Jim Leyland won’t say anything. He can’t. Miguel Cabrera is too important to the Tigers’ offense and to the future of the franchise to risk alienating him right now.
        But how disappointed must the Tigers’ manager be that his star slugger would get so drunk the night before the team’s biggest game of the season that the police had to be called?
        How disappointed must Cabrera’s teammates, who are fighting for their postseason lives, be?
        Don’t even try to tell me there was no correlation between the .26 Cabrera blew on his breath test early Saturday morning and his 0-for-7 performance in the next two games -- two games in which the Tigers needed Miguel’s big bat more than ever.
        No wonder he couldn’t hit. Can you imagine what Cabrera’s head must have felt like after he reportedly stayed out all night drinking, got into an altercation with his wife, and ended up at the police station waiting for his employer to come pick him up?
        This little scandal could haunt Cabrera for a long time.
        Cabrera has belted 33 homers and knocked in 101 runs this season while batting .323. Those are Hank Greenberg-type numbers.
        The Tigers need him in the lineup. But more than that they need him alert and focused and hitting.
        The Tigers invested a fortune in Cabrera -- $152.3 million to be exact -- to lock him into a Detroit uniform through 2015.
        They cannot afford another shameful incident like this.
        Cabrera is certainly not the first big league ballplayer to drink too much. And he won’t be the last.
        Remember Norm Cash? Remember Bobby Layne? How about Mickey Mantle?
        Boys will be boys.
        But when a player’s over-indulgence and bad behavior away from the ballpark impact his  performance on the field, when it hurts his team, it is no longer a laughing matter.