The Monday Report: Maggs’ 34th Birthday Edition

It’s Super Bowl week, which means less to those living in cities without an NFL team (i.e., Detroit) than it does to folks in New England, New York and the Phoenix metroplex.

The onslaught of visitors has begun for both the Super Bowl and the FBR Open (nee Phoenix Open) at TPC Scottsdale, which means I’ll have to play the Kwame Kilpatrick role and remain sequestered in my home until they all leave.

In the meantime…

• Happy 34th Birthday to Magglio Ordonez. Methinks there’s a party going on in Ft. Lauderdale this evening.

• In 2005 I took great pride in booing Carlos Pena at Dodger Stadium and, a few weeks later, at FifthThird Field in Toledo. I wanted this guy to be the man at first base for the Tigers for the duration. We all know how that ended. Now Pena appears to have transformed himself into a bona fide big-leaguer with Tampa Bay and has the paycheck to prove it.

• Brandon Inge continues to puzzle the peeps — or at least this particular peep — with his approach to the 2008 season. From today’s USA Today there’s this nugget:
  

  [Inge] has told the Tigers he’d be interested in returning to catching, where he played for them from 2001 to 2004, if it meant he could go to another team and play full time.

  Wait a second. So he’s agreed to catch again but only full-time and only for another team? Wow, he must really want out of Detroit.

• This totally slipped my mind yesterday. My apologies. After all it’s precisely this type of information that draws readers to the Fungo.

  Ahem.

  On Jan. 27, 1987, the Tigers acquired outfielders Terry Harper and Freddie Tiburcio from the Braves for RHP Randy O’Neal and LHP Chuck Cary.

  Harper lasted only three months in Detroit, batting a robust .203 with three homers and 10 RBI in 31 games (64 at bats). Less than six months later, on June 26, the Tigers dealt him to the Pirates for Shawn Holman and minor leaguer Pete Rice.

  Tiburcio never saw any time in Detroit, or anywhere else for that matter at least according to his entry at Baseball Reference.com.

  Like Harper, O’Neal was traded after only a few months with his new team. On July 25 Atlanta traded him to St. Louis for future Tiger Joe Boever. Cary lasted two years in Atlanta before signing with the Yankees and then White Sox.

  Remember in 1984 when O’Neal and Roger Mason were called up in September and thought to be the future of the Tigers rotation?

Finally, with all the attention paid to Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, I can’t help but think that Jacque Jones and Edgar Renteria can come to Lakeland, get in shape and enjoy a pressure-free Spring Training. What do you think?

Have a great week.