Tigers Win Game 2, ¡Viva los Tigres!

Pudge Rodriguez (Puerto Rico) and Jim Leyland have been two of the biggest reasons for the Tigers' turnaround in the last three years.

Hispanic connection: 11 players on the Tigers are of Latino descent:

Dominican Republic: Placido Polanco, Fernando Rodney, Neifi Perez, Alexis Gomez, Ramon Santiago.

Venezuela: Carlos Guillen, Magglio Ordonez, Wilfredo Ledezma, Omar Infante.

Puerto Rico: Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez

Mexico: Joel Zumaya (grew up in California, parents are Mexican.)

From today's WSJ, an editorial titled "Stealing Bases, Not Jobs," which highlights a recent study titled: "Immigrants, Baseball and the Contributions of Foreign-Born Players to America's Pastime." Here is an excert of the WSJ article:

On the eve of the World Series, the sprinkle has become a solid block. A new study shows that, as of Aug. 31, a whopping 23% of players on active rosters in the majors were foreign born. That's more than double the percentage as recently as 1990 and about 10 times what it was in the 1920s and '30s.

But you don't hear Americans complaining about this group of immigrants. And we're not aware of any U.S.-born hitters accusing the Red Sox home-run champion David Ortiz -- or the other Dominican players here on visas -- of stealing their job. Of course not. They get it, we all get it: Foreign players been berry, berry good to baseball.