Speaking of Sports   by Alex Prasad

A Belated Thank You
to Pudge Rodriguez

August 29, 2010

Thank you Ivan Rodriguez. That was my reaction to the news that Johnny Damon was invoking his no-trade clause, deciding to stay with the Tigers for the rest of the 2010 season instead of returning to the Boston Red Sox. Even though you had a maddening propensity for swinging at fastballs above you head with two strikes and runners in scoring position, thank you Pudge. Why thank Pudge? In many ways, he’s the one that started this recent era of Tigers respectability.

We all remember the Lions famous 0-16 2008 season. It was an embarrassing four months. The first winless team since the NFL switched to a 16 game regular season schedule. It got so ugly, the NFL blocked customers from buying a customized Lions jersey with the name “Owen” on the back and 16 as the number. As the losses piled up, the joke became more and more macabre.

But do you remember 2003? Specifically the six months from April to October? That was even worse. The Tigers went 43-119 that season, the worse season in American league history, and the second most losses ever, one short of the 42-120 mark the 1962 Mets set. Also in 2003 the Florida Marlins won the World Series, with Pudge Rodriguez catching for the young team.  The following offseason, Pudge shocked the baseball world: he took the money and ran. From the best team in baseball to the worst team in baseball, Pudge embraced the challenge (and money) of improving on a historically bad record.

Rondell White, Carlos Guillen (via trade and a resigning) and Ugeth Urbina followed. Soon other major stars followed in Rodriguez’s footsteps; the next year the Tigers traded for Placido Polanco, resigned him, and added Troy Percival and Magglio Ordonez to the fold. It all paid off for those players, all in dollars and for some, when they reached the 2006 World Series. The last few years haven’t been as rosy, but the Tigers are now considered a disappointment when they don’t contend for a playoff berth, a vast improvement in expectations over just three years previous when Tigers fans celebrated as the Tigers won their final game, and avoided the shame of sharing the title of worst team in MLB history.

Perhaps an even greater measure of how far the Tigers have come, and how much we owe to Pudge is Johnny Damon’s recent insistence that he stay in Detroit. He claims that he loves Detroit, and has “always” wanted to play here. I doubt Damon believed that before Pudge blazed the trail, but I don’t doubt that he believes it now. Neither does Scott Miller of CBSSports, who quizzed Damon extensively during spring training to see if his devotion to Detroit was genuine.

Detroit sports fans are a finicky bunch. We want our players to be loyal (see Brandon Inge), not necessarily talented (see Sergey Federov). We want our players to be passionate (see Rasheed Wallace), not too cool to practice (see Allen Iverson). We want our players to love us as much as we love them. Damon at least at this moment reciprocates that love, to the jealous chagrin of spoiled “we are the center of the baseball universe” Bostonians such as Dan Shaughnessy. Damon’s attitude has worn off on recent acquisition Jhonny Peralta as well.

Whether or not Damon gets to return to the Tigers next year comes down to dollars and cents, something not worth speculating about this early. We should however have the sense to thank Damon for his loyalty, something in short supply these days in professional sports.  But don’t forget to thank Pudge. It was he that showed this day was possible.

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