Happy birthday, Kevin McGonigle!
Highest OPS among all Tigers players with 500+ plate appearances before their 22nd birthday:
.854 — Al Kaline
.809 — Kevin McGonigle
.801 — Ty Cobb
#DNMW
Kevin McGonigle is the first player in MLB history to record the following stats in his first 100 games played:
🔸️106 H
🔸️63 BB
🔸️20 2B
🔸️3 3B
🔸️9 HR
🔸️11 SB
🔸️172 times reaching base safely
A certified superstar in the making.
Stateside, a gas station. I drank a frozen blue beverage too quickly, and was struck down by a punishment this entire nation knows, and accepts, and has named.
The drink is called a slush. Ice, sweetness, and a blue that does not occur in nature. The day was hot. I was thirsty. I drank like a soldier at a river.
The pain arrived in my skull like a war horn.
Behind the eyes. Above everything. Total. I gripped the roof of my car. I may have made a sound.
"Brain freeze," said the cashier through the door, with no urgency whatsoever.
It has a NAME. The affliction is so common it has a household name, like a cousin.
"Tongue on the roof of your mouth," called a man at the pumps. He did not look over. He prescribed the remedy mid-pump, casually, the way one mentions weather.
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. The war horn faded. The healer nodded at his pump, finished, and was gone in a Chevrolet.
In my land, punishment follows crime by way of courts and seasons. Here, the sentence is instant. Drink with greed, and the ice strikes the mind directly. No trial. No appeal. Perfectly fair.
And here is what moves me. EVERYONE has felt it. The cashier. The healer. Children. Elders. An entire nation united by the same small lightning, all taught the same cure, all passing it on to strangers at gas stations, free of charge.
You cannot fully distrust a country once you know it shares one pain.
The freeze does not punish thirst. It punishes haste.
I finished the slush slowly, like a scholar. Blue tongue. Clear mind.
Then at the door I forgot everything, drank deeply, and was struck down again.
"Tongue, hon," said the cashier, without looking up.
Discipline is a journey.
Kevin McGonigle is the first player in Tigers history with at least 45 hits and 24 walks in his first 40 big league games. He is only the second Tiger in franchise history, age 21-years-old or younger, to tally 45 hits in his first 40 major league games, joining Travis Fryman who had 47 hits in his first 40 major league games in 1990.
Jason Benetti: “I was always fearful about two things. Not getting a job because of how I look…and getting a job because of how I look.”
Maybe it’s just me, but @jasonbenetti’s condition never occurs to me. Ever.
I’m too busy enjoying the best broadcaster I’ve ever heard.
What a month for Magoo 😮💨
Kevin McGonigle is your March/April AL Rookie of the Month! McGonigle had a 2.0 bWAR through April, tied for best in the majors in that time.