Letters From Spring Training: Detroit Tigers

The baseball season nears, and players are reporting to Spring Training. Every year, these month-long camps offer young men a chance to make friends, build campfires, and most importantly, learn how to tie knots. Everyone gets homesick eventually, though. Presenting the seventh in a month-long series called, "Letters From Spring Training."

A little over a month ago, I quit my pack-a-day smoking habit. A common misunderstanding is that it's simply an issue of will power. In reality, it's an issue of whether you can handle withdrawal symptoms that make you feel like someone surgically replaced all your vital organs with live rodents on methamphetamines.

That said, today is Ash Wednesday! Let's peek in on the Detroit Tigers' letters as they try to convince Jim Leyland to give up cigarettes for Lent.