Higginson opens in No.8 slot Outfielder rising up the list of games played with Tigers By Danny Knobler, Ann Arbor News Bureau Toronto - Ivan Rodriguez plays his first game for the Detroit Tigers today. Bobby Higginson plays his 1,222nd. "Yeah, it's amazing they haven't gotten rid of me," Higginson said with a chuckle. "I've been fortunate - do well enough to stay, not do well enough to get traded. You know what I mean?" Well, yes. Higginson did well enough at one time to get the Tigers to sign him to a five-year, 35.4 million contract before the 2001 season. He'd done not well enough the last few years that his contract makes him virtually untradeable. He's still making more money than any other Tiger this year, at $8.85 million. But in manager Alan Trammell's lineup for today's opener against the Blue Jays, Higginson was to bat eighth. "Being down there, he can be a mice little plus for us," Trammell said Sunday, before the Tigers worked out at the Skydome. "That's the way I look at it." Higginson has batted eighth before, but not in seven years. He began last season as the Tigers' cleanup hitter, and he's spent the better part of the last four seasons batting third. That he's hitting eighth today says more about the Tigers' improvement than it does about Higginson. Trammell is using Eric Munson as his ninth-place hitter, and Munson is coming off a season in which he missed six weeks with an injury and still hit 18 home runs. "It's a good lineup," Higginson said. "He's (Trammell) going with guys that are swinging the bats well at this time. If I'm swinging better, I'm sure I'll be batting higher up." With the addition of Rodriguez (who takes over as the third=place hitter) and Rondell White (who bats fifth), the Tigers have an improved middle of the order that should lead to many more runs scored. That may not be evident today against Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay. Then again, as Trammell said Sunday: "If Roy Halladay was starting against the New York Yankees, that would be a tough matchup (for New York)." Halladay has been especially tough against the Tigers, dating back to that final day of the 1998 season. Halladay carried a no-hitter two outs into the ninth inning, before Higginson came up as a pinch hitter and homered. No other player or coach from that 1998 team will be in a Tiger uniform today. Higginson, who debuted as a Tiger in Sparky Anderson's last season as manager, 1995, has outlasted all of them. He's already played more games than all but 18 players in Tiger history, more than Kirk Gibson or Lance Parrish, among others. He's played more games as a Tiger than the rest of today's lineup has combined - almost twice as many. This year, he should pass Aurelio Rodriguez, Rudy York, Hank Greenberg and Jim Northrup to move into 15th. He's been a Tiger for a long time. "I think it's winding down, too," Higginson said, chuckling again. By the time Rodriguez finishes off the four-year contract he signed in February, Higginson figures to be long gone form the Tigers. Today, they're together. The new Tiger. And the oldest Tiger. --

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