Miguel Cabrera's Interesting Weekend

Ian, Kurt, J. Ellet have all discussed the Miguel Cabrera incident(s) over the weekend. I think there are some key things to keep in mind when discussing this:

1) The incident with his wife is of no business to us, the fans/public. The only information on it that we are "entitled" to (for the lack of a better term) is the public information that is known through the police. It's his home, his marriage, his problems that we shouldn't be privy to really knowing. I'm not even comfortable reading things like his gold chain was broken and both him and his wife were roughed up.

(more after the jump...)


2) I do understand that he was 3 times the legal limit, however is this really any of our business? I am a fan, but I obviously come from a different view point on most things. I have gotten smashed the night before a big day at work before, too. Especially when something in life hasn't been going well (like a mediocre team he's on, a tight playoff race when the team isn't "rising to the occasion", etc etc). Who am I to vilify him for this? Would I like the Tigers only offensive force to not be hammered and just getting to bed 8 hours before he is to be at the ball park? Absolutely. But he's a 26 year old and no matter how much he acts like a goofy, loveable child on the field and in the dugout, he is 26. He's free to make his decisions. After all, this is just sports. It's not like he was protecting our freedom with a hangover. He was just trying to entertain us for three hours. And, how much of that booze had to do with his Magglio Ordonez impression of grounding into a rally killing double play? He's done it 22 times in 2009 and that's just 2 more times than his previous career highs of 20 which he set in 2004 and 2005. Big, slow sluggers often hit into double plays. It happens. I don't blame that on the drinking the night before at all because it's not out of character for Miggs.

3) He was drinking with White Sox players. As Tigers fans, we're for some reason supposed to despise all rivals. I guess I am weird though. I don't hate the White Sox, Royals, Indians. Hell, I don't even hate Minnesota or that crappy dome. For as much as I love baseball, it is what it is: A game. A sport. A block of entertainment that takes a few hours a day for about 6 months. I don't know anyone on the White Sox team, and just because they aren't Detroit Tigers players doesn't mean that I shouldn't like them. I understand the mentality of the fanatic: they're (or we're) irrational, unruly, mean, and wanting to win at all cost. We expect players to be model citizens and play 100% every single game. Because, after all, they're being paid to play a child's game -- and by paid I mean "overpaid" in conjunction to the real world. Fans also spend good money to go see these players, and who wants to drop that amount of money to see the best player hung over? No one, really.

But, we must come at this from his view point. The World Baseball Classic has shown us that non-American born players are different people altogether in terms of what they value. They don't grow up playing stick ball in the park dreaming to hit the game winning home run on a 3-2 count in the bottom of the ninth, clinching the first world series title for his or her favorite baseball team in decades.

The same feeling applies to the Olympics. The majority of athletes that are professional athletes don't care about the Olympics. It took an embarrassment for the NBA stars to finally start to care about the Olympics.

Every other country? They care. They care a lot. Pride in your country comes well before pride in the Detroit Tigers. They obviously want to win, because you don't get to the top of your profession in sports without insane amounts of competitiveness that drives you to be the best you can be. However, drinking with your Latin American buddies (I don't know who he was drinking with, this is just an assumption on my part. Was it Ozzie?) isn't outrageous to them.

When you grow up loving baseball in America, the Major Leagues are the biggest thing ever. When you grow up outside of the US, the biggest thing is currently the World Baseball Classic. There were numerous players that stated winning the WBC would be a bigger feat than winning the World Series because they'd be winning it for their country and that it's actually a tournament that is actually encompassing the world.

When we, as fans, start to impose our upbringing and the things that we value in sports to people who aren't native to this society, we're fighting a losing cause. Miguel Cabrera cares about winning for the Detroit Tigers and for the fans. It's not something that he lives and dies with, however. He's not like us, he's not a life-long fan. He's someone paid handsomely for his craft and one that he's very, very good at. Should he take more responsibility for his actions and not spend the night out drinking? Probably. However, he's just 26 and a millionaire. Rules are different. We would live and die to win because for our entire lives, all we've wanted to do is be paid to play baseball. It's a job to Miguel Cabrera and all of the players. We can't expect someone who is doing this for 6 months with just 20-25 days off in that time frame, to not feel it's a job. Add in off season training and working in the cages to better your skills and this easily turns into a full time job that is 8-10 months (or more) a year.

All in all, this entire debacle has been disappointing. However, who am I to chastise Miguel Cabrera for what he chooses to do? He's of-age and didn't break any laws. I can't get too up in arms because he hit into a rally killing double play the day after his night of drinking. No, I can't. Not when he was the only bat that showed up all year long. Take him out of the lineup, and the Tigers aren't in a play-in game tomorrow. Isn't quite the peak into how we, as fans, operate, though? Had he hit a home run in that at-bat, we probably aren't dwelling on this as much as we are (and instead would be dwelling on the fact that a legitimate journalist like Terry Foster  is perpetuating rumors on Facebook). Winning is the best cure for a night of binge drinking with "the enemy."

I hope for Cabrera's sake, we win tomorrow. Not to atone for his actions, rather to keep the fans from over reacting and trying to pin it on him.