My 25 Favorite Detroit Tigers- Ivan Rodriguez

I have been a fan of the Detroit Tigers since the Summer of 1984. I am lucky enough to vividly remember my baseball team winning a World Series title. Since every year the team itself asks me who my Tiger is I decided to write about my favorite 25 Tigers since I became a fan...at eight years old...This has less to do with performance as it does with whatever intangible qualities Tigers' players have...I mean this is the town that loved Brandon Inge and Don Kelly...and no neither one of those players will make my list...With all of that being said...

#11 Catcher Ivan Rodriguez

Pudge should probably be higher on this list however I can never forgive him for running Manager Alan Trammell out of town. For me that is the fork in the road of current Tigers history. Had Trammell stayed and been allowed to cultivate the talent the Tigers already had...something he and his coaching staff have been thanked for by many of the young players of the time...the team might look very different today. However we cannot rewrite history...and the Tigers coming out of the 2003 season needed to make a big move...something to inspire the fans...a big swing was needed.

That move ended up being Ivan Rodriguez fresh off a World Series title run with Jim Leyland and the Florida Marlins. Dave Dombrowksi needed to prove that he could attract big name free agents to Detroit...he need to engage the Tigers fan base...and very likely felt the pressure to find some kind of success. 2003 was a disastrous season for the team and this was a roster nearly devoid of MLB ready talent.

We can argue that the Tigers overpaid for Pudge but it was a good overpay. Remember this was a team that had been rejected (thankfully) by Juan Gonzales, had just lost 119 games, and had big questions at almost every position. Signing Pudge gave them a veteran catcher who could help the relatively inexperienced pitching staff. He wasn't even the first free agency move of that off season but it did turn out to be one of the better ones.

Pudge's best year in Detroit was most likely his first where he hit .334 with 19 home runs and 84 RBI. He won a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger that year. He was selected to the All Star game four of the five season he played in Detroit and without a doubt his biggest contribution to the team was showing that big time free agents would come to Detroit, and that would become very important given how Dave Dombrowksi likes to construct his rosters.

Even  though we can argue that maybe he deserves to be higher the simple fact here is Pudge was a hired gun and those kind of guys never truly capture the hearts of the fans, certainly not this fan. Add to that the belief he was behind the ouster of Tiger legend Alan Trammell and I think we find that eleven is a pretty good spot for him.

My 25 favorite Detroit Tigers

My 25 Favorite Detroit Tigers- Magglio Ordonez

I have been a fan of the Detroit Tigers since the Summer of 1984. I am lucky enough to vividly remember my baseball team winning a World Series title. Since every year the team itself asks me who my Tiger is I decided to write about my favorite 25 Tigers since I became a fan...at eight years old...This has less to do with performance as it does with whatever intangible qualities Tigers' players have...I mean this is the town that loved Brandon Inge and Don Kelly...and no neither one of those players will make my list...With all of that being said...

#12 Right Fielder Magglio Ordonez

Magglio is importnat to the Detroit Tigers history for two very distinct evetns. The first is he was among the first free agent outfielder Dave Dombrowski brought to town to add some pop to the lineup...it was also likely because of Ordonez that Dombrowski signs these veterans to shorter term contracts. Of course the big reason we remember Magglio with fondness is he hit the biggest home run of a generation for the Tigers...and with one swing of the bat made Comerica Park feel like the Tigers home.

Thanks to a feud with then Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen Magglio was available on the free agent market prior to the 2005 season...Dombrowski swooped in with a five year 85 million dollar deal (then the second biggest deal ever offered to a Tigers player. He hurt himself early on in that season but was back to form by mid season after rehabbing some with the Toledo Mudhens.

Let's be clear here...Tiger fans of my generation loved Old Tiger Stadium...that is where we learned to love the game of baseball and that was were we liked to see our pro baseball played. Even more so for me because I was at the Tiger Stadium hug, and had written several letters and circulated several petitions to keep the Tigers playing at the corner. While we attended games at Comerica Park...we did not embrace it as our baseball home. It was so big..it changed so much early on (remember when the bullpens were in right field?) it seemed like the details of the construction had gotten away from Mike Illitch who frequently said he did not realize that place was going to be so big...and then the naming rights were sold off...had they named that place after Ernie Harwell or Sparky Anderson the fans would have embraced it from day one. That is not say Comerica is a bad place...cause its not. It is a great stadium but it became home one night in October of 2006.

22 years to the day of the last time the Tigers won the World Series and Kirk Gibson hit the biggest home run of that generation Magglio Ordonez came up to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning with two men on...He hit a 3 run homer to left field that put the Tigers back in the World Series. It was a great moment in this team's history and the video of that shot was on my Myspace (ya I know I'm old) page for at least a year.

Even with that we can effectively argue that Maggs' best season in Detroit was 2007. In fact till Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown in 2012 it was one of the best offensive season ever by a Tigers' batter ever. He hit .363 with 28 HR, and 139 RBI...he also had 54 doubles. That made him an All Star that year, a Silver Slugger winner, and he finished second in the AL MVP vote. Although he would hit over .300 two more times as a Tiger after that season a lot of his power evaporated. He did hit 21 dingers in 2008 but he became a guy that hit into far too many double plays as leg injuries robbed him of what he once was.

Magglio was sort of the middle of the big priced free agents Dave Dombrowksi brought to town...and his run with the team was more successful that some of those that followed. Tigers fans remember Maggs with a lot of admiration of the things he was able to do wearing the Old English D.

My 25 favorite Detroit Tigers

What the 2013 Detroit Tigers need is....Leadership!

Detroit sports fans have become a spoiled bunch. We have an owner, who owns both our hockey and baseball team's that is willing to spend whatever amount needs top be spent to win championships. We have a starting rotation that is without doubt among the best in baseball currently, and out Tigers sport the last two American League MVP. Wit hall of that being said the Tigers still have not one a World Series since 1984 and that is so long ago most current Tigers' fans count Magglio Ordonenz's Home Run in the 2006 ALCS as the greatest home run in Tigers history. Fans of my generation still count the blast by Kirk Gibson in the 1984 Fall Classic as the defining home run in their Tigers fandom.

The 1984 team had a few things that the 2013 version doesn't have, a strong bullpen, and excellent bench, and tow names in particular jack Morris and Gibson himself. These men were leaders on that team drafted by this organization and developed into the nucleus that was the dominant force in baseball. It still amazes me that this core of players only won one World Series title.

While the current core of players has won the last two AL central titles this is a baseball town where the goal is to win the World Series each an every year. Given the age and the size of the payroll the window for this core of players to win it all is rapidly shrinking. It seems the biggest thing missing is veteran player leadership. Octavio Dotel tried to be that guy but he was not here long and may not ever pitch for this club again.

The Detroit Red Wings that won two straight Stanley Cup championships and three in five seasons had the Captain Steve Yzerman as the one ice leader. The example setter, but the also had Darren McCarty (for the most part) as the vocal leader in the clubhouse. Before last fall the last Tigers team to go to a World Series had a vocal veteran leader in Kenny Rogers. The current core has two example setters in Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera (we could probably add Max Scherzer to that list, but no vocal leader in their clubhouse. This seems to be an issue for an offense that goes cold at all the wrong moments and a team that fails to score runs late in games. This roster needs a guy to get into people faces and to help the team pick up its late game effort.

The simple fact here is the Tigers for a long time have looked to add veteran leadership via free agency. Thinks about it Ivan Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Rogers, Ordonez, and Torrii Hunter were all brought in and yet no home grown Tigers has stepped into to take up that leadership void. That may not mean anything but a team with this amount of talent and the size of its payroll that has only two division title and one AL pennant to its name has certainly come up short.

Veraldner has struggled so far this year, while Max Scherzer is a perfect 13-0. However, JV did go out and shit down the Toronto Blue Jays on the fourth of July in a performance that should announce he is back and that could be a rallying cry for this team in the second half of 2013.

Let us not forget it was an early spring closed door ass reaming by then first year manger Jim Leyland in 2006 that lit a fire under this team's collective butt. It seems that the current version of the Tigers needs exactly the same thing. If Leyland is unable or unwilling to do so Veraldner, Cabrera, or someone else needs to step up and do so sooner rather than later.

If that does not happen we could wind up talking about the 2013 Tigers in the same breath as we do the 2008 version. That would be the ultimate tragedy and let;'s hope one of the veterans on this team figures that out.

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