Oakland Athletics give Miguel Cabrera $90 bottle of wine as retirement gift
On the final stop of Miguel Cabrera's long and illustrious career, the future Hall of Famer was gifted a bottle of wine that cost less than $100.
Throughout the season, teams across the league have handed the Detroit Tigers legend fun gifts during his farewell tour and the Oakland Athletics continued the trend during the Tigers' final road trip of the season. The Athletics presented Cabrera with a bottle of cabernet sauvignon from Caymus Vineyards. The Athletics are known as one of the most frugal teams in the MLB, but still, for a sport that regularly pays players millions of dollars, the $90 price tag online grabbed people's attention
Needless to say, it was not a lavish gift like a Hollywood star he received from the LA Dodgers earlier in the week or a custom horse saddle like the Texas Rangers gave Cabrera. But the gift is creating headlines for more reasons than one.
Congratulations on a legendary career, Miggy! 👏 pic.twitter.com/OEZt8q5Vjq
— Oakland A's (@Athletics) September 22, 2023
The Oakland A's gave Miguel Cabrera a $90 bottle of wine. https://t.co/lMnwcHdy1O pic.twitter.com/Efy2HNcXEI
— Danny Vietti (@DannyVietti) September 22, 2023
After the 2009 baseball season, Cabrera spent three months in outpatient treatment focused on getting sober following legal issues related to his drinking, which later happened again in 2011. Cabrera said in 2010 that he never played drunk, but his drinking may have affected some of his performances as he couldn't properly recover.
Cabrera doesn't talk about the subject much, but last season when he broke 3,000 hits, he celebrated with non-alcoholic champagne with teammates in the locker room.
To be fair, it's not the first time this season teams have given Cabrera an alcoholic gift. The Houston Astros also gave Cabrera a bottle of wine from manager Dusty Baker's personal vineyard and the Miami Marlins gave him a bottle of rum and a box of cigars.
The main sticking point about the A's gift with fans online was the price and generic quality of the wine. The $90 bottle didn't hold any meaning besides being a gift to give Cabrera, as all other teams have done this season.
The wine purchase lines up with how the A's have handled money throughout the rest of the organization. The A's have spent the least of any team on their roster and have refused to renovate the Oakland Coliseum as they try to complete a move to Las Vegas.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Oakland A's give Miguel Cabrera $90 bottle of wine as retirement gift
