The end of an era

I wake up this morning to find that the Detroit Tigers have traded star pitcher Justin Verlander to the Houston Astros. The longest era of unreached potential for the franchise is now past history, as me Grandpa Joe used to say.

This edition of the Tigers never lived up to its billing. Sure they made two World Series, in 2006 and 2012 respectively, yet were embarrassed in both. Mismanagement and a lack of real fire in the players doomed them. I blame mismanagement more so because part of the mistake has been managers who could not, and I wonder if maybe the right term here is would not, inspire, cajole, or kick their players' tails into higher gear. Because let's be honest: they had the tools. The tools were simply misused.

Jim Leyland, I've said it before and I'll say it again now, was not a good manager. He got a career pass for 2006, yet people forget that as cool as that season was the Tigers actually backed into the postseason. They were 19-31 the last fifty games. Take away the wild card and they were not in the playoffs. Then they did not make the playoffs again until 2010. And Ausmus is his clone. They do not, did not, call out their players to greatness. A Sparky Anderson would have won a lot more with the teams Leyland and Ausmus have had.

Now we get to watch years of painful rebuilding. That's never fun, and never certain. I'm left to wonder if a friend of mine who believes the Tigers will never win another World Series is right. It was hard enough to win one before all the expansion of the last 60 years. It was hard enough to win one when you had the horses. Now, well, all we can do is wait and watch.

And regret what might have, what perhaps should have, been.