He's on the case

ST. LOUIS -- Sean Casey took note of Jim Leyland's infamous postgame rant the same way most of us did. He watched the clip on television, over and over and over.

He, however, was taking it in from his hospital bed. There was the little matter of two fractures of the transverse process in his left lower back, courtesy of a baseline collision with John Mabry.

Back on April 17, few of us were paying attention to the Detroit Tigers, who were coming off a 91-loss season, and who were a mere three years removed from losing 119 games. A lot of people probably laughed when Leyland went off. His angry denunciation of the Tigers' mail-it-in aproach to a 10-2 loss that day sounded nice and Old School and all, but with the defending champion White Sox, the Twins, and the Indians in the same division, it wasn't as if the Tigers were actually going anywhere in 2006, were they?

What an eight-year veteran and three-time All-Star saw was a man of baseball honor and, most of all, fire. "You saw Jim Leyland's passion for the game," Casey says. "You saw that if you were going to play for him you'd have to give it for nine innings and 27 outs. When you heard that, you knew, whether you were an opposing team in a clubhouse or a fan, that this was someone with a passion for the game."

What he did not know at the time was that he was watching his next manager, or that he would spend part of October playing in his first World Series.

Sean Casey, age 32, had spent most of his career playing in baseball's version of off-Broadway, the Cincinnati Reds. Then things got worse. Last Dec. 7, he was traded to Pittsburgh, and now he was off-off-Broadway.

Now he's playing in The Only Show In Town.

"You need a little bit of luck," he points out. "A lot of guys never get to play in a World Series. It doesn't necessarily mean someone isn't a good player. It just means he's never been on the 'right' team."

Casey was a trading-deadline pick-up for a Detroit team that felt it needed a little more oomph in its offense. A lefthanded, .302 career hitter, he is more the line drive/spray-it-around type than a pure slugger. "This generation's Mark Grace," opines reliever Todd Jones.

The major question for him right now is his health. He injured a calf muscle in the Division Series against Oakland, and so he may not be at top speed.

As if it matters . . .

"It's still a little sore," he acknowledges. "But it's basically feeling pretty good. I think if I was faster, it might be a factor, but I don't have too many gears."

Running is clearly not his thing. In 1,193 regular-season games, he has only attempted 21 stolen bases.

"If Sean Casey gets a hit," muses Leyland, "his steal sign is if I jump up in the air and never come down, he goes."

Casey is one of those guys people will be telling stories about in years to come. With his walrus mustache and middle-parted hair, he looks as if he should be tending bar in some place called "Mr. Dooley's" or "Finnegan's Wake" or "The Irish Castle." And he has a classic Irish bartender personality, too, because no player in baseball is more known for his conversational proclivities. That's one reason he doesn't like to be a designated hitter. At first base, he gets to chat up everyone in the league. Not for nothing is he known in baseball as "The Mayor."

It's doubtful if anyone is enjoying the World Series more. "Going from the Pirates to the Tigers was a tale of two worlds," he says. "With one phone call I had a 65-game swing. I went from 30 games under .500 to 35 over."

He knew he might be going somewhere. The betting was he would be a hefty salary dump by the low-budget Pirates, a team going nowhere. "[General manager] Dave Littlefield told me there were three or four teams interested," Casey explains.

"The call came at 7:30 in the morning," he recalls. "When I told my wife it was Detroit, she threw her arms into the air."

After spending most of his career with his nose pressed against the glass of serious, competitive postseason baseball, Casey was, finally, going to play in games that mattered. "You play the first two months to set you up for the last two months," he says. "When you're in it, you can't wait to get to the park. That's truly the way I feel now. I can't wait to get to the park and put on the uniform."

He's now had nearly three months of close, everyday exposure to Jim Leyland.

And?

"You see that he does have that passion for the game you thought he did," Casey says. "He's a great person, and he's fun to be around. He takes time to get to know all the players, and he really knows how to use his bench. He makes you understand that if he sits you down it may not have so much to do with you, as it is to keep everyone fresh. It's no accident that someone might get a hit to win a game at the end of a week because he's had two or three chances earlier in the week."

Casey may still be feeling the effects of that horrific collision with Mabry. He didn't produce the big numbers the Tigers may have been hoping for, but he did make a contribution, and if the Tigers are to come back and win this thing, he will have to be a major factor. He was, for example, the only man to come away from Tuesday night's game with two hits against Chris Carpenter.

Whether he really is the next Mark Grace (who led all major leaguers in hits during the '90s) or someone a bit shy of that rank, he is what is known in the trade as a "professional hitter."

"If I'm facing him," says Jones, "I know I'm in for trouble because he can do a lot of things with the bat. That's very important in any situation, and especially big in something like the World Series."

He's always fun to have around in any situation, and now everyone has something extra to look forward to. If he gets on base, we can all hope and pray Jim Leyland gives that special steal sign.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.