@Salty , I do not live too far from the Tigers Spring Training location. I will be going there next month to see the Tigers play my favorite team, the Mets. I will also be taking my annual drive down to Port Saint Lucie to see the Mets work out. Many of the players are very approachable during the first week of Spring Training.
Interesting -
During 1956-57 and again 1963-1966 The Syracuse Chiefs were a farm team of
Detroit.
I remember when the Tigers
went to the 68 World Series, the local media were mentioning how many of the player had been on the Syracuse Chiefs Roster.
A couple of years ago, the NY Mets bought the Syracuse Chiefs and now we are their AAA farm team.
(Probally the worse thing the Mets did was to rename our beloved Chiefs as the Syr mets ---- uggggggg)
Seeing I live in Upstate NY - I doubt I will make it down there.
Syracuse, huh? I used to work for a now-defunct rental uniform company headquartered in Syracuse, Coyne Textile Services. I had the pleasure of experiencing that lake effect snow. Not a fan.
The Mets are going to have some very talented prospects who will probably play at Syracuse this year. Keep your eye on Ronny Mauricio and Andres Giminez.
Al Kaline and Mickey Lolich were on that team. I think that was the year Denny McLain won 31 games. That will never happen today with the way they limit pitch counts.
The great starting pitchers I remember from the late '60s and '70s regularly threw complete games. Marichal, Gibson, Seaver, Carlton, Palmer, Ryan...these guys pitched northward of 250 innings each season and would argue with their manager if he tried to take them out.
Now teams are using pitchers as "openers". The Yankees did that a few times last year. It is not the game that I remember. Man. I must be getting old.
I've been watching the Ken Burns documentary "BASEBALL" the last couple of weeks to prepare. All will be right with the world again when the best game is back on the horizon!
Not to mention my Reds have made some MAJOR upgrades.
Hope springs eternal for us Tiger fans, for its been since 1984 they won the World Series, even though we had at one time 4 Cy Young award winners as our starting pitching staff!
And a Triple Crown winner, and a Cy young/Mvp same year same person!
There is a Panera Bread across the street from the hotel where many of Tiger players stay for spring training. I frequent that Panera Bread and so did Justin Verlander when he was with the tigers. It wasn't unusual to see him there in the early AM in February and March.