A Sense of Doubt blog post #3332 - DETROIT TIGERS WATCH: Where is Austin Meadows?

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3332 - DETROIT TIGERS WATCH: Where is Austin Meadows?

So, the Detroit Tigers are 4-0 to the start the season. Best start since 2015 when they went 6-0. 

I don't want to crow about it too much as I have a tendency to jinx the team I love as soon as I get cocky in cheering their success.

This is a busy time. School has started back up after spring break, and in addition to classes, I have two other critical projects, which I have only hinted about in this blog space. Point being, I am trying to keep my blog time to the barest minimum, which means low power mode.

Morning sports review time is heavier for a while as Fantasy Basketball winds down but is still going and Fantasy Baseball ramps up. This means (for my OCD thing) two sets of box scores to review each morning and two sets of fantasy rosters to set: Baseball and basketball.

So, I am doing all that and thinking about the Tigers, and I had a friend ask if Miguel Cabrera is still on the payroll (no, he is not). Tigers freed like $85 million in the last two years. And so this led me to think about Austin Meadows. I am very interested in athletes who talk about their mental health struggles. It was something I didn't even think about until basketball players like Demar DeRozan and Kevin Love brought the issue to the public eye. We see our sports heroes as invincible and above the little human things that plague us all, and, well, depression and anxiety disorders are not really "little,"  but it's not the same as cancer or shattered bones.

So, I looked him up. The Tigers did release Austin Meadows (finally) , but they care about him, and they are pulling for him to get to a place to return to the sport, if in a different uniform. He has missed two years with anxiety issues.

Hope to see you back on a diamond soon, Mr. Meadows!

Readers, thanks for tuning in.

GO TIGERS!






https://www.mlive.com/tigers/2023/12/austin-meadows-no-longer-a-tiger-but-team-still-pulling-for-him.html

Austin Meadows no longer a Tiger, but team still pulling for him

• Published: Dec. 05, 2023, 5:58 p.m.

By 

• Evan Woodbery | ewoodber@mlive.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Detroit Tigers non-tendered outfielder Austin Meadows last month after he missed most of the last two seasons due to anxiety issues.

But Tigers leaders made it clear in comments Tuesday at the Winter Meetings that they are still pulling for him in life and in baseball.

“I talked to Austin multiple times this offseason. We prioritized him as a human being and the work that he’s doing on himself right now,” said Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris. “Austin knows how I feel about him, he knows how the organization feels about him. When we get to a point in which he wants to talk about what comes next in his baseball life, we’ll be ready to have that conversation. I think the priority right now is Austin and his family, and then if we get past that, we could talk about baseball stuff.”

Meadows, 28, was acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays just before Opening Day in 2022 in exchange for infielder Isaac Paredes.

Meadows played in only 36 games in 2022 while dealing with both physical injuries and mental health challenges. Although Meadows seemed to be in a good place during spring training in 2023, he played in only five regular-season games before stepping away again.

His younger brother, Parker, made his Major League debut this summer and is expected to be the Tigers’ everyday center fielder in 2024.

Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said he is rooting for Meadows as a person.

“I want him to find peace in his life way more than I want to see anything about his baseball career,” Hinch said. “Watching him grow into being a dad and watching him trying to stabilize his mental health is going override anything that we see on the field. I love the guy, I think the world of him, I feel for him because it’s been a trying couple of years as a Tiger.

“When we didn’t bring him back, I let him know that just because we might not wear the same uniform, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an ally in me.”

LOW POWER MODE: I sometimes put the blog in what I call LOW POWER MODE. If you see this note, the blog is operating like a sleeping computer, maintaining static memory, but making no new computations. If I am in low power mode, it's because I do not have time to do much that's inventive, original, or even substantive on the blog. This means I am posting straight shares, limited content posts, reprints, often something qualifying for the THAT ONE THING category and other easy to make posts to keep me daily. That's the deal. Thanks for reading.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2404.02 - 10:10

- Days ago = 3196 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.