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I love me a good manager tirade. The bar was set very, very high with Lee Elia F-ing 25 years ago. Many managers have give it a good run: Earl Weaver was one of the best, Lou Piniella is a beauty and his crosstown rival Ozzie Guillen probably has it in him to reset the bar.
Bored with the dismal effort by his "paper" Tigers and fed up with the players talking anonymously through the media, Leyland went off on his own f-bomb tirade directed squarely at his team.
Oddly enough, a former player, and a terrible one at that, took the brunt of it.
"I mean, please. Jason Grilli should just worry about Colorado (the team to which the Tigers traded him). Jason Grilli isn't here any longer because Jason Grilli didn't pitch good under pressure situations and didn't pitch very well in Detroit. If he'd done a better job, he'd still be here."That was the nice portion.
"You want to tell it like it is?" Leyland said. "If players want to start talking, I'll start talking. I'm usually very reserved about stuff like that. But (Grilli) should worry about Colorado, not Detroit. Don't misunderstand one thing, I miss Sean Casey, but that has nothing to do with the Tigers being where we're at. Let's get that straight right now."
"The last thing they should be doing is popping off in the newspaper," Leyland said, "because they are diversionary tactics and they look foolish. You can quote every bit of that.
"There's nothing wrong within the clubhouse. The problem here is between the lines. But everybody looks for an excuse. To me that's a weak excuse. Look in the mirror.
"But if players want to play games in the press, I'll play games in the press, and it won't be very pretty. That's a weak excuse, a lame excuse. It wasn't fair for people to have expectations? Why wasn't it?
"What the heck are you talking about? You're supposed to love the expectations. I can take my heat, and I deserve some for the performance of this club. But players need to take care of their own business.
"When people are making weak excuses in the newspaper, that rubs me wrong. I'm not looking for problems, but when I'm (bleep), I'm (bleep) and right now I'm (bleep) But there are a few in that clubhouse who are (bleep) too.
"They need to look in that mirror, not mine. Don't start pointing fingers, that's weak."
Let's just say this transcript was edited. Those were definitely not the only (bleep's) and this rant was definitely not weak, Jim. You just don't mess with Leyland.
Proof: 12 runs for the Tigers last night.
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