Jim Leyland’s remark about Craig Monroe being one of his favorite players led my notes today, but it’s hard to describe in that format how unexpected a pairing this is. Leyland came here with the reputation of a no-nonsense guy who focuses on his stars and veterans, but his camp has been a surprise the way it unfolded. Leyland isn’t a giant authority figure; he wants his players to act like professionals on their own and be loose around him. I think you can see that starting to set in, but there remains an aura around him.

Monroe, on the other hand, is opening up, and really has been for a few years now. He used to be in the background behind better-known players, didn’t really speak up much unless other players did, but he’s much more comfortable in his own personality now. There aren’t many guys in baseball who improve every year for four years running to go from waiver claim to a bona fide run producer. He hasn’t had anything handed to him since he joined this team, hasn’t had anything easy, and he’s made a career for himself the hard way. That earns him some credit with a guy like Leyland, who keep in mind has called Placido Polanco "a manager’s dream." I’m not calling him a team captain or anything, but I think he deserves more credit than he’s received the last couple years.

Magglio said he’s still up in the air about playing in the World Baseball Classic, but he sure sounded like somebody looking to back out of it. When someone pointed out that teams can change rosters between rounds, so a player could skip the first round and play the next one, Ordonez said he might do that. What makes this a very interesting situation is that Carlos Guillen is right next to him in the clubhouse. Guilen has been enthusiastic all winter about playing for Venezuela even though he’s coming off injury, too. Guillen jokes around that they’ll be all over Ordonez in Venezuela if he doesn’t play, but he doesn’t act like he’s offended. Hopefully it stays that way and this doesn’t come between two good friends.

Leyland said today he’s looking to move his family to Detroit year-round and that his wife will be house-hunting this spring. He wants to make a commitment to what the team is doing and make a statement to skeptics who think he’s not in this job for the long haul. It’s an incredible move, not just because of the nature of this business but because he’s lived in the Pittsburgh area for years and remained there after he left the Pirates.

Another simulated game, this one a little longer so that pretty much every pitcher who didn’t throw Sunday could throw today. Josh Phelps homered. Mike Rabelo, who homered off Troy Percival Sunday, tripled deep off of Kevin Hodge today. Later in the game, Don Kelly and Tony Giarratano switched places in the middle infield to give Kelly a look at short and Giarratano at second, which is interesting given what little depth there is behind Omar Infante as the utility infielder, other than Ramon Santiago.

Troy Percival’s locker was cleaned out as of Monday morning. He stopped by later and showed no sign that he expects to pitch again. Before anyone tries to read into the fact that he hasn’t officially retired, keep in mind that insurance policies play a part in this as well. In many cases, it’s easier if a player with a career-ending injury waits until his contract’s up before actually retiring.

That’s about it from here. The sun’s back out and the weather should start warming up again tomorrow.

I’m not going to pretend that Troy Percival’s soon-to-be retirement is a shock, not after where he stood. His comeback try was a long shot from the start, and the chances only grew longer once he was pitching in more and more pain without even pitching in a real game. But I’m also not going to call it a failure, either.

This saga could’ve ended in a lot of different ways, and other than pitching the Majors, almost all of those ways would’ve been worse than what happened today. Percival was a pitch away from giving himself a complete tear of the muscle mass below his elbow, which would’ve meant surgery and an 18-month rehab just to do some everything activities again. It would’ve been awful to watch and catastrophic to live through. Yet Percival knew how he could do it. Listening to him go on about how he would’ve taken that risk if he thought he could really pitch again made me wonder: Given that choice, to live a normal life or to risk a blown arm for the chance of staying in the game — not a guarantee, but a chance — how many players would be able to talk themselves off the ledge and save their arm?

Credit Percival for wanting to give it a shot. He loves this game with a passion, and he desperately wanted to feel like he was giving the Tigers something in return for their money. He took a chance when other folks might have stayed home and took the paycheck. But he realized when he had to that it wasn’t going to work out, and he backed off before trying that one delivery that might’ve brought the final tear.

By the way, it looks like another former White Sox player has an issue with the ballclub. Check out what Frank Thomas said about his old club and its GM in the Daily Southtown (the better parts are near the end). Then check out Williams’ response. The most amazing part might be that Ozzie Guillen actually held his tongue.

"If he doesn’t mention my name then I try and stay away from the conversation," Guillen said. "Obviously, Kenny has to protect himself and the White Sox organization, especially Jerry [Reinsdorf].

"I was reading the article. It’s not my business, it’s not my problem. I’ll let Kenny take care of that. It’s between two people."

Maybe Guillen really did learn something from that SI fiasco.

Troy Percival wouldn’t call it a retirement Sunday, but he said Sunday he has "probably" thrown his last pitch. He gave up a mammoth home run to Mike Rabelo in the final inning of a simulated game Sunday, then after finishing out the inning told the coaching staff and the media that he’s done with his comeback attempt.

"I was throwing as hard as I can," Percival said. "It just wasn’t there."

Percival’s leaving camp for at least a week to figure out his next move. He has offered to help the team in a coaching or instructional role if he can.

OK, that’s not really breaking news. But Torii Hunter’s arrival at Twins camp Thursday was a reminder how much he was missed down the stretch last season. Now that Jacque Jones and J.C. Romero are gone, Jason Williams writes for the Pioneer Press, Hunter is even more important, if that was possible.

Hunter feels it is his responsibility to glue this team together.

"I don’t want to be the police of the clubhouse," said Hunter, who spent most of the final two months of the season recovering at home in suburban Dallas. "You don’t go talk to the police. A lot of people don’t trust the police. I want to be that counselor in the clubhouse. If you need somebody to talk to, you can come talk to me about anything."

Gardenhire missed Hunter taking charge. But that leadership trait got the best of Hunter when he returned from Texas during the last week of the season. He, in fact, contributed to some of the clubhouse dissension, when he tried to punch Justin Morneau after a game. The young first baseman had taken exception to Hunter’s intentionally harmless joke.

The story goes on to say that Morneau looks up to Hunter, so that shouldn’t be a problem. But you get the sense this is a team that will benefit from having Rondell White around. White isn’t a leader type, but he relates to and gets along with just about everyone in a clubhouse. Will that make a difference in the standings? Probably not. I think the Twins desperately need Hunter healthy and productive to merely approach the White Sox and Indians offensively, and they probably need something close to a full season from White, too.

Covering Jim Leyland can be a trip sometimes, because usually once a day during his media sessions so far, he’ll hit a topic that really gets him going for a few minutes. It’s almost accidental; you never know what question is going to do it. His reasons for not having a team stretch came about that way, and so did his diatribe on how some stolen bases are meaningless. Today, someone asked him about young players and he shifted over to a side topic about youngsters losing their confidence if they’re sent back to the minors:

"One of my pet peeves is when people say, ‘Well, you’ve got this guy up here and he’s struggling a little bit, but if you send him down, you might lose him.’ Well, I’ve never bought that. That makes me sick. I’ve sent some pretty darn good players back to the minor leagues that were in the big leagues for a little bit, and the good ones came back and were very good players. The ones that didn’t, they weren’t worth a [darn] anyway. I’m not worried about that.

"This is the big leagues. I mean, I get tired of hearing, ‘Well, you know, he’s a young guy, you’ve gotta be careful.’  This is the big leagues, Major League Baseball. I’m sorry. I mean, I’ll babysit them and rub their tummy and all that kind of stuff, but come on. This is the big leagues. This is for performance. This is not for worrying about, ‘Well, he’s a sensitive kid.’ I don’t want to hear that. I’m not trying to sound like some [jerk] here. What my point is, they’ll probably have a job at some point, but in some cases people have to go back down to refine their skills to become ready to play at the Major League level. I’ve done this as much as anybody in my career.

"I can babysit them and ease them through it. I’m not opposed to that. That’s part of my job. What I’m talking about is, ‘Well, how’s he going to react if we send him down?’ That’s no good in my opinion. We might ruin him? Ruin what? He hasn’t done [anything]. If the guy’s performing, he stays. If he’s not, he goes. I don’t care who the player is. I get tired of that stuff. ‘Oh, you’ve gotta be careful.’ Is he going to be careful with me when [I'm] down the turnpike?"

He wasn’t directing it at any particular player, just young players in general. And his history bears it out. The one move like that I still remember is when he sent Jeff King down after he had seemingly established himself in the big leagues for Pittsburgh in the early 90s. King was the top overall pick in the draft in 1986, but he wasn’t getting special treatment. When he came back up, he stuck around. He was never going to be a superstar, but he stuck around.

The more Jim Leyland talks about the running game, the more you get the impression that he wants to be selectively aggressive. He said he’ll give baserunners the green light, but he also has a stop sign, and he won’t let a runner sit on a green light more than a few pitches before he takes it off. If he hasn’t taken off by then, Leyland reasons, he’s probably too tentative to go. Leyland also gave major credit to his third-base coach, Gene Lamont, for knowing when to send guys. To Leyland, a third-base coach who doesn’t have runners thrown out at the plate sometimes isn’t really trying.

This is a manager who wants to put pressure on the opponent when he thinks it can pay off most. If you look at his history, the only player under Leyland to put up big steal totals consistently was Barry Bonds. Leyland calls Andy Van Slyke one of the smartest baserunners he’s seen, and he didn’t top 16 stolen bases in any of his final six seasons in Pittsburgh when the Pirates really took off. Most of Leyland’s speedy guys are younger this year.

Not really any major developments today. One interesting observation: Pitching coach Chuck Hernandez spent a lot of time on Franklyn German’s bullpen session, interrupting him a few times to tweak German’s grip and arm angle for his slider. You might remember German trying that pitch last spring, but he rarely used it during the season.

Not that anyone was asking me where Robert Fick is these days, but he’s resurfaced with the Nationals, where he’s landed in some sort of bizarro world. It seems Frank Robinson, baseball’s former disciplinarian who used to hand out Fick’s punishment for his antics in Detroit as well as in the Arizona Fall League, is a big fan of his.

"A lot of guys said he was off the wall, he’s crazy," Robinson said. "Ifound him to be a guy with a lot of energy. He played the game hard. He
just wanted to go out and play. Sometimes his emotion got in the way.
He would lose control and tear things. I talked to him and reasoned
with him. I listened to him. We developed a fondness for each other. I
admire him for the way he goes about his work."

This is the third time since Fick left the Tigers that we’ve read about a manager who loves the way Fick plays the game hard and wanted to bring him in. Fick wore out his welcome with Bobby Cox in Atlanta and Lou Piniella in Tampa Bay after a year apiece. He was very much in danger of flushing his career before he salvaged it in San Diego.

"I got into a couple of [incidents]," Fick said. "I didn’t start them.
I should have stayed out of them. I speak my mind. That’s another
problem of mine — I can’t keep my mouth shut sometimes. I’ve learned
some lessons in my career. I’ve learned to deal with situations when
it’s not going my way."

When Fick was in Detroit with the Padres last year, he swore he had changed from his wild days and had grown up. Hopefully for his sake, he can stay that way. It’s a little more boring, because he’s had some unbelievable run-ins to write about, but it’s better for his career.

By the way, it seems like the Nationals are a new landing spot for ex-Tigers turned journeyman. Joining Fick in Nats camp are Damian Jackson, Mike DiFelice, Andrew Good, George Lombard and Brandon Harper. My most vivid Tigers memory among them is Jackson being miscast as a center fielder one day in 2002 and missing a fly ball by about 20 feet or so. Why I remember that, I don’t know.

Jim Leyland made it official and named Kenny Rogers his Opening Day starter followed by Jeremy Bonderman, who will start the home opener April 10. Bonderman said he’s fine with the move, that his memorable outings usually have more to do with what happens in the game than the atmosphere surrounding it. Personally, I like the decision, because Bonderman seems to generate some buzz in the crowd when he starts at home. Not that Rogers is boring, but Detroit seems to identify with Bondo.

No word on how the other starters slot in, but it would figure that Maroth and Robertson in some order would start the first two games in Texas, followed by the fifth starter and Rogers again.

Another good bullpen session for Matt Mantei, who’s looking healthy so far in camp. But then, he says he’s been healthy for almost every year in Spring Training. He’s an interesting story, because he says either he’s going to make the roster or he’s going to retire. If he can’t re-emerge, so to speak, he isn’t going to keep tooling around from team to team.

Troy Percival said he’ll put together a couple good outings in a row and then usually have a less encouraging one. He threw again on Wednesday. Still too early to tell if he’ll be able to pitch again in games.

Just a friendly reminder to remember sunscreen if you’re heading to Lakeland this spring. The weather might be thick fog when you head out in the morning, but it’ll burn off and leave the sun beating down on you. Not trying to rub it in for people stuck in the cold up north, just trying to prevent some sunburns for folks eager to soak in the rays.

I know this is mainly a Tigers blog, but the Italian team for the World Baseball Classic had their first practice Tuesday on the back fields of the Tigers complex. It really felt like a tryout camp, with about 44 players fighting for 15-18 spots. Some of these guys are European professionals who flew across the Atlantic yesterday, got into Lakeland late last night and then worked out this afternoon. It was also very odd to hear a language spoken on a baseball field other than English or Spanish.

Manager Matt Galante is an old-school baseball man planted in a new-school situation. He has no idea what to expect out of the European players or how many will make this squad. He’s realistic about his team’s chances against the Dominican and Venezuela, but he wants these guys to play with a sense of pride, which is an interesting facet when nearly half of the expected roster was born and raised in the U.S. This team has the feel of representing a heritage as much as a nation.

By the way, it looks like Tigers prospect Tony Giarratano will be the starter at shortstop and Jason Grilli will play a big role on the pitching staff. It’ll be a good test for both players, especially Giarratano. He’s never looked intimidated going up against Major Leaguers, no matter how good they are.