Kuzul

For the first time since Richard Nixon was president, no big league team will break spring training camp with a Ken Griffey on its roster—Senior or Junior.

Every April from 1974 through 2010, there was a Ken Griffey in the majors. First it was the original Griffey—Senior—who broke into the bigs with the Cincinnati Reds and who kept playing until his baby boy grew up and was old enough to be his teammate with the Seattle Mariners in 1990.

Then there was Junior, making his big league debut in 1989 with peach fuzz as a 19-year-old with the Mariners.

Junior gutted it out until age 40, when his body creaked for the last time, and he retired last June, once again a member of the Mariners after a couple of stops in between.

Now there are no more Ken Griffeys, for the first time since 1973.

Combined, Senior and Junior banged out 4,924 hits, slugged 782 home runs and drove in 2,695 runs. They were the John and John Quincy Adams of baseball.

More accurately, the Griffeys were a family business the same way the Mafia was in concrete and restaurant linens.

But no longer.

Junior called it quits last year, and it wasn’t the clean break that someone of his stature should have enjoyed.

Junior was 40, he was hitting less than .200, his power was gone and bottom-feeding bloggers like yours truly were calling for him to hang up his spikes and save himself further embarrassment.

There was an unseemly story of Junior falling asleep in the Mariners clubhouse—during a game. Worse, the leak came from Griffey’s own teammates, who went to the media before going to Junior himself.

Griffey was back where it all began—Seattle—but the homecoming was awkward, and if there was anything storybook about it, then it was penned by the Brothers Grimm.

It was a far cry from 1989, when the teenaged Griffey bounded into the majors with a smile that matched his range in center field—as broad as a barn.

The Junior smile sported enough wattage to light up every ballpark from Seattle to Boston.

They used to say that, as good as he was, there was no telling how much better Mickey Mantle could have been had he been afforded the chance to play on two good legs instead of one. Same for Al Kaline, to a degree.

Mantle played baseball in terrific pain for most of his career, yet he sailed into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. The Tigers’ Kaline played many years on a deformed foot that, in Al’s own words, was like “having a toothache in my foot” every day.

Kaline, too, was elected into the Hall of Fame as soon as he was eligible.

So too will Junior, but that doesn’t begin to tell the story of a career that was part triumph, part tragedy.

It’s easy to be conflicted when discussing Ken Griffey Jr., because you can both be enamored with his remarkable talent and marvel at his numbers, or you might simply shake your head, wondering what might have been.

It wasn’t because of brevity that you’d shake your head; Junior played 22 years in the big leagues, after all. But several of those 22 years were lost to injury.

It reminds you of the players during wartime—the Hank Greenbergs of the world who lost time to serving their country and whose baseball numbers were sheared because of it.

Griffey Jr. lost time to conflict, too, but it was within his own body.

Usually the problems occurred below the belt.

His legs betrayed him most often, specifically his hamstrings. In a period from 2001-2006, Junior missed over 400 games due to various ailments. That’s about two-and-a-half seasons, and at the rate he was going at that time in his career, one number stands out above all others: 630.

That’s how many home runs Junior lofted over the seats, using that trademark, smooth-as-silk uppercut swing that was the Mona Lisa of its kind.

You give Junior back that time missed, and we’re not talking about Barry Bonds as the one surpassing Hank Aaron for first place on the all-time home run list.

Junior would have amassed about 3,300 base hits, slugged 750-plus home runs and driven in over 2,000 runs, had his legs not betrayed him.

“What’s the difference?” you might ask. “He’s going into the Hall of Fame anyway, isn’t he?”

True.

But Griffey Jr. wouldn’t have just been a Hall of Famer; he would have been the epitome of greatness.

For at least a decade, Junior was considered by many to be the best player in baseball and not just of his own time, if you know what I mean.

Then the injuries struck, and all those games he could have played in went down the drain, never to be recovered. The calendar stops for no man.

The folks in Seattle never really understood or got over the trade that shipped Griffey to the Cincinnati Reds following the 1999 season—a year in which Junior slugged 48 home runs, had 134 RBI and scored 123 runs.

It was like trading Willie Mays in his prime.

Griffey’s injury woes hit him in Cincinnati, almost as if some mad doctor in Seattle started poking a voodoo doll made in his likeness.

Griffey played for the Reds from 2000-2008 before being sent to the Chicago White Sox for their pennant push. The Mariners brought him back as a free agent in February 2009, some 20 years after his big league debut.

That’s where the Brothers Grimm took over the tale-writing duties.

Griffey hit .214 in 2009 and everyone was too polite to say it out loud, but again the comparison to Mays was apt, in that Junior was looking like the Say Hey Kid, circa 1973, when Mays stumbled around for the Mets as a 42-year-old.

But Griffey came back for more in 2010, against the judgment of people who thought they knew better. Perhaps they were right.

Junior was dreadful, his skills gone. When the story broke of the alleged sleeping incident, it was sad but in a way, it went along nicely with the whole, “He should have retired” talk.

So he did, finally.

The other day, Junior addressed the circumstances surrounding his abrupt retirement last June.

“I just felt that it was more important for me to retire and instead of being a distraction, it no longer became the Seattle Mariners, it became, ‘When is Ken doing this? When is Ken doing that?’ and that’s something I didn’t want to have my teammates, who I truly cared about, having to answer these types of questions day in and day out,” Griffey said.

Today, Griffey is still with the Mariners, as a special consultant. He plans to work with the kids and do some time in the broadcast booth.

And it’s left to us to wonder what might have been, had Junior’s legs not caused him so much grief.

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The baseball was launched into the furthest, most terrifying reaches of Comerica Park, where the only ball caught is on a bounce or scooped up to stop it from rolling.

As it climbed into the June night’s air, you could hear an entire crowd of 17,000-plus gasp, as if they all had been simultaneously slugged in the gut.

If it was possible to read the minds of such a throng, you could do so in two words, only one fit for print here. The first was “Oh.”

The Indians’ Mark Grudzielanek smacked the pitch from the Tigers’ Armando Galarraga so far into the depths of center field that you not only didn’t expect Austin Jackson to catch it, you were half expecting him to arrive in a taxi.

The baseball was hit so high and so far, it went back in time, because suddenly it was 1954 in the Polo Grounds in New York.

It was 1954 and Austin Jackson was Willie Mays of the New York Giants, tearing after a drive off the bat of Cleveland’s Vic Wertz in the World Series.

But, it was 2010, and this wasn’t the World Series—it was something more, though it was again an Indian hitter who was about to be victimized.

Such is the greatness of baseball that a seemingly run-of-the-mill game played on June 2nd can turn into a heart-stopping, thrilling spectacle whose attendance will grow from 17,000 to 170,000 as more people purport to have been in the stands that evening.

For at stake when Jackson was on the run was Galarraga’s pitching masterpiece—his almost-perfect game that was, at the time of Grudzielanek’s blast, still perfect.

It was the ninth inning, nobody out. Galarraga had set down the first 24 Cleveland Indians in order. But when Grudzielanek took Galarraga to the deepest part of the ballpark, the perfection looked to be gone.

But wait!

Suddenly, here was Jackson, arriving in time to reach out with his left-gloved hand and stab at the air where he hoped the baseball might also be.

It was, and it was being snared by the pocket of Jackson’s glove below waist level as he raced, full bore, toward the center field fence, clearly putting his physical well-being aside for the moment.

The crowd erupted after its few seconds of gasps followed by disappointed silence.

Tigers TV announcer Mario Impemba screamed, “He CAUGHT it!,” as if he’d just seen Humpty Dumpty fall and not break.

Jackson’s play was the greatest catch I’d ever seen in a regular season game.

It wasn’t just the catch itself; it was when it occurred and what was at stake at the time. If Galarraga’s gem hadn’t been spoiled two batters later by an umpire’s inopportune time to be human, Jackson’s catch would be talked about as long as the perfect game. You couldn’t talk of one without speaking of the other.

Yet, umpire Jim Joyce’s blown call doesn’t take away from the magnitude of what Jackson did that night, for at that moment, we knew that the rookie center fielder—sometimes known as, “The Man Who Replaced Curtis Granderson”—was capable of special feats of greatness.

Playing center field is unlike any other charge in pro sports.

Center field isn’t a position, it’s three area codes. Depending on the size of the stadium, the center fielder has to take care of an area that, if it was a public park rather than a ballpark, would be assigned to a staff instead of a person.

Jackson played the position marvelously last season; his first in the big leagues. He also batted lead off and acquitted himself well, batting over .300 for most of the year.

Jackson did a lot of great things in 2010, which is nice because he just happens to be the most important player on the Tigers.

Don’t look at me like that.

No, I haven’t forgotten that guys named Miguel Cabrera, Magglio Ordonez and Victor Martinez are under contract by the Tigers too.

Jackson is the most important because if he gets a case of the sophomore jinxies, and the Tigers don’t have a reliable leadoff hitter, then the house of cards that is the team’s offense gets blown down.

Jackson strikes out a lot, which is understandable for a young player—but also more tolerable when that young player is hitting .300. It’s not so great if the batting average is .250 or .260.

Jackson has to get on base for the Tigers to be successful—he just has to. He struck out 170 times last year, but he also scored 103 runs. Lord knows how many times he scored off the bat of Cabrera.

But if Jackson doesn’t hit so well, if he isn’t getting things going by getting on base, innings will change noticeably. The big boys will be doing a lot more hitting with two outs and no runners in scoring position than you’d like.

The dreaded sophomore jinx is more likely to manifest itself with the bat, rather than the glove. But if Jackson falters there too, then you have just another average center fielder hitting .260.

The Tigers offense doesn’t look like such hot stuff under that scenario, no matter who his hitting third, fourth and fifth.

Big league ball teams don’t put bums in center field and bat them lead off. You do one or the other, you’re a valuable guy. You do BOTH? You’re off the charts valuable.

For all the brute strength of Cabrera, for all the sweet swings of Ordonez and Martinez, the Tigers need Austin Jackson to be the burning fuse at the top of the order. If the kid fizzles out, well, the Tigers will save a lot of money by not having to print playoff tickets.

Fiddlesticks on the pressure. We already know that Jackson can do some great things when the stakes are high. Just ask Armando Galarraga.

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Let’s get one thing out of the way right now.

Miguel Cabrera is no Bobby Layne.

Layne, the liquor-guzzling quarterback for the Lions in the 1950s, was a drunk, but a happy, functioning drunk.

Layne’s drinking binges were legendary and almost romanticized.

Rookie DT Alex Karras was assigned to Layne—literally—during Alex’s first training camp in 1958. It was Karras’ duty to drive Layne around town, usually to the watering holes in Pontiac, and not only act as Bobby’s chauffeur, but to be Layne’s drinking buddy, too.

Karras couldn’t keep up with Layne in the liquor consumption department. No one could.

Layne, Karras said, would drink the night away, pay the house band to keep playing even when they were tired and would hang halfway out of the car on the ride home, screaming the words to the song “Ida Red.”

After a night of partying—this went on for several days a week—the two would return to the dormitories at Cranbrook with time for maybe an hour or two of sleep.

Then it was back onto the practice field for workouts in the hot summer sun.

“Bobby didn’t need sleep,” Karras once recalled. “He’d be in the shower, singing, fresh as a daisy, and I’d be trying not to throw up.”

Karras still can’t believe he made the Lions squad in his rookie year because Layne abused him more than the practices did.

“I was awful,” Karras said of his performance during camp and the exhibition season.

Layne could hold his booze. There are tales, confirmed, of him taking a few nips at halftime and leading the Lions to victory in the fourth quarter.

And, in Bobby’s words, “I always came in through the front door. I never sneaked in the back.”

In other words, Bobby couldn’t care less who knew that he’d been drinking.

One teammate said of Layne’s leadership in those salad days of Lions football of the 1950s, “When Bobby said ‘block,’ you blocked. And when he said ‘drink,’ you drank.

Cabrera, the Tigers‘ troubled young superstar first baseman, can’t hold his booze, isn’t a happy drunk and his binges are far from romantic. Maybe legendary, but in an Ichabod Crane sort of way.

I draw the comparison in a preemptive strike manner, in case you hear of any goofball trying to put Layne and Cabrera in the same boat.

If anyone says, “Miggy is just like Bobby Layne. Nobody cared if Bobby drank,” you have my permission to smack them across the puss.

Layne didn’t run afoul of the law. He didn’t drink and drive. He didn’t beat his wife. He didn’t get himself so soused that he couldn’t help his team during a key game.

Layne never got belligerent with the cops. He didn’t scream, “Do you know who I am?!” to the police. He didn’t yell frightening things like, “I’m going to kill him!”

Cabrera needs help, clearly. Again, you have my permission to punch any bozo who tries to brush Cabrera’s incidents of October 2009 and Wednesday night in Fort Pierce, Florida off as “isolated.”

Yeah, maybe isolated in terms of public displays of drunkenness, but do you really think that the only times Cabrera drinks to excess have been these two high profile instances?

Please.

Lord knows how much Cabrera has gotten shnockered since becoming a big league ballplayer. Now, what he does in the privacy of his own home is his business. But it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a serious problem with the bottle.

Ryne Duren, the flamboyant relief pitcher of the ’50s and ’60s, who was an avowed alcoholic, once said he could look at a team photo of his Yankees teammates and circle “at least” eight or ten fellow drunks.

Drinking in baseball goes back, really, to the days when Alexander Cartwright designed the first diamond in the mid-1800s.

But this thing with Cabrera goes beyond the “boys will be boys” mentality, when folks winked at the players who boozed it up. The writers of the day sometimes drank with them, in the drinking cars of the trains that carried the teams from Boston to St. Louis or wherever.

This thing with Cabrera is sinister. It’s dark and it’s scary and it holds the life of a young man in its mitts, not merely a career.

Tigers fans, if they have a decent bone in their bodies, ought to not give a damn whether Miguel Cabrera suits up for the Tigers ever again. They shouldn’t care whether he hits another home run. They ought not fret what that does to the team’s chances of making the playoffs.

Baseball is just a game. The issue isn’t whether Miguel Cabrera plays baseball again, or when.

It’s whether he can re-claim his life.

Shame on anyone who’s worried about the Tigers’ chances in 2011 without Cabrera.

This is a young man’s life we’re talking about.

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Brandon Inge has been in the big leagues for 10 years, so isn’t it time that someone taught him how to hit?

I’m not being facetious—not going for laughs here.

Inge, the Tigers third baseman, enters his 11th MLB season with a lifetime batting average of .237 and with a strikeout frequency of about one in every four at-bats.

I find it odd that no batting coach in a decade has been able to break Inge’s swing down and find something about it that needs correcting.

If it can’t be done, then why have batting coaches at all?

I’m just a bottom-feeding blogger, but even I can tell you that Inge’s swing gets too long at times and he gets too tempted by the home run. They both add up to mighty swings at the air.

The trouble with Inge is that he has just enough pop in his bat and has homered just enough, to make everyone think that he’s a legitimate longball threat. Even Inge himself believes that, which is also part of his problem.

It didn’t help matters when Inge was propped up as a contestant in the All-Star Game’s Home Run Derby in 2009. He was shutout and that was fitting.

The Tigers need better than .237 from Inge if they truly want to boast of a lineup that can sting you, one-thru-nine.

Inge has really only had two seasons where home runs were central to his arsenal—2006, when he slugged 27 and 2009, when he also hit 27.

Other than that, it’s been a lot of totals in the lower-to-mid teens.

Inge batted at a .287 clip in 2004 and hasn’t come close to that rate since.

How many times have we seen him spin himself halfway into the ground like a corkscrew, flailing at strike three?

What about those hitting principles that other guys have managed to integrate into their game, like shortening the swing and going to the opposite field and up the middle?

The simple fact is that Brandon Inge, from the moment he made his big league debut on April 3, 2001, has not improved one iota with the bat. In fact, he may have regressed slightly.

He broke into the majors hitting for a low average and striking out a lot and 10 years later, he’s hitting for a low average and striking out a lot.

Were it not for a glove that can be as good as any third sacker’s in the sport, Inge may not even be in the big leagues and certainly not as a starter.

This isn’t to dump on the guy. In fact, it was me who trumpeted Inge for a statue in Comerica Park bearing his likeness. This was when I thought he might be synonymous with the franchise and when I thought the Tigers would have won something by now.

This is more of a tough love piece. I’m an Inge guy. I marvel at what he can do with the glove. I respect his dedication to the metro Detroit area. I love his willingness to play through pain. I believe he’s a wonderful teammate. He is, in many ways, the face of the franchise because of the aforementioned things.

I just am dumbfounded that no one within the Tigers organization has been able to do a thing with Inge’s swing and add 20-30 points to his BA.

I’d take an Inge with a .270 BA and 15 homers over a version with a .230 BA and 25 homers—but that’s just me.

Brandon Inge has been, for many years now, one of the most polarizing athletes I’ve ever seen in Detroit, especially for someone who’s not even really considered a big star.

The vitriol directed his way by fans has been disturbing at times. But then there are those who simply adore him. Many of the female fans want to hug and squeeze him.

It’s funny, in a way, because Inge has never been shoved out there by the Tigers organization as one of the team’s big stars. The Tigers have never purported him to be anything other than what he is, which is a good field, mostly no-hit third baseman.

Yet Inge gets it from the fans as if he’s been asked to carry the team on his back and has failed miserably.

All I ask for is to see, in year 11, some degree of hitting improvement. It would sure help the Tigers’ cause, because too many times in recent years rallies have gone to Inge’s bat to die.

Can’t somebody work with him and get his batting average north of .250 with fewer strikeouts?

Inge would make a terrific case study, if someone were inclined to take him on.

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He is the Tigers’ mystery man. His uniform ought to be covered with question marks, like The Riddler.

Another spring training is on the horizon. The thought of it alone should warm those cockles in your heart.

But it’s becoming a ritual every February around Tigertown.

Every year around this time, we ask: Will Carlos Guillen be healthy? How much can he play? WHERE will he play?

There have been few men who’ve worn the Tigers’ Old English D, in my time observing the team—and that spans 41 years—with more class and dignity than Guillen.

Guillen is among the finest of gentlemen, and it’s no wonder he’s such a hit with manager Jim Leyland, who adores him.

But Guillen has been held together with rubber bands and bailing wire for the past several seasons. You wonder if his doctor’s last name is MacGyver.

The players are about to pull on the creamy home whites and again we are hit with the questions about Guillen.

It was last August, turning a game-ending double play in New York, when Guillen hurt his knee. As with most Guillen injuries, it didn’t look terribly serious at first, but then they do those MRIs and poke around some more and you find out he’s lost for weeks, not days.

This time, it’s months.

He had to endure microfracture surgery, the new trendy thing to have done if you’re a professional athlete. Look no further than the Pistons’ own Tracy McGrady, who had the surgery two years ago, to see how long full recovery can take.

It’s been two years and only now is McGrady beginning to feel like himself.

The Tigers hope beyond hope that Guillen, 35, can get his knee in shape fast enough and well enough to be the team’s starting second baseman forthwith.

I wouldn’t put too many eggs in that basket.

But all is not lost.

If I had a vote, I’d cast it for Will Rhymes to be the Tigers’ second sacker.

Rhymes, a lefty bat, is a prototypical second baseman. He’s hard-nosed and the front of his jersey is always dirty. He hit .304 in 191 AB last season and only made four errors in 53 games.

He’s a late bloomer, turning 28 on April 1, but that’s still seven years younger than Guillen.

Scotty Sizemore is in the mix, too, but he has health issues as well. The Tigers unwisely force-fed Sizemore onto the Opening Day roster as a rookie last year despite his not recovering fully from his broken ankle suffered in post-October baseball.

The anointing of Sizemore as Placido Polanco’s replacement didn’t go so well; Sizemore was sent to Toledo by midseason.

Rhymes is a better hitter than Sizemore, hands down. And I’m not sure there’s a drop-off in the field, either.

The landscape of the Tigers’ team has changed dramatically since I espoused making Guillen the team’s full-time designated hitter a couple years ago.

The DH role is almost Victor Martinez’s on a full-time basis. The free agent signee figures to DH about 60-70 percent of the time, if not more.

The shortstop position is now filled, with Jhonny Peralta.

Third base is Brandon Inge’s.

And left field is taken by Ryan Raburn, who absolutely needs to take this opportunity in 2011 and seize it.

Guillen also plays first base, but last I heard, the Tigers have someone who plays there who’s not bad.

So it’s second base or bust for Guillen, and I shouldn’t even use his name and “bust” in the same sentence. Or his name and “tear” or “pull” or “strain” or “dislocate.”

Carlos Guillen is a walking question mark. When he’s able to walk, that is.

He’s been a wonderful Tiger and when he’s not battling his body, he’s still a pretty damn good hitter.

But injuries requiring microfracture surgery aren’t to be taken lightly.

Again, ask that dude who wears No. 1 for the Pistons.

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It was one of the most famous newspaper leads in sports history.

It came the day after Don Larsen pitched his perfect game in the 1956 World Series.

“The imperfect man,” New York columnist Dick Young wrote, “pitched the perfect game.”

It was true, for sure; Larsen was an average pitcher who had the day of his life.

But so was it true for many of the pitchers in MLB history who, for one game, were unblemished.

The roster of men who’ve pitched perfect games would not bowl you over with its abundance of talent. Few of them were anything remotely close to stars.

Armando Galarraga is not on that roster. But we know better, of course.

Yet Galarraga’s status, that of the Imperfect Man Who Met the Imperfect Umpire, doesn’t change the fact that Armando, too, is a blind squirrel who (almost) found his nut.

Galarraga, after his unofficial perfect game last June 2, went the next 21 starts for the Tigers garnering only two wins.

That, more than anything, is why he’s no longer a Tiger.

Galarraga has been dispatched to the Arizona Diamondbacks, safely out of the American League and in one of the farthest reaches of the country, where he can do the Tigers little harm.

Let’s see what Arizona manager Kirk Gibson does with Armando.

Replacing Galarraga in the Tigers’ rotation is veteran righty Brad Penny, whose body has been imperfect. If Penny can stay healthy, the Tigers have made an excellent swap in their starting five.

Galarraga has been a frustrating, confusing pitcher for the Tigers since 2008, when he exploded onto the scene in Detroit and went 13-7 with a 3.73 ERA. He was, as a rookie, one of the few bright spots on a Tigers team that was a huge disappointment.

But since then, Galarraga has alternately pitched himself out of and back into the rotation several times. He’s shown those flashes of his ‘08 brilliance—and then some—but has withered back into just another mediocre pitcher. And he’s sometimes done this from start to start.

The last nail in the coffin for him in Detroit, I believe, was that 21-start streak last summer that lasted through the remainder of the season, when he produced just the two wins.

I highly doubt you’d throw Penny out there for 21 starts and get two wins in return.

Yeah, you can crab about run support and all that, but two wins in 21 starts is what it is. Somewhere in there a pitcher has to suck it up and pitch so good he can’t help but win the game.

Galarraga never got his footing back since his rookie year. Until the Penny signing, Galarraga was penciled in to be the fifth starter. But it was hardly a guarantee. You always had the feeling that if the Tigers could find someone better, Galarraga would be usurped. You also got the feeling that the team was shopping for an upgrade, even as they spoke of him as the No. 5 starter.

The Tigers found their upgrade in Penny, a Cy Young candidate several years ago and someone with postseason experience. If he stays off the DL, of course.

Galarraga is gone, and he leaves behind memories that this baseball town will never forget. He was thrown into a blender with umpire Jim Joyce and the two of them have been pureed ever since, combining to form an inseparable mixture of triumph over tragedy.

Another imperfect man who, for one game, was perfect—almost.

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You want the Cliff’s Notes to Jack Morris’s pitching career? I’ll give them to you, boiled down to two games. And that’s out of 562—it doesn’t get more pared down than that.

It’s a cool Saturday in early April, 1984 in Chicago. The Tigers are off to a 3-0 start to their season. Maybe they could keep it up and get out of the gate fast; who knows?

Morris is on the mound at Comiskey Park, and he’s off to a rousing start—the first nine White Sox are up and down in order, and already Jack has registered four strikeouts.

Then Morris gets erratic in the fourth inning, walking the bases loaded with nobody out. His brilliance has suddenly vanished. The White Sox fans are bundled up and ready to burst out, sensing a big inning.

Chicago’s cleanup hitter, Greg “Baby Bull” Luzinski, is at the plate. The Tigers’ measly 2-0 lead looks about as safe as a drunk’s wallet in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

But Morris throws a split-fingered fastball—his specialty—and gets Luzinski to tap the baseball back to the mound. Morris, a.k.a. The Cat, pounces on it and starts a nifty pitcher-to-catcher-to-first base double play.

The next batter, Ron Kittle, strikes out. Threat over, inning over.

The White Sox fans suddenly are gagging on their Chicago dogs.

Except for one leather-lunged buffoon.

Morris gets through the fifth, and the sixth, and the White Sox still don’t have a hit. Jack walks four batters through six innings, but is being a cheapskate with the base hits.

The leather-lunged fan situated behind the Tigers’ dugout begins taunting Morris, trying to jinx his no-hitter.

“You’ll never get your no-hitter, Jack!” the fan bellows, among other things unfit to print here.

Morris takes note, his eyes narrowing at the fan every time he walks back to the dugout, having registered another hitless frame.

In the seventh, Morris walks another. That’s five free passes, but still no hits.

Also in the seventh, Dave Bergman, a slick-fielding first baseman, enters the game for, of course, defensive purposes. Makes sense.

Right on cue in the seventh, Bergman sprawls to his left, snaring a hard ground ball apparently destined to prove the leather-lunged fan correct. But Bergman, on his back, flips the ball to Morris, covering first base.

The no-hitter is saved, but the blowhard behind the Tigers’ dugout doesn’t quit.

“Two more innings, Jack! Think you can do it? I don’t think so!”

Morris narrows his eyes some more at the dude.

In the ninth inning, the Tigers safely ahead, 4-0, Morris walks Luzinski with two outs, the sixth base on balls. But still no White Sox hits.

Finally, Morris finishes his gem. He strikes out Kittle again—on a split-finger, of course—and within moments he’s engulfed inside the Paul Bunyan arms and barrel chest of catcher Lance Parrish.

A no-hitter! The first by a Tigers pitcher in nearly 30 years.

But there’s still some unfinished business.

After the mob gets off him, Morris makes his way back to the dugout. He sees the blowhard fan.

“I GOT YOUR TWO MORE INNINGS, YOU $#!@!” Morris screams at the screamer.

NOW Jack can celebrate his no-hitter in the clubhouse.

Fast forward seven years and six months later.

Morris is on the mound for his home state Minnesota Twins against the Atlanta Braves. It’s Game 7 of the World Series—that’s all.

The Twins are playing Game 7 thanks to a Kirby Puckett home run in the bottom of the 11^th of Game 6 the night before—they call it a “walk-off homer” these days.

So here comes Morris, working on three days’ rest, which is one day less than his norm during the regular season. Twins manager Tom Kelly hopes he can get six or seven innings out of his ace before turning matters over to his bullpen.

A pitching duel breaks out between Morris and the Braves’ John Smoltz. The game is scoreless headed into the eighth inning.

Suddenly, Morris is in a jam—big time. A leadoff single and a double put runners on second and third with nobody out. The Braves’ runner at third, Lonnie Smith, inexplicably hesitates rounding second base, costing his team a run.

But a rally with runners on second and third with no outs ought to produce at least one run, right?

Wrong, for this is Jack Morris, one of the best clutch pitchers in our lifetime.

Morris induces a weak grounder to first. Then he intentionally walks David Justice, filling the bases, setting the stage for an inning-ending double play.

Which Morris gets, when Sid Bream grounds into an unusual first-to-catcher-to-first DP. Threat over, inning over. World Series, far from over.

Smoltz is replaced in the bottom of the eighth, but the Twins fail to score.

Morris sets down the side in order in the ninth inning. It’ll go down as a complete game in the record books, but the game is hardly complete in the truest sense.

The Twins put a goose egg on the board in the ninth. Would Morris return to the mound in the 10th inning? Of Game 7 of the World Freaking Series?

Would he!

Manager Kelly tries to pull him, but Morris would have none of it. Jack is ready to meet Kelly in the runway and go bare-fisted with his manager in order to pitch the 10th.

Morris takes the hill in the 10th, and the three Braves at-bat don’t even get the ball out of the infield. They go down: pop up, strikeout, ground out.

The Twins scratch out a run in the bottom of the 10th to win the World Series. Morris pitches 10 shutout innings on three days’ rest, is 2-0 in the series and wins the MVP Award. His ERA in the series is 1.17.

Those two games capsulate Jack Morris—the man and the pitcher: snarling, defiant, brilliant, fearless. And cocky.

They didn’t let Morris into the Hall of Fame again this week. That makes 12 years in a row. Of the needed 75 percent, Morris was named on a little more than half the ballots. He’s still not all that close.

You want to play numbers? You want to come at me with your 3.90 ERA—the number that the anti-Morris folks love to throw out there?

OK, let’s play some numbers.

Morris won 254 games and had a winning percentage of .577, which for a baseball team equals a 93-win season. He walked an average of 3.3 batters per nine innings, while striking out nearly six per nine. He won 163 games in the 1980s, including 20 or more twice in the decade. In another year, he won 19.

He won seven postseason games and lost only four. Twice he was 2-0 in a World Series (1984 Tigers, 1991 Twins).

They used to say that Hall of Fame goalie Grant Fuhr might not have the prettiest goals-against average around, but when the marbles were on the line, Fuhr would make the big stop.

You say you don’t like Morris’ 3.90 ERA, which would be the highest for any pitcher in the Hall of Fame if he was inducted?

I’ll take the wins—an untold number of which came when there were a lot of marbles on the table.

Hang in there, Jack. Sooner or later those voting folks are bound to come to their senses.

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George “Sparky” Anderson made it clear, early on in his managing career in Detroit, who was in charge in the Tigers locker room.

“It’s my way,” Sparky said, “or the highway.”

Sparky took over the Tigers in June 1979 and before too long, several Tigers had hit the highway.

Some were moved out of Detroit because they were collateral damage—entities that needed to be sacrificed in order for the Tigers to acquire other pieces.

But others were sent packing because they didn’t conform to Sparky’s way. Hence, the highway.

Ron LeFlore. Steve Kemp. Jason Thompson. Names once believed to be the long-term future of the organization when Sparky was hired. But all gone, traded away, within two years. All of them, for one reason or another, were not among Sparky’s favorites.

Sparky Anderson had himself quite a large dog house, make no mistake. And once you landed there, it was awfully difficult to get out in a way other than being sent packing.

Glenn Wilson was a young outfielder with a wealth of talent, drafted in the first round by the Tigers in 1980. He was a 6’1″ Texan who could hit, hit with power and throw. He debuted with the Tigers in 1982, and after his first 11 games he was batting .406.

Wilson hit .292 in 1982, and became a regular in 1983. But Wilson’s numbers were pedestrian for an everyday right fielder: .268 BA, 11 HR, 65 RBI.

It was sometime during the 1983 when Wilson fell into disfavor with Sparky Anderson, for reasons unknown.

The Tigers finished a strong second to the Orioles in 1983, their mix of young and veteran talent on the verge of taking that next step. Maybe 1984 could be the Tigers’ year.

Wilson was rumored to be on the move in 1984. But spring training ’84 was almost finished, and no moves had been announced.

Until March 24.

It was that day that Tigers GM Bill Lajoie pulled off one of the most important trades in Detroit sports history.

The news came out of the blue. The Grapefruit League games were winding down, and the Tigers were looking to go with much of the same roster they had in 1983—the roster that could muster no more than a strong second place finish to the O’s.

Leaving Detroit would be Wilson, after all—along with veteran utility guy and fan favorite John B. Wockenfuss. They were going to the Phillies, and in exchange the Tigers were getting a slick fielding first baseman named Dave Bergman, himself recently traded from San Francisco to Philadelphia, and a late-inning relief specialist with a big Afro, Willie Hernandez.

It was a curious trade, but not necessarily one that was deemed to lift the Tigers into first place. Hernandez had saved all of seven games with a 3.29 ERA in 1983, and Bergman wasn’t even an everyday player—he was a 30 year old who’d never had more than 186 at-bats in any given big league season.

Spring training droned on, the trade’s news not lasting too long on the sports sections’ front pages.

No one knew, or felt, that the late-March trade would have a monumental impact on the 1984 baseball season. The trade was made more to move Wilson than anything else.

Except there was one man, for sure, who believed the trade would help the Tigers, and not just with the subtraction of Glenn Wilson.

Lajoie needed a glove at first base to replace Enos Cabell’s. And the Tigers had gone with a closer-by-committee in ’83, led by righty Aurelio Lopez’s 18 saves. Lajoie thought it would be nice if the Tigers could add a competent left-hander to the back end of the bullpen.

You know the rest.

Hernandez was lights out in ’84, and Bergman’s stellar defense and clutch hitting contributed mightily to the Tigers’ 35-5 start.

All Hernandez did was win the American League MVP Award, the Cy Young Award and save three of the Tigers’ seven postseason victories, which culminated in the 1984 World Championship.

Bergman had 271 at-bats, a career-high, and batted .273, second-highest of his then 10-year career. And he played marvelous defense, as expected, including helping save Jack Morris’s no-hitter in Chicago with a late-inning gem.

Bill Lajoie is dead. He passed away yesterday at age 76, having died in his sleep.

What a lousy couple of years we’ve had in Tigertown.

Mark Fidrych, George Kell, Ernie Harwell, Sparky Anderson and now Bill Lajoie have all died in 2009 or 2010.

Lajoie’s baseball career gained steam in Detroit, but it didn’t end here. He parlayed his reputation for scouting and drafting many key cogs of the 1984 championship into several other jobs, post-Tigers. His most recent role was that of consultant to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Lajoie is gone now, another link to the good old days of Tigers baseball.

What a lousy couple of years we’ve had.

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Jim Leyland is the manager of the Detroit Tigers for 2011. That much we know. After that, only time will tell.

You want more job security than that, if you’re a baseball manager, or a basketball, football or hockey coach?

Then get out of the business. Become a Supreme Court Justice, or a mortician, or a marriage counselor.

The contract on file with Major League Baseball says Leyland is bound by the written, legal word to be the manager of the Tigers through the 2011 season.

Coaches’ contracts in sports, though, have about as much integrity as Kwame Kilpatrick, and hold as much water as a sieve.

I’ve used this quote a lot, but it will be true for infinity. It’s from Butch van Breda Kolff, the old basketball coach, uttered after he signed a renewal to lead the Pistons, circa 1971.

Butch said of the worth of coaches’ contracts, “Hell, they can always fire you. Or you can quit.”

Care to argue?

So Leyland will manage the Tigers for 2011, the final year of his two-year extension.

Get ready for the talk of Leyland being the Tigers’ “lame duck” manager.

Bull-you-know-what!

Leyland works for Mike Ilitch, one of the kindest, fairest owners in all of sports. Ilitch awards his people, sometimes to a fault. If he feels Jim Leyland deserves more years added to his already-added-to contract, then the owner will give his manager those years. Simple as that.

That Ilitch hasn’t yet done so, leaving Leyland’s future with the Tigers beyond the final pitch of the 2011 season undetermined, is going to cause lots of folks consternation.

The hand-wringers will tell you that Leyland’s not having a signed contract beyond 2011 automatically means he’s a leper, and his players will look at him cockeyed and not take it so hard if they leave a man on third base with less than two outs or throw wildly to first base or walk the bases loaded.

Again, bull-you-know-what!

Is Leyland managing for his baseball life next season? Sure, but aren’t they all, all the time?

You think it truly matters if a manager or a coach has years left on his contract, if the owner gets it in his head to make a change?

The country is dotted with coaches being paid not to coach, enjoying their checks until their contracts expire. Just ask Pistons President Joe Dumars what it’s like to pay multiple coaches.

Leyland is a big boy. He knows the drill. He knows that his owner has, once again, opened his wallet and spent big money to bring players to Detroit and to keep them here. Leyland knows that in five years on the job with the Tigers, he has but one playoff appearance to show for it.

That playoff appearance is the only one Ilitch has enjoyed in his 18-plus years of owning the Tigers—which is not what Mike was expecting when he bought the team in 1992.

Leyland also knows that his team faded badly in 2006 (but still made the playoffs), in 2007, in 2009—including a history-making choke job in the season’s final week—and last year. He should also know that the 2008 team, which had been predicted to waltz to the World Series, never got out of the gate, ill-prepared for the expectations.

So it’s not so outlandish that Leyland isn’t extended to manage the Tigers beyond next season. In fact, it’s probably just.

Not that it matters, because they can always fire you, and you can quit.

Ever hear of Walter Alston?

Alston managed the Dodgers when they were still in Brooklyn, and continued after the move to Los Angeles. For 23 years, Alston managed the Dodgers.

In all but the final few years, Alston did so working on one-year contracts that were renewed every winter, pending the O’Malley family’s approval.

Eventually, the O’Malleys tried to sign Alston to multiple-year deals. But the manager refused, maintaining that he should be evaluated annually.

Finally Alston agreed to sign two-year deals.

Leyland isn’t the perfect baseball manager, but he’s probably good enough for the Tigers, with their revamped roster and more experience under the belts of their younger players.

It’s a job that Leyland adores and feels honored to perform. His beginnings with the organization date back to the early 1960s, when he was a scuffling player. He managed for years in the Tigers’ minor league system, before graduating to third base coach with Tony LaRussa’s Chicago White Sox.

Earlier this month, at the winter meetings in Florida, Leyland was asked about the team, and how he feels—both physically and about his roster.

“I feel OK. I smoke too much,” he said. “But this is a good team. We have a great owner. The city is special. The Tigers are special. I love managing.”

There are plenty of fans who aren’t so enamored with Leyland. Familiarity breeds contempt. You stick around in a city long enough, you’re going to make your enemies.

If you go 1-for-5 in baseball, you’re batting .200. Leyland is batting .200 as a manager, with that single playoff appearance in five years.

So why should Mike Ilitch be obligated to Jim Leyland beyond this season?

This is probably all moot anyway. I suspect that, unless the Tigers get off to a God-awful start, Leyland will be extended another two years, through the 2013 season—and that will likely occur sometime before the All-Star break.

Nowhere is it written that a baseball manager must be signed beyond the current season, or else there’ll be a mutiny.

Hey, what about the players who like Leyland so much—and there are plenty of them on the Tigers roster—that they may be inclined to play even harder for him, so that he may be rewarded with a new contract?

Jim Leyland is the manager of the Tigers for the 2011 season. Twenty-nine other men have the same designation for their teams, regardless of their contract status. They are their team’s manager—for now.

By the way, van Breda Kolff only lasted ten games into the 1971-72 season with the Pistons, after signing his contract extension.

He quit.

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Phil Coke nestling in the Detroit Tigers’ starting rotation is looking better and better.

It’s been bandied about for months, that the Tigers are about to pluck uber-reliever and southpaw Coke from the bullpen and plop him among the rotation that includes hard-throwers Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, and Rick Porcello.

With this week’s free agent signing of Tampa’s Joaquin Benoit, the Tigers have essentially replaced Coke with one of the best set-up men in baseball last year.

That means Coke is free to join the rotation, which needs a lefty in the worst way.

Fortunately, making Coke a starter is doing it in anything but the worst way.

Coke was part of last off-season’s larceny that GM Dave Dombrowski committed, when he traded popular CF Curtis Granderson and enigmatic RHP Edwin Jackson and brought in Coke, CF Austin Jackson, RHP Scherzer, and LHP Daniel Schlereth.

You don’t need to wait the requisite several years to know that DD hit a home run with that deal.

All Coke did was appear in 74 games, pitch 64.2 innings, surrender just two home runs, post a fine 3.76 ERA, and stabilize the Tigers’ pen, especially in the season’s first half.

Coke was the most reliable reliever the Tigers had overall, so it was a little off-putting when the rumblings began that he might be moved to the rotation.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul, you might say.

But that all changes with the addition of Benoit, who in 2010 was as lights out as an army barracks after 10:00pm.

And if Joel Zumaya defies the odds and stays healthy next year, the bullpen will miss Coke even less.

This sort of thing usually works the other way around; it’s the traditional starter who will shift to relieving.

You’ve heard of Dennis Eckersley, Dave Righetti, Goose Gossage and John Smoltz?

All starters—and good ones—who became outstanding relief pitchers.

Coke started the Tigers’ final game last season, in Baltimore—his only big league start.

It didn’t go so well.

Coke lasted just 1.2 innings, coughing up five hits and two runs.

But that ought not to dissuade the Tigers from moving forward with the Coke Experiment, and it appears that it hasn’t.

Of course, Benoit is a righthander and Coke is a lefty. So who becomes the Tigers’ primary lefthander in the bullpen?

It could be Schlereth, a strikeout guy who has a world of potential.

It could be Fu-Te Ni, but Ni didn’t pitch for the Tigers after June 29.

It could even be Andy Oliver, should he not be traded or considered worthy of the fifth spot in the rotation.

But with Benoit, if he comes anywhere close to repeating his magical 2010 season, it might not matter if you have a consistent left-handed presence in the pen or not. It could be “lefty by committee” and that might be good enough—especially if Zumaya comes back strong.

Free agent pitchers traditionally make me squirm with uneasiness. Seems an awful lot of them go sideways as soon as the ink dries on their new contract.

Troy Percival, anyone?

Maybe Benoit, who survived surgery and missed the entire 2009 season recovering, has already had his physical calamity for his career. Maybe his terrific 2010 season is proof that he’s back and isn’t to be derailed.

The Tigers have 16.5 million reasons to hope so.

Meanwhile, Phil Coke as a starter is looking peanut butter and jelly-ish in its compatibility.

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