Leyland Better Get Used To The Cabrera Questions

Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland says he's tired of all the questions about slugger Miguel Cabrera. Earth to Leyland: Get used to it. The questions aren't going away anytime soon. At least right now anyway. That's what happens when your best player acts like a buffoon while drinking himself into oblivion. What in the world made him go into a restaurant threatning to shoot and kill people. I never mad those threats on my wors drinking night. Usually you try to make it somewhere to pass out.

Team president and general manager Dave Dombrowski is hitching his and Leyland's immediate future to Cabrera. And how does Cabrera repay them? By going out and behaving like some college frat boy. Right now they look like enablers which isn't a good thing. Which means that reporters and writers will be asking questions about him as long as the Tigers haven't hardlined Cabrera, and that day ain't coming anytime soon.

It'll be hard for the general public to move past Cabrera follies, if you want to label it as such, as long as the organizational powers enable him to act in an irresponsible manner. The Tigers hired Raul Gonzalez to babysit Cabrera for this season. Whether this works or not I don't know. I call it more of a smoke screen. Cabrera can still go out and get blasted, and have Raul drive him home and help him to his couch and make sure he gets to the ballpark on time the next day. I think it's more of an enabling process than trying to help the guy. And yes he does need help.

There will be more questions coming and no matter how pissed you get Jimmy they're gonna keep coming. The vague answers aren't good enough. The reporters don't want to hear about what shape he's in or how he's gonna have his best season ever. What they want to know is whether you guys are going to give him some legitimate help off the field. What they want to know is if he's a functioning alcoholic, if he does this all the time or are his previous incidents just a blip. I'm betting that it's more of a problem than Leyland or Dombrowski are letting us know.

As a Tigers fan I won't be hypocritical, because I know I'll be rooting for the guy on the field. I don't expect anyone to agree with me. But he really needs to get it together off the field and they need to get him some real help and not a babysitter. By doing that all they're doing is enabling his activity and saying he doesn't have a problem, which is what Cabrera's probably saying to the Tigers.   

Cabrera Needs To Lay Off The Sauce

After giving a Florida cop the middle finger, baseball star Miguel Cabrera shouted at police, “Fucking shoot me, kill me” when ordered to drop to his knees so that officers could handcuff him, according to a sheriff’s report.


The 27-year-old athlete, busted last month in Fort Pierce for drunk driving, also stated, “Fuck you. Do you know who I am? I’m Miguel Cabrera, I play for the Detroit Tigers, you don’t know my family.”

A second document--a statement given to cops by bar manager Fletcher Nail--recounts an incident shortly before Cabrera was arrested at the wheel of his Range Rover. Nail recalled that Cabrera arrived after last call and refused to leave Cowboys Bar-B-Q & Steak Co.

Nail said that Cabrera “leaned down close to my face” and said, “I will kill you.” Nail added that the ballplayer looked around the bar and added, “I know all of you, and I will kill all of you and blow this place up.” Another witness, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission agent, told investigators that Cabrera threatened him and Nail “by saying he had a gun in his bag for us.”

The investigative reports were included in documents released today by prosecutors in response to an open records request. Cabrera, who has previously acknowledged abusing alcohol, was busted for DUI, resisting arrest, and having an open container of alcohol in his car.


Source: TheSmokingGun.com

Ordonez: Cabrera Must Act Like A Superstar

If anyone on the Detroit Tigers is going to show Miguel Cabrera some tough love, it looks like it'll be Magglio Ordonez. Ordonez hasn't been named captain or anything it's just that he seems like he's the most critical of Cabrera's actions that may possibly send him to rehab after being arrested for alledgedly drunk driving, resisting arrest, and basically being a jackass.

Ordonez told John Lowe of the Detroit Free Press that Cabrera "must act like a superstar".

“Miguel is the franchise player of this team,” Ordoñez said. “He understands that they are building the team around him. He needs to pull everything together. “He is a superstar, and he needs to act like a superstar. He needs to work hard. I told him before, and I will tell him whenever he shows up”.

It's clear that Ordonez supports his teammate and fellow Venezuelan. On the surface it looks like he'll sit Cabrera down and lay down the law. The Tigers desperately need Cabrera to be clean and on his best behavior. If he's going to keep having alcoholic relapses the Tigers would be wise to get rid of him.

No one knows what he does or what's going on off the field. He may have problems that we the fans or even teammates know the extent of. Whatever it is he has to figure it out and realize what's most important in his life. Ordonez says that he predicts Cabrera will pull it together. But will he do it for the greater good of himself of will he do it just to salvage his baseball career. His teammates are behind him, so he has support. There's no reason that I know of for him to pull the stunt that he pulled Wednesday night.