He is one of the most talented players in the MLB, if not the most talented, and he most likely will live up to the hype again in 2011.
Read what Local 4 assignment editor John Shull had to say: Fan Face Off: Cabrera: Personal Help?
By the time July is here, Detroit fans may find it difficult to remember Cabrera was arrested in February while standing drunk outside of his car on a road in Florida, 110 miles away from spring training camp in Lakeland.
If he does his job and plays like the $20-million man the Tigers think he is, fans might even find it difficult to care when or how he drinks his booze. When he hits more than 30 home runs and tops 100 RBIs, he could conceivably gain a whole bunch of new baseball fans who have no clue what his history is, effectively erasing the morning of Feb.16 when he was arrested.
The beauty of being a talented athlete like Cabrera is contracts, multiple chances and the opportunity to erase everything by playing well and winning. Sound like a role model? I hope not.
However, that is the truth, plain and simple, and Cabrera probably knows it.
It is reported that Cabrera asked his arresting officer �Do you know who I am?� multiple times during the arrest. While it�s uncertain what he was referring to exactly, the truth is he�s Miguel Cabrera, a multi-million-dollar MLB star with an appetite for alcohol and bad decisions away from the diamond.
Fans may never know why he did it. We may never have a clue what his personal problems are or �who he is,� and we may never want to. But we will know he apologized and tried to do his job amidst personal problems, much like many of us do everyday.
I always encounter fans that seem to have this grand depiction of the perfect human. They paint a picture of this fictional man who excels at everything he does. He is an outstanding athlete, an outstanding family man and the ideal member of society with nothing more than a parking ticket on his record. Yet, this man remains fictional.
By no means do I condone anything that Cabrera did this month. However, I can understand how it happens, and that he is not some god among men.
Cabrera is nothing more than a man with a talent and a paycheck. I have seen men with more important jobs than hitting and catching a ball do much more idiotic things.
If anyone is worried about how �Cabrera the role model� will appear to young baseball fans, they have every right to be. But I wonder who�s fault that is? I think as fans we are being just as irresponsible calling professional athletes role models as the athletes who continuously prove they are not.
Cabrera teaches us all a lesson: Professional athletes shouldn�t be role models, and he is just one of the supporting cast members who argue in favor of this point -- take it from someone who grew up idolizing Bob Probert.
If we call them role models, then what do we call them when they reveal they are nothing more than average men with above average talents and big paychecks?
The last I checked, I never collected Wall Street stockbroker trading cards as a kid.
