DETROIT – You should have seen the people as they stormed the gates of Comerica Field, people wearing all manner of Tiger surnames on Tiger jerseys, some of which had obviously been bought this week (Ordonez, Verlander, Granderson), some of which had been sitting in mothballs for a while (Higginson, Kapler, Fielder) and some of which had to be uncovered from trunks in the attic (Lolich, Horton, Kaline, Cash).
An hour before the first pitch of the first World Series game Detroit had seen since Goose Gossage decided to pitch to Kirk Gibson and Gibson decided to plant a fastball in the upper deck at old Tiger Stadium, a starving baseball community was turning the ballpark’s lower concourses into an orderly rock festival, squeezing through the gates, finding their seats early, eager to get a good look at Detroit’s manifest baseball destiny. The party was set. The populace was famished.
And then Jim Leyland pulled a Goose Gossage.
Against all odds, against all logic, against all reason, Leyland decided to allow Justin Verlander to pitch to Albert Pujols with two men out and a runner on second base in a game the Tigers already trailed 2-1 in the third inning. Against every conceivable strand of strategy, the Tiger manager permitted the most dangerous slugger in the Cardinal batting order to get a good whack at a Verlander fastball.
And Pujols did precisely what he’s paid to do. He hit the ball 379 feet, into a short-armed tangle of Tiger fans in the right-center-field bleachers who wanted nothing to do with the ball when it landed. He turned a 2-1 nail-biter into a 4-1 breather in what eventually became a 7-2 laugher, all by violating the most basic premise of playing the Cardinals:
Pitch to Pujols at your own risk.
“I have to take full responsibility for that – we weren’t supposed to pitch to him there. I’ll take the blame for that,” Leyland said less than half an hour later, talking on television and already ruing his decision.
“We felt that Albert was little anxious coming in. We felt that if we threw some pitches off the plate we could get him out. But obviously it didn’t work.”
Later, speaking of Verlander, Leyland said, “I think he felt his way a little bit too much early. He did not attack them, and that was disappointing.”
Still, it seemed Leyland, who’s too old and has been around too long to succumb to such temptations, had spent the Tigers’ week off believing what seemed to be the popular consensus: That his team wasn’t only on its way to one of the most feel-good championships in recent baseball history, but preparing to extend the AL’s eight-game winning streak over the National League in World Series games, too.
Just show up, take batting practice against designated Cardinal patsy Anthony Reyes and let Verlander, the stud rookie, take care of the rest.
Only a funny thing happened on the way to the coronation. Reyes, the one pitcher against whom the Mets had looked like the Mets back in the NLCS, suffocated the Tigers’ bats, retiring 17 in a row at one point after spotting Detroit a first-inning run. Scott Rolen, who had a homer stolen Thursday night by Endy Chavez, got the Cardinals even, and then Chris Duncan got them a lead ahead of Pujols in the third, and everyone in the state of Michigan knew what was coming next, with Pujols due and a base open.
Well, almost everyone. There was Pujols – “I don’t have enough time to think when you have a guy throwing 99 miles an hour, I just try and react and put a good swing on the ball.”
And there was the man in the Tiger dugout, the man most responsible for throwing this party on Woodward Avenue, for unleashing 42,479 unbridled Tigers fans on Comerica, for bringing them to their feet when native son Bob Seger crooned “America the Beautiful,” when local treasures Al Kaline and Willie Horton threw out the first pitches.
Pujols’ blast wasn’t the only reason the party fizzled, and the Tigers self-destructed long before American Idol’s Jennifer Hudson butchered “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch.
The Tigers still are the better team. There’s still plenty of Series left. But Jim Leyland, baseball genius, might wish to borrow a page out of the playbook of Willie Randolph, baseball neophyte, starting immediately.
Until further notice, let someone else – anyone else – beat you.