Culture shock

Fitting to see Jim Leyland managing against the Braves Monday with all the history they’ve had against each other. Atlanta’s pitching kept Leyland out of the World Series in 1991 and ’92 before Leyland got his revenge in Florida with the ’97 NLCS. But think about this: When the Braves started their run of division titles in ’91, Leyland had just established himself as one of the game’s best managers. He managed five more years in Pittsburgh, then two more teams after that, then got out of the office for six years. Now he’s back, and the Braves’ run of titles is still going.

Meanwhile, the Tigers haven’t had a winning record since 1993. And though Leyland said he doesn’t believe in the culture of losing, he couldn’t deny that a winning record would mean something here, even if it doesn’t mean squat to him:

"It would probably be a good year for the Tigers this year. It’s not
even
close to what you’re talking about or what you’re in the business
for, no.
Under normal circumstances, is .500 good? No, not at all. But
under the
circumstances when you’re 20 games under and haven’t done it
for 12 years,
you have to start somewhere. I would not happy, but it
would be better than
being 20 games under. No, .500 basically means you
kissed your sister."

This is from a guy who in 1986 took over a Pirates team that won 57 games the year before he got there AND had the Pittsburgh drug trial. Asked what he did in Pittsburgh to change the attitude, Leyland said:

"I had to change the players. And that’s what we’ll do here, if we need to. It’s real simple: If I don’t do the job here, they’re going to change me. Well, at some point you have to say if the players aren’t doing the job, you change the players. And I talked to the guys about it. It’s not a threat. It’s common sense. It’s a fact."

The last time we heard anything like that from a Tigers manager was from Alan Trammell in 2003. The difference was that he was saying it about a bunch of kids he was left to evaluate that year. If you believe Phil Garner was left hanging to an extent with his roster, then it’s been a long time since a Tigers skipper has had the weight to hold a team of veteran players accountable.