March Goes Out Like A Tiger

As I sit here writing this post, the final minutes before the Detroit Tigers opening day at Comerica Park are counting down.

Currently the temperature is eleven degrees Celsius (or 50ish for you metrically impaired Americans). The wind is blowing cold from the north and the air is wet, very wet as we sit between rain clouds.

Perhaps it's not a perfect day for the Detroit season opener with Kansas City. Perhaps not as warm as when March arrived like a kitten just thirty one days ago. But it is better than last year. Last year at this time the temperatures were below zero. The second game of that opening series with Toronto was snowed out. But we don't expect that to be the case today.

This will be our first chance to see the new face of the Tigers since last year's block buster trade. We will see Cabrera at third. Renteria at short. Guillen moves to first. But center field will not see Granderson for a couple more weeks as his broken finger heals. Instead the Detroit fan favorite Brandon Inge will take the center stage. And Inge has had a great spring at the plate!

Starting for our boys this afternoon is Justin Verlander. Verlander had a tough spring pitching what appeared to be grapefruits in two of his outings – getting slammed pretty hard. It will be interesting to see – and telling as well, I think – what kind of outing he has today.

I think it's important for these guys to start off with a win. But this year's KC squad is said to be built much tougher than the previous years. I guess we will see.

The Tigers were picked this last week to win the World Series by Sports Illustrated. This is a nice compliment – but unfortunately SI put their prediction on the cover of the magazine. And as many of you know, SI cover stories predicting the future of a team or individual rarely pan out. It is somewhat of a curse. But for every early prediction I have seen so far, the Tigers have always been predicted to at least make the post season.

But they were last year too.

I will not be at the game today. The first pitch is to be tossed at the 1 PM mark, just eight minutes from now. I will be at my desk, working ever so dutifully on reverse engineering rate analytical spreadsheets. I will be sitting in meetings discussing how the progress of the project is shaping up. I will be talking on the phone to Toronto to get clarification on some questionable points.

But I will have a web browser open. And that browser will be showing me the most up-to-date scores I can find. Discretely, of course.

Very discretely.

Discrete until someone hits a long double to drive in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. There might be a slight holler from my cubicle then.

So to answer the question I asked on March first: "But what the heck will (March) go out like?"

The Answer is hopefully "A Tiger!"

Go get 'em boys.