Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Tigers Wrong For Letting Cabrera Play Saturday

I think the Tigers biggest mistake in the matter of Miguel Cabrera was letting him play Saturday night against the White Sox.
Given he had a .26 blood alcohol level that late in the morning, there is no way he was in even remotely proper condition to play that night. Obviously, it was a factor in his performance - or lack of it.
He is 240 pounds. According to the many scales available on the subject, he had consummed the equivilent of 15 12-ounce beers.
It put Cabrera's own safety at risk. Major League pitchers throw 90 mph and harder. How was his reaction time at the plate? As for winning the game, the Tigers could have received better production for someone else.
There is also the message it sent by playing him. Everything about it was wrong.
Not commenting Saturday, playing Cabrera and waiting until Monday when police reports were released, only delayed the inevitable.
The Tigers are getting skewed for the way they have handled this incident.
It is deserved.

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6 Comments:

Blogger Detroit Sports Dork said...

The whole thing is so discouraging. As they relinquished their seven game lead, I defended the team against the tiresome charge that they "didn't want it bad enough" or "didn't try hard enough" as though athletes can just will success. Hmn...I guess I was giving at least one of them way too much credit. He was SO drunk, SO close to game time. He certainly wanted the booze a lot more than he wanted the win.

2:03 PM 
Anonymous Michael C said...

Normally I'm on the side of famous people's personal lives being their own business. I don't enjoy watching sports or watching a movie because the athletes, actors, or directors are good guys, or dislike them because they're bad guys. Its 100% irrelevant to me. (even in good cases like Granderson - I don't watch or care about their personalities or good / bad deeds, I watch to see baseball, hopefully played at a high level)

However in this case I'm very disappointed only because of the timing of it. If this incident happened in the off-season I wouldn't care the tiniest bit. Even early in the season would be excusable, because young millionaire athletes are going to party, and baseball doesn't have near as many off days as other sports.
But going on an all night drinking binge the night before the most crucial games of the season? Its so unprofessional and shows a lack of caring about how the team does that its very disappointing to me.

Hopefully he can right the situation and patch things up with the team and the town, because if we have to trade him we're not going to get his equal. Given his age and talent level there aren't many equals out there, and the few that are aren't going anywhere.

A win today, especially with a good performance from Cabrera, would help a lot.

5:01 PM 
Anonymous Michael C said...

Ok, he just hit a leadoff double and then a HUGE 2 run 2 out homer.

I forgive him. :-)

5:51 PM 
Blogger Pat Caputo said...

Larry Baker,
I couldn't have put it any better. I kept referring to the Tigers ability to gut out wins and overachieve. How can they have overacheived given the deportment of their best player?
Caputo

2:09 PM 
Blogger Pat Caputo said...

Michael C,
Your point is well taken. But to not be 100 percent for an actual performance - there is no excuse for it and does taint the game.
Caputo

2:11 PM 
Blogger Pat Caputo said...

Michael C,
Pretty typical LOL
Caputo

2:11 PM 

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