Leyland

I'll admit it, I'm rooting for Jim Leyland to have a great year in Detroit. After what we've put up with in managers since he left, "his famous acerbic wit, his constant interaction with his players, his delight in verbal parrying with the media and old baseball pals" sounds pretty good to me.

My favorite Jim Leyland tactic was when he started Ted Power and let him pitch for two innings in Game 6 of the 1990 NLCS to gain the platoon advantage over Cincinnati. That was also a series in which Bonds hit .167, Bonilla hit .190, and Van Slyke hit .208. Leyland will always be tainted by the legacy of that team's post-season failure and the failures of the next two years, which of course had a lot more to do with Bonds, Bonilla, and Van Slyke's inability to hit Atlanta's great pitching than with anything Leyland did or didn't do. But we sure did have a manager back then, and I think that Detroit has one now.

Do the Pirates now have a real baseball manager? Maybe. Will we know at the end of the season? Yes.