During this past offseason, the Detroit Tigers promoted Joe Vavra from quality control coach to hitting coach, and to say his first season with a new job description has been challenging would be an understatement.
One reason for the challenge is because future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera dodged him as much as possible from the day the 2019 season ended until February of this year.
So, how did Cabrera manage to dodge Vavra, you ask?
Well, it was simple. Miggy gave his new hitting coach a fake phone number!
From MLive:
“It took a while, but I got the message around to everybody that was in contact with him that I’m watching him. I’ve got my sources. So finally he gave in and starting sending me some videos,” Vavra said.
Vavra and Cabrera started texting in Spanish, with Vavra rushing to Google translate to formulate responses.
“We had a lot of fun with it,” Vavra said. “He would send me videos all spring long. There was a stretch of a couple weeks where he’d send me a video every day. He would do something different to see if I was paying attention. We played some games. I liked that.”
Miggy being Miggy!
