Magglio Ordonez

If losing Brandon Inge for 4-6 weeks with a broken hand wasn't enough to rattle the Detroit Tigers, being without Magglio Ordonez's bat surely is.

Ordonez, who had an ankle sprain to begin with, broke his foot while sliding into home during the Tigers' 3-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday night.

It was the Tigers' eighth loss in their last 10 games, and they are now 2.5 games behind the A.L. Central-leading Chicago White Sox.

Reputations precede you in pro sports. And they can enslave you.

It’s easy to spoil us—we who don’t play the game. We who merely watch and follow and pound out Tweets and blister athletes in 140 characters or less.

We got used to Magglio Ordonez, the Tigers right fielder. Every late winter/early spring, when the reports of how the Tigers were shaping up started to flitter in from Florida, we’d do a mental evaluation, position-by-position. When we came to Maggs, it was a simple evaluation.

David Ortiz may be starting to turn a corner, as he's hit safely in his last six games and driven in 11 runs over his last nine.

So a couple nights ago I'm dinking around on the computer, trying to figure out what my fantasy baseball team's pitching rotation is going to look like this year, when my buddy Paul texts me out of the blue to see if I want to go to the Tigers' home opener at Comerica Park.

"Oh, hells yes," I answer. I've never been to a Tigers game in my life before, and what better place to start than the '10 home opener?

Did you hear? Sounds like Magglio Ordonez is going to have a big year.

Literally sounds like.

The audible feeling is that Maggs is going to look more like the Ordonez of 2006-07 than the impostor who wore his uniform for all but the final month of the 2009 season.

More than once this spring training Manager Jim Leyland and GM Dave Dombrowski have alluded to the sound that Ordonez’s bat is making when it connects with the baseball.

For five months, Miguel Cabrera led the Tigers' charge for first place in the Central division.

MVP, MVP, MVP!

With a beastly average of .330 to support 33 home runs and 101 RBI, Cabrera embodied all that was good in Detroit.

He, the young-blooded Venezuelan, along with Justin Verlander and the upcoming phenom Rick Porcello, was among the successful faces of the 2009 season.

Ah, pure rejoicing—the playoffs seemed inevitable.

Deep breath, cross fingers.

Contract options—whether they are vesting options or player/team options—present a headache to baseball managers who would rather play the best nine men each day without having to worry about the business side of the game.

Ah, but it matters. In fact, it matters a lot.

For example, there are two vesting options in the AL Central alone worth watching.

The Detroit Tigers, if they're smart, will not repeat the mistake they made in 2009 when they allowed Magglio Ordonez's 2010 option to vest by a mere 61 plate appearances.

Before we begin, a (slightly) brief introduction:

The year ended badly for Detroit Tiger baseball. There was so much hope over the course of the year that when the team began to fall apart in September, there was almost a consensus of disbelief among the fans.

Well, maybe you've somehow been sleeping all of this 2009 season. Or maybe, you decided to forget about the Tigers this season after an abysmal 2008. Could it be a little of both?

If it's any of those reasons, or for any other excuse you just have missed out on the action of 2009 so far, I'll catch you up. You're in for a suprise.

Brandon Inge isn't just defense.

Magglio Ordonez provided easily the best baseball experience in the past 24 years for Detroit Tigers' fans. The walk-off home run he hit to win the 2006 ALCS and propel the Tigers into the World Series set off a love fest in Comerica Park. It brought tears to the eyes of any fan that saw it.

In 2005, he signed a mega-deal to play for the Tigers, when no one wanted to play here, and when no one wanted to pay him.