The Grandy Man Can

And this afternoon Curtis Granderson did, homering off Phil Coke, the lefty who was brought in specifically to get him out.

The seventh inning shot broke a three-all tie. The Yankees added two more and posted a 6-3 home opener win. 

Granderson homered on opening night last year. He wasn't expected to play today, but proved to be the Tigers' undoing, placing two nice catches in center next to his home run in the record of this afternoon's game.

Disappointing it was, to scratch out three manufactured runs that offset those provided by one swing of Mark Teixeira's bat in the third, only to fall behind late. Mariano Rivera, and the Yanks' new eighth inning man Rafael Soriano, were waiting for them, and retired the last six Tigers in order to preserve the win.

Our 50ths

Two ongoing golden anniversaries will be celebrated this year. 

Fifty years ago this summer, I became interested in baseball, and baseball cards. My first memory of BB on the radio dates back to the eighth inning of a game played on my birthday that June.  

On the playground was a girl, who in winter wore a blue knit cap with a white Olde English "D" on it; who was more interested in the baseball cards my friends and I brought to school than dolls or skipping rope. 

Margaret Catherine Bernadette O'Hara. The only kid in third grade with four names.

She has been a friend and confidante through sock hops and proms, from doo-wop to British Invasion to psych-folk to disco to hair bands to chillout, in good times (1968 and 1984) and bad (2003, 43-119).

Maggie May, grow old with me. The best is yet to come.

The place where we grew up wasn't pretty. (God, you should see it now.) It wasn't New York, or LA, or even Detroit, equally flat and gritty, with the Tigers, and Tiger Stadium. But Steve Boros played for the Tigers, had a card in the 1961 set, and was from our home town. On the card's reverse side, as if we needed more proof that he was ours, appeared the words FLINT MICH.

Ernie Harwell passed last May. Over the off season, we lost Bill Lajoie, who assembled the 1984 world champs, and Sparky Anderson who managed them. 

Steve Boros passed four days after Christmas, and it is his loss Flint-ites feel the deepest.

He had a degree in literature from the University of Michigan, wrote short stories, and a one-act play called "Men And Boys." "The play is kind of way out," he told a SPORT Magazine writer in 1963, for a story on ballplayers with more cerebral off the field interests. 

He managed the Padres in 1986, when Terry Kennedy sought his advice; not on hitting, but Shakespeare.  See the play (Romeo and Juliet), Boros told him, and then look for a good volume of literary criticism. 

"See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch her cheek! (Act two, scene two.)  

For Kennedy, maybe a catcher's mitt? 

As a scout, Boros broke the game down to its smallest parts. His advance reports noted that Dennis Eckersley, on 3-2 counts to left-handed hitters, liked to throw back door sliders. It was a 3-2 Eck slider that Kirk Gibson hit out in the ninth inning of game one of the 1988 Series won by Gibson's Los Angeles Improbables. A most remarkable team, whose triumph was due in no small part to Steve Boros' patient research. 

The same guy -- OUR guy -- who, on that first Tiger team whose roster we can still name, played third base. When Maggie ditched her girl friends to come over and assure a clutch of baseball-mad third grade boys that, despite our fondness for Boros, Rocky Colavito was the cutest Tiger. 

Don't knock the Rock, she still advises, a bare sixteen hours before the start of our 50th season of baseball. 

And, when someone with four names who's been by your side for a half century makes such a request, there is the inclination to honor it.

Around The Lineup

Victor Martinez will catch when Alex Avila doesn't. It should be the other way around. Not since Lance Parrish have the Tigers had a middle-of-the-order power guy behind the plate. Put Jim Price's number 12 on him -- Mr. Price will tell you there are lots of hits left in it -- and turn him loose.

We know Miguel Cabrera can hit, and his glove work at the initial sack is better than his detractors will admit.

Will Rhymes beat out Scott Sizemore for the second base job, unless a last few drops can be squeezed out of DL-ed Carlos Guillen. Last spring, Guillen was now, Sizemore was the future, and Rhymes was in Toledo. They young man who didn't arrive at Comerica until last August has passed both on the depth chart.

Jhonny Peralta can field, some, and hit, a little. He's a natural third baseman playing out of position at short because ...

Brandon Inge is back at third. He'll be 33 in May, is coming off knee surgery, and his strike zone is cap bill to shoelaces. But he can hit, a lot, and knows what to do with the ball when it comes to him.

When the ball comes to Ryan Raburn, anything can happen.  He's been given the chance to show what he can do full time in left field, and the hope again is that he can drive in more runs than he lets in with his porous defense.

We know what Austin ... Jackson can do, and there's no reason to believe he can't do it again.

Magglio Ordonez returns after missing the last half of 2010 with an ankle injury. If anyone can come back at age 37 and post productive numbers, he's the guy. 

They're taking six outfielders north. Brennan Boesch and Casper Wells will give the corner guys a rest, DH when Martinez doesn't, and spot start. Ramon Santiago -- bless their hearts for not trading him to the Phillies -- is the one extra infielder.

Donnie Kelly can do everything except pitch, and is also the third catcher. Maggie has requested that I not write "slide, Kelly, slide!" into the blog this season.

I will give it my best effort, m'dear -- although I have this feeling that, on the last weekend, he'll be the one whose clutch hit gives the Tigers a division-clinching win.

The Pitching Situation

Justin Verlander could win the Cy Young. Max Scherzer was the league's most effective pitcher in the second half last year.

Then come Rick Porcello, Brad Penny, and Phil Coke.

Porcello has to show us that 2009 was no mirage. Penny could be the most pleasant surprise. He looked good this spring after a recent history of injuries. And Coke, a long man last year, must prove that, as a starter, he's the real thing. 

Maggie frowns. Another promise broken.

Joaquin Benoit comes from T-Bay touted as the Mariano Rivera of 8th inning men. (Then why did the D-Rays let him get away?)

Newcomers Enrique Gonzalez and Bryan Villareal take the places of Fu-Te Ni and Robbie Weinhardt, who pitched well enough this spring to make at least half the other 29 teams. An indicator of the mound depth on this Tiger team; an asset that could (will) take them all the way to the big October dance.

But can Jose Valverde return to his early 2010 form?

Before the break, he was lights out, After it, he was lights on. 

The script, as it reads three days before the opener, is for starters to go deep, middle men (Benoit) get them through the eighth, and Papa Grande come in to burn fastballs and splitters past three -- and only three -- hitters in the ninth.

When it all comes true, man: wow! That's somethin' else!

The Singing Of Birds

At six in the morning, every morning. Fourteen above zero, one week into spring, and there they still are. They must think the whole bloody world wants to hear them sing at that hour, especially those of us who have been up all night and are trying to sleep.

I can't wait until it's so warm that the windows must be opened to avoid suffocation.

The last cuts have been made and, as usual, the last cuts are the deepest. Players who came this close -- I'm holding up my thumb and index finger a half inch apart -- to making major league rosters will instead start the season in the minors.

Fu-Te Ni, Robbie Weinhardt, Scott Sizemore, Danny Worth, and Clete Thomas will all start the season in Toledo.

All have spent part of at least one season with the Tigers. That fact separates this year's opening day roster from those past, on which the Tigers more resembled the Detroit Mud Hens. 

The Tiger talent pool is now so deep that there isn't room at the major league level for players who have proved that they belong there.

There prevails in Motown cause for real optimism this last week in March; that the Tigers will prevail in the expected three-team AL Central tussle between themselves, the Twins, and the White Sox. 

Opening day is this Friday in New York. Parkas and mittens will be the order of the day. The voice of the turtle has still not been heard in our land. He is still under ice in the frozen pond, waiting for the call from Mme. Nature to play ball.