Tiger Fans: Let's Just Shut Up And Watch
By: Eric Thomas
I think I found the problem and it's time to make the correction. Tigers season is winding down and we will either have a few more days of baseball or weeks. No matter what happens, this is the end. There will be no more baseball soon. I have to look at the Tigers through this lens and keep my mouth shut. Time for me to draw the line.
For the rest of the season, I won't make predictions. I won't weigh what a win means versus winning the division or the wild card. I won't handicap Jim Leyland's chances of staying with the team, and I won't make evaluations based on the remaining games.
There. That feels better.
This season has, for much of the year, been stuck in the mud. The tires have spun, but it hasn't collapsed. Tigers have games like the Monday, the final game against the division leaders, and they fold like a card table. Then they hang 12 on the Oakland A's. People who spend their time trying to figure out 'what it all means' spend most of their time baffled. They don't seem like a team somewhere in the middle. They are the baseball equivalent of Sybil. We just all cross our fingers that it's the 12 run personality.
Fans are angry, and they have every right to be. If you feel like you haven't seen the Tigers best lineup often enough, I'm with you. The Tigers have a much better record when Jackson bats first and Berry bats second. The offensive problems were gone for a couple of weeks after the All Star break, when that was the lineup. The Berry-Jeff Baker-Andy Dirks-Brennan Boesch platoon was an unmitigated disaster. Leyland should have stuck with the guys that were raking.
Fans grumble at the ballpark. The words "Leyland" never follow effusive praise. They want the guy gone, fine. But nothing is going to change before the end of the season. No need to belch out your venom any more, the die has been cast. You've made your point.
The only thing left to do is watch. Stop making predictions and espousing theories. When there is still half the season left, it makes a lot of sense to make predictions and compare teams of to the past. At some point when you sit down to partake in the entertainment, just sit back and take it in. You don't second guess a movie before it happens. You sit in your chair, dip your hand into the oily bucket and sink into the zombie state of a person enveloped in the entertainment of his or her choice.
Who knows? This could be like the end of a Michael Bay movie. It's possible that the Tigers, after facing adversity, will come together as a team and defeat the forces of evil. There could be grand slam home runs, Verlander could pitch a no-hitter, Kate Upton could dance on the dugout, and Prince Fielder could win the World Series with a walk off bomb, flip the bat to the ground and trot around the bags while Joe Buck and Tim McCarver stay silent in the booth. Then Jim Leyland comes out and retires on a live mic placed at home plate and cut to the scene where he's elected the next Governor of Michigan. That sounds about as plausible as any Michael Bay movie.
Of course, it could be a Clint Eastwood movie. The Tigers could collapse in depressing series of bad breaks. The team could fall apart as people, finger pointing and dramatic fights in the clubhouse. The idealistic one, probably Quintin Berry in this scenario, winds up injured. His positive attitude would finally be destroyed by world of cynicism around him. Jim Leyland is fired, the gruff old manager sits and smokes in his office and thinks about the futility of it all. Camera fades out as he brings the glass of single malt scotch to his mouth.
What I'm saying is predictions don't matter anymore. I spent much of the last month trying to figure out what happens. Giving supportive evidence feels like tossing hollow dry bricks that bounce and mean nothing. Saying why Leyland should be fired seems useless, too. I won't spend another minute evaluating this baseball team; I'm just going to watch.
Get some snacks and enjoy the show.
