Two of a kind. Despite differences, '62 Mets, '03 Tigers linked by awfulness.

CNN/SI ^ | Friday September 26, 2003 12:38PM | John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.

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Roger Craig, who managed the San Francisco Giants to the 1989 World Series, traveled to Lakeland, Fla., this past spring to spend time with the struggling Detroit Tigers. Craig had been the team's pitching coach in the early '80s.

Craig talked a lot of baseball with the Tigers' new manager, Alan Trammell. He worked with the young and largely untested Detroit pitching staff. While in Lakeland, Craig did his best bit as baseball wiseman to prop up a rookie manager, a handful of rookie coaches and a team full of fresh-faced and impressionable players.

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I like the Detroit Tigers. Catcher brandon Inge comes from my hometown.

[Dan from Michigan]

The Tigers unfortunatly have sucked badly since Cecil Fielder was here, and haven't been a top team since the 80's.

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I think it was losing Sparky Anderson that did them in.

[Dan from Michigan]

The last few years of Sparky were rough too, but Sparky got the most he could out of his team.

Buddy Bell? Phil Garner?

I still have some faith in Trammell, but he's going to need a lot of help.

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He just needs to convince management to fight the Yanks off the next time they get starting pitchers.

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The Jays and Tigers had been building a nice rivalry until 3 divisions wild card format and unbalanced schedule came into being. The rivalry is dead as they hardly see each other anymore. Last year they closed the season together with Ernie Harwell saying his farewell broadcast from Toronto and to be honest the game meant nothing and was a real anticlimax to a hall of fame broadcasting career. At least he was spared this dismal season. I've been to Comerica and its a great park like so many of the new ones in the Camden Yards mold. Detroit deserves a better team.