The best players make a manager want to change the rules. In particular, one rule: this annoying requirement for composition, which requires each attacker to take his turn. When Miguel Cabrera is on your team, waiting is the hardest part.
“I wish he could come and beat every inning,” 91-year-old Jack McCain said by phone this week from his home in North Carolina. “He would hit a sacrificial fly, he would hit a home run, he would get a base kick, even to the point where he hit the ball, which in his name starts in Bartman’s game. He was the catalyst. Something good was happening to this man. “
Cabrera was 20 years old, playing for then-Florida Marlins, when his killer mistaken Alex Gonzalez of the Chicago Cubs in the fateful sixth game of the 2003 National League Championship Series. The mistake helped turn Steve Bartman into a foul on the left field line earlier in the inning – from a footnote to a focal point as the Marlins stormed the World Series with victories in Games 6 and 7.
At the time, Cabrera had scored just 84 career goals in the regular season. On Saturday, with a single against Colorado Rockies at Comerica Park, he became the 33rd player in the history of the Grand League with 3,000.
After scoring three goals on Wednesday to reach 2,999, Cabrera’s 3,000-goal chase was delayed by a 0-for-3 performance on Thursday (and a deliberate walk late in the match that raised some eyebrows), as well as rain that delayed scheduled for Friday’s game against Colorado.
The achievement finally came in the first inning of Saturday afternoon’s game, when Cabrera chose Antonio Senzatela, a Venezuelan. Rocky Mountains Jose Iglesias, who played with the Tigers’ Cabrera, came to hug his former teammate as the Tigers ran on the field to beat him. A moment later, Cabrera went behind the home plate to celebrate with his mother, wife, son and daughter.
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Cabrera added a two-series single at the end of the sixth inning for hit No. 3,001 and was subsequently removed due to a pinch. The audience at Comerica Park applauded him and the Tigers he often wore over the years eventually defeated the Rockies 13-0.
As early as 2003, the first hit of Cabrera’s career was appropriate: a home run with two wins at the end of the 11th inning on June 20, 2003 in Miami Gardens, Florida. a game that makes him one of the few players to appear on two of the most prestigious baseball lists.
Only six others have scored 3,000 goals and 500 home runs: Hank Aaron, Willie Mace, Eddie Murray, Rafael Palmeiro, Albert Puyols and Alex Rodriguez. Of that group, Cabrera had the best median (.310) and base percentage (.387) before Saturday’s game.
Cabrera’s numbers will change and are likely to decline before he retires; he signed with Detroit until 2023. But for now, they emphasize Cabrera’s skills as a pure striker. He is not a free swinger, but his goal is to make his way to base. Only two players with 500 homers (Sami Sosa and Ernie Banks) have fewer career walks.
Cabrera won four cotton titles in five years, from 2011 to 2015. Only two other right-wing strikers in the integrated major leagues, Roberto Clemente and Bill Madlock, have collected four cotton titles. As great as they were, neither Clemente nor Madlock hit 30 Hommers in one season. Cabrera has done it 10 times.
Cabrera was 16 when Marlins signed him from Venezuela for $ 1.9 million in 1999. Four years later, with the Carolina Mudcats, he broke the AA Southern League with an average of 0.365 and 0.609 percent delay in 69 games – but he played mostly third base, and Mike Lowell was settled in Miami.
That didn’t bother McCain, who took over as manager in May. His team had some promising young players, but needed more shots in the squad. McCain would find a place for a bat like Cabrera’s.
“I knew he couldn’t play third because we had Mike Lowell, but I’ll put him in the box – don’t worry about it, we’ll find out,” McKean said. “And he went to the left, like no one else.
Cabrera had only played three youth games in the left field, but he started there every day in his first week in the majors. In October 2003, McKeon moved Cabrera to the right. He had never played in that position, but started there in seven of Marlins’ last 10 games since the season, on their way to winning the World Series over the Yankees.
Cabrera’s bat in the first inning of Game 4, in Florida, portends impending greatness. Roger Clemens shoots with a fast ball for the first field at a speed of 94 miles per hour, high and inside, a classic blow from a self-proclaimed shooter. Cabrera stared at Clemens, holding seven shots and hitting another fast ball of 94 mph – up and out of the plate – over the fence in the right central field.
“It didn’t scare him,” McKean said. “He was not scared. This man was confident and knew he had the ability to do it. “
For the next 13 seasons, Cabrera would show it with remarkable consistency and endurance. From 2004 to 2016, he came to beat more than any other major league player – and also produced with the highest percentage. Of the 104 players with at least 5,000 record appearances this season, Cabrera had the best base base plus a breakthrough: .968.
He did most of his damage with the Tigers, who traded six players for him and left pitcher Dontrell Willis in December 2007. Two of the players – outfielder Cameron Maybin and left pitcher Andrew Miller – would have a long career. But the deal was a coup for the Tigers, who would win four consecutive division titles and an American League flag in Cabrera’s heyday.
Following his triple-crown season in 2012, the Tigers rewarded Cabrera with an eight-year, $ 240 million contract that would not begin until 2016. The deal was excessive; Cabrera’s output has inevitably declined and he has been roughly the average striker in the league for the past five seasons. The Tigers have dropped out of the standings and are still recovering.
But the contract, if nothing else, guaranteed that Cabrera’s highlights would happen to the Tigers, the team that made the most of the promise he made at the age of 20. McCain never changed the basic rules of baseball, of course, but he was certainly right about Cabrera.
Something good was really happening to this man.
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