Overdramatize Day 1 of camp? Now that would be a Tigers error

Miller: Five things to know

LAKELAND, Fla. -- New this spring from Detroit closer Todd Jones, a change-up of a joke:

Knock, knock.

How many Detroit Tigers pitchers does it take to screw up a World Series?

Eleven.

Perhaps never before in baseball's 100-plus years has there ever been a pitchers fielding practice session so anxiously awaited as the one staged by the Tigers on their first day of camp Friday morning.

Todd Jones can catch OK, but the throwing is another story. (AP)

As hundreds of teams have done hundreds of times before, the Tigers wiped the early-morning sleep from their eyes, listened to a welcome-back greeting from their manager and then trudged out to the practice fields to shake off a winter's worth of stiffness and rust.

Only this team, on this morning, also was beginning the process of exorcising some serious demons -- in addition to the few extra pounds that snuck in with the Christmas fudge and the New Year's appetizers.

"It's been since the last day of the season since I fielded a ground ball," set-up man Joel Zumaya said. "It's good to get a new glove broken in, get the evil spirits out."

Last time they were together on a baseball field, the Tigers committed eight errors in an ugly five-game World Series loss to St. Louis -- including a staggering Fall Classic-record five errors charged to pitchers Zumaya, Justin Verlander, Jones and Fernando Rodney that led to seven unearned Cardinals runs.

Eight of the 22 runs St. Louis scored were unearned, the most in a World Series since the New York Yankees fumbled away the 1955 Fall Classic to Brooklyn.

So there was Zumaya -- whose overthrow of third base in Game 3 last year hurt Detroit badly -- scooping up a baseball, turning and, this time, throwing perfectly to third. Only instead of 50,000 screaming fans watching in a raw October drizzle, the witnesses consisted of other players, coaches, some Tigers front office staff, maybe 40 reporters and the trees bordering the outfield fence on one of the back fields.

On another field, Verlander, who misthrew to first base on a pickoff move in Game 1, this time snap-turned and fired a perfect throw from the mound to first. And Fernando Rodney, who overthrew first base in Game 4, made the throws on Friday, too.

In the process, no extra protective equipment was needed. Nobody was wearing construction zone-style hard hats. There were no chest protectors and shin guards. It's assumed that everybody was wearing a cup, but that's normal operating procedure.