The $29 million contract that the Tigers so benevolently bestowed on Dontrelle Willis may stand forever as the biggest waste of money of franchise history.
    Given the mountain of money he was making, Dontrelle's days as a Tigers were, in a word, disastrous. Never before has a Tiger done so little for so much.
    The numbers are staggering, and, frankly a bit nauseating.
    Each of Dontrelle Willis' two wins in a Tigers uniform cost the team more than $14 million -- $14,366,167, to be precise.
    Each of of his 22 starts here over the past three seasons, cost the Tigers $1,306,015.
    Each of Willis' 101 innings cost the Tigers $284,479. Each of his 68 strikeouts cost them $422,534. Each of his 92 infuriating walks, $312,308.
    Nevertheless, when  Willis  returned to the Comerica Park mound on Friday night as a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks, nobody booed. Frankly, I was surprised.
    And when Dontrelle, animated as always, stopped by the Tigers' clubhouse before batting practice the next day to say hello to his former teammates, he was greeted warmly.
    If there is any lingering resentment about Willis' -- and a couple of players privately expressed such sentiments to me when Dontrelle was dumped -- they concealed it well.
    The effervescent Willis is a hard guy to hate.
    "It just didn't work," said Jim Leyland, who spoke at length with Willis on the field over the weekend and harbors no hard feelings.
    "As I said when we let him go, I felt bad for him. He did everything under the sun to try to get right. And I hope he will. He went through a lot of stuff here -- and we went through a lot of stuff.
    "He felt bad that didn't do more for us. And we felt bad that, maybe, we didn't do more for him."
    Now Willis is Arizona's worry.