this taken from ESPN. another shot at how lousy the tigers are / have been. again, i say this is lame cut and paste journalism.
Pudge Rodriguez is making history again. But according to friends who have spoken with him recently, he didn't want to make this kind of history.
Pudge, the reigning NLCS MVP, is one of 101 official LCS or World Series MVPs. Loyal reader David Hallstrom reports that he's only the eighth to change teams the next winter, just the third to willingly sign with a team coming off a losing season and only the second to sign with a last-place team.
But there's a big difference between him and the other MVP to go from penthouse to outhouse. That was Ray Knight, the '86 World Series MVP who went to an Orioles team coming off its first losing season in 19 years. Those Orioles had finished just 16 games under .500. So it's a long elevator ride down from there to the 2003 Tigers.
The Tigers, as if we needed to remind anybody, landed slightly south of that last year -- like around Nicaragua. They were 76 games under. But at one time they were 80 games under .500 -- which would equal how many games below sea level all of Rodriguez's teams finished in his six previous losing seasons combined.
So no wonder he has been telling friends that he's still heartbroken over not re-signing in Florida and that he's taking the Tigers' offer simply because it's the only one out there in the price range he'd set. It's amazing what some guys will give up for money -- such as happiness.
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