This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Miguel Cabrera has 12 All-Star selections, seven Silver Slugger awards, four batting titles, back-to-back MVP honors and a Triple Crown on his resume. He has one more chance to add a Roberto Clemente Award to his long list of accomplishments.
It’s not for lack of chances. The annual award recognizes the Major League player who best represents the game through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy and positive contributions on and off the field. Cabrera has been the Tigers’ nominee nine times, but has never won the national award. No Tiger has won it since Hall of Famer Al Kaline in 1973, the first year the honor had been named after Clemente.
While Cabrera has received plenty of personalized retirement gifts from other teams as the Tigers make their way around the league, one common theme is teams donating to the Miguel Cabrera Foundation. Cabrera and his wife Rosangel have been heavily involved in community work over the years since establishing the foundation in 2012, and continue to do so as his playing career winds down. What began as a way to help promote baseball at the youth level through ballfield renovations and equipment donations in Detroit, Miami and Cabrera’s native Venezuela has grown to help families on various levels.
The Cabrera Family Scholarship endowment, established in 2017, awards two renewable scholarships each year to first-generation college students in Michigan and South Florida. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cabreras donated $250,000 to provide meals for children, technology for students for remote learning, daycare for families and face masks for Detroiters. Miggy also answered the call to become a co-chair for the Protect Michigan Commission to promote vaccinations and help reduce the spread of COVID-19.
Cabrera will be honored for his nomination in a pregame ceremony as part of Miggy Appreciation Weekend on Friday, Sept. 29. Meanwhile, fans can vote for the Roberto Clemente Award winner among the various club nominees here until the end of the season. The winner of the fan vote will receive one vote among those cast by a blue-ribbon panel that includes Clemente’s children as well as representatives from MLB.com, MLB-affiliated networks, the Commissioner’s Office, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and sponsor Capital One.