Miguel Cabrera and Cameron Maybin stood on the field in Comerica Park last week —their lives intertwined once again.
The Detroit Tigers traded Maybin (and five other prospects) to the then-Florida Marlins in December 2007 in exchange for Cabrera. “I’m so proud to have been part of bringing him to Detroit,” Maybin said.
Last week, Maybin was back in Detroit, covering Cabrera’s chase of 3,000 hits for MLB Network. It’s wild how everything in baseball seems tied together. As Maybin and Cabera talked, they turned to the high number of strikeouts in baseball.
“Miggy literally said, ‘Poppy, nobody is a complete hitter,’” Maybin said. “He said, ‘Base hits! Right field! Right center! Nobody wants to take the singles. Nobody wants to take it to right field and get the base hit.’”
Cabrera, of course, is a complete hitter.
A few days later, his 3,000th base hit went fittingly enough, to right field, which seemed so poetic.
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“They left me that hole open,” Cabrera said Saturday afternoon. “So I want to put the ball there. Thank God they do it. When I see the second baseman play almost behind second base, I’m like, ‘OK, you have to shoot the ball there.’”
Cabrera is a complete hitter because he mixes the approach of a singles hitter with the power that produced more than 500 homers.
“When I came to Detroit in 2016, he would take me to the cage every day, and I would emulate him every day,” Maybin said. “And I hit .315 that year for the Tigers. He goes, ‘Hey, I love your swing. Me? I’m just 270. You are just 210. So my singles are doubles and homers, yours are singles and doubles.’
“He understood, if I just take my single and double approach, good things will happen.”
‘He is elite-elite’
When Cabrera got his 3,000th hit, it was a magical moment.
“It was a very emotional moment for me and my family to be honest with you guys,” Cabrera told his teammates in the Tigers clubhouse during a toast that was recorded and released by the Tigers on social media. “I was so nervous because I wanted to do it in front of the hometown, Detroit. … We’ve got a great group of guys here. We can win this division. Let’s keep it up. Let’s play hard. And let’s do it!”
Former Tigers great Kirk Gibson is simply amazed at what Cabrera has done. “I have no idea what it’s like to accomplish the things that he has done,” Gibson said. “He is elite-elite.”
Cabrera became only the third player in history with 3,000 hits, 500 home runs and a .300 career batting average, joining Hank Aaron and Willie Mays.
“It’s inexplainable,” Gibson said. “It really is, to be that good and compile those numbers. He’s got everything: base hits, power, average, longevity, desire. I mean, you gotta really have a high standard and a will to accomplish what he’s done.”
Maybe that’s the core of what makes Cabrera so special.
He has a will to be great.
The will to take a base hit and not just swing for the fences.
The will to keep playing through injuries.
The will to finish an MVP season and come back the next spring and go through a workout on his own before the official team workout.
“We don’t really grasp greatness when it’s happening,” Robbie Grossman said. “We might never see this again.”
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Greatness hugging greatness
Cabrera has already passed some of the greatest names in baseball history.
Lou Gehrig, at 2,721 hits. Babe Ruth, at 2,873 hits.
And Roberto Clemente, at 3,000 hits.
“It means a lot,” Cabrera said. “Roberto Clemente is one of our heroes… I don’t have words to describe the feeling.”
Next up?
Al Kaline — “Mr. Tiger” — who had 3,007 hits.
And that sets up another moving moment, because their lives are so intertwined.
Cabrera had a deep respect and admiration for Kaline.
“I miss him so much,” Cabrera told reporters last week.
I have several memories of Kaline and Cabrera together.
At the start of the 2012 season, the Tigers raised a banner honoring the 2011 team, which fell two wins short of making the World Series, and Kaline, then 77, threw out the first pitch. He came out of the dugout and hugged Cabrera.
It was greatness hugging greatness.
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On the first day of spring training in 2013, the season after Cabrera won the American League Triple Crown and the MVP award, he put in an early morning workout, taking extra batting practice and lifting weights. “We are going to do a lot of the same stuff — the same program — we did last year,” Cabrera said.
Cabrera was smiling and joking and hugged Kaline by his locker.
“Good to see you,” Kaline said.
“Good to see you,” Cabrera said with a smile.
And I remember thinking: Don’t forget these moments. Because it was so amazing to watch them together.
In 2014, I asked Kaline: “What impresses you the most about Miggy?”
“I can’t get the words out to express it,” Kaline said. “I can’t fathom how one person can be this good for such a long period of time. I guess the answer that most people give is the way he uses the whole field and he hits with power and gets base hits even though he can’t run well. He’s not a speed demon.”
At that time, Cabrera was just the ninth player in MLB history to get his 2,000 hit before he turned 31, joining the list of Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Mel Ott, Hank Aaron, Joe Medwick, Jimmie Foxx, Robin Yount and Alex Rodriguez.
Amazing.
But the Cabrera-Kaline relationship only deepened.
About six years ago, Cabrera was in a slump. Kaline walked up to him and squeezed Cabrera’s shoulder, as if to say: “You’ll get through this. I know what you are going through. I have confidence in you.”
“Oh, Mr. Kaline,” Cabrera said. “I need some of your greatness.”
Cabrera grabbed Kaline in a bear hug, trying to squeeze some of Kaline’s greatness out of him. Kaline slapped Cabrera’s back in a bro-hug that should have gone straight to the Hall of Fame.
“You are the greatest hitter in Tigers history,” Kaline used to tell Cabrera.
And Cabrera would kind of wave him off, unwilling to accept it.
After Kaline died, the Tigers held a wonderful ceremony in 2020. They played a video and Cabrera spoke about Kaline: “He was a great person, a great human being and one of a kind.”
Now, Cabrera is about to pass him on the all-time hits list.
“If Al Kaline were alive, what do you think he would say to you, and what would you say to him?” a reporter asked Cabrera.
“He’s one of my heroes,” Cabrera said. “He always said good things about me, always said good things about how I can get better. It’s really sad he wasn’t able to see it, because he always talked about this moment. To be able to do it, hopefully somewhere he’s at right now he’s happy and he’s smiling.”
That brings me to one final thing Kaline told me about Cabrera.
“In my mind, he’s a Hall of Famer right now, even if he doesn’t play another game,” Kaline told me in 2014. “I’m not going to put him up as the best all-time hitter. Not yet. But if he continues to do it for another couple of years, I have to put him up in that category.”
Considering that was 1,000 hits ago, I think it’s safe to assume what Kaline would say now, as Miggy is about to pass him on the all-time list: Cabrera is the best hitter in Tigers history.
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Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff.