At age 40, Gary Sheffield is not the player he was 10 years ago, or even two years ago. Nevertheless, look for him to have a significant impact with his new employers, the New York Mets.
        The Mets’ decision to offer Sheffield a contract, three days after the Tigers cut him loose, was no sympathy move. This isn’t a ploy to give Sheffield a chance to hit his 500th home run or to sell tickets in the Mets’ new ballpark.
        Sheffield lives life with a chip on his shoulder. He always has. There is nothing in baseball that Sheffield enjoys more than proving people wrong about him.
        Now he will have a chance to throw last week’s shocking release back in the Tigers’ faces.
        Remember what happened during the first four months of the 2007 season after the Yankees wrote Sheffield off in New York and traded him to the Tigers for a trio of minor league prospects?
        Determined to show the Yankees they had make a mistake, Sheffield was batting .306 with 23 home runs and 65 RBI for the Tigers when, while making a rare appearance in right field, he collided with Placido Polanco and severely injured his shoulder.
        And the Tigers never saw the same Sheffield again.
        But I saw the fire, the hurt, the anger in Sheffield’s eyes in Lakeland earlier this week, minutes after the Tigers told him to take a hike.   
        Sheffield never liked being the Tigers’ designated hitter. And he never tried to hide that fact.
        Jim Leyland knew Sheffield would never be happy sharing those DH duties in order to give Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen an occasional breather.
        But Leyland didn’t feel comfortable playing Sheffield in the outfield, even sparingly.
        However, Mets’ manager Jerry Manuel, the former Tigers’ infielder who was a coach with the Florida Marlins under Leyland in 1997 when, with Sheffield’s help, the Marlins won the World Series, said Sheffield could be New York’s regular right fielder this summer.
        And, as you may have noticed, two other National League teams, the Phillies and the Reds, were interested in Sheffield, too.
        Sheffield is convinced he can still play the outfield. Obviously, some other people agree -- even if the Tigers don’t.