Lou Piniella’s comments were taped to the door leading from the Tigers’ cramped locker room to their dugout at Minnesota’s Metrodome on Monday -- there for each and every player to see and read on his way out to the field.
        “The White Sox should win that division by half-a-dozen games or more, if you want to know the truth,” the outspoken manager of the Chicago Cubs was quoted as saying over the weekend.
        “They have just about everything that you need. They have power. They have a good defensive team on the field and they have a heckuva bullpen. They have good starters.”
        No one would say who taped Piniella’s pronouncement to the door, but his words obviously ticked some of the Tigers off.
        Jim Leyland’s response?
        “I don’t have time to worry about other teams and other divisions,” the Tigers’ manager said tersely. “I’ve got my hands full with what I’m doing here.”
        Rest assured, if the Tigers should somehow end up in the World Series against the Cubs, come October, Piniella’s words will come back to haunt him.
        Who says ballplayers and managers don’t pay attention to what is written in the newspaper?

        Sports Illustrated it definitely isn’t, but an obscure trade publication called Draft, which claims to offer the “highest quality beer and beer-related content available on the market,” whatever that means,  recently rated Comerica Park the 10th best baseball stadium in the country.
        Which got me thinking about my Five Favorite Cities to visit around the American League:       
        1. Tampa Bay --  Admittedly, this ranking is purely personal. I have a condo in St. Petersburg, 10 minutes from the ballpark. I get to sleep in my own bed, with a much, much shorter commute than the one between Oakland County and Comerica Park. The ballpark reminds me of a mausoleum, but the air conditioning works great. And you can’t beat the Red Mesa for lunch.
        2. Toronto -- Any road trip that I can make by train,  then walk to and from the ballpark once I get there, belongs near the top of my list. I wish the Tigers went to Toronto three times a year. Maybe the Blue Jays could transfer to the A.L. Central and we could ship the Indians to the A.L. East so I would only have to go to Cleveland, my least favorite city in the league, once a year.
        3. Baltimore -- I admit it. I’m biased. I lived there back in the late 1960s. I liked the town then, and both the ballpark and the downtown area have improved dramatically since I worked there. The crab cakes are the best, especially when followed by a visit to the house where Babe Ruth was born or a walk around the harbor area on a warm summer day.
        4. Boston -- Like the historic city that surrounds it, Fenway Park is alive and packed with tradition. Great for sight-seeing by day, and the atmosphere around the ballpark is unmatched anywhere in America at night.  Unlike New York, which is a logistical nightmare, you can actually catch a cab back to your hotel after the game without taking your life in your hands.
        5. Minnesota -- When I was a kid, growing up in northern Wisconsin, I thought Minneapolis was the biggest city on earth. Now I know the exact opposite is true. There is nothing to do downtown and there aren’t many good restaurants to choose from. But the ballpark is close by --  that counts for a lot in my book -- and they serve ice cream in the press box.


 

        At the depth of the Tigers’ early season depression, Jim Leyland was on his way back to the dugout after yet another visit to the mound when he heard a fan yell, “Bring back Trammell!”
        “The same guys who ran Trammell out of town now want to bring him back,” Leyland snorted.
        Two years ago, Tiger fans were nominating Leyland for governor and comparing him to Albert Einstein. During the first two months of this season, some of those same people were calling for his head.
        That’s baseball. That’s the nature of the manager’s job. It goes with the territory. Managers are hired to be fired. And Leyland knows it.
        “There are only two people I answer to: Mr. Ilitch and Dave Dombrowski,” Leyland said the other day.
        “Don’t get me wrong: I like this job. I don’t want to get fired. But if Dave walked in my office tomorrow and said, ‘You’re fired,’ I’d say, ‘Thank you for the opportunity,’ and I’d go home.
        “My dad told me a long time ago, ‘If you come to work every day worried about getting fired from your job, you don’t have a job.’
        “I don’t worry about it,”  Leyland continued. “If I ever feel I’m the problem, they won’t have to fire me. I’ll know it before they do. I wouldn’t want to be somewhere I’m not wanted.
        “Everybody else has got this job figured out, they think it’s easy -- but I know how hard this job is,” Leyland said.
        “Like I told the players, ‘I’m going to come to the ballpark every day and work my tail off but I’m also going to have a life.’ You gotta have a life.
        “I’m going to go to the horse races, I’m going to go to the casino, I’m going to play golf with my coaches once in a while,’ ” Leyland said.
        “I’m not going to live my life in a teacup.
        “I’m going to do the same thing whether we’re winning or losing.
        “I’ve hear people say, ‘’Oh you shouldn’t play golf during the season,’ or, ‘When you lose you should go back to your room and pout.’ That’s bull (bleep).”
        And the Tigers players have fed off that attitude.
        Even when the Tigers hit rock-bottom, there was no finger-pointing in the clubhouse, as there had been during disappointing seasons past. No one was glaring or complaining about anyone else. Nobody was grumbling under their breath.
        “I’m blessed, we’ve got good guys,” Leyland said. “They don’t always play good. And I don’t always manage good. But they’re good guys.
        “I’ve had more scenarios on my desk this year than I have had in the history of my career,” the Tigers’ manager admitted. “I didn’t count on any of this stuff happening. It’s been a real chaotic year up to this point. It seems like it’s been one thing after another.
        “You want to stay healthy all year. You don’t want anybody to get hurt. But that’s not life.
        “But I’m not one of those guys who says, ‘Aw, this is just that kind of year.’ I’m not going to give in to this stuff. And I hope my players don’t.
        “We’ve had to do a lot of things this year that you don’t like to do as a manager,” Leyland continued. “You like to have everything go perfect right from spring training. This year, we’ve had to do a lot of things on the fly _ things that in spring training were the furthest things from anybody’s mind.
        “But you can’t let that bother you. If you do, you’ll drive yourself crazy. I love every game we play, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.
        “This is not life or death _ this is major league baseball, this is fun,” Leyland insisted, even when the Tigers were losing.
        “What’s the worst thing that can happen? I get fired? I’m 63 years old. I’m not going to worry about a job I love.”
        In Detroit, Leyland lives in a Greektown hotel, so close to the ballpark that he sometimes walks to work, shaking hands and waving at well-wishers along the way.
        He is happy. He is content. He is doing what he was born to do.
        He has a couple of cartons of Marlboros stacked up on the counter, and there is a casino next door with a waiting slot machine. What more could a man want?
        Well, since you asked, another trip to the World Series would be nice.

        A number of guys in the Tigers’ bullpen are looking over their shoulders these days. And it’s not because they want to see what is going on in the ballgame.
        With Aquilino Lopez returning from bereavement leave, Fernando Rodney apparently recovered from the tendinitis problems that plagued  him all spring and Joel Zumaya again throwing 98 mph and raring to go after last fall’s shoulder surgery, the face of half of the Tigers’ bullpen could change before the end of the month.
        Denny Bautista, Casey Fossum, Freddy Dolsi, Clay Rapada,  maybe even Zach Miner, who has an option left, are all on bubble.
        With all due respect to the relievers currently here, Jim Leyland is understandably enthused about the pending return of Rodney and Zumaya.    
        “When those guys get here, the atmosphere will be a little different,” the Tigers’ manager predicted.
        “I think the bullpen has actually done a good job,” Leyland said. “But when Zumaya and Rodney walk in here, healthy, they’ll make a big difference.
        “Then there’ll be a little more structure to our bullpen. We’ve had guys hurt. We’ve had guys in and out, up and down. We gave Bautista a shot. We gave (Francisco) Cruceta a little shot. When Zumaya and Rodney get back, we’ll get straightened around. Everybody will be back in place.”
        With Zumaya, Rodney and Todd Jones ready in the bullpen, the Tiger starters will know, if they can make in through the sixth inning with the lead, they’ll stand a good chance of winning the game.
        “When those guys get back, it will shorten the games for us a little,” Leyland said.
        Which, of course, begs the question: Will it be too late?

        For most of spring training, the Tigers’ starting lineup and almost the entire roster appeared to be etched in stone. The most pressing question, it seemed, was whether Miguel Cabrera would hammer more homers and knock in more runs batting third or fifth.
        That certainly seems like a long time ago -- just like those optimistic references to Murderers Row.
        Right now that is the least of Jim Leyland’s worries.
        Six players currently on the team _ Armando Galarraga, Casey Fossum, Michael Hollimon, Jeff Larish, Brent Clevlen, and Freddy Dolsi _ weren’t even blips on the major league radar screen this spring.
        When a team has to rely on players who weren’t good enough to merit serious consideration just a couple months earlier, I think it is always a cause for concern.
        Those guys didn’t make the team this spring for a reason: Because they weren’t as good as the guys who did.
        Needless to say, that is not the way Leyland and the Tigers’ brass envisioned this season unfolding _ even after they lost Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney.
        Since the season began, Cabrera and Guillen have traded positions and Guillen has temporarily been shift to left field. Brandon Inge has gone from the trading block to replacement center fielder to third base to back-up catcher. And injuries to Gary Sheffield have made occasional designated hitters out of the rookie Larish, Cabrera, Guillen, Magglio Ordonez, Marcus Thames and Matt Joyce.
        More than a third of the way through the season, The Best Team Mike Ilitch’s Money Could Buy, many people’s pick to win the American League pennant, remains a perplexing, high-priced work in progress.