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What do you know, it’s Pudge Day.
The Tigers have done it. They’ve actually done it. They’ve landed a premier free agent who wants to be here. None of this lukewarm, bet-hedging Juan Gonzalez “not my choice, I was traded here” kind of stuff.
Ivan Rodriguez could have signed elsewhere. He wouldn’t have made as much as the $40 million the Tigers are willing to pay him over the course of four years if he’d gone to Seattle or returned to the Florida Marlins.
Not nearly as much. But he did have a choice.
It was his choice to listen to everything the Tigers had to say, to everything they had to offer, and eventually say “yes, I’ll come.”
Mike Ilitch’s baseball team gets back on baseball’s map today. It gains some identity and some credibility.
