Miguel Cabrera has won two batting titles, two home run titles, and two RBI titles in just five seasons as a Tiger.

As if to say “How you like me now?” or “See, I told you so,” Miguel Cabrera is off to a red-hot start to the 2013 season on the heels of his MVP campaign.

It’s amazing that there were people who felt that Mike Trout – not Miggy – deserved the Most Valuable Player award in 2012. Cabrera led the American League in batting, home runs, and runs batted in, becoming the first batter to win baseball’s Triple Crown in 45 years. He did that while playing a position he hadn’t played regularly in five years. The more facts I write here, the more ridiculous it seems that anyone with half a baseball brain actually debated whether or not Cabby should have been given the MVP Award last season.

At what point does a hot start stop being a hot start and become simply “another incredible season”? We’re 1/4th of the way into the ’13 season, and the Tiger slugger is leading the league in hits, on-base percentage, runs batted in, and he’s in the batting lead (again). If Cabrera wins the batting title again this season, they may want to consider renaming the trophy “Miggy’s Toy.”

As Tiger fans, it’s a treat to witness the incredible talent that Cabrera brings to the plate 4-5 times every game. His bat speed, his strike zone recognition, his coordination and opposite field power, and his ability to pull inside pitches, is all impressive. He’s the baddest man with a baseball bat in his hands. I’m talking Michael Jackson bad, here.

Now in his sixth season as a Tiger, Cabrera is starting to reach milestones with the club. This season he collected his 1,000th hit in a Detroit uniform. Later this year he’ll belt his 200th home run as a Tiger. Impressive, especially considering that the other Tigers to reach that plateau had the benefit of hitting in cozy Tiger Stadium. Cabrera hits home runs in Comerica Park or Yosemite National Park, it doesn’t make a difference to him.

Cabrera has two more years after this season on an 8-year deal with the Tigers. We can assume that before that expires, Mr. Ilitch will pony up and pay him a monster load of money to remain a Tiger for the rest of his playing career. How much should Miggy get in a new deal? I’m reminded of what Joe DiMaggio said when he was asked how much money he could have made if he had put up his statistics while playing for Yankee owner George Steinbrenner.

“I would walk into his office”, DiMag said, “shake his hand, and say ‘George, we’re about to become partners.’ ”

Ilitch might have to split his empire with Cabrera in a few years when he’s a free agent. Maybe also rename the pizza shops, “Little Miggy’s”. Whatever it takes, Cabrera deserves to wear the “D” on his uniform for the remainder of his Hall of Fame career.

Which begs the question: 11 years into his career and six into his tenure in Detroit, where does Cabrera rank among the greatest Tigers of all-time? Though still piling up credentials, Cabby seems to have done enough to warrant placement among the very best ballplayers to play in the Motor City. But where?

For a franchise rich in tradition and batting greatness like Detroit, the conversation of “Greatest Ever” begins with Ty Cobb. Miggy would have to win 10 more batting titles (yes, really) to equal the number Ty won as a Tiger. Cobb was a center fielder and one of the greatest baserunners in baseball history. When he retired he owned more than 100 major league records. Not only is “The Georgia Peach” the greatest Tiger of them all, he can legitimately be discussed as perhaps the greatest player in baseball history.

Then we have Al Kaline, a Tiger for 22 seasons and a living legend in the city. There are three reasons Kaline is a greater Tiger than Cabrera (as of right now): (1) He has the advantage of the career numbers, which Miggy has to climb towards, (2) He was a better all-around player than Cabrera. Kaline won a bunch of Gold Gloves and he deserved every one, and (3) Kaline won a World Series with Detroit.

However, and I know this will irk the legion of Kaline fans out there, Cabrera is a better hitter than #6. He has more power, he pulls the ball better, he goes to the opposite field better, and he is a better RBI man than Al was. It’s not a knock on Kaline, because Cabrera is one of the best hitters to ever play the game. He has a career .320 batting average and his slugging marks are among the best of the last 25 years. Kaline had 3-4 seasons that were really good, but he was always getting hurt for three or four or five weeks a season, which kept his numbers down a bit. Cabrera has missed a grand total of 18 games in his six seasons as a Tiger. He’s in the lineup every day mashing.

The Tigers have several other Hall of Fame greats who starred in their lineup: Charlie Gehringer, Sam Crawford, Harry Heilmann, and George Kell among them. But Cabrera has already established himself as a better offensive player than those fellas. Which is why it’s a dead-certain lock that Miguel will have his mug on a plaque in Cooperstown some day.

There’s one more player I’d put ahead of Cabby as of now, and he’s the former Tiger who is most similar to the current Detroit star. Hank Greenberg was a powerful slugger who played first base, hit mammoth home runs, and drive in runs like it was a bodily function. What matches him well with Cabrera is the fact that Hank also hit for a high average. Baseball history has been filled with sluggers who could smack home runs and drive in runs. But the ability to do that and also hit for a high average is rare. Very rare. That’s why there have been so few Triple Crown winners. That’s why the list of guys who have even won an unnatural Triple Crown (led the league in HR, RBI, batting at any time in their career) is short too.

Given his fantastic season so far and his stellar career numbers to this point, Miguel Cabrera is already one of the four greatest Tigers to ever wear the uniform. Give him another 5-6 seasons and he’ll move up that list.

Golfing legend Walter Hagen, who made Michigan his home, won 11 grand slam titles in his career.

Leaf through a few old books and clippings about Walter Hagen, and a brief but telling anecdote eventually surfaces. It seems that one of his steady golfing partners during the 1920s was the Prince of Wales. To the astonishment of proper Britons, who reverently addressed Price Edward as “Your Highness,” Hagen simply called his blue-blooded buddy “Eddie.”

Well, such liberties are common among royalty. Although the case can be made that Walter Hagen never was fitted for a crown, that seems an oversight. Certainly few will argue that the man the sporting world knew as “Sir Walter” or “The Haig” wasn’t the king of greens during his two decades of professional play.

It was a long reign for Sir Walter. Between 1914 and 1936, Hagen won the British Open four times, the U.S. Open twice, the PGA championship five times, the French, Canadian, and Belgium Opens once each, and about 60 or so other events. In all, Hagen played in more than 200 open tournaments and some 1,500 exhibition matches on five continents, rarely finishing out of the money. He earned an estimated $1 million during this period – an era when a million bucks actually meant something. The money supported an ostentatious lifestyle that received as much ink as his play on the links.

Not that Hagen paid close attention to his account balance. “I never wanted to be a millionaire,” he maintained. “I just wanted to live like one.”

Which he did. The high-living Hagen always went first cabin, be it food, clothes, or transportation. He had his silk shirts mailed to him from Japan and his shoes from England, and until the end of his days he traded his Cadillac in every year or so. Money may have burned a hole in his pocket, but to the earthy and gregarious Hagen, the best things in life – stories, sunshine, laughter – were free. He gave his old clubs to policemen and could always be counted on to hit a bucket of balls for some charitable cause. In 1926 he beat the immortal Bobby Jones in a 72-hole match that earned him the biggest purse by a golf pro up to that time – $6,800. The Haig used $1,000 of his winnings to buy Jones a watch.

“You have to stop and smell the roses along the way,” said Hagen, who intuitively understood that a person’s true wealth is measured by the number and quality of his friends.

Although Hagen has always been closely identified with Michigan, the golfing legend actually was born in Rochester, New York, in 1892. He was one of five children of a blacksmith. He and a sister learned to play the game in a pasture while they tended the family’s cows. When Hagen was 8 years old, he got a job as a caddie at the Country Club of Rochester. He eventually moved up to clubmaker and pro.

In 1913, Hagen entered his first big tournament, the National Open at Brookline. Only 20, he was already a notorious clotheshorse. Sporting a bandana handkerchief and a silk shirt of “clamorous design,” Hagen “created a sensation that bordered on a riot.”

Hagen won the U.S. Open at Chicago in 1914, the first in a long series of victories made all the more remarkable by his unorthodox swing and comparatively lax training habits. “Eighteen holes a day is enough for anyone to play,” said Hagen, who after coming to Detroit often practiced mornings so he could hurry down to Navin Field to watch Ty Cobb and the Tigers in action. An enthusiastic ballplayer as a youth, Hagen often confided as he got older that, if he’d had his druthers, he’d be a big-league second sacker like Charlie Gehringer. He had to settle for being the world’s greatest golfer.

Hagen moved to Michigan in 1918 when he was 26, just as his career was taking off. He arrived in his customarily flamboyant style, screeching his high-powered Lozier to a halt outside the tony Detroit Athletic Club, leaping over the side, and exchanging a friendly greeting with the startled doorman before meeting with a group of leading sportsmen who were trying to entice him to leave upstate New York. After a bit of wrangling, Hagen agreed to come to Oakland Hills, where a refurbished henhouse on the old Miller Farm served as his first pro shop.

As a club professional, marveled sportswriter Eddie Batchelor, Hagen proved a great tournament player: “They say his idea of giving a lesson was to take his pupil out on the course with a bag of several dozen balls and illustrate the manner in which some shot in which Walter felt himself in need of practice should be played. He kept on illustrating right down to the end of the quota of balls and then perhaps would let the student try a shot. The pupil invariably did it wrong, so Walter would have to shoot off another few dozen to help him. At the end of the lesson the pupil had had an eyeful of golf but was not in a profuse perspiration.”

Hagen, who won the U. S. Open in 1919, surrendered his job at Oakland Hills a year later to concentrate on exhibitions. It was all to the better, a sportswriter later observed, as “one club was too small to hold the swashbuckling Hagen.”

Stories about Hagen abound, including several that have him appearing at the first tee wearing a tuxedo or frantically changing into his golf shoes on the course. The Haig loved the good life, all right, but his shenanigans had a certain style. “He was really a gentleman,” Warren Orlick, for years the pro at Tam O’Shanter Country Club in Orchard Lake, once recalled. “A ladies’ man, but a man with class, poise. Everybody liked him.”

Especially the British. In his first attempt at the British Open in 1920, Hagen inspired ripples of laughter in the gallery whenever his name and score were posted. It seems he had signed in as W. C. Hagen. To his chagrin, he discovered “W. C.” was common Brit slang for water closet – a toilet, in other words.

That’s just about where Hagen’s game was that match, as he finished 53rd in the field, a distant 28 strokes behind the winner, George Duncan. “But if Walter didn’t show much golf in that event, he showed a spirit that won him more admiration than any number of birdies would have done,” observed Eddie Batchelor. “He stuck to the bitter end, holing every putt and turning in his score as faithfully as a fifth flighter in a Rotary Club tournament. The last day, with most of the population of the British Isles around the big scoreboard, the American Open champion walked right up and had the boy post a total that resembled the national debt. Some other good men played in just as bad luck as Hagen in that tournament but they tore up their cards rather than let the world know the worst.”

Hagen returned to win the British Open by a single stroke in 1922, then repeated in 1924, 1928, and 1929. His winning play was characterized by steady nerves, patience, and a good head. Combined with his gregarious personality, this made Hagen – who captained seven Ryder Cup teams – the perfect ambassador of golf.

More than any other golfer, The Haig was responsible for breaking down the artificial barriers that traditionally separated amateurs and professionals. When he competed at the British Open in 1920, he, like all pros, was barred from the clubhouse at Deal. Nearly a half-century later, he became the first American pro to be made an honorary member of Scotland’s Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.

Hagen dominated his sport through the 1902s and 1930s. His name was mentioned in the same breath as those other heroes of the Golden Age of Sport: Ruth, Grange, Tilden, Dempsey. But in 1939, advancing age and a heart condition convinced him to give up tournament play. “What the hell,” he said. “I’ve won my share of titles and I’m only cluttering things up.”

Hagen had helped raise $125,000 for the Red Cross during World War I, so when his son enlisted following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the 49-year-old legend wobbled onto the lawn at the 1942 National PGA Championship in Atlantic City. “I’d like to show him that his old man is doing his bit again,” he explained. Going against young pros like Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan at his age proved a daunting task, he admitted. “How could I expect to win against a field like that? But I’ll be in the thick of the fun. I’m not too old for that.”

In 1954, Hagen bought a secluded 20-acre estate overlooking East Long Lake, a few miles southwest of Traverse City. He was given many honors. At a 1967 testimonial dinner, Arnold Palmer arrived via his personal jet to pay homage. “This meeting could be held in the pro shop if it weren’t for all he did to build this game,” Palmer said with genuine affection. He turned to face the guest of honor. “Dammit,” Palmer said, “thanks for everything you’ve done. You’ve been just what we all want to be.”

Hagen tried to speak, but his voice had been stilled by an operation to remove a cancerous larynx. Two years later he was dead. He was 76.

Hagen was buried at Detroit’s Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. The cool sunshine, quiet air, and clipped grass can stir up thoughts of distant greens, of what it must have been like to win at Sandwich in 1922, perhaps, or any of the other many titles Sir Walter won during his reign.

Not that winning was everything to Walter Hagen.

“But what are titles?” he once reflected. “It’s the game that counts and the fun you get out of it. And I got my share of the fun in all parts of the world.”

Jimmy Howard will be a key to the Wings’ second round matchup with the Chicago Blackhawks.

A is for adversity. That’s symbolized the Wings’ 2013 season. It’s come in all forms, and no team in the NHL playoffs faced more challenges than the Wings in recent weeks. They reeled off four wins in four games to make the playoffs. Third-period meltdowns in Game 2 and Game 6 were answered with overtime winners. They trailed in Game 4 late in the third period, then won in overtime.
And Game 7 was perhaps their best team-wide performance of the season.

B is for boo. Chicago’s Marian Hossa will likely be booed each time he touches the puck inside Joe Louis Arena. He’s despised by Wings fans for his performance in the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals, when he crumbled under immense pressure against Pittsburgh, his former team. Hossa had zero goals in the series, then signed with Chicago as an unrestricted free agent.

C is for cab driver. Someone needs to stand alongside the Chicago bench and remind Patrick Kane about his 2008 off-ice incident in his native Buffalo, when he punched a cab driver over 20 cents. Seriously, Wings fans: Bring a gigantic sign, chant “cab-bie” and get in his head.

D is for dangerous, dangling Datsyuk. His goal with 6:33 remaining in the third period to tie Game 4 is a snipe that will be remembered if the Wings get past Chicago. His goal in Game 6 was vintage Datsyuk: A few slippery moves through traffic – he fooled Ryan Getzlaf – and a backhander past Jonas Hiller. Datsyuk finished the series with seven points. He’s seventh on the all-time Wings list with 101 career postseason points, just three shy of Alex Delvecchio.

E is for emergence. How about Justin Abdelkader? He is playing like a bona fide, second-line forward: Two goals in five games and a team-high plus-4. How about Gustav Nyquist? He’s a spark every time he touches the puck. Both of his points last series factored into overtime-winning goals.

F is for fabulous flashback. Remember that special moment in the 1995 Campbell Conference Finals? Slava Kozlov flew down the right wing, slammed on the breaks and buried a shot through the five-hole of Chicago’s Ed Belfour, sending Joe Louis Arena into an uproar, and the Wings to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1966. Later, Kozlov admitted he misfired. He was aiming upstairs, but his shot stayed along the ice to end the series at the 2:25 mark of double overtime in Game 5. Oh, by the way: The ‘Hawks defenseman Kozlov evaded on the play was Chris Chelios.

G is for genius. Mike Babcock was downright brilliant in Game 7 with his matchups that befuddled Anaheim coach Bruce Boudreau. “Babs” placed struggling Valtteri Filppula with Henrik Zetterberg, which paid immediate dividends with a goal 1:49 into the contest. Splitting up Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk threw a curveball at Boudreau. Prior to Game 7, Boudreau said this to the Detroit Free Press: “I know at the end of each of these games, I’m pretty whipped. You’re trying to match wits with Mike (Babcock), who has been in every pressure situation in the world, it’s not the easiest thing.”

H is for history. This is the 16th playoff meeting between the Original Six rivals. Chicago has won eight series to the Wings’ seven, so it would be nice to close the Western Conference time period with an even score.

I is for intrigue. The last three times the Wings and Hawks met in the postseason, the winner fell short in the Stanley Cup Finals. (Hawks in 1992; Wings in 1995 and 2009.) The 1995 Wings-Hawks meeting featured three overtime games. The 2009 Wings-Hawks meeting featured three overtime games. After the 2013 Wings played Anaheim in four overtime games and had three regular-season shootouts with Chicago, expect more overtime in this series.

J is for “JIM-MY, JIM-MY!” Howard shined in the opening round with three overtime wins and a steely resolve in Game 7. At times during the regular season, he over-committed on angles and gave up costly rebounds, but none of that was on display. In his fourth postseason, Howard is emerging.

K is for Kronwalled! Niklas Kronwall’s leveling of Kyle Palmieri in Game 4 drew chants of “You got Kron-walled” by Wings fans inside Joe Louis Arena. Classic. Bobby Ryan got a small dose of Kronwall in Game 7. One of the best-ever “Kronwalled” moments occurred against Chicago. It was the 2009 Western Conference Finals. Martin Havlat made the mistake of looking for a puck in his skates, and pure devastation occurred. Who’s next?

L is for layoff. It’s been six days since the ‘Hawks played a game. Will that be a factor, or completely irrelevant tonight?

M is for meltdown. After Game 4 of the 2009 Conference Finals, Chicago coach Joel Quenneville unloaded on the officials in the postgame press conference.

“I think we witnessed the worst call in the history of sports today,” Quenneville said. “They ruined a good hockey game, and they absolutely destroyed what was going on.

“They ruined the whole game.”

The “call” was levied to Chicago’s Matt Walker, who was penalized for roughing at the end of the first period, with the Wings leading 2-0. Detroit scored on the ensuing power play to jump ahead 3-0. However, there was still 38-plus minutes left in the game, plenty of time for a comeback. The Wings won the game, 6-1. One bad call does not “destroy” a game, Quenneville.

N is for never. Quenneville has never defeated the Red Wings in a playoff series. He’s 0-for-5.

O is for omen. Here’s what happened the last two times the Wings faced the Hawks in the postseason: The Wings won in five games, advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals. Oh, and it gets better. Each time Quenneville lost to the Wings, they went on to the Stanley Cup Finals. Four of those years, the Wings won the Cup. In 1997, ’98 and 2002, Quenneville coached the St. Louis Blues. In 2008, he coached the Colorado Avalanche. In 2009, he was in Chicago.

P is for punchless. Chicago’s power play was 2-for-13 against Minnesota in the opening round.

Q is for quirky stat. Valtteri Filppula now has six points in five career Game 7′s. Not bad for a guy who is criticized for being unproductive.

R is for redeemed. Damien Brunner committed a gigantic gaffe in Game 3 – then scored the OT winner in Game 4; Justin Abdelkader took a careless charging penalty in Game 3 that earned a two-game suspension – then came back with an assist in Game 6 and shorthanded goal in Game 7; Valtteri Filppula made an epic turnover in Game 6, then produced a goal and assist in Game 7.

S is for scoreless. Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane did not have a goal in Chicago’s first round. Don’t expect the Wings to limit Toews and Kane to zero goals. The Wings did shut down Corey Perry and held him scoreless last round in seven games, but Kane and Toews have a better supporting cast.

T is turbulence. There were some turbulent moments last series with the Wings, who proved a lead is never safe. In Game 2, a three-goal lead was coughed away during a 9-minute, 48-second span. A two-goal lead in Game 6 was blown in 51 seconds. With the high-powered Blackhawks entering the picture, there will not be many calm moments.

U is for unsung hero. Kronwall played flawlessly in Game 7 at Anaheim. He logged a game-high 28:08 of ice time and pinned the puck against the boards in the final seconds to run out the clock. He took a step forward with his leadership on the blue line amid the departure of Nicklas Lidstrom.

V is vengeance. After all those years of seeing a lower-seeded team upset the higher-seeded Wings, it was nice to turn the tables. Take that, second-seeded Ducks fans! That’s payback for 2007. Hopefully it’s time to upset the No. 1 seeded Blackhawks.

W is for whipped. The Blackhawks whipped the Wings 7-1 on March 31 inside The Joe. Jimmy Howard was pulled. Jakub Kindl fired a puck into his own net. Jonathan Ericsson was a minus-5, Niklas Kronwall a minus-4. Let’s hope it’s flushed out of the Wings’ system, eh?

X is for x-factor. Chicago goalie Corey Crawford, who is 11-2-2 in his career against Detroit with a 1.82 goals-against average.
Crawford hurt the Blackhawks in their six-game, first-round exit last postseason to Phoenix: He had an .893 save percentage and lost three overtime games. In the opening round against Minnesota, he was very good: He had a .950 save percentage and NHL-leading 1.32 GAA. The Wild, however, were the lowest scoring team to make the Western Conference playoffs. Which Crawford will we see? The one who killed Chicago last year, or the backstopper of last series?

Y is for youth. Jakub Kindl, Brendan Smith, Gustav Nyquist, Joakim Andersson and Damien Brunner are all rookies with a valuable Game 7 experience under their belt. That will pay dividends down the road in future postseasons. Or maybe immediately.
The Wings’ third line of Nyquist, Brunner and Andersson finished the Anaheim series with eight points during even-strength time. If they can continue their success against Chicago, the Wings’ chances of advancing increase.

Z is for Zetterberg. Save the best for last. The gentleman whom we dubbed “PreZident Hank” continues to rise in clutch situations. He’s at his best when needed most. He produced 10 points in four wins to close the regular season and push the Wings into the playoffs.
He had eight points in the first-round series, again rising in the clutch when needed most. Seven points in the final three games of the series? An OT winner in Game 6? The first goal 1:49 into the contest of Game 7? Clutch. Clutch. Clutch. Zetterberg has 51 playoff goals since the lockout in 2005. That’s the most in the NHL.

Having proven he knew what it took to win, Sparky Anderson brought eternal optimism and credibility with him when he came to Detroit in 1979.

When a new leader takes the reins of a team, there are heightened expectations. When that leader comes with a winning pedigree, expectations can be sky high. Fans, media, and even the front office can be unreasonable with their optimism.

But when Sparky Anderson marched into Detroit early in the 1979 season to take the helm of the Tigers, he brought his own optimism with him, and no one really knew what to make of it.

No other manager in baseball could have brought a brighter star to Motown in ’79 than Sparky. In eight years as manager of the Cincinnati Reds, Anderson finished first five times, won four pennants, and captured the World Series title twice. In Ciny, he’d managed an All-Star lineup, defeated Hall of Fame managers, and done it while commanding the media with a charm few have ever possessed in baseball history.

But his optimism was legendary. Some took it as bragging, others as empty promises designed to thrust Sparky into the limelight. Tommy Lasorda, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and a rival of Sparky in the National League, famously scoffed at Anderson’s boastful commentary. But though Sparky often said amazing things, he was also right a lot of the time. In 1970, when he was handed the Cincinnati job and local newspapers printed the headline “SPARKY WHO?”, Anderson told befuddled reporters that his team would win the pennant. They thought the prematurely grey-haired manager was insane. That season, the Reds went out and won 70 of their first 100 games (the first team in baseball history to do so), and won the pennant. Everyone knew who Sparky was after that.

Fast forward nine years later to Detroit and Sparky was amusing a new set of reporters in his office at Tiger Stadium. This time he had street cred, but he still left many of them chuckling with his optimistic flare.

“I didn’t go to school just to eat my lunch. I know what talent there is here,” Sparky proclaimed. ”[Taking this job] is probably the smartest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It really is.”

But though the Detroit roster in ’79 was sprinkled with names like Trammell, Whitaker, Morris, Parrish, and Gibson, it was still very unclear how good those young players would become.

Anderson was always pegged with the label of a push-button, media-savvy manager, a guy who didn’t necessarily understand young players, nor have the patience for their mistakes. But in Detroit, Sparky knew that a solid core of players were in place to build a decent team. He also knew that young players lacked a critical element that was crucial for success: confidence. By the force of his championship pedigree and his unflinching optimism, Sparky Anderson made the young Tigers realize they could be winners in the major leagues. He knew he needed players who believed in themselves in order to win.

“I’m not a messiah. I’m not going to walk on water,” Sparky told The Sporting News in late June. “I’m not going to win anything in Detroit. A manager never wins the pennant. The only thing I’m going to win is what these guys win for me.”

To get his team to believe, Sparky set high expectations. He demanded that his players be professional and work hard. He bragged about their ability so much that pretty soon they started to believe in themselves. Kirk Gibson was “the next Mickey Mantle”; the young double play combo of Sweet Lou and Tram was “going to make people forget all the others”; and he called Lance Parrish “the most improved player I have ever coached.”

Within a relatively short time, Sparky’s team (reshaped after he cleaned out the pretenders from his clubhouse) was improving. In ’81, behind a dazzling second-half performance by Gibson and the ace pitching of Morris, the Tigs battled to the final day of the season before losing a chance to make the playoffs. It was disappointing for Sparky, but he held firm to his long range plan.

“If I can’t make this club a winner in five years, then I’ll walk away and say I failed,” he told Detroit reporters in 1979.

In ’84, right on schedule, Sparky’s team, like a fine-tuned machine calibrated for optimal performance, soared to a 35-5 record, won 69 of their first 100 games (just one win shy of the record Sparky’s Big Red Machine set in ’70), and in October rolled to the World Series championship.

It never would have happened if there hadn’t been someone there who set the bar high and had big dreams. Sparky never met a challenge he didn’t want to take on, and he always believed in Detroit and the Tigers.

Angels’ manager Mike Scioscia can’t be blamed for thinking the umpires have lost their minds.

What do you call it when the Closer Nobody Wanted returns from exile throwing only fastballs and pays no attention to a man representing the tying run on first base?

You call it some real B.S.— a blown save caused by a case of vast indifference to a baseball fundamental.

If you’re the Tigers, it’s par for the course for the usual Papa Grande crisis. This time around, it comes with a new sort of bi-colored goatee, but otherwise it’s very familiar.

A crisis can be an opportunity, though — if you’re an innovator.

There’s nothing in the rule book that says how long a starter or a reliever can pitch. You could switch all the short men to the front of the game, giving the opposing manager a real headache, and finish with your horse hurling the last six or seven innings. It’s not against the rules.

What fun it would be to have, say, Drew Smyly and Al Alburquerque warming up before every game — and keep the opposing manager guessing until you bring out the lineup card. Have Max Scherzer or Anibal Sanchez ready to enter the game in the third or fourth inning. It would defy all tradition, and even Joe Torre and Bud Selig couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

I return from this temporary fantasy interruption to opine that baseball today could really use the likes of a Tony LaRussa — a working brain not afraid to take bold risks. In bygone days, Tony L. found a way to exploit the rules by bringing in a reliever, having him pitch to a batter, putting him in left field, bringing in another pitcher in place of the replaced outfielder, and thus having two pistols in his pocket ready to fire at will.

Instead, these days we get treated to the obviously addled brain of Astros manager Bo Porter, who last week proved even more ill-suited for the majors than half the Triple-A refugees on his team. In fact, his managerial move would have been laughed out of the minors, college, high school, and even Little League.

At all levels of ball from time immemorial, as any fan who’s been paying even cursory attention knows, a relief pitcher has to pitch to at least one batter before he can be removed. Was Porter really so ignorant that he didn’t know the rule, or was he trying rather futilely to pull a dumb fast one on the umpiring crew?

Of course, you could never get away with such blatant defiance of a universally known rule – just like a basketball coach couldn’t tell a bench player to run out on the court unannounced and receive a pass as play was in progress to make a bucket. Just like a World Cup coach couldn’t get away with a fourth substitution. Just like you can’t suddenly switch your token for a new one and place it on a square of your choice on a Monopoly board.

But in the alternative universe of 2013 MLB, the umps huddled, and then the crew chief, Fieldin Culbreth (yes, really), ruled Porter could take his pitcher out without him having thrown a pitch. Which was a development more surprising than seeing Jose Valverde throw to first base to hold a runner on.

It also raised several questions: Why didn’t someone haul out a rule book, or fire up Google on a smart phone? What was Fieldin thinkin? Why didn’t these umps get shipped to the low minors, along with Porter, on the next train leaving for La-La Land? That’s obviously where they belong.

And what’s next? Will Jim Leyland tell Prince Fielder to run over the pitcher on his way to first base? Will Culbreth’s crew allow the visiting team to swap places and force the home squad to bat in the top of the ninth?

Baseball has always had written rules, unwritten rules, and innovators who devise ways to get around the rules.

The essentials of the game haven’t changed substantially in six generations. But there have always been tweaks — rules put in to thwart the more creative practitioners of the game.

Like Detroit’s Germany Schaefer, who a century ago liked to rattle the pitcher by stealing second base and then on the next pitch stealing first base. His tactic was more a clown act than a coherent strategy, but the lords of baseball did not look kindly on it and devised a rule that banned running the bases in reverse to prevent Schaefer from making a “travesty” of the game.

Someone forgot to tell Porter and Culbreth about that “travesty” prohibition. But then, quite obviously, they know the rule book about as well as Papa Grande knows how to prevent a runner from stealing second. Which is to say, not in the least.

Some fans expect Justin Verlander to win every start and throw a no-hitter almost every time he takes the mound.

This is not an article about sabermeterics. This sentence is the only time I will mention the term WAR, and I am not going to attempt to convince you to embrace the statistical side of baseball and abandon the nuance and beauty of the game.

Really, I’m not.

But I am going to address a trend that I’ve been noticing, a trend that troubles me if only because it gnaws at that part of my brain that doesn’t understand how silly people can be.

I’ll start with a story. On Saturday I watched as Justin Verlander toed the rubber to face the Cleveland Indians. I was watching on a TV in a restaurant, surrounded by people I’d never met before. As most of you know, JV struggled – he couldn’t command his fastball, he walked runners into scoring position, and he floated heaters up in the strike zone, which the Indians’ batters gladly smacked to the gaps to score runs. It was an atypical performance by Verlander. It was a strange sight for Tigers’ fans, who rarely see their ace struggle like that.

But as I watched the game I was less amazed by JV’s struggles than I was with the soundtrack that filled the air. My ears kept gathering comments from the people near me:

What is his problem? He sucks.

Every game he has a crappy inning.

He always struggles in the first inning.

He signed that big contract and he hasn’t pitched well since.

I didn’t shake my head frantically from side to side, but I wanted to. I wanted to stand on my table and point out how ridiculous these people were. But, my better nature (aided perhaps by my medication) prevailed. I sat in silence and watched.

The Tigers ended up losing the game, but JV adjusted and went five innings while allowing three earned runs. Not one of his best outings, but a performance that many pitchers in baseball would accept. The fact is, we expect a lot from Verlander. And that’s fine. But there’s justified criticism and then there’s balderdash.

After the game on Saturday I received a tweet that read: “A 4-3 record with the money he’s making, I expect more than that.”

That was the tipping point. I couldn’t let that go. Criticize players for lack of effort, criticize them for poor performance, criticize them for lack of preparation, but there’s no excuse for criticizing a player for something he has no control over.

“Wins” are how we measure the success of our teams, and correctly so. But wins are not how we should measure the success or effectiveness of a pitcher.

For years, in fact for much of baseball history, wins were the measuring stick for pitchers. A 20-game winner was a good pitcher, maybe a great pitcher. A few pitchers have won 30 games in a season (Denny McLain in 1968 for the Tigers is the last to do so). And a 300-game winner is a mortal lock Hall of Famer. But wins are a poor way to gauge the contribution of a pitcher, they always have been, and no more so than they are right now. At no time in baseball history has the “W” meant less in regards to a pitcher.

100 years ago, when Walter Johnson and Pete Alexander and Smoky Joe Wood were the Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, and Felix Hernandez of baseball, evaluating pitchers based on wins made a lot more sense. Starting pitchers in those days almost always pitched the entire game. Naturally, they usually got a decision (either a win or a loss). But, even so, wins were very much dependent on the teams they pitched for. The better team a pitcher was on, the better his won/loss record was. Johnson, for example, once went 13-25 for the Washington Senators even though he was one of the best pitchers in baseball. In 1918, when he was the same age as Verlander is now, Johnson lost 13 games even though he led the American League with a glimmering 1.27 ERA. That means he was giving up less than a run-and-a-half per game, yet Johnson still came out with an “L” 13 times. In all, “Big Train” lost 279 games even though he allowed less than 2.2 runs per nine innings for his entire career.

But in today’s game, starting pitchers are expected to get 5-6 innings in before the manager hands the game over to a string of relievers. Like it or not, that’s the reality of the modern game. It’s a trend that has been developing since the 1960s. Gradually, the complete game has become more rare, until now it’s cause for headlines when a starting pitcher gets into the 8th inning! Verlander once went 63 straight starts of 6 innings or more. That’s the third longest in baseball history. File that away for the next time you hear someone question his ability.

This year, JV has a 1.93 ERA (even after his struggle last Saturday), a figure that rates fourth in the league. In his eight starts, Verlander’s earned runs have been: 0, 3, 1, 2, 1, 1, 0, and 3. He has went at least seven innings in five of his starts. His record sits at 4-3, not because he’s pitched poorly, but because of circumstances beyond his control. JV’s record is 4-3 because his teammates haven’t scored that many runs for him and they’ve made a few misplays in the field. Last time I checked, Justin Verlander doesn’t have anything to do with how well his teammates happen to play when he’s on the mound. Fact is, he actually reduces the number of chances they have to commit an error because he strikes out a lot of batters, and he also keeps the other team off the scoreboard, which means his offense doesn’t have to score as often as they would when say, Rick Porcello is on the bump.

Want another example of why W/L records are a terrible way to measure a pitcher? The Baltimore Orioles have a fella named Jason Hammel, who’s a nice little pitcher, but light years from Verlander in terms of talent. So far in 2013, Hammel’s record is 5-1. He must be having a much better year than Verlander, right? Not even close. Hammel’s ERA is just under five and he’s allowed more hits than innings pitched. Verlander is so stingy at giving up hits that ESPN puts extra staff on duty every time he starts because there’s a chance he’s going to throw (another) no-hitter.

The fat contract that Verlander signed in spring training has not made him lazy. He hasn’t lost anything on his fastball or any of his other pitches. He doesn’t suck. He’s the best pitcher on the planet. That’s pretty obvious. I don’t think I have to go through the last 2+ years to show why Verlander is the best in the business. He is.

When I responded to the tweet I mention earlier in this article by pointing out that Verlander has allowed less than 2 runs per game, the response was, “You must be one of those sabermetric snobs.”

I most certainly am not. Anyone who takes a glance at the stuff I write here would see that stats and sabermetrics are not something I spend a lot of time on. But, I do have a brain, and I can see things with my own two eyes.

In the modern game, we should be reasonable enough to see that a pitcher’s win/loss record is very team dependent and a poor way to rate pitchers. Ignoring that is like being one of the folks who denied that the Earth was round for centuries. You don’t have to be a scientist to see the curvature of the horizon.

Drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1952, Pat Summerall was injured in his second NFL game. He later enjoyed success with the New York Giants.

The recent death of longtime broadcaster Pat Summerall, closely followed by the usual hoopla surrounding this year’s NFL draft, calls to mind the often overlooked fact that Summerall was drafted by Detroit and spent his first of many NFL seasons as a teammate of Bobby Layne, Doak Walker, and other legendary Lions.

Detroit coach Buddy Parker had a new aide for the 1952 season: Russ Thomas, a former Lions tackle whose playing career had been halted by a knee injury in 1949. Thomas’s duties included scouting collegiate talent and assisting general manager Nick Kerbawy in signing some of the team’s draft choices. This was valuable early training for Thomas, who would develop a reputation as a tough and tight-fisted negotiator during his long career in the front office.

Arkansas end and placekicker Pat Summerall was Detroit’s fourth-round pick in the 1952 draft. The future broadcaster discovered that, when it came to haggling, Thomas already had a few trick plays in his playbook. Before Thomas left for Fayetteville to talk money with Summerall, he implied that the collegian had already made the team and was in line for a healthy contract. “After I heard that,” Summerall remembered, “there were several nights of hard partying at our favorite bar, Hog’s Heaven, and I put round after round on my tab.”

However, when the two met at Hog’s Heaven, Summerall was disappointed to find out that the Lions were only willing to offer him a $5,000 contract with no signing bonus. Thomas explained that all players on the club made the same $5,000 salary – a sacrifice for the sake of team unity. Furthermore, Thomas said, the Lions didn’t give signing bonuses because that would mean raising the salaries of everybody else.

Summerall was incredulous. “I couldn’t believe that big-name Lions such as Doak Walker, Bobby Layne, and Leon Hart would have the same salary as a rookie who hadn’t played a down yet. Things didn’t seem to add up to me, and I let Thomas know it. After a lot of back and forth, he backed down and agreed to increase his offer to $6,000 a year with a $500 signing bonus. When he finally caved, I remember thinking, ‘At least it’ll pay off my bar tab.’”

Summerall made the final 33-man roster in 1952. Two other rookies of note were defensive backs Yale Lary and Jimmy David, both of whom played their entire careers with Detroit. However, Summerall broke his arm during a kick return in the second game of the season, at Los Angeles, and missed the rest of the season. He was a spectator as Layne & Co. went on to win the NFL title. The following year Summerall was dealt to the lowly Chicago Cardinals. In 1958 he joined the New York Giants, excelling as a placekicker and playing in three championship games before retiring after the 1961 season. The following year he launched his long and distinguished broadcast career at CBS.

In retrospect, it was probably just as well that Summerall didn’t stick around with those hard-drinking Lions of legend. He might not have made it out of the ‘50s. As it was, Summerall’s alcoholism caused him to undergo a liver transplant late in life; he was clean and sober several years when he died.

Bill Laimbeer does what he has to do to box out Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics.

Many of us spend our lives trying to escape the physical realities of our bodies. Too short, too skinny, too tall, too fat – you name it. It’s a shame that it’s true, but it is.

Bill Laimbeer became a rebounding champion, an All-Star center, and an NBA champion because he embraced his body.

Too wide, too slow, too frumpy, too constrained by gravity.

In spite of these limitations, Laimbeer became one of the most talked about, loved (and loathed) players in the NBA in a 14-year career spent almost entirely with the Detroit Pistons.

“I am big and slow and white, and I had to do things other than drive to the basket and get my shot rejected,” Laimbeer said in the mid-1980s when he was finally getting respect.

As a rich kid growing up in southern California with big feet and a nose that seemed to be turned up both literally and figuratively, Laimbeer didn’t have to work too hard at anything growing up, and he didn’t really seem to care. He flunked out of Notre Dame, was exiled to a community college, went back to the Golden Dome, and played for the Fighting Irish where he did enough (and grew to 6 feet, 11 inches tall) to earn a selection in the 3rd round of the 1979 NBA Draft. But just like in college, Laimbeer was still not quite ready to leap to the next step (leaping is something Laimbeer never really mastered). He spent a year playing hoops in Italy before making the Cavs’ roster for the 1980-81 season. Two seasons later, Detroit GM Jack McCloskey snatched him from Cleveland in one of his shrewd moves unknown Bill Laimbeer was on his way to becoming Bad Bill, an All-Star center.

What did McCloskey see in Laimbeer that caused him to surrender three players to acquire perhaps the slowest and lowest-jumping center in the NBA? “Trader Jack” liked Laimbeer’s wide body and his guts.

“Billy had something that separated him from other players at his skill level,” McCloskey said later. “He had a look in his eye [that] I loved.”

Laimbeer quickly blossomed in Motown, becoming the main tent pole in the middle of the Pistons’ lineup. He was the tall, immovable tree-like object in the lane who sent opposing guards flying with his hips. He was the wide load that set devastating picks for puny Isiah Thomas. Laimbeer was the white guy who got his big body an inch or two off the floor and manhandled his way to rebounds. Of all the things he did on the hardwood, rebounding was what suited Laimbeer’s attitude the best.

“Basically, I’m a rebounder,” Laimbeer told Mike Weber of The Sporting News in 1986. “[A rebounder] has to want the basketball and make sure he gets into good position. You learn where the ball will be coming off the board. You put your body between you and your man. Rebounding is how I make my living.”

It was a good living. Laimbeer led the NBA in rebounding in 1983-84, and again in 1985-86. As he established himself as a star, he also made enemies. Robert Parish, the glowering center for the Boston Celtics, was a famous foil. Laimbeer hip-checked, body-slammed, and elbowed just about every player in the NBA in the 1980s. He also got under the skin of opponents with his tenacious play. He was routinely voted the least popular player in the league by both players and fans.

Shortly after becoming a Piston, Laimbeer accelerated his offensive game. Aware that he lacked the skills and speed to be an inside scorer in the league, he dared NBA centers to leave him unguarded on the perimeter, and if they were silly enough to do so, he launched three-pointers that often found the bottom of the net. Laimbeer’s tippy-toe “jump” shot became an important weapon in the Bad Boys’ arsenal.

By the time the Pistons won their back-to-back titles in the late 1980s, Laimbeer was a Detroit icon. Legions of mom’s and slow white guys counted him as their favorite player. Tall, goofy-looking kids with no inside game were free to imitate Laimbeer and drain long range shots on the playground. He was the anti-Air Jordan and it was cool for a big man to want to bang his body in the paint and then pick-and-roll at the other end of the floor.

Laimbeer retired in 1994, his big, wide body finally wearing down after years of missing very few games. In recent years he’s been a finalist for the Basketball Hall of Fame, and with two rings, another as a coach in the WNBA, a pair of rebounding titles, and more than 13,000 points and 10,000 rebounds to his credit, there’s a very good chance that the rich kid who never looked like a basketball superstar, will one day earn a place in the Hall of Fame.

Bill Freehan lifts Mickey Lolich after the final out of the 1968 World Series.

After the baseball landed in his mitt for the final out of the 1968 World Series, Bill Freehan took a few steps toward the mound and met Mickey Lolich, who gleefully hopped into the catcher’s arms. The photo is an iconic piece of Detroit history. It capsulizes a wonderful moment, and it also forever links the two ballplayers.

Ironically, the pair first started to make their impact as young Tiger players at the same time, 50 years ago this month, in 1963. Five years later they would be integral parts in the magical ’68 season.

Freehan and Lolich traveled different paths to get to the major leagues. Freehan inked his name on a lucrative $125,000 bonus contract in 1961 as a 19-year old college ballplayer. Born in Royal Oak, Freehan moved with his family to Florida as a kid and attended Bishop Barry High School in St. Petersburg, where he was a star in every sport, especially football and baseball. When his hometown Tigers drafted him, his dad helped negotiate the $125,000 bonus, a sum that he invested and didn’t turn over to his son until Freehan officially received his degree in 1966.

Lolich was a promising young teenage pitcher in Oregon, but he wasn’t on the Tigers radar until 1958 when his team advanced to the American Legion World Series, where he frustrated batters with his knee-high fastball. When the Yankees snatched up Al Downing, another fine young pitcher who starred in the American Legion World Series, Lolich was next in line and the Tigers quickly got his name on a $30,000 contract. At that time, Mick was a far cry from the pitcher Tiger fans came to know and love – he was only about 160 pounds, a scrawny left-hander from the Oregon frontier.

Though he was a 14 months younger than Lolich, Freehan got to the majors first – for a cup of coffee (four games) at the end of the ’61 season. The 19-year old was returned to the minors in ’62, but he made the Detroit roster out of spring training in ’63. Freehan worked on his defense and pitch-calling that spring with Rick Ferrell, the Tigers’ general manager, and a former big league catcher who would later be elected to the Hall of Fame.

On May 5, 1963, Freehan hit his first two home runs in the big leagues, in a game against the Orioles in Baltimore. At 6’3 and a chiseled 210 pounds, Freehan stood out immediately in a Tiger uniform, and it wasn’t long before he was forcing manager Bob Scheffing to write his name into the lineup. In one stretch he reached base in nine consecutive plate appearances. Barrel-chested Gus Triandos, a 32-year old veteran of the catching ranks, was in his lone season in Detroit, but after Freehan emerged in May, the old catcher and the young catcher split playing time for the remainder of the season. Battling to earn more starts behind the dish, Freehan was an ultra-competitive sort who was known to be a bit hard on himself.

“Bill’s biggest trouble is that he thinks he should never have a bad day,” one Detroit front office member told The Sporting News in ’63.

A week after Freehan belted his first home runs, Lolich made his major league debut after being summoned from Syracuse. Mickey came in to toss two mop-up innings in a 9-3 loss to the Indians at Tiger Stadium on a windy Sunday afternoon. Lolich struck out the first two batters he faced and allowed just a walk in his two frames of work. A week and a half later he made his first start, going six innings in a loss to the Baltimore Orioles. But one week later, Mick picked up his first major league victory, defeating the Angels 3-1, while tossing a complete game in LA. It was the first of 207 games that Lolich would win for the Bengals.

After that May 50 years ago, Freehan and Lolich were key parts of the Tiger club. In ’64, Freehan made the All-Star team for the first of 10 straight seasons. Lolich won 18 games and struck out 192 batters. He would end up striking out more batters than any other left-hander in the history of the American League, a record he still holds.

Nope, when Freehan and Lolich made their famous embrace at the conclusion of Game Seven of the 1968 World Series, it wasn’t just a happy coincidence, it was a perfect pairing of two Tiger legends who started their careers at the same time, five decades ago this month.

Art Duncan is shown here during his playing career with the Vancouver Millionaires in the early 1920s.

It was in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip that Snoopy famously donned goggles and a white scarf and perched atop his doghouse. In his mind, Snoopy was in the cockpit of a Sopwith Camel fighter plane, soaring through the heavens in World War I, shooting down enemy aircraft for the Allies.

That daydream made for a memorable story line in the funny pages, but Detroit’s first professional hockey coach actually served as a fighter ace in World War I. William James “Artie” Duncan actually piloted a Sopwith Camel, shot down German planes,  and was awarded medals for his heroism in the clouds. This was a decade before he roamed the ice and bench as a player/coach of the Detroit Cougars in the first National Hockey League season for a team wearing Detroit sweaters.

Duncan was born just across the border from Michigan in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario in 1891. By the time he was 18 he was skating circles around men much older than him, and in 1913 he debuted with the Eskimos of Edmonton, starting a long pro career. When Great Britain entered World War I amid the tangled web of alliances in 1914, Duncan, as a Canadian subject of the British Empire, was also at war. In 1916 he entered the Royal Flying Corps, and after training as a fighter pilot, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. Duncan was sent to France in 1917 and in November he recorded his first aerial victory. Several more quickly followed, and within a few months he was promoted to the rank of captain. Heralded for his skill and bravery, Duncan was also a natural leader. In 1918, Duncan was awarded the Military Cross by the British Empire, a result of his 11 combat victories, which included an impressive destruction of a German balloon and the capture of an enemy commander.

His commendation read:

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. On one occasion he attacked and shot down an enemy plane which had been engaged at firing on our infantry. He then led his patrol over the enemy’s lines, dived down to an altitude of 100 feet, and attacked large numbers of hostile infantry with machine gun fire, causing the utmost panic amongst them and inflicting heavy casualties. His continuous gallantry and initiative have been most conspicuous.

A later commendation stated:

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. This officer sighted fifteen enemy scouts attacking eight of ours and immediately joined in, destroying one enemy aeroplane, which fell with a wing off. He then attacked and drove down three other machines, maintaining the fight until the eight had got back to their lines. He has also, with another officer, destroyed an Albatros scout, which he followed down to a height of 200 feet, in spite of heavy machine-gun fire from the ground.

Having been away from the ice for nearly three years, when the war ended late in 1918, Duncan wasted little time getting back to the rink. He signed with Vancouver of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, where he played for seven seasons. A defenseman, Duncan was a tall, muscular fellow. He rattled opponents with the same ease he showed when he guided his single-seat bi-plane through the skies in battle. In 1923-24, Duncan led the league in scoring (21 goals and 10 assists in a 30-game season), making him the first defenseman to lead a pro league in scoring, a feat matched only by Bobby Orr several decades later.

In 1926, when Detroit joined the NHL, Duncan was signed by owner Charles A. Hughes, who desired a leader and veteran to helm his fledgling team. Duncan played and coached the Cougars for 33 games in 1926 and early 1927 but he had little success with an overmatched roster of players. His lackluster record was 10-21-2 before he was fired. Ironically, Duncan never coached the team in Detroit. Because the new franchise had yet to build an arena, they played their home games in Windsor, Ontario.

After being dumped by Detroit, Duncan signed with Toronto, where he played three more full seasons and coached in two of them. He was Toronto’s coach when they wore the famous Maple Leafs’ logo on their white sweaters for the first time. Duncan lived long enough to see the world go back to war again, and to witness both Detroit and Toronto become powers in the NHL. He died in Ontario at the age of 83 in 1975, buried with both his Military Cross and a pair of skates.