Upon considering the Yankees' payroll and the Red Sox' collapse and the Dodgers' bankruptcy, Detroit News columnist Jerry Green casts about looking for Major League Baseball's greatest franchise and alights upon ... well, here - You read it:
Bud is the fortunate commissioner, despite everything on his resume - cancelled World Series, unfinished All-Star Game, second-place teams winning championships. Major League Baseball is just plain lucky.
It does have a prestigious franchise with solid stability and rich tradition.
The Detroit Tigers have become the jewel franchise of Major League Baseball.
Not the Rangers, heading to their second straight World Series?
Well, Green gives the Tigers extra credit for having been around for 100 years ... but if you get bonus points for history, why not the St. Louis Cardinals? They're going to do at least as well as the Tigers this season, they've also got a fairly new ballpark (and with better attendance), and oh by the way their history goes back a lot farther than the Tigers'.
You want to argue that the Tigers are a jewel? I've got no problem with that. I miss Tiger Stadium and I wish we still had it, but hey nothing lasts forever. The jewel, though? Only in a local newspaper columnist's feverish fantasies.
Meanwhile, over in the little baseball game, Miguel Cabrera hit his second homer of the game, another solo shot, and now the score is Rangers 15, Tigers 5 after the top of the seventh.
H/T: BTF's Newsstand