Over at Bless You Boys, the home for all things Tigers at SB Nation, yesterday started off with a piece debunking those nascent Prince-Fielder-to-Detroit rumors, concluding with …
But it's fun to dream about Fielder, isn't it? I'd love to be wrong.
The comments in that piece are particularly amazing, moving from …
OTHER THAN THOSE REALITIES, it makes perfect sense…in a world with unicorns and popcorn trees, free candy for everyone, and Don Kelly never batting third, etc etc etc.
… to …
WHAT?!??!?!?!
… in just over an hour. And what a trip to BYB reminds you is that there ain't a heckuva lot of Tigers fans talking about 2020 right now. The backend of the contract is what the rest of the baseball world is thinking of -- nine years, nine years, nine years -- but Tigers fans are thinking about, you know, Prince Fielder. Dingers. Prince Fielder hitting dingers. And I swear to god, autocorrect, if you change "dingers" to "singers" one more time …
Come on. This is Prince Fielder we're talking about. Dingers, baby. And a lot of them. If you're looking for symmetry, cosmic significance, or why this just feels right for Tigers fans, read this great piece by Kurt Mensching on how Cecil Fielder made him into a Tigers fan. Spoiler: Dingers.
Fifty home runs hadn’t been hit since 1977. No Tiger had hit the milestone since Hank Greenberg in 1938. But there was Cecil Fielder, stepping to the plate and you just knew he’d hit a home run. This, too, was the era before every game was televised. Some games were on TV, of course, but most of them were on the radio.
One thing you aren't reading a lot of in Tiger country: "nine years." One thing you are reading a lot of: "Holy crap, Prince Fielder is on the Tigers!" No matter what you think of the length of the deal or the total money, it's enough to make you jealous.