When he got the phone call that Wednesday evening in 2013, telling him eight days before Thanksgiving that he was bound for Detroit, Ian Kinsler was, shall we say, less than ecstatic.
“No, I wasn’t happy,” Kinsler recalled last week, on the veranda of The Vinoy Renaissance, in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the Tigers were housed during a forgettable three-game tumble against the Tampa Bay Rays.
“I wouldn’t say I was shaken. But I wasn’t happy with it. I didn’t like playing in Detroit. I honestly hated it. It always seemed cold and overcast. People would be screaming at you.