NTRs: Non Tigers-related Baseball Thoughts

On the day where someone somewhere is celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Mall of America opening its countless doors, I’m doing a little shopping of my own: browsing the Net and my consciousness for stories that can help me forget about Friday night’s game at Comerica Park.It’s not often that I use this space to talk about other teams and non-Tigers players but I’m going to make an exception today. Going forward I’ll refer to similar posts as NTRs – Not Tigers Related. Rick Ankiel’s Comeback. During the 2000 playoffs I ventured out to the break room at my former employer for a Coke and saw the Cardinals and Braves game on the TV. I hung around to watch Ankiel ’s meltdown and felt my heart break for the guy.It would be one thing to lose control of every pitch in his repertoire in a non-descript game in August versus the Marlins. But to see a promising career unravel in the postseason had to be beyond Ankiel’s worst nightmare.When I read that he was making a comeback for the Cardinals — as an outfielder (!) — in the low minors, I remember hoping that he’d get at least one more appearance in a big-league game.Boy, did he ever.Before turning in on Thursday night I checked the MLB.com headlines and saw that Ankiel drilled a three-run homer in his comeback game at Busch Stadium II (off former Tigers reliever Doug Brocail). Can you even imagine the thrill?According to this, Ankiel is putting the heat on ex-Detroit coulda/shoulda Juan Encarnacion for a Cardinals’ roster spot. (Hmm, two consecutive sentences with a former-Tigers reference. Maybe this isn’t an NTR after all.)Considering the events of last October, I find it tough to root for anything Cardinals. But, I’ve always rooted for the good guys, regardless of uniform.Score one for the good guys. On Barry Bonds… it’s not what you think.  In the late 1980s and early ’90s, I doubt there was a bigger Barry Bonds fan outside Pittsburgh than yours truly. As I’ve written here before, I loved that entire Pirates team from Wally Backman to Zane Smith. That’s where my fondness for Jim Leyland began, too.For me, Bonds was the man, and I anguished with the rest of the Steel City as his sparkling regular-season stats flamed out in October — three years straight. In fact, I  remember flopping on the floor when Francisco Cabrera lined that single to left field in the 1992 NLCS to score gimpy Sid Bream to clinch the pennant. The Pirates would finally make the World Series with this crew, I thought.And then a little-used, little-known journeyman extinguished any flicker of hope in western Pennsylvania by singling in one of his three post-season at bats that year. (Factoid: Cabrera would get only 20 more major league hits and two in the postseason.)I just finished reading a terrific article on The Hardball Times titled: How to fix the Pirates, by Jacob Jackson. In this lengthy piece, Jackson writes about how that one play in October 1992 changed the fate of three teams: the Pirates, the Braves and the Giants.

These are some questions Jackson attempts to answer in the article. The bulk of the piece focuses on what the Pirates need to do today to get a storied, flagship franchise back on the road to winning. (Sound like a club we know?)I can’t recommend it enough.

Technorati Tags: Barry Bonds, Jim Leyland, Pittsburgh Pirates, Sid Bream, Francisco Cabrera, Rick Ankiel, Zane Smith