Detroit — Be careful about leaning against that old baseball bromide: It’s only a game.
Sometimes it isn’t.
It wasn’t only a game Sunday when the Tigers arrived at Comerica Park and learned one of the most brilliant pitchers in the big leagues, Jose Fernandez, a man they had played against five months ago, had been killed hours earlier when a 32-foot boat crashed against rocks in Miami.
Baseball, the game, became a world in which life and cruel death slammed fraternity brothers from another big league town and team. Tigers shortstop Jose Iglesias, a fellow Cuban countryman and offseason friend in Miami, was so ravaged he sat out the start of Sunday’s game.