This weekend is all about celebrating Justin Verlander and his storied career that began and now ends in Detroit. We’ll ignore that little detour to Texas. This is a time to remember some of the most incredible moments in Verlander’s baseball history, so we asked the BYB staff to share some of their highlights from Verlander’s career and what he’s meant to all of us.
Mr Sunshine: Watching his first no-hitter live on TV. Was the first Tigers no-hitter I had seen in my life and such an incredible performance. True must-see JV.
JT Law: I was at the no-hitter in Toronto. Had a ticket in the 500 level but leaned up against a railing at the top of the 100s, behind third base. After a few innings, I didn’t even want to think the phrase “no-hitter,” so I told myself I’d go up to my proper seat when he gave up his “next hit.” Around the seventh, a guy in Blue Jays gear bounced up to me (I was wearing a Tigers hat) and said loudly, “He’s got a no-hitter going, eh?” Of course, when he finished it, tons of fans (of both teams) cheered vigorously, and hundreds of Tiger fans stuck around long after the final out to keep cheering when he was interviewed on the field.
Mr Sunshine: I may still have an unopened box of Fastball Flakes in my knick-knack trunk. JV was my favorite Tiger during his entire tenure.
Adam: I saw him get shelled in Game 1 of the 2006 World Series in person. It sucked.
Honestly, I don’t really feel anything for him anymore. He went and won World Series rings with other teams and it was a full decade before he returned to Detroit. In fact, it’s been so long, I don’t really remember anything specific about his tenure.
He was also a prick to a certain member of the press corps, and as a person who works in media, that does not endear me to him at all.
I hope he has a great final outing and goes into the Hall of Fame with a Tigers cap, but I kind of doubt either of those will happen. Still, he will always be a Tiger great.
Ashley: I honestly resisted admitting that one of my strongest memories of him was the disaster game one of the 2012 World Series that created some of the most magnificent gifs I’ve ever seen.
Zane: My sports fandom was kickstarted by JV’s 2011 MVP season! For the longest time, my lock screen passcode was 073111; Tigers vs Angels, Verlander vs Weaver. The bunt to break up JV’s potential no-hitter was infuriating, but Guillen pimping a home run and Weaver getting ejected and suspended for throwing at Avila’s head after? Peak baseball. Peak.
As Adam and Ashley highlighted, it hasn’t always been a smooth ride, but I will always respect that Verlander was ready to stick around for life and that he was ready and eager all these years later to end his career in Detroit (even if we knocked on the door a year too late). JV was the first guy to truly enamor me in sports. He is the reason I ended up here writing Skubal scouting reports and listening to Skubal minor-league starts in college, and I hope I’m at Comerica Fifth Third when we retire #35. (Also, I agree, Jack White; this is a White Sox stadium tier name.)
P.S. Like Mr. Sunshine, I definitely have a box of Fastball Flakes tucked away as well. Skubs didn’t stick around long enough for a shitty merch opportunity like that!
Mr Sunshine: Never forget the Don Kelly Hot Foot incident in 2011 either
I think the last two items really show what JV meant to the franchise during his first run: dominant pitching and a fun-loving guy elsewhere. Lots of memories of him smiling or being goofy with teammates, and just as many of him obliterating opposing hitters. You then got to pair him with one of the best hitters of all time and some of the best pitchers the game has seen and it was just…magical.
Brandon: Yeah, I’m going to be pretty sentimental about this. My only expectations for players in any sport is that they stay out of trouble, compete as hard as possible, and show love to the hometown crowd supporting them. Few did this as well or as long as JV. Was he a fiery hotshot? Yes, and I loved it. Signed reasonably team-friendly extensions, was the best pitcher in franchise history, and when we traded him away, he always showed love to Detroit even as he went on to pretty incredible 4th and 5th acts in his career, depending on how you want to break his 21 full-season career down into component eras.
Verlander was the guy that brought me back to baseball after checking out in the 90s and early 00s. I knew he was the hard-throwing rookie supposed to lead the Tigers’ return to glory, but it was a complete-game shutout against the Royals in May of 2006 where I really sat up and took notice. Watching that game is my first really distinct memory of thinking, damn, this guy could be great.
The no-hitters and MVP awards were fun, and there were long stretches in 2011 where he seemed to take a no-hitter into the sixth or seventh inning constantly, but probably my specific peak memories of those years come from the 2012 playoffs, shoving twice against the A’s and then carving up the Yankees in the ALCS too. Those starts were so impressively dominant it felt like we couldn’t lose. And then there’s the flip side, because I remember the Pablo Sandoval game, Game 1 of the World Series, really well too, and that was just crushing.
Probably my clearest memory from those years came in 2015, though. After struggling through 2014 with his velocity down, and then having an injury for the first time that spring, there was a lot of chatter that Verlander was done as an ace and moving into the downside of his career. I thought otherwise, and had just started writing for Bless You Boys in the 2014-2015 offseason. Kurt Menchsing and I went to see Verlander’s final rehab start in Toledo on June 6, 2015. We had a great time, chuckling at JV wearing a Jurassic Park-themed jersey, and cheering American Pharoah to horse racing’s first Triple Crown in decades as they broadcast the Belmont Stakes on the big screen before the game.
Verlander looked great, apart from some pesky kid named Francisco Lindor squaring him up twice, and I came away convinced that he was going to get back to dominating. And so he did. That second half of 2015, when he was once again the best pitcher in the American League and probably all of baseball, is really fresh in my memory. Statcast started up at midseason, and I was among the first to dig into that data, and I wrote immediately that Verlander’s spin rates and velocity were both back in elite territory in early July as he started ripping off one great start after another.
All those memories of starting here at BYB, learning to dig deeper into pitching data, Verlander’s resurgent season, Dombrowski getting fired, are all tied up together with the hope at the time that 2011-2013 was just the first act and they’d have another run with JV before he was through. Turns out it was the Tigers who were done, and JV was brewing up another decade of greatness that would take him to Houston for another great era of baseball for another city.
Justin Verlander has been my favorite pitcher and one of my favorite players for 20 years. It’s just going to feel weird that it’s all over after so many times when people wrongly thought he was done. I can’t say I’m excited to see him pitch in a diminished state on Saturday, but I am happy that he’ll leave the game where he began it, in front of the crowd that has loved him best for all these years. And yeah, I will probably get a bit weepy when AJ comes to take him out of the game and get him his standing ovation. Few in Detroit sports history have deserved it more.
Cameron: Got weepy reading that.
JT Law: No, no, just got dusty in here, is all.
Cam: It’s not hyperbolic to say that Justin Verlander is the biggest reason I’m a baseball fan. I was nine years old when he debuted, and he has been one of the few constants in the game since. Nothing lasts forever, but JV was a staple of Major League Baseball for such a long time that sometimes it felt like he just might. Twenty-one seasons as a Major League pitcher is unheard of in this era, and he wasn’t just some scrub collecting a paycheck; he was good-to-great until the wheels finally fell off. Watching his career unfold as the young, fire-breathing rookie who was one of the faces of the Tigers’ turnaround, to the best pitcher on the planet in the early 2010s, to erasing all doubt of his potential demise and leading the Astros to their organization’s first World Series title, to coming back from Tommy John surgery to win the Cy Young Award at age 39, and then to see him become a little bit of a journeyman into his 40s despite having nothing left to prove has been a true sight to behold. Though I never met him, I grew up with Justin Verlander, and his career, which has spanned two-thirds of my life, coming to an end puts a lot into perspective personally.
I was lucky enough to work for the Mud Hens in 2015 when Verlander made his rehab start in Toledo. That was a special night for the city, and my family having a suite for that night in advance turned out to be a wonderful stroke of luck. When I worked in social media and analytics, I was really just copying and printing batting average splits for the managers to digest; the organization at the time didn’t really do sabermetrics – one of my roles was to bring a packet of statistics into the clubhouse for the staff. While down there, I saw JV walking around with his headphones on, just absolutely locked the f*** in like he was about to take the mound for the World Series.
His presence loomed large, and no one in the clubhouse said a word to him. That is, until Jim Leyland walked in. JV snapped out of his daze and shared a warm embrace and a few words with his former manager. Two of the most important figures of the Tigers I grew up right in front of me; one enjoying retirement with nothing left to prove, and the other entering the back half of his career with everything still to prove. I’m really glad I witnessed that, and recalling it right now is stirring up lots of feelings.
Baseball at its best, and unfortunately at its worst, has the ability to move us die-hard fans in ways nothing in life can. Justin Verlander, the best pitcher in Detroit Tigers history, the best pitcher of his generation, and one of the all-time greats, moved everyone who watched him. There’s a reason he was called “Must See JV.” The level of dominance he displayed while toeing the rubber demanded your attention. Now, for better or worse, all eyes will be on him as he takes the mound for the last start of his illustrious career. He said that he’s willing to pitch until his arm falls off, and I hope he gets the chance. Regardless of how it goes, when AJ Hinch makes the long stroll from the dugout to yank him, two things will be true: Justin Verlander is going to be a stubborn prick about coming out of the game, and there will not be a dry eye in the stadium or anywhere else the game is being displayed.
Ashley: I may have joked a little about him, and I certainly had differences of opinion on some things Verlander has done, but as someone who became a Tigers’ fan in 2011 (my return to baseball as an adult), watching those years of Detroit baseball was really something special. I latched onto Alex Avila early on as my favorite player, and I think getting to watch his relationship with Justin Verlander really helped me appreciate the team and the sport on a totally different level. Getting to watch one of the best pitchers in the game routinely make batters look silly, and then getting to see the camaraderie that he had with his teammates in the bullpen, it made me understand that there was more to baseball than just what was happening on the field, that you could grow to love and appreciate the people playing it too. I really feel so blessed to have come into this fandom at that time, with some of the most amazing players in the franchise, and it really helped develop a love of the game for me that hasn’t gone anywhere since. I remember staying up until after midnight on the trade deadline where Verlander was sent to Houston, really feeling like it was the end of an era for a team that had been struggling. I’m not sure I’ll ever care about players as much as I did in that era, and that’s okay. It’s wild to see those guys retiring now. Admittedly, I also thought all those Perfect Game ads with Verlander and Kate Upton were a lot of fun.
If you missed the ceremony before Friday’s game, here it is in full:
