The Tigers don’t have any meaningful games left to play, really. They have just five left, with two of them against a Royals team that is already out of it and three of them against a Twins team that has already clinched the second AL Wild Card slot and will be looking ahead to the play-in game.
A Tigers player will play all nine positions as a fun gimmick during the season’s final game
It’s a meaningless game anyway, so why not?
Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images
So, in the spirit of trying to make the final few games of the season — and of Brad Ausmus’ career as Detroit’s manager — more fun than they would otherwise be, Detroit is going full gimmick on Sunday.
Andrew Romine, already a utility man for the Tigers, will attempt to play all nine positions in the same game.
He’s already played most of them — the only position he hasn’t appeared at this season (or at all in his professional career) being catcher. And if it’s only for one inning, with some practice time before then to brush up on things, he should be just fine backstopping for the team.
Only four other players have ever done that in a major league game. Bert Campaneris in 1965, Cesar Tovar in 1968, Scott Sheldon in 2000, and Shane Halter, also in 2000. Not many people will be paying attention to the Tigers playing the Twins on the last day of the season, but this should offer some sort of entertainment boost to the fans who are dedicated to tuning in at this point.
There are so many meaningless, and minimally stimulating, games on the final day of the year. If this is a way to make things more exciting without fireworks or a dancing panda in the middle of a field, then by all means let it happen.
(Although if things continue in this manner for the Tigers into next year, then maybe they should look into a dancing panda as well.)
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