Ausmus begins spring days with light-hearted meetings

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Brad Ausmus might be doing a few things a little differently if he were managing elsewhere. The Tigers manager said Sunday he probably would cover things in a different way with a younger roster, and he likely would approach the roster-trimming process with a different mentality.

One thing Ausmus said he wouldn't change, however, is the meeting he holds each morning with the Tigers.

He wouldn't go into the specifics of each meeting, before which players drag their chairs from in front of their lockers to one side of the clubhouse. Instead, he described it generally as "just a mixture of baseball discussion and some team fun." Ausmus said he didn't pick up the tradition from any of his previous managers, but he saw Bud Black do something similar in San Diego.

"It's really just a lot of times getting to know younger players. I don't know if I like the phrase, but in some sense, it's some team-building-type stuff," Ausmus said. "It's fun. We laugh at each other. We laugh at things that are happening in the world. Nothing earth-shattering. It's a way to get to know each other."

There is some baseball discussion, of course, but that aspect of the meetings would remain the same no matter the audience, Ausmus said. The Tigers' roster is full of proven, veteran players with postseason experience, but Ausmus said he remembered learning new things about the game at that stage of his career.

"I make it a habit of trying not to assume that somebody knows something, even if I sound like a moron telling them. If you assume they know it and they don't, then I think it's my mistake," Ausmus said. "But if I tell them and they think I'm an idiot for telling them because it sounds elementary, I'd rather that they think I'm an idiot and have them covered."