Jerry Green Still Has It Going On

To all my teacher and educator friends who read the blog. Hang in there. We've got more educational discussions coming up. But it's playoff baseball and I have to make my focus on the Tigers. I threw out four important thoughts yesterday to hopefully keep you reading. What follows is an excellent article by one of Detroit's best writers, Jerry Green. He's retired now, but this run has brought him out of retirement.

The Tigers were edging toward the brink of the World Series when all of America was informed by the wizards on FOX TV that CURTIS Monroe had whacked a home run.

“Oh,” mused a bunch of non-TV wizards in the press box when the misidentification was made. “Shows you how much they know about the Tigers.”

Or as Ken Macha, the scholarly appearing manager of the Oakland Athletics would say a bit later: “I think they flew under the radar a little bit.”

That is how it is in this strangest of all baseball seasons.

The no-names on the Tigers are lugging the stars to the American League pennant. For the edification of Fox, Curtis Granderson and Craig Monroe and their teammates have Macha’s A’s down three games to zilch in this series for the American League pennant.

And those two worthies along with Brandon Inge, Alexis Gomez and Placido Polanco -- none All-Star Game material -- have Macha dredging up the memories of the 2004 Red Sox and Terry Francona’s managerial miracle as motivation.

“My friend over there in Boston, Francona, they were in the same position and wound up doing it,” Macha said.

Moments earlier, the Tigers had taken their 3-0 command of the A’s with Friday’s 3-0 victory at Comerica Park behind another zero-run tolerance performance by Kenny Rogers, age 41, with the reputation of being a postseason flop beyond his 40th birthday.

“So it’s not an impossible task,” Macha said, using the “one game at a time” cliché.

But then I fail to find the names of David Ortiz and Johnny Damon on the A’s roster.

It must truly be upsetting to the moguls at FOX -- and their commercial advertising salesmen -- that the Tigers need one final victory to reach the World Series. The grand vision of an all-New York Series -- Yankees vs. Mets -- blew up last Saturday at Comerica Park. Now the secondary grand hope of a New York-California World Series is about to implode.

After all, television controls Major League Baseball, and Lord High Commissioner Bud Selig. And the Tigers have snapped the marionette strings.

MLB’s belated decision to shift the scheduled American League Game 3 at Comerica Park was made, obviously, so that FOX could televise the Mets’ rescheduled Friday game against the Cardinals in primetime to its Eastern audience. The Tigers’ starting time was switched from 8:19 p.m. to 4:30 with less than 48-hours notice to the Detroit ticketholders.

The 2006 Tigers might not be a TV ratings magnet, but it is time for them to be recognized as the most compelling sports story of this year.

Here you have a scrap-iron manager who occasionally bedded down in his office in the Tigers’ clubhouse after late night games. Whatever premonitions Jim Leyland had at 4 o’clock in the morning are not known, no matter where he tries to sleep.

But now he has Polanco batting third in the order after never appearing in that key hitting spot this season. Polanco was the No. 2 hitter most of the season and occasionally the leadoff man. When Granderson -- first name Curtis -- was not hitting first.

So in this Game 3 Polanco drilled a single to right center to score the Tigers’ first run in the first inning out of the third slot and later doubled. Leyland had Monroe -- first name Craig -- batting second. Monroe hit a home run. One more victory -- and Leyland’s Tigers would have FOX forced to show Polanco, Monroe, Granderson and this unlikely team in primetime. And Eastern America’s enlightenment would continue until midnight.

For Game 3, it was Leyland’s bright idea to use Omar Infante as his designated hitter. OK. Infante hadn’t been in a ballgame since the dismal Sunday when the Tigers lost to the Royals and surrendered first place in their division.

He dwelled on the bench during all four playoff games with the Yankees and the first two with the A’s. Infante delivered a single and a base on balls.

For Game 2, Leyland started Alexis Gomez at DH. Gomez sat someplace near Infante in the dugout throughout the conquest of the Yankees and the first game against the A’s. He hit a home run and a single and drove in four runs against the A’s.

And Leyland sat Gomez down for Game 3, until he hit a pinch single in the eighth. Despite the supposed advantage of a left-handed batter against a right-handed pitcher, the A’s Rich Harden.

Before that, Leyland used Marcus Thames as his DH. Thames devastated the Yankees.

“It’s a matter that you have confidence in all your players,” Leyland said.

“And there’s a little bit of luck that goes along with it, to be honest with you.”

Allow me to summarize all of this: three years ago the Tigers disgraced an historic franchise by losing 119 ballgames; one year ago they had a dismal 71-91 record; for a dozen years, they had failed to reach the .500 level of mediocrity in any season.

And now they are one victory shy of reaching the World Series, with a 3-0 command in the AL’s pennant series.

And it’s due to a little bit of luck?

Balderdash!

Jerry Green, a former columnist for The Detroit News, has covered the sports scene for more than 50 years and writes for detnews.com every Sunday and throughout the baseball playoffs.