Tiger Geist

I’m slightly torn about the ‘Miguel Cabrera incident’, if you will.  To recap from many articles I’ve seen:

• Miguel was out late drinking with white sox buddies Friday night
• Miguel’s wife got pissy at him
• Something happened to Cabrera’s face
• Cabrera went to the police station, was given a breath test, and blew a pretty impressive number.
• Cabrera went 0-4 on Saturday night, leaving six runners on base.

Couple of interesting points here.  On one side, it appears Miguel’s performance was affected by his late night drinking.  On the other side.. he’s human, plenty of people drink too much, get put into the dog house by their significant other, and have to deal with the consequences.  We hold athletes to a higher standard because they make a ton of money.  If Detroit had clinched the playoffs on Thursday, this might be less of a story.  Actually, if Detroit beat Minnesota last Thursday, this is a no-story. Timing is everything.

Honestly, I’m quite impressed he ‘blew’ a .26.  THAT’s impressive.  And that’s assuming he was probably 30 – 60 minutes from his last drink.  Quite the night out I’d say.

Here’s the question:  What is the Tiger’s responsibility in this?  Was it deemed that Cabrera was fit to start Saturday night?  Was it a “a hung over Cabrera is better then Ryan Raburn or Carlos Guillen at first” decision?  The Tigers obviously knew that Miguel was obliterated only 13 hours before the game.  I’m not suggesting that Detroit had a responsibility to monitor their player’s whereabouts between games, but doesn’t it say something about their lineup that they didn’t even think of sitting Cabrera out?

In terms of an apology to the fans, I guess he owes us one.  But it really doesn’t matter — what’s done is done, whether or not Miguel’s sorry for what he did.  If the Tigers win on Tuesday, most will be forgotten.  Miguel could say, in a room full of reporters, “you know what?  I did what I did and I’ll do it again.  I love scotch.  Scotch scotch scotch.  Here it goes down, down in my belly”.  If the Tigers win on Tuesday, and win a series against the Yankees, and if Cabrera is a big part of those wins, he could pull a Mel Gibson and fans will still flock to buy his jersey.  So an apology doesn’t bother me, and in six months it won’t bother most fans either.  Detroit is one win shy of the playoffs… out of 162 game season.  This incident didn’t kill the season.  Fans have forgiven the players in terms of steroids, player strikes (remember they canceled a world series?), and other crazy stories before.  This isn’t much different.  Just bad timing.

I don’t condone what Cabrera did.  I honestly feel bad for athletes who are at the top of the world, in the prime of their lives, but can’t enjoy the same things that their fans can.  Its an odd situation.  If I was 26 and went out for an entire night like that, i’m sure i’d catch hell when I got home. But what a night it would have been.

UPDATE:  I should be clear, I’m totally fine with fans being outraged.  I’m actually surprised that I’m not.