If it weren't for Cameron Maybin, Miguel Cabrera might be chasing history somewhere else. He might be swinging the bat for a team other than the Tigers, four hits shy of 3,000 in a city other than Detroit. Cabrera would be destined for Cooperstown all the same, but it's partly because of Maybin that No. 24 is destined for the bricks in left center field at Comerica Park, right there with No. 6, Al Kaline, the last player to reach 3,000 hits wearing the Old English D.
Maybin, like any good Little Leaguer, loved Cabrera growing up. Around the time he was named Baseball America Youth Player of the Year, he and his dad started making trips to Miami to watch this phenom on the Marlins. The next year, Maybin would be drafted 10th overall by the Tigers. Two years after that, following a debut season in which Maybin homered off Roger Clemens in his first big-league game, the late Mike Ilitch decided he wanted Cabrera in Detroit -- and the Tigers sent Maybin to the Marlins to help make it happen.
"Myself and Andrew Miller, I think we were both huge pieces," Maybin said Tuesday at Comerica Park where his baseball journey has come full circle more than once. "When I look back at that, that’s something I’m extremely proud of. It’s a huge compliment at the time to the talent that baseball saw in myself and in Andrew Miller. For me, our names will always be tied together, and I’m proud that we’ll always have that connection.
"Even now, I see him on the field and it’s all love. He came up to me (before Tuesday's game) and gave me a big ole hug and told me he loved me. So our connection was cemented from the moment that trade happened."
If Maybin's lucky, he'll be on the call this week for YES Network when Cabrera becomes the 33rd player in MLB history to record 3,000 hits -- and just the seventh to also have 500 homers. He picked up No. 2,996 in front of Maybin on Tuesday, with two more games against the Yankees on tap. In the other TV booth at Comerica Park, former Tiger Craig Monroe will be on the call for Bally Sports, just like he was last August when Cabrera hit No. 500 in Toronto.
Maybin would eventually get two chances to play with Cabrera, first in 2016 and again in 2020. Monroe would only come agonizingly close. His strong run with the Tigers came to an end when he was traded to the Cubs in August of 2007, a few months before Cabrera would arrive in Detroit. Monroe has since become tight with Miggy through his TV work for the Tigers -- and, he laughs, through his ability to speak 'Spanglish' -- but it still gnaws at him that he never got to call the future Hall of Famer a teammate.
I think about some of the great right-handed hitters in the game, how difficult it is. I got a chance to play with A-Rod in Texas for a little bit and then got a chance to play with Pudge twice, in Texas and then here, but for me, Miggy was just different," Monroe said Tuesday. "I loved the big kid in him and how much fun he has playing the game. So I was like, dang, I really wanted to play with Miggy. I also thought being able to learn from him would’ve allowed me to continue to play a little bit longer.
"But when I think about the big fella, I just go, here’s a guy that was inspired by his mom who basically told him, 'Be healthy, don’t play for numbers, play because you love the game and be a kid.' And that’s exactly what he’s done."
Cabrera turned 39 on Monday. On Tuesday afternoon, with flurries falling shortly before batting practice, he pranced past a crowd of reporters in the Tigers' dugout, all of them on hand to record history, grinned and shouted, "Perfect weather for baseball!" He would know: Cabrera drilled a homer through a blizzard last year on Opening Day, another classic in his album of greatest hits. His first one came with the Marlins in the 2003 World Series.
"You could see the Hall of Fame (talent) as a kid, even when he hit the homer opposite field off Roger Clemens," said Monroe. "First of all, what blows your mind is that you're a 20-year-old kid and Clemens, who did this to every hitter, goes up and in and kind of knocks you down because he wants to push you off the plate. And I love Miggy: he turns right around, stares him down and then the next pitch goes oppo-taco!
"That just tells me everything I need to know about the person. He ain’t gonna back down. He’s gonna give you his best. And the consistency has been magical, man. As much as a lot of players can work on it, we can’t be Miggy. He’s different."
(Yankees manager Aaron Boone was at third base for the team when Cabrera took Clemens deep to help the Marlins win Game 4 and ultimately win the World Series. Asked Tuesday what he remembers about that moment, Boone replied, "That I didn't like it at the time.")
No, no one else can be Miggy. But it never hurts to try. When Maybin first returned to the Tigers in 2016, now 29 and hanging on in the big leagues, Cabrera was about to play in his seventh straight All-Star Game and win his seventh Silver Slugger award -- at three different positions. (His bat has always stolen thunder from his glove.) That year, Maybin said Cabrera "took me under his wing." They would go to the batting cage together before every game and Maybin wound up having "one of my best, most consistent years ever," hitting a career-high .315 with an .801 OPS.
"Every day he would take me to the cage -- 'C’mon, let’s go, let’s go' -- and I would just stand behind him," Maybin said. "The funniest thing is, he wouldn’t talk hitting with me but he always said, 'Your swing is just like mine. But Papi, I’m 270, you 210. Mine, doubles and homers. Yours, singles and doubles!'"
(There might be something to this. Among the many great pitchers Cabrera has tortured over his career, he hit .419 in 34 plate appearances against four-time All-Star Tim Hudson. Only four other players ever hit above .400 in at least 30 plate appearances against Hudson: Bonds, Pujols, Pudge ... and Cameron Maybin.)
So Monroe has a point: that crash-course with Cabrera helped Maybin play another five years in the majors. He finished a 15-year career last season and said Cabrera stood out for more than his talent.
"Just how open he was. A lot of great players don’t always want to be helpful, but his instinctive nature just to be open to players and to want to help dudes -- and for a superstar like that to be such a kid, literally, it’s like you’re playing with a big kid on the field. And his energy in the clubhouse. One thing I loved about him, he always talked about meetings, he hated team meetings. He felt like those were for losers: ‘If we’re having a team meeting then we ain’t doing good.'"
For Maybin, a bubbly guy himself, Cabrera's "upbeat mentality was always just so infectious." But that goes without saying. So Maybin searched for another word, pounding his palm into his fist, and said, "It was just so inspiring, bro, for a guy like that to play this game so free."
Monroe would say the same now. But toward the end of his career, when the game got hard and this kid on the Marlins kept making it look easy, Cabrera's glee was almost too much to take.
"I just remember watching him from afar in spring training, I want to say in 2006, 2007. He was this big monster, but he was laughing and joking and I’m like, 'How is this great player so relaxed and having so much fun and I’m over here grinding the bat just trying to stay in the big leagues?'" Monroe said with a laugh.
As much as there is love for Cabrera, so is there reverence. Monroe spent nine years in the big leagues, hit 23 homers as a rookie and helped one of the most beloved Tigers teams ever reach the World Series in 2006. You might think his favorite baseball memory lies somewhere in this mosaic. You would be wrong. Recently, Monroe had a sit-down interview with Cabrera, one on one with one of the best to ever do it.
"That was the highlight of my career," he said. "I’ve had a lot of big moments in hitting, clutch home runs, World Series, all that, but getting a chance to sit there and hear the authenticity, the honesty, the rawness of Miguel Cabrera, that was everything."
Monroe won't have to hide his excitement whenever Cabrera reaches 3,000. On the hometown broadcast, the more excited the better. Maybin is in a different position in his first season of TV work for the Yankees, catering to the fans in New York. But there's a fan in Maybin, too. If it slips out of him, so be it.
"I would love to be on the call, him getting that hit. Hopefully it’s not anything too detrimental to the Yankees, but I would love to be in the building when he gets that knock, man, just to take that piece of history and know that I was a big part of him coming here and doing it in this stadium. Absolutely," said Maybin, smiling just like Miggy: "I’m fanning!"