Pudge: Can you see the halo?
Call it confirmation by exclusion.
Pudge Rodriguez said it, it got printed in India ink on newsprint, so it's there for all to see.
He wasn't all that jazzed about Alan Trammell after all.
This won't come as a shock, especially to my colleagues who were closer to the Tigers clubhouse last season than I was. Pudge didn't always play by Tram's rules in 2005, wore a sour puss most of the season, and had one of his worst offensive years ever.
He was, as I had called him, Drudge Rodriguez.
Rodriguez went on the record in Lakeland yesterday, speaking to John Lowe of the Free Press.
"If he [manager Jim Leyland] asks me to do things, I'm going to," Pudge said. "He's the skipper, and you have to follow his rules. Whatever he tells me to do, I'll do."
They are words that were conspicuous in their absence last season under Trammell.
Lowe said in the article that Pudge made his comments "without drawing any comparisons to Trammell."
He didn't have to.
It is only a slight exaggeration to say that Alan Trammell no longer manages in Detroit because of the attitude and nonsense of one player: Pudge Rodriguez.
Cancer. Petulant. Disrespectful. Insubordinate. They are cold, nasty words — and they all, at one time or another, fit Pudge Rodriguez in 2005. There are 25 men on a baseball roster. Maybe 23 of them were liked more on the Tigers by teammates than Rodriguez, the 34 year-old catcher.
He was a hitter without a locked in spot in the batting order because Trammell often didn't know where to place an aging catcher who will not be patient at the plate and who was a shell of his former self — even though Rodriguez made the All-Star team. Pudge should have been, truthfully, a #8 hitter, but it's hard to do that to a potential Hall of Famer. Especially when that player glowers and undermines efforts in the clubhouse at peacekeeping.
"I'm an everyday player," Rodriguez told John Lowe.
Maybe he can be that — playing in the American League, with its always-available slot for the designated hitter. The half-a-player.
Rodriguez told new manager Leyland that he wants to catch 140 of the team's 162 games this season. According to Lowe, Rodriguez hasn't started that many games at catcher since 1999 -- seven years and a bunch of wear and tear ago. He wants to be an everyday player, yet he draws less walks than a part-time pinch-hitter. Rodriguez had all of 11 walks in 2005, a pathetically low number. It amounted to a .290 on-base percentage — the lowest of any American League regular.
I hope that Pudge Rodriguez is sincere in wanting to play for — and obey — Jimmy Leyland. Alan Trammell may not have had the resume as a manager that Leyland possesses, but he should have been accorded the same attitude and words that Pudge exuded in his discussion about Leyland.
But then, if Pudge had done that, maybe Trammell would still be here in Detroit, managing the Tigers.
Somehow I doubt that's what Rodriguez wanted, after all.
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