Passive Tigers can’t even ruffle Cardinals’ feathers

On a cool night misting with decades of dreams, Bob Seger offered a stirring rendition of “America the Beautiful.”

He should have sang, “Beautiful Loser.”

In a cozy city ballpark teeming with striped and howling hope, rapper Eminem led cheers from the scoreboard.

But he wasn’t the only one who played with his underwear showing.

Eager to shine as the home of a revived baseball tradition Saturday, Detroit looked like something else entirely.

Larry, Curly and Moe-town.

After three weeks of postseason sizzle, the cool Old English D became a scarlet letter, the cool youthful effort was spelled with three Es, and distinguished Jim Leyland looked like a dunce.

On their way to a predicted sweep of the 102nd World Series, the Tigers instead resembled a 102-loss team in a 7-2 defeat to the steadier St. Louis Cardinals at quickly sullen Comerica Park.

“The only positive is, we can’t play any worse,” said Brandon Inge, wincing at the absurdity of the following three truths:

* A team that had averaged more than five runs per postseason game couldn’t hit one of the statistically worst Game 1 starting pitchers in World Series history.

* A team that had committed only two errors in the postseason committed three in one inning.

* A team with a 2.92 postseason earned-run average couldn’t pitch, not to the plate, not to first base, and not to a nation that expected so much more.

In all, it was like a new Ford getting stuck in a Dearborn, Mich., parking lot. It was like the Pistons giving up triple-digits in a playoff game.

If the Cardinals owned downtown Detroit, the Tigers were Eight Mile.

Oh, but Sean Casey did come up with one more positive.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

Is it any wonder that, during the seventh-inning stretch, when American Idol local hero Jennifer Hudson lunged for the last high note of “God Bless America,” she booted it?

“Well, it was just Game 1, and somebody has to lose Game 1,” said Casey, still trying.

But did they have to lose it like that?

“Overall, we just didn’t give a good performance,” acknowledged Leyland, and it started with him.

Gaunt, mustachioed, baseball’s Marlboro Man, Leyland is the biggest hero here, the best story, it’s his team, it’s his moment.

Yet, with two out and first base open in the third inning, he decides to pitch to the best hitter in baseball?

Albert Pujols, clearly as surprised as everyone else, shrugged and swung at Justin Verlander’s first pitch, depositing it over the right-center-field fence for a two-run homer that gave the Cardinals a 4-1 lead.

There is a reason Pujols had only one homer and one RBI in seven previous postseason games, right? He has been walked seven times, remember?

Credit Leyland with a four-base error, and then with a funky little dance to explain it.

“I could go into a lot of detail about that but I’ll leave it at this....I pitched to him and obviously he burned us,” Leyland said, adding, “I’ll leave it at that and I’ll take the heat for that.”

Translated, he probably told Verlander to pitch around him -- there was a mound visit moments earlier from pitching coach Chuck Hernandez -- and the kid blew it.

“I didn’t want to pitch around him,” Verlander said. “But I made a mistake.”

But it wasn’t his mistake, it was Leyland’s mistake.

This time of year, asking rookies to pitch around potential Hall of Famers is like asking American Idol stars to sing seventh-inning hymns. Leyland put the kid in a position to fail, and that’s exactly what he did.

The rest of the Tigers can only blame themselves with their longest layoff since spring training (one week) turning them into, well, a spring training team.

Sure, they were trailing, 4-1, but they were still facing a rookie pitcher, Anthony Reyes, with a second-worst season ERA (5.06) of any Game 1 starter in World Series history.

So what did they do? They swung, and swung, and swung, allowing him to forget his struggles and overcome his jitters.

In the third inning after the Cardinals took the lead, the Tigers went down in a dozen pitches. In the next inning, six pitches.

In the American League Championship Series, they worked Oakland’s Barry Zito to 92 pitches in 3 2/3 innings. On Saturday, Reyes threw 90 pitches in eight innings.

“I think we got in a little funk when we got behind that we were going to hit a quick home run,” Leyland said.

To his credit, Reyes set a tone by throwing first-pitch strikes to the first three batters of the game, who were all looking. But instead of waiting for him to revert to form, the Tigers immediately panicked and couldn’t stop hacking.

“It was like we were one step behind out there,” Inge said. “It was like the intensity wasn’t there, but this is the World Series, and we shouldn’t be that relaxed.”

One step became five steps became a collision in the sixth and final insulting inning, when third baseman Inge threw wildly home and then cost the Tigers another run when he was charged with obstruction after Scott Rolen ran into him while rounding third base.

Inge and Tigers teammates accused Rolen of running out of the baseline, intentionally hitting Inge, and then flopping like a snuff-dipping Vlade Divac.

Good for Rolen. At least somebody was using their brains out there.

Said Inge: “He’s a 250-pound man, and he bounced off me like nothing, I didn’t even feel it.”

Said Casey: “Rolen plays the game hard, he’s smart, so he kind of went out of his way to get Inge, and it worked.”

The Tigers could use some of that kind of baseball. They could use some of the kind of energy that erupted in the crowd of 42,479 when the loudspeaker blared, “Eye of the Tiger.”

On this night, it was bloodshot.

Extra Points

* Rarely have six words said so much.

“Good teams win games like that,” said Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weis after the Irish’s final-moments, 20-17 victory over UCLA.

Good teams win games like that.

And Karl Dorrell teams always seem to lose games like that.

As usual, Dorrell’s critics will pin this loss on the UCLA coach. But, for once, they’re right.

The Bruins were perhaps one first down from clinching the victory. But, even though they had gained less than one yard per carry during the game, Dorrell’s team ran the ball three consecutive times before punting.

Then, when Notre Dame had the ball for their final drive, the Bruins were just as wrongly conservative. Brady Quinn had averaged only five yards per completion during the game, yet UCLA went into a prevent mode that allowed him to throw for 80 yards on three passes for the victory.

For once, I wasn’t that interested in what Dorrell said afterward.

I wanted to know what Athletic Director Dan Guerrero was saying.

* Is there a more frustrating athlete in town than Kwame Brown?

First, he complains that he couldn’t work out as much as possible in the summer because there wasn’t anybody to play with.

Then, it is announced he’ll sit out the start of the season because of a bruised rotator cuff.

Even Orel Hershiser never sat out the start of a season because of a bruised rotator cuff.

* Has any local team gone from the national championship game into local anonymity quicker than UCLA basketball?

With everyone talking about Lakers, Clippers and new USC arena, have you heard anything about the Bruins other than, boy, Jordan Farmar sure looks good in gold?

Here’s guessing Ben Howland, who does his best work when nobody’s looking, has us right where he wants us.