What Tom Gage DID NOT Write Regarding Miguel Cabrera

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By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
November 3, 2014

If you scoured the entire state of Michigan you would not find someone  who would be less likely to write an article defending the beat writers of the Detroit Tigers than me.

In fact, by the end of this article, you probably will be shaking your head wondering if this is a defense of that group at all or just another chance to take a shot at Lynn Henning, Matthew B. [Aggressive] Mowery, Tom Gage, the retiring John Lowe and his trusty sidekick … Mr. Hat.

But not unlike a bunch of Jewish attorneys at the A.C.L.U. defending the rights of Neo-Nazis or Klansmen, I am here today to right a wrong even if I have to do it with a clothespin pinching my nose.

A few days after the Tigers were embarrassingly eliminated from the postseason at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles — mainly because their imbecile manager stinks — a curious article appeared in the Detroit News.

In the immediate aftermath of the Tigers severely disappointing season you might have expected the paper’s beat writer (Gage) to critique either Dave Dombrowski’s faulty construction of the roster or Brad Ausmus’ asinine decision to pull Anibal Sanchez from Game 2.

Instead, the longtime scribe penned an odd and cryptic piece about the behavior of Miguel Cabrera this past season in relation to the media.

Here is fairly large excerpt from what I described at the time as Gage’s whining about a player not being nice to him and his fellow eunuchs in the press ….

Cabrera, though, is an enigma — so vital to the Tigers, so playful on the field, so cooperative with the fans before a game, and yet in some ways becoming distant, waving away not just those who might annoy him with a question he doesn’t want to answer.

But anyone with any question.

Not that Cabrera has ever been counted on for much of a reply. Being a star on a perennial contender, however, he appeared to know — as do most of those with whom he’s experienced peaks and valleys as Tigers — his account of events carried weight.

It still would have this season. He simply chose, far more often than not, to remain silent.

Cabrera’s altered accessibility was noticed as early as spring training.

In reply to a question posed respectfully of him in Lakeland, Florida, Cabrera got angry, said “bleep, I have to (go to the restroom)” and walked away in a huff.

There were other moments equally unfortunate, to the point that Cabrera’s unfriendliness became common.

That’s all right to this extent: I’ve never been one to complain about a player not talking. It’s entirely their right. This is not a whining-media response.

When the same, tame question that angered Cabrera was asked of his fellow Venezuelan Anibal Sanchez — the question was about Venezuela — he declined as well.

But with class.

My immediate reaction to this was to attack Gage for wasting time with this Miggy crap when there were about 100 more pressing issues to discuss regarding this baseball team’s collapse.

I was all set to write an article attacking Gage for this nonsense but then stopped and decided to do a little more research into the matter. I have spent the last three weeks attempting to get to the bottom of what would possess Gage to basically call Cabrera “classless” in the pages of a major daily.

I found that there were times this season when Cabrera wasn’t just surly or disrespectful to the members of the media in the clubhouse who were attempting to do their job — he was completely inappropriate and unprofessional toward them

There were instances when Cabrera would respond to a query by giving the universally-recognized pantomime for giving oral sex. On at least one other occasion, Cabrera approached a reporter from behind and gyrated his exposed penis toward them.

From what I have been able to gather, the relationship between Miggy and the everyday Tigers media was extremely toxic from Spring Training until the team’s October elimination.

Look, I don’t give a damn if an athlete doesn’t want to talk to the media. Hell, I wouldn’t want to stand there half-naked answering dumb questions from Jason Beck, Jeff Riger or Dana Wakiji either. Especially if English were my second language.

99% of the time we get nothing of consequence from athletes; the other 1% is comprised of saying stupid crap like not wanting a gay teammate or denying the Big Bang Theory.

All Cabrera would have had to do is tell someone in media relations that he didn’t feel comfortable talking to reporters this season and that hack (Kate Ready) would have told the press to not even bother going up to him. But playing blowjob charades and wiggling his cock in the direction of reporters is beyond the pale.

If those gyrations had been aimed at either Lindsey Hayes or Jennifer Hammond instead of a male reporter the Tigers might have had a major shitstorm on their hands.

I am sure there are plenty of people reading this who aren’t going to even give a flying fuck about these shenanigans either. If Miggy keeps putting up OPS’s north of 900 and winning Player of the Month awards when he is suffering from an ankle fracture let the back-to-back MVP do whatever he wants.

But this most recent disturbing Miguel Cabrera story isn’t exactly an isolated incident.

We are talking about a man who has a rap sheet that includes:

  • Bullying a kid in the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham for being fat. The incident allegedly included Cabrera telling the people at the kid’s table that he had a gun and allegedly ended with Cabrera being asked to stay away from the ritzy hotel.
  • Getting ossified drunk at that same hotel a few months later and supposedly partying with the Chicago White Sox during the final weekend of a pennant race in 2009.
  • Allegedly scratching his wife’s face in a domestic incident the same night of the alleged White Sox partying, leading a sobbing Roseangel Cabrera to call the cops.
  • An incident in a Florida restaurant where he again mentioned having a gun on his person and then threatened to blow up the establishment. Of course, this behavior was also in the midst of a DUI arrest.

These incidents are troubling not only for Miguel Cabrera but for the Detroit Tigers organization — which gave him an eight-year, $248 million extension earlier this year, the largest in baseball history.

Fuck, for $31 million a season, I’d be more than happy to address all of the inquiries that come out from demented mind of Lynn Henning.

All of this begs another question though. Why are you reading about the more incendiary charges against Cabrera on the DetroitSportsRag.com and not on the Freep, News, MLive, The Oakland Press or Tigers.com?

[I will wait for you to stop laughing at the mere suggestion of that last “news” source. Done yet? Can we go on?]

This speaks to the more systemic problem of getting AWFUL print coverage of the Tigers in this town. Gage didn’t mention the penis antics and the oral sex sign language (you know, the real MEAT of the story) because he will have to share “office space” with these players and management again next year.

These so-called journalists are a bunch of devout cowards who don’t want to rock the boat too much because [Trout] forbid they come face-to-face with someone they had ripped.

Have you ever noticed that the only time anyone in this town calls for someone’s head is AFTER the firing has been announced? It occurred when Jim Schwartz was canned and the same thing is happening now that David Brandon has been dismissed ummmm … resigned at Michigan.

These cockroaches can’t come running out from underneath the refrigerator fast enough once the person they NEVER HAVE TO SEE AGAIN is gone.  Only at THAT point do they throw dirt on the casket.

All that these career box score summarizers care about is accruing frequent flier miles and racking up Marriott points while making as few waves as possible. They aren’t JOURNALISTS. Real reporters risk a beheading in Syria or refuse to testify and risk jail time like James Risen.

They don’t get plaudits from their SUBJECTS when they retire — like the ones John Lowe received from Jim Leyland when that relic FINALLY called it quits last month.

“He’s a great guy. I’ll never forget him. He’s kind of got a signature with his hat. And he’s a great human being.”

I DON’T CARE IF THE PEOPLE WHOM I COVER ON THIS WEBSITE LIKE OR RESPECT ME!!!!! A reporter is supposed to have an ADVERSARIAL relationship with his or her subject, something which is COMPLETELY lost on most of the sports writers in this awful town.

Do you think Matt Taibbi desires a nice blurb from the executives of Goldman Sachs when he calls it quits? Do you believe Glenn Greenwald gives a flying fuck what the NSA thinks of him?

No, because they are actual journalists who respect their craft and not total losers, like Chris Iott, who bitch and moan when their dinner is delayed because of an unscheduled conference call presser.

So, no, you weren’t going to get a column calling for Brad Ausmus’ job from any of these schmucks when Joe Maddon became available — even though that would have been an absolute no-brainer.

Because they will have to interact with Ausmus next season; wouldn’t that be uncomfortable?

Hell, not one of them even wrote about this Cabrera stuff — which directly impacts their OWN VOCATION — so do you really think you are going to get anything BITING about Dombrowski’s front-office moves?!?!!?!!?

More and more, you are going to have to rely on sites like MGoBlog — who, at the very least, expedited Brandon’s exit with their recent email expose — and this one for any real criticism of our professional sports teams.

In the meantime, hopefully Miguel Cabrera can get some more help. And I am not talking about the kind for bone spurs and ankle fractures.