Ivan Rodriguez waits on Hall call; saving Tigers may help cause

The story has been told many times.

How a long time ago, before the Detroit Tigers climbed out of the basement and to the World Series twice, becoming a perennial contender in the American League, the organization faced its biggest challenge: In January 2004, at a time when baseball was beginning to burst at the seams financially, the Tigers could not get free agent players to play for them.

“It was hard to get players to return my calls,” chief legal counsel John Westhoff said.

Off the field, Detroit was down. Its reputation wasn’t the best. The taxes were terrible. From November until April, it is only gray and more often than not, very cold.

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On the field, the Tigers were worse. A…