Have any of you consumed this fine item yet? In general I think it’s difficult to really badly screw up salsa, but this is not just any salsa– this is MIGGY’S SALSA. It could be filled with chopped up bits of Southpaw or flakes of Silver Slugger silver or some weird kind of bean grown only on the now sort-of vacant lot where Tiger Stadium once stood. You can buy the stuff online but there is no ingredient list so for all I know these speculative salsa-bits could all be reality.

It also comes in three varieties: Mild, Medium, and Hot. Does this refer to, as is typical for salsa, spiciness and mouth-feel? Or is it instructional, telling you which salsa you should turn your corn chips towards at any given time, based on how Miggy is doing at the plate?

If you have a report on this stuff please tell me. The People and Cats must know.

So like there was that game where a Tigers pitcher threw 17 strikeouts, a Detroit record, and that pitcher was neither Justin Verlander nor Max Scherzer. It was Anibal Sanchez. Everyone was sort of like, “Wait, what?” and then, “Oh, cool!” and then, “Man gimme some more of that salsa.”

How many really long games have the Tigers had recently? I am sure it is actually something like 2, but I am not going to go look it up, and it feels like a whole heck of a lot of absurdly, unreasonably long games have been happening as of late. There are two possible images for this. One is me, passed out on my computer, drooling onto the keyboard while the cold bluish light of the game on some sort of screen washes over my pasty skin. The other is the cartoon above.

Also: Bruce Rondon got sent down and Phil Coke landed on the 15-day DL with a strained groin. I leave the potential cartoons of that last to your fertile imagination.

ladies, gents, cats and kittens. i am in the (seemingy never-ending) midst of grad school finals, graduating students’ thesis shows, and a worrying little amount of sleep. i am exhausted. there are 50-50 odds that i will faceplant into the keyboard before the end of this very short blog post.

but i cannot let this slide by without even a hasty, inadequate drawing.

because PAPA GRANDE is back. he is back and he got the save. he is back, he got the save, and tonight he was sporting a TWO-TONE SPLIT GOATEE. this facial hair confection was black on one side and bleach blonde on the other, split evenly right down the middle, as in the cartoon.

i invite you to think long and hard on this new development, because there was only a tiny bit of my mind left to take in the world right now, and this may have snapped it off.

Regular (or something more closely approximating ‘regular’) posting will resume once grad school stops being so grad school and Boston stops being so, you know, bombed.

Deep breaths, watch the Tigers.

Ugh.

No matter. Onwards to the home opener.

Detroit baseball is back! and yes, it’s not back in Detroit quite yet, but it’s back in Minnesota, and that’s close enough. It was, judging from the players’ attire and the fans in the stands on Monday, cold as balls. Obviously baseball being back is a good thing; the frigidity is also a good thing. Why?

–First and foremost: baseball players in spandex face-eating hoodies. The best example of this was, of course, Prince Fielder, who attempted to stuff his entire sizable head, plus dreads, into one such hoodie, leaving it stretched and lumpy. Then he tried to fit his hat on top. It was exactly as magical as you’re imagining.

–Cold weather right away will harden the Tigers right away, preparing them for their (no doubt not any less cold) early season home games, instead of softening them up with games in warmer, softer, squishier climes.

–It will be swelteringly hot at baseball games soon enough. Let’s enjoy this for now.

–Team food can be stored under the bench and will probably remain fresh without forcing any rookies to throw out their shoulders toting around oversized coolers.

–The cold keeps Justin Verlander’s mind rapier-keen, as evidenced by his first Opening Day win. And we all know his fastball is hot enough to keep his hands warm regardless, so it’s all good.

–Remember how cold it was in October? Right. Just saying.

It may be the last full day/night of Passover, but here at Roar of the Tigers that means it’s just about time for a Passover cartoon. Tomorrow there shall be wonders aplenty following the FIRST GAME OF THE NEW SEASON, but for now– just this.

Hope you’re having a good one, and a pleasant Easter, and a nice official Opening Day (even if it’s just various Texans tonight). Click the picture to see it bigger, and on Monday: let’s go Tigers.

Ladies! Gents! Cats of all descriptions! There is marvelous news!

Justin Verlander has apparently signed a 5-year contract extension, keeping him in Detroit through 2019, with an option for 2020.

The contract is, of course, absurdly expensive, but do you really care? I hate to answer for you, but no. No, you do not really care. You have Justin Verlander for the next five years. Every sort of objection is invalid.

Nuts to free agency. Nuts to the market. All hail the beautiful loving relationship between the Detroit Tigers and Justin Verlander, forever and ever, or at least half a decade, amen.

Here we are at the tail end of Spring Training. It is a wonder that we have arrived at this point, is it not? Many of us are looking out our windows right now at piles of snow surrounding more or less indifferently cleared sidewalks, piles of snow obliterating perfectly good on-street parking spaces, piles of snow melting off of rooftops onto the unlucky, uncovered heads of passersby, piles of snow that someone’s labradoodle has peed on. But real live Baseball That Counts is starting in two weeks. Truly it is enough to make one ponder the mysteries of the universe, or at least the mysteries of summer-associated sports played in April in northern climes.

In any event, things have been occurring. We all learned that Jhonny Peralta is allergic to shellfish, for instance. This vital information came to light after he consumed what he thought was clubhouse potato soup, later to be revealed as treacherously potato-white and potato-chunky clam chowder.

There are lessons to be learned here. The first one is for the kids still in school: don’t make fun of your peers for food allergies, because that stuff is serious, and also they might one day grow up to be a Major League Baseball player and then won’t you look dumb? You will. Be nice. Secondly: maybe the clubhouse spread should be labeled. Like, really clearly. With big black letters on brightly colored pieces of cardstock. In English and Spanish. Thirdly: Jhonny Peralta has a serious food allergy. This was not widely known information before this incident. Now you know.

Another thing that occurred: Miguel Cabrera was involved in a MLB Network video art project. It involved Rihanna and Adam Jones and the kind of digital video effects that one would in fact expect from video art created by, say, your average contemporary art student– a little more Ryan Trecartin than Nam June Paik, you know.

As much as I love Miguel Cabrera, obviously, I have to note that Adam Jones is near-criminally underused in this project. From his brief appearances it is clear that the man can, and more importantly, wants to (over)act, with a readiness and enthusiasm that all the props in the world cannot approximate. But while ruing our lost opportunities to see Adam Jones flower into his full performative potential, we must not fail to appreciate that which we are given, that being Miguel Cabrera flailing around in a scuba mask and having some sort of emotional moment with a baguette, for reasons that remain obscure even upon repeated viewings. I am sure you have all seen it by now, but I urge you to spend some more time with it: this is art that resists easy and immediate interpretation.

Another thing that occurred a while ago and it is just now showing up in this section of the internet because GRAD SKOOL: Spring Training, as we all know, is the period during which all the most important stories have the space and time to be written. The Detroit baseball writers stretch their fingers with ease in the humid Floridian air. Their minds are sharp, honed on a long offseason of laughing at the misfortunes of the hockey beat writers; sometimes this involves laughing at themselves, and this too serves to sharpen the mind. They are at the pinnacle of their unathletic game, and the athletes, lulled into a calm good mood by renewed baseball activities and covert clubhouse clam chowder, are willing to give them a little more attention than usual.

All this led to the most important reportage of the Tigers’ Spring: Phil Coke (the relief pitcher) met and conversed with Phil Coke’s Brain (the Twitter account).

MLive’s Chris Iott is a gentleman and a scholar. Phil Coke is hilarious and a jolly good sport. His Brain abides.

One last thing: Brennan Boesch, he of the surfer-boy hair and dubious oblique and frustrating 2012 stats, was finally jettisoned from the team. Mr. D said many expected things about “moving forward” and “potential” and “a change of scenery” and all those related phrases that mean the team believes there might still be a cache of talent lurking somewhere within the corporeal person of Brennan Boesch, but they’ve tired of trying to coax it out of hiding and have decided that someone else can give it a shot if they’re feeling feisty.

The Yankees are not feeling particularly feisty these days, but since they are already gunning hard for the prestigious Most Injured Outfield of 2013 award, they extended their grubby little Yankee paws and snatched Brennan up almost immediately. May he enjoy his time in New York, although not to the point where he’s enjoying it because they are actually winning games of baseball.

The Spring! A magical time of renewal and rebirth, birds stretching their wings and beginning to think about those long migrations, Canadian geese settling down to poop all over your city, a time for fresh green buds to appear only to be immediately buried by the next snowstorm. A time for people in cold northerly climes to sit transfixed by photos and videos on their screened devices, showing them what Florida looks like. A time for Ryan Raburn to be employed, although not, for once, by the Tigers. A time for the joyous resumption of baseball activities and all that that entails. But what does it entail? So many wonders. Let us share them, friends.

The Spring brings us Dave Dombrowski’s arbitration-stomping dance, executed with great style each year, this year no less than the others. Should a potential arbitration arise, there he is, our President/CEO/GM/savior-in-stompy-boots, ready to dance like a veritable superb bird of paradise, to dazzle his players and beat any hint of arbitration down into the dirt where it belongs. Filthy process.

The Spring also brings us a stunning new array of striped polo shirts for Mr. D to display at the ballpark, as is only fitting and proper.

(note: those are all Detroit News photos from this Spring)

The Spring brings us a healthy Victor Martinez, his knees filled not with loose shards of bone, or excess fluid, or anything else likely to cause pain, terror and trips to the DL, but instead filled with sunshine and flower petals and the tender breath of sleeping kittens.

Bound freely upon those knees, O Victor! But not too freely. Let us keep them nice and unhurt, yes?

The Spring brings us a delightfully fresh crop of quotes from Jim Leyland, such as when he says that one of his own relief pitchers is “rowing with one oar.” He says it with love, mind you. But it is a very Jim Leylandian species of love, one that blossoms best and most readily in the low-stress environment of early Spring Training and in the presence of one Phillip Douglas Coke, which must of course not pass unremarked.

You row that boat, Phillip. You row your little heart out, with your singular oar and your quixotic determination in the face of this impediment.

The Spring brings us an opportunity to gaze upon the sizable noggin of Bruce Rondon, so that we may wonder at his potential ability to be a Major League closer with the assistance of visual aids instead of the cold words and numbers that have tried to form our perceptions of him all this long winter. Can Bruce Rondon close? Let us look at him and see.

The Spring brings us a stimulating debate on the topic of the new batting practice hats. Are they good? Are they hairball-inducingly bad? Are they naught but mediocre? All have thoughts and feelings on the matter. We do not even have to debate the BP hat. We may engage in a BP hat dialectic if we find that mode of communication more pleasant and useful. All these things are permitted in the Spring.

The Spring also brings us Justin Verlander’s super super dorky golfing outfits. It may in the final estimation be the best wonder that the Spring has to offer.

Perhaps not the most appropriate or likely Tigers for a New Years image in many ways, but in one way they are the most appropriate of all. Happy 2013, kids and kittens!