Inside the legend and legacy of the Detroit Tigers' great as his Hall of Fame career culminates in one final at-bat.
He then looked to the visitor's dugout at Guaranteed Rate Field and walked off first, replaced by a pinch runner. And just like that, the moment was over. For the 49th time in his career he got four hits in a game, and it might be his last real moment of greatness on a baseball field.
Cabrera, here high-fiving Endrys Briceño before the 2023 World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game against Team USA , was once the heartbeat for Team Venezuela. Now he's more like a father figure for the new generation. Eljaua took a plane from Miami to Caracas, Venezuela, then drove two hours southwest to the Maracay neighborhood of La Pedrera. On a clear and sunny afternoon, Eljaua stood on an unkept, dirt baseball field full of rocks.
A quarter century later, Eljaua still remembers that day better than all the other scouting trips he's made during this 30-year career, that day the kid jumped the fence and swung like that. Tigers go on an 1-11 stretch that extinguishes the small hope that 2023 would end their eight-year postseason drought. Cabrera isn't playing much, even if, at $32 million, he's the highest-paid player on the team. Tigers' manager A.J. Hinch says he'd like to play him more, but the pitching matchup must be right, and it also depends on how Cabrera's feeling that day.
There's a thin line between confidence and delusion. Star players often blur the two. Generational talents sometimes can't tell the difference at all. For someone like Cabrera, acknowledging any slippage is antithetical to how he sees himself, even if he's hit below .300 for seven straight seasons. Another hot streak is one at bat away. He just needs more swings.At the 59-game mark, he's played in 31 of them, batting .202, with no home runs.
"Miggy, you playing today?" someone asks him about 45 minutes later as he stands on the field, near the Tigers' dugout in Comerica Park. Cabrera answers with a head shake. He then takes photos and signs a few autographs for some young fans on the field. Cabrera talks for about 15 minutes, about how special Miami is to him, about winning the World Series here as a rookie in 2003, about how he has two major regrets: He wishes he'd won a WBC for Venezuela and a World Series for Detroit. He says he now sympathizes with part-time players because it's difficult to not play every day. He's grateful for the reception he's gotten during his final season.
"It's a very demanding career and he deserves his rest," Andrade says of Cabrera."But that doesn't keep it from hurting. We're selfish. Humans are selfish, we don't want him to leave." June is when the Texas Rangers gave Cabrera a horse saddle. The Phillies gave him a piece of the out-of-town scoreboard at Citizens Bank Park. Along with that, a much more personal gift. Dave Dombrowski, the Phillies' President of Baseball Operations, gave him a framed photo collage of his family with Cabrera.
Leyland, now 78, says Barry Bonds -- who he managed in Pittsburgh -- might be the best player ever, and Cabrera is right there with him."Two thousand twelve was the greatest individual season I've ever seen," Leyland says of Cabrera's Triple Crown season, the only one of the past 56 years. He earned the first of two consecutive MVPs that year. Leyland still watches Cabrera play; they remain close, even if they don't talk as often as they once did.
"Cabrera is loved in Detroit," says Joe Swierlik, who was named the Tigers' biggest fan in a 2020 contest sponsored by Comerica Park."For many, he's the closest monumental player we will ever see." Swierlik is 38, about a year too young to have been alive the last time Detroit won a World Series. For most of his childhood, he watched the Tigers play in what he calls,"one of the most brutal periods to watch.
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