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.   

Marshall Avoids Another Tragedy

In November of 1970 37 members of the Marshall University football team along with 8 memebers of the coaching staff and 25 boosters died in a plane crash in West Virginia. The crash and the way the program was put back together was mad into a movie, "We Are Marshall".

On Wednesday night, history almost repeated itself. Members of the coaching staff were on a plane that had to make an emergency landing in Louisville,Kentucky. A very scary case of deja vu.

From CBSSports.com: Around 6 p.m. on Wednesday, a landing gear malfunction aboard ComAir Flight 5359 diverted a flight bound for Charleston from Atlanta to Lexington. The flight included Marshall’s entire offensive coaching staff and two of its defensive coaches.



Entering into its final descent, the landing gear finally came down on the plane and a crash-landing was averted as the coaches made their way off the flight safe and sound.

I've flown a few times and consider myself lucky not to have any kind of turbulence on those flights. I know I would've feared for my life considering history.

 “On our way back, we kept circling flying into Charleston — three times,”tight ends coach Phil Ratliff told the Huntington Herald-Dispatch. “He (the pilot) went back up in the air and we knew something was wrong.



“The crew basically came back and told us that they were diverting us to Lexington. They didn’t say it but if we had to crash land, it was a bigger runway.


“You grow up hearing about this for 40 years. For this to happen 40 years later, it was just unbelievable. We were all praying. It was calm, but we were definitely praying. It was a situation that you never want to go — thinking about your family, having your life go before your eyes. It was just unbelievable.”
 
Fortunately everyone on the flight was safe and unharmed. That had to be a scary situation for everyone involved.