Dave Dombrowski
President, CEO, and General Manager
Detroit Tigers Baseball Team
Comerica Park
2100 Woodward Ave.
Detroit, MI 48201
November 2, 2013
Dear Mr. Dombrowski,
I would like to apply for the managerial opening of
the Detroit Tigers. With nearly 40 years of baseball (watching) experience, I
truly feel that I am the man to lead the Tigers to a World Series championship.
I’m sure it is tempting to hire someone who has a wee
bit more experience at managing a professional baseball team than I do, somebody
like Dusty Baker, but I believe you need a fresh face and some new blood to
guide the Tigers through the rigors of the 2014 season.
If there’s anything to be learned from the Redsox and
the recent success of the Giants (I’m sure you remember getting swept by San
Francisco in 2012) it’s that team chemistry counts. That and growing long,
ugly, face-devouring beards. So my first order of business as manager would be
to levy heavy fines on any player who shaves after opening day. Chemistry
counts. The Giants, A’s, Pirates, and Rays and have shown that the team with
the highest payroll doesn’t always reach the playoffs (See: Anaheim Angels of
Los Angeles). You have built a team that has the talent to go all the way. So I
pledge to hold enough team-building exercises and mountain retreats to ensure
that the 2014 Tigers are a united, Kum-Ba-Yah singing, loveable (and bearded)
bunch of gritty, hard-nosed ball players.
Boston and San Francisco also proved that it’s helpful
to have some damn good starting pitching. Which you have in spades! Now, your
job is to get some bullpen help. Your current bullpen is crap. Sure, they can
weather the regular season, but I wouldn’t let that crew come within a country
mile of the pitcher’s mound in October. Verlander, Scherzer, Fister, and
Sanchez can all toss a complete game or two (or 11. Whatever it takes to
survive October). Maybe if Jim Leyland had not turned into Captain Hook during
the ALCS, the Tigers would have beaten Boston and you’d be having a parade down
Woodward right now. Forget about pitch counts. You think Drysdale, Feller,
Ford, and Gibson gave a rat’s behind about pitch counts? Well, I don’t either.
What’s a little Tommy John surgery?
I know you’re wondering about my experience. Well, I
did manage a Little League baseball team about 20 years ago. I was all set to
win a championship. I had the best player in the league as my starting pitcher.
He could also play short when my shortstop was pitching and he could catch when
my catcher was pitching. But then he went down with a broken wrist. The point
is that I didn’t try to have him play through his injury like Leyland did with
Miguel Cabrerra. As manager, I’d have no problem sitting the best player on the
planet. I liked how Leyland dropped strikeout-king and leadoff-hitter Austin
Jackson in the lineup. I’d like to drop him to Toledo if you’d dish out the
cash for Jacoby Elsbury, but that’s your call there, Dave. My team also had the
fattest kid in the league so I know what it’s like to manage Prince Fielder.
I know you’ve interviewed the Padre’s bench coach, but
c’mon. I’m sure his resume is impressive. He coached alongside Bud Black, who
learned under Mike Scioscia, who played for Tommy Lasorda, who worked with Vin
Scully, who knew Abner Doubleday. Well, my
coaching pedigree is almost as stellar. I had my dad as a baseball tutor and as
a little league coach. He basically invented the defensive shift. One time in the
second grade he moved me from second base to left field when the opponent’s
best right-handed hitter was up. Plus, I grew up watching Sparky Anderson. Nobody
managed more “by the book” than Sparky. God rest his soul, Sparky never met a
percentage play that he didn’t like. In fact, managing a baseball team has
become nothing but playing the percentages. It’s not that hard to make sure
there’s a lefty ready to face the opponent’s best left-handed batter. Also, I’ve
spent the last 12 years watching Scioscia. By doing so, I’ve become an expert
in the contact play with a runner at third and the five-man infield.
Nowadays managers have every bit of information at
their fingertips. Spray charts, batting tendencies, pitching stats, fielder
placement studies. I can use a computer. If I want to know what Mike Trout is
hitting against sliders from a righty on Fridays, at night, when it’s a full
moon, after having chicken for dinner I can look it up in an instant. So how
hard can managing be? You want to know what’s hard? Getting three dozen
10-year-olds to focus for more than five minutes on dividing decimals, that’s
what’s hard. I think this more than qualifies me to manage 25 over-paid
primadonnas.
Lastly, and maybe most importantly, I can save you a
ton of cash. You don’t have to pay me the millions you gave Leyland. I’m good
if you double my current teacher’s salary and provide all the postgame Buddy’s Pizza
I want (just don’t tell Mike Ilitch. Sorry, I don’t eat Little Caesars). That
should free you up to sign Elsbury.
I understand that hiring me would be a risk. But I’m
certain you won’t regret it. So let’s make a deal. I’ll let you pick my bench
coach. I’m okay with Dusty Baker or even that guy from the Padres.
Sincerely,
Tony Gervase
P.S. I’m pretty sure I’d have the where-with-all to
remind my pitcher not to throw a meatball to David Ortiz with the bases loaded
and a four-run lead.
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