don’t let that fool you. Don’t let the fact that the Tigers ran away from the pack with a perfectly-timed 12-game winning streak in September make you think that Boesch III wasn’t integral to the team’s success.

That much was evident in the playoffs.

Oh, what might have been, had the Tigers had Boesch III available to them as they tried to slug it out with the Texas Rangers in the ALCS.

Boesch wasn’t the only Tiger who was either lost entirely or less than full strength in the postseason, but he was among the most important.

As the Tigers prepare to gather once again in Lakeland in a couple weeks, Boesch has no concerns as to whether he will be on the team on Opening Day. Boesch III put those fears to rest.

But I submit that there should be some more question marks surrounding Boesch, only this time it has nothing to do with having confidence in him as a big league hitter.

I propose that the Tigers create a fourth Boesch.

Leyland has told the media ad nauseam that he has written many, many lineups down on paper following the season-ending knee injury to Victor Martinez, both before and after the Tigers signed Prince Fielder. That’s nothing new; Leyland loves to jot lineups down. If Leyland were a scientist, he’d be of the mad variety, working in a dusty cellar surrounded by beakers of various colored liquids.

Sadly, it appears that every lineup has Austin Jackson leading off, unless Leyland is keeping something to himself.

This is where Boesch IV comes in.

Few in Tigers Nation are thrilled with the prospects of another year of Jackson, the nifty center fielder, starting games by striking out.

The Tigers must have led the league in having their No. 2 hitters walking past their leadoff hitter going from the on deck circle to the batter’s box.

Jackson shouldn’t be batting leadoff any more than Ben Wallace should be the Pistons’ new starting point guard.

Why not make Boesch the new leadoff hitter?

Dump Jackson down to ninth, where he belongs.

Boesch IV, the leadoff version, will likely hit .270-plus, start the occasional game with a home run, and—most importantly—he won’t strike out 175 times. He’s got some speed, is a competent base runner and he won’t strike out 175 times. He’ll get on base with surprising frequency. Did I mention that he won’t strike out 175 times?

Indulge me for a moment. This time, I’m jotting down a lineup.

Boesch RF/DH

Peralta/Dirks SS/LF/RF

Cabrera 3B

Fielder 1B

Young DH/LF

Avila C

Dirks/Peralta LF/RF/SS

Raburn 2B

Jackson CF

Actually, I don’t care what Leyland does with spots two through eight, as long as he gives my Boesch at leadoff/Jackson at ninth thing a try.

A fourth Brennan Boesch?

So far, we’re 2-1 with Boesches. I say we try for 3-of-4.

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