Lynn Henning

Cabrera's actions show he needs to get control of his life

Any assessment of Miguel Cabrera's antics the past weekend begins but hardly ends with one heaven-sent blessing:

A man with a blood-alcohol level of .26 did not kill or maim anyone. His encounter with Birmingham police Saturday was not spurred by a tragic case of vehicular homicide, or domestic carnage, which we know from heartbreaking experiences during the past year, has been a too-prevalent headline in Metro Detroit, alone.

So, ahead of entering into any discussion about how Cabrera's Friday/Saturday debauchery was an assault on the team for which he is employed, the Tigers, be grateful this was not a loss-of-life issue, or a felony, and it could have been either for a gifted 26-year-old athlete who has immense work in front of him on the personal and professional fronts.

"Kid' has to grow up

Cabrera is often referred to by his manager, Jim Leyland, as "a big kid" who loves playing baseball. The description is apt in two ways.

Cabrera, a first baseman who might be one of baseball's three or four best hitters, is a carefree, even aloof, colt of an athlete whose personal style is irregular.

He can be pleasant and good-natured. He can be brusque and oblivious. What a person is left with is the sense that he is younger than his chronological age.

This immaturity was on particularly ugly display Friday night when he decided to hook up with some Chicago White Sox buddies at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham, where the White Sox were staying.

Cabrera lives in Birmingham and is no stranger to the swank hostelry and its bar. In Friday/Saturday's instance, his conduct was disgraceful in multiple ways.

A midnight-till-dawn bender is bad enough, let alone when you and your team are engaged in the single most important baseball games of the season, with a playoff ticket on the line.

Hanging out with the opposition isn't exactly the way the game is obliged to be played, either. Baseball allows for civility, even friendship, between players in a manner never permitted during earlier eras. But what happened Friday night was an affront to even the most reckless view of how opponents are supposed to behave away from the field.

Cabrera happened to have a lousy weekend against the White Sox, which is difficult to separate from the way in which he spent Friday well into Saturday. He went 0-for-11 during the three games. The team's biggest hitter and run-producer (33 home runs, .323 average, 101 RBIs) was a non-contributor as the Tigers lost two of three and Tuesday play the Twins in a single-game playoff for a spot in the American League Divisional Series.

Cabrera showed up for Saturday's game with scratches on his face, which could easily have been explained had the scratches occurred in some kind of non-incriminating way. But neither he nor his teammates, nor club officials, who all knew what had happened, were sharing even a whisper of what had taken place.

They were not protecting a man for whom they felt great loyalty. Not after Cabrera's night at the Townsend. Through gritted teeth, and with absolute fury at what Cabrera had done, they opted for a higher ideal: keep team business private.

But what they knew, what enraged them, was that while the rest of the Tigers were investing heart and soul and sweat in trying to lock up a playoff spot and hold off the Twins, Cabrera had his personal gratification to consider.

Message to Cabrera: It would behoove you to hit the cover off the baseball in today's showdown against the Twins. A baseball club from Detroit figures you owe them one.

What happens next?

What happens next in Cabrera's life, and in his relationship with the Tigers, will be a longer and perhaps more complex process. But be assured the Tigers will be busy, from owner Mike Ilitch to president and general manager Dave Dombrowski to Leyland and beyond, in getting Cabrera to understand he is playing with fire that already may be blazing out of control.

The Tigers have invested $152.3 million in Cabrera through 2015. Such is his immense talent and value to a baseball club fully aware of his superstar skills and his ability to carry a team and a franchise well into the next decade.

But if Cabrera is to become something other than a catastrophe waiting to happen in a sports world rife with case-study disasters, he will need to get a handle on alcohol.

Beginning with this past weekend.

Whether he has a medically identified case of alcoholism is for his doctors to determine. But what can be discerned from this past weekend's incident, and at least one other night at the Townsend where there were a couple of drinks and a verbal altercation, is that Cabrera needs to get control of his life and his responsibilities.

At the moment, he is displaying command of neither. And that peril to himself and to others is more frightening than anything jeopardized for him or the Tigers on a baseball field.

lynn.henning@detnews.com (313) 222-2472