Applying for Manager of the Tigers

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.

Inside Scoop into the Finale of Breaking Bad!

Breaking Bad, the best TV drama EVER, is coming to an end tonight. And I’m not sure what I’ll do without my regular fix of Walter White, Jesse Pinkman and their crazy, brilliantly conceived, roller-coaster ride of meth-cooking drama.

Thanks to Netflix, I was able to binge-watch the first four seasons of BB as fast as the US Mail could deliver the DVDs. Sometimes I’d get the shakes and the munchies waiting for that little red envelop to arrive. Obviously, a show about a high school chemistry teacher who turns into a meth kingpin is not the most wholesome of broadcasts. Therefore, I usually followed a BB marathon with an episode or two of Intervention. This is sort of like stopping at Pizza Hut after one of my boxing workouts (which I’ve never done, yet). But seeing a drug addict find sobriety after watching Walt cook meth somehow makes me feel better.

Not only is BB at the pinnacle of the creativity scale, but the acting, writing, and whatever-you-call-cinematography for TV is amazing. The story, in short, is about transformation – How Walt morphs from a poor-salaried-Cliff Huxtable into Tony Soprano is completely addicting. Jesse, always bruised and battered, starts out as a smart-assed teen, struggles with the conflict between right and wrong, and ends up wallowing in a pit of despair. Walt’s wife Skylar, Albuquerque’s own June Cleaver with an accounting degree, experiences the full spectrum of emotions before becoming Walt’s money laundering accomplice.

Other themes? Power. Greed. Love. Revenge. Loyalty. BB has it all.

So, what is going to happen tonight? From the flash-forwards, we’ve seen that Walt returns to his house to get a hidden vial of poisonous ricin. He also has an M60 in his trunk. Walt could be going after his former business partner and his wife who threw Walt under the bus on TV at the end of last week’s episode. Also, he could be preparing to take on “Uncle Jack” and his band of Neo-Nazis who have Jesse in captivity, control of the meth enterprise, and the lion’s share of Walt’s cash.

Here’s what I want to happen: Walt doesn’t know that Jesse is alive. So, I want Walt to discover Jesse when he goes to Uncle Jack’s compound to try to get his money. Walt rescues Jesse and they both make it out alive. But then, Jesse gets the final comeuppance and kills Walt, the man who’s been manipulating him from the get-go. But, that’s all way too tidy.

Here’s what might happen: I think Jesse dies in a massive shootout at Uncle Jack’s, maybe even shot by Walt. I think Walt has the ricin as a last resort in case he is captured by Uncle Jack. But, I think in the end, Walt survives. He delivers his millions to Skylar. And then he returns to his lonely cabin in the snowy mountains of New Hampshire. His cancer wins out. And the final camera shot pulls back showing Walt dead on his bed, the vial of ricin sitting atop the oil drum of cash.

Good-bye Breaking Bad. Thanks for the ride. Respect the chemistry, yo!

Getting Older Along the Way to Machu Picchu

“I’m gonna soak up the sun, got my 45 on, so I can rock on.”  Sheryl Crow

The snow-capped mountain stood almost mockingly before me. “I dare you,” whispered the wisps of clouds that snagged on its peak like a shirt on a chain-link fence.

At 20,574 feet, Mount Salkantay is the highest peak in the Willkapampa mountain range in the Peruvian Andes. It is about 40 miles from the town of Cusco where I had just spent two days getting acclimated to the altitude and eating as much pollo saltado as possible. A three-hour bumpy van ride took my buddy Dave and I to our starting point at the bottom of Salkantay. We were with two other Americans, our guide, our cook and his young daughter. We ate lunch in short sleeves under the warm midday sun. The white top of the mountain looked as big as Everest in its setting against the deep blue sky.

We were about to begin a four-day hike to Machu Picchu and in my excitement I may have missed some valuable packing information. Our guide told us we could lighten our backpacks by putting some items on the mules that the cook used to ferry our supplies from camp to camp. Since it was so balmy during lunch, I chose to have the mules carry my heavy fleece coat, hat, and gloves. Not my greatest Edmund Hilary moment.

We walked for a few hours toward the looming mountain when suddenly we changed direction. We didn’t go left or right. Not east or west. We started going up … as in up the mountain. Instantly, as if on cue, it started snowing. Then the wind began swirling. The trail coiled in tight switchbacks and with each turn the temperature seemed to drop 10 degrees. I borrowed an extra jacket from Dave, but it did little to shield me from the wind and cold. Breathing became harder and my steps tougher as the air thinned in the altitude. It was like walking underwater in boots made of concrete.

I trudged into our camp for the night exhausted and freezing. At 15,000 feet my head ached and my stomach was seriously queasy. I crawled into my tent, put on every piece of warm clothing I had brought, and sank into my sleeping bag. I couldn’t sleep. The cocoa tea we drank in Cusco to ward off altitude sickness kept me from barfing but infused me with insomnia. I lay awake all night secretly wishing for a helicopter to take me off that miserable mountain and hoping I wasn’t going to end up in John Krakauer’s next book.

The helicopter didn’t arrive in the morning so I knew that the only way off of the mountain was to walk. Believe me, descending can be just as arduous as ascending, just ask my knees. At least the temperature warmed up and by reaching a lower level in the atmosphere, the air became breathable. We hiked about 15 miles that day and reached camp at nightfall. Despite being physically worn out, I felt better with warmth, food, and sleep.

Once we were off the mountain, the third and fourth days of the journey were delightful. The trail leveled off and took us through lush jungles with waterfalls and rushing rivers. We traded in the heavy coats for shorts and T-shirts. We ended up in secluded train depot where we caught a ride to the town of Aguas Calientes. After a soak in the local hot springs, a pizza, a shower, and a real bed, we entered Machu Picchu early the next morning.

There’s no way to adequately compare what walking into Machu Picchu at sunrise was like. Imagine seeing the Grand Canyon and the Manhattan skyline at the same time. It’s indescribable. I urge you to go. And you don’t have to hike in; you can grab a train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes.

Later this month, it’ll be five years since the trip to Machu Picchu that commemorated turning 40. Now, I’m halfway to 90. Geezer-hood is right around the corner. That’s 45 trips around the sun. Each lap is 584,020,178 miles and come with zero frequent flyer miles from Alec Baldwin.

The Incas, who built Machu Picchu back in the 1400s, were major fans of the sun. Aside from worshipping the sun god, Inti, they considered their king to be a child of the sun. Machu Picchu itself is set up with the sun in mind. Two of its three main structures are known as the Hitching Post of the Sun and the Temple of the Sun. While there, I remember the Hitching Post of the Sun to be extremely fascinating. Similar to a sun dial, it is a stone that points directly at the sun during the two equinoxes. The Incas believed the stone held the sun in its place along its annual path in the sky. At Midday on March 21^st and September 21^st, the sun is almost directly above the pillar. The Incas held ceremonies at the stone in which they “held the sun” to halt its northward movement in the sky.

It’s an amazing feat for a people group who weren’t placing any phone calls to Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. Wanting to stop the sun is also a pretty interesting concept. It’s sort of like those of us who wish to halt or even reverse the passage of time and the aging process. I’ve never been too concerned with getting older. Milestone birthdays don’t bother me. Maybe it’s because I don’t look or act my age. I’m thankful that I haven’t had to visit an ophthalmologist yet and that I can still go from first to third on a single. I know the days of three-hour basketball sessions are completely in the past, but I can still go 60 minutes with a heavy bag a few days a week. I understand that more vitamins and perhaps a daily prescription or two is par for the course. One of these days my hair might even start graying.

The earth keeps orbiting the sun. There’s no way to halt its course. And when my knees feel creaky and my back hurts, I can remember the hike up Mount Salkantay. Because nothing was that tough. Although, it sure made arriving at our destination all the better. And isn’t that the case with any difficult journey or task? Pain and suffering are replaced by joy and satisfaction. Hiking to Machu Picchu was a trip of a lifetime, but I’d never do it again. Besides, there are other mountains to conquer. Which reminds me, I need to tell Dave that we’re doing Kilimanjaro in five years.