Detroit Tigers: Remembering Miguel Cabrera’s Other Home Runs

Detroit Tigers 1B/DH Miguel Cabrera finally reached arguably the most important milestone of his decorated career, notching his 500th home run against the Toronto Blue Jays on August 22nd. This is a personal remembrance of a few of the other 499 Miggy Blasts.

I have to be honest, of all of the 362 baseballs Miguel Cabrera has sent over a fence in his time with the Detroit Tigers, the 500th of his storied career means little to me personally. On a Sunday in August for a third-place club, Miggy lofted a Steven Matz breaking ball over the right-center field wall at Rogers Centre in Toronto. It’s an incredible milestone, to be sure, and when Cabrera tallies his 3000th hit, he will enter a club occupied only by Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Raphael Palmeiro, Eddie Murray, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron.

Then again, maybe 500 is important to me because it caused me to reflect on the other 499 home runs Miguel has blasted in his 19 seasons in the major leagues. Miggy’s 500th isn’t just that singular moment. Rather, it’s the result of a long and, lately, arduous journey that I have been fortunate enough to witness up close.

We all know the quote from Moneyball: “How can you not be romantic about baseball?” And yet, it’s a question that always rings true with me. As I look back at the home runs that got Miguel Cabrera to this milestone, it’s impossible to not be romantic about the moments in my life that coincided with the home runs in his. These are 5 of Miguel Cabrera’s other home runs.

4. “There are backbreakers and there are backbreakers. This was a backbreaker.” September 3rd,2011 Detroit Tigers vs Chicago White Sox

It’s hard to believe now, but not so long ago there was a time when the Detroit Tigers won the American League Central in four consecutive seasons. The first division title came in 2011, and it came rather easily as Detroit finished 15 games ahead of 2nd place Cleveland. That was not the case in the opening days of September, however, when the Tigers held a 6.5 game lead on the Chicago White Sox on September 3 and trailed the Sox 8-1 at home at Comerica Park.

The first year I watched the Detroit Tigers play competitive baseball was 2006. That season, I watched Detroit crumble in September and allow a 5.5 game lead in the division on September 1 evaporate, losing five straight games to hand the crown to Minnesota. on September 3, 2011, it looked like more of the same. And then Comerica Park became a bomb factory. Down 8-6 in the 9th, Ryan Raburn belted a two-run shot to tie the game, and in stepped Miguel Cabrera. Miggy looked at one pitch from Sergio Santos, a slider that didn’t slide, and blasted it over the bullpen in left field, letting the air out of the American League Central.  This was the first time Cabrera made the Tigers’ fate feel different to me because of his presence, a reminder that with his steady hand, they would not collapse.

3. Walking Off Cleveland, the way I heard it Detroit Tigers vs Cleveland Indians August 5, 2012

My dad always had a rule when we went to Detroit Tigers games: NEVER, EVER leave early. He always recalled a story from when my sister was young, and he was with her at Tiger Stadium (the one on Michigan and Trumbull), and the Tigers were getting clobbered on a brutally hot Michigan summer day. With a young daughter in tow who could not have cared less about the game going on in front of her, my dad broke his rule and left the game. Now, if there were ever an emergency and he had to leave, he would listen on the radio to Ernie Harwell call the play-by-play on AM radio. But, again, he had a very young daughter in tow who could not have cared less about the game going on, and so he played some children’s CD.

The Tigers came back from whatever horrible beating they were taken and won. My dad didn’t find out until he got home and my mom told him. He vowed to never leave a game again.

Until… a brutally hot summer day at Comerica Park with a teenage son sitting in the right-field bleachers, baking in the Detroit sun without any shade to speak of, watching a very prolonged 5-5 game go into extra innings. In the top of the 10th on August 5, 2012, Cleveland took an 8-5 lead over the Tigers, and I pestered my dad into leaving early. A cardinal sin. This time, however, we both wanted to listen as Dan Dickerson and Jim Price called a disheartening Tigers loss that would put them 3.5 games behind the White Sox in the central.

Neither of us cared that we left when Austin Jackson doubled home, Al Avila. We didn’t care that we left listening to Dan call Omar Infante’s game-tying two-RBI single, either. And we certainly didn’t care that we left when Miguel Cabrera sent a 3-1 pitch from Chris Perez over the left-field wall to top-off a 5-run bottom of the 10th. We had the same feeling we had when he walked off the White Sox in 2011. Miggy would not let us lose the division, and we wouldn’t have heard it any other way.

2. The Greatest At-Bat I Ever Heard: Detroit Tigers vs New York Yankees August 9th, 2013.

My favorite Tigers baseball moment in my lifetime came in 2006. I’m sure you already know what it is. Magglio Ordonez took Houston Street deep into the October night to walk off the Oakland A’s and send the Tigers to the World Series. My dirty little secret? I didn’t watch that game live. Instead, I was camping with some middle school friends, and my dad pulled his pickup truck up close to the fire, opened all the doors, turned the radio as loud as it would go, and played the play-by-play broadcast. There’s something a little extra magical about hearing these moments on the radio rather than seeing them.

I was between my freshman and sophomore year of college at Michigan State, out with some friends, probably doing things we should not have been doing. I honestly couldn’t tell you, and until I went looking for Dan Dickerson’s radio call of this home run (which I sadly could not find) I couldn’t even have told you the Tigers lost this game. All I remember is being in the backseat of my friend’s Mercury Mariner, five friends all going silent for the top of the ninth as Miguel Cabrera stepped into the box against Mariano Rivera.

Breathing a sigh of relief as Dickerson told us Lyle Overbay just missed catching a foul pop-up into the Yankee dugout. Listening intently as Miggy battled his way back from 0-2 into a 2-2 count, fouling two pitches off his already injured left leg along the way.

Sitting suspended in silence as Dickerson called a fly ball to deep center field, and erupting and very likely nearly crashing as we high fived around the car when Cabrera’s fly ball settled on the netting beyond Yankee Stadium’s center-field wall. It wasn’t until I got home later and watched the at-bat on replay with my dad that I realized how impressive an at-bat Miguel had put together, and even though the Tigers lost, how could you care? Miggy had one-upped the greatest closer of all time.

1. The Dream Cruise Walkoff. Detroit Tigers vs Kansas City Royals, August 17, 2013

The Woodward Dream Cruise is an annual classic car show that takes place along Woodward Avenue in metro Detroit during the third weekend of every August. I grew up in Royal Oak, which meant I was intimately associated with this event. This being the same summer that Miguel Cabrera took Rivera over the centerfield wall at Yankee Stadium, I was into going to the Dream Cruise with my friends and likely getting into some sort of inadvisable debauchery. Unfortunately for my plans with my friends, my dad and I had tickets to the Tigers game. They were playing the third-place Royals and had a commanding lead on the AL Central at the time, and all I was hoping for was a quick game so I could get to my buddy’s house just off Woodward for a bonfire.

The Tigers got out to an early 3-0 lead that would be quickly erased in a back and forth affair that was knotted up at 5-5 in the bottom of the ninth. I should mention, this was among the loudest regular-season games I have ever attended. With the Royals continuing to display guts in coming back from leads the Tigers would steal, and a tense divisional rivalry, the atmosphere quickly became playoff-like. No sooner had I entered Comerica Park than had I forgotten about my desire to be partying with friends. For a game like this, there was nowhere else I would rather be, and I was especially thankful to be there with my dad.

My dad and I have shared plenty of incredible Tigers moments, whether it’s the aforementioned camping trip blaring Game 4 of the 2006 ALCS out of his car radio, or being at Game 4 of the 2006 ALDS to watch the Tigers send home the invulnerable New York Yankees, or seeing them do exactly that again in 2011, or listening to God only knows how many games on the radio during our many summer road-trips. All of those moments stick out as some of my fondest baseball memories. My dad introduced me to the game. He introduced me to the Tigers. He taught me about their history. He took me to the last game at Tiger Stadium and to the first game at Comerica Park, knowing full well I wouldn’t remember either of them, just to say we were there together. There are moments in adolescence where you separate from your parents. It’s a natural progression for a young kid trying to carve his own path in the world. However, there are moments that bring you back to your roots and remind you of how important those familial bonds can be, and how enduring those relationships can be.

I have no illusions about how fortunate I am to have a good relationship with my dad. It often gets framed, in memory, through baseball. This home run in particular stands out. Miguel Cabrera watched a 3-1 pitch from Aaron Crow meet the barrel of his bat, on his patented flick swing path, as the ball rocketed on a rope into the right-field camera well. From our seats in the right-field bleachers, we saw it all. And then we heard it all, and even through an ear-splitting crowd you could hear the high five my dad and I shared as Miggy walked off the Kansas City Royals.

I didn’t need to be at a party with my friends. There would be plenty of parties. I needed to be at Comerica Park with my dad; and with Miguel Cabrera, my favorite player of all time, giving me one of my favorite memories.

How can you not be romantic about baseball?