Lakeland, Fla. — Some will remember March 2006, and a Tigers team that had gathered in Florida under a new manager, Jim Leyland.
The team wasn’t the story as much as Leyland. But the team, a few weeks into April, became a six-month story.
The Tigers won 95 games. Made it to the World Series. Ended a string of 12 consecutive losing summers by Motown’s big-league team.
And, in the process, reinstituted baseball in Detroit.
How the Tigers did it in 2006 is worth, if not yet comparing, at least contemplating as Brad Ausmus and his lads begin to forge whatever shows up in 2017 at Comerica Park and elsewhere.