DETROIT – This is why there is a clear rooting interest in this World Series between the Cardinals and the Tigers, which began last night at Comerica Park under threatening skies, in front of throat-ening fans who’ve waited 22 years to see what a World Series looks like from up close.
There really is only one reason.
And his name is Jim Leyland.
There are lots of reasons for this, and we’ll get around to them in a minute. But let’s just start right here, with this quote, which is his unedited answer to the third question he was asked at his first official World Series news conference Friday afternoon, the first of what was originally scheduled to be 17,903 questions over the next five to eight days about his longtime friendship with Cardinals manager Tony La Russa:
“With all due respect,” Leyland said, “I’m going to say this at the beginning of the World Series and hopefully end it. I’m not going to talk about Tony La Russa and myself this series at all. This is about the Cardinal players and the Tiger players. And I appreciate that, but that’s something totally different than what’s going on.
“We’re two teams in the World Series, and I’m going to talk about the Tiger players. I know some Cardinal players, obviously, that certainly feel like I’m friends with, so I know a little bit, have the utmost respect for everybody, obviously including Tony, but I’m not going to make that a story during the World Series, because I don’t think that should be a story.
“This story should be about the players. And that’s what it’s going to be about from my end.” And you wonder why his players worship him so completely, so unabashedly, so unapologetically?
You wonder why they carried him off the field 15 days ago after they vanquished the Yankees, why they stood in line to smother him in bear hugs eight days ago, when they swatted the Athletics out of the playoffs the way Paul Bunyan might crush a mosquito?
That’s why. Leyland has authored one of the great coaching/ managing stories of recent years this season. He has taken a perennially losing culture and smashed it to smithereens with the blockandax-like nature of his personality.
Leyland wants to make this about his players, which is the primary reason why his players, through their play, make this all about him, a wonderful circle of achievement that has lifted the Tigers from the most desultory depths and laid them four wins away from a world championship.
There are only a handful of men who can command this kind of respect, and even LaRussa doesn’t qualify because there are enough players on his own team who wouldn’t exactly need to be talked off a ledge if he ever announced his retirement. In baseball, there is Leyland, and there is Joe Torre, and if he can summon some of his old quirky magic, maybe there is Lou Piniella. In football there is Bill Parcells, of course, and Bill Belichick, and to a lesser degree Mike Holmgren and Mike Shanahan. In basketball there is Phil Jackson and Pat Riley, and there used to be Larry Brown before he turned into a cartoon character.
These are the kinds of managers and coaches players still respect the way they would respect their freshman football coach when they were 14 years old. And they’re the kind that fans idolize precisely because their players turn out so subservient, so respectful.
“It’s been an honor playing for him,” Justin Verlander, the Tigers’ rookie Game 1 pitcher, said. “For him to be my first major-league manager for a whole year has been great. Everybody always talks about his people skills and how he knows people, and that’s absolutely the truth. He knows when to push guys, knows when to laugh with them or make them angry, and it’s just-it’s been great.” And more than enough to select your rooting interest here. If you can’t root for this manager, and this team, then who can you ever root for, exactly?