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The Detroit Tigers blew a three-run lead in the eighth inning and eventually lost on a home run in the ninth. Still http://www.carolinapanthersteamonline.com/greg-little-jersey , this was a day Jose Iglesias and Leonys Martin may look back on fondly for years.

Before Monday’s game against Oakland, the Tigers hosted a ceremony on the field in which a group of people were sworn in as American citizens. Iglesias and Martin, both natives of Cuba, were among them.

”I will never forget about my country, but it’s amazing to be part of United States,” said Martin, a 30-year-old outfielder. ”Being able to do it here in the ballpark, right in front of the fans, that was really emotional.”

Martin played for Cuba in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. After defecting, he received a $15.5 million, five-year contract with the Texas Rangers in 2011. This is his first season with the Tigers.

Iglesias, a 28-year-old shortstop, made his big league debut in 2011 with the Boston Red Sox. He was traded to the Tigers in 2013, and he can look back now at the daunting process of getting used to a new country.

”It’s hard Will Grier Jersey , man. You came. You face a new culture, face a new language, facing new food, new everything,” Iglesias said before the game. ”Still learning. I’ve been here for 10 years, and I’m still learning.”

Iglesias and Martin had their ceremony at a time when a national debate over President Donald Trump’s immigration policy has been dominating the news. Iglesias wasn’t about to wade into that.

”I don’t really have a comment on that. I try to stay away from that,” Iglesias said. ”If there’s anything I can do to help a human being in the end of the day, I will do it, but I try to stay away from politics.”

Manager Ron Gardenhire was excited about the ceremony.

”It’s really cool. These guys are really proud of that. I’m just hoping they can get to Canada,” he said. ”They’ve lost their visas and green cards now once they’ve taken this citizenship, so they have to get a passport so they can go with us to Canada here in a few days.”

The Tigers play a four-game series at Toronto starting Friday night.

For a brief moment, it appeared Monday’s game against the Athletics might unfold in storybook fashion – with Martin driving in Iglesias with the winning run. The score was tied at 1 in the seventh inning, and Martin hit a drive to center. Iglesias raced around from first, but he had to stop at third when the ball bounced over the wall for a double. He was thrown out at home when the next batter hit a grounder.

Nicholas Castellanos hit a three-run homer later that inning for Detroit http://www.carolinapanthersteamonline.com/christian-miller-jersey , but Oakland rallied in the eighth and eventually won 5-4.

No matter. This was still a special day for Iglesias and Martin.

”It’s amazing,” Iglesias said. ”Become an American citizen on a ballpark, and with full uniform and everything. It’s a blessing.”

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Binge drinking for hours in stadium parking lots, a few Philly fans flexed their beer muscles with throws that were as on point as Nick Foles connecting with his Eagles receivers.

Sure, the Minnesota Vikings fans who walked through hostile enemy territory that would set the stage for malfeasance at the NFC championship game had to expect the boos, the four-letter words, the obscene gestures, the shouts to go home, the, well, the misconduct list goes on for churlish Eagles fans.

On a few occasions, cooler heads prevailed.

As in fans opened coolers, plucked cheap beers and chucked unopened cans at Vikings fans.

This was a dangerous twist on Target Field for the Minnesota faithful.

Social media users captured snapshots of fans dodging and weaving cans, crushed red solo cups and all kinds of trash launched toward anyone in purple and gold Jordan Scarlett Jersey , and many more Vikings fans complained on Twitter of witnessing random acts of violence. Some fans whined their Vikings hats were swiped off their heads and tossed into urinals before Eagles fans showed why their team was No. 1 in the NFC.

Mongo from “Blazing Saddles” would surely tip his cap at the way Eagles fans can sock a horse .

Philly boos were supplanted by Minnesota boo-hoos .

Beware, Minneapolis.

Eagles fans are coming to your city.

And the Massholes are joining in on the Super Bowl bash.

Patriots-Eagles is more than a 2005 Super Bowl rematch. It sticks two of the more maligned – and misunderstood – fanbases in the NFL within striking distance of each other at US Bank Stadium.

It’s time to line `em up – the Santa Snowball Hurlers vs. the Deflategate Truthers in a fight for the checkered flag of most obnoxious fans.

But certainly not the most violent.

The West Coast takes a (tarnished) gold among American sports fans, with stabbings reported at games in San Diego and San Francisco; while fan arrests at New York Giants games generally lead the league.

Eagles fans involved were in a scuffle with and police officers in one parking lot that left at least one fan beaten and bloodied before the NFC championship game. Police only reported two arrests for disorderly conduct and one for assault on police. They also reported three arrests for counterfeit ticket sales.

Patriots fans invoke a different kind of hate.

NFL fans from Kansas City to Jacksonville are just sick – or jealous – of the Patriots going to the Super Bowl and watching New England celebrate on duck boats and parade routes. Patriots fans are often called entitled or nauseating for their Super Bowl gloating. There are New England teens who believe Super Bowl appearances are as much a given right as lobster rolls and clam chowder.

It wasn’t all serious in Philly.

After the game, huge crowds gathered in neighborhoods around the city cheering and chanting.

Earlier in the day, workers in Philadelphia who jokingly called themselves the ”Crisco Cops” greased light poles to try to prevent fans from climbing up them after the game.

During the fourth quarter, Philadelphia police posted an image of Crisco on Twitter . While urging fans to celebrate responsibly, they wrote, ”Now comes the time in the night where we must warn everyone about the dangers of Saturated Fats.”

Just don’t tell Vikings fans about frivolity in Philly.

Jana Hokinson of Manson, Iowa, was one Vikings fan who traveled to Philadelphia for the game. She told Minneapolis’ WCCO-AM radio that she walked into the stadium with a group of other Vikings fans. Suddenly, two men in the front of the group were hit in the head with something and bleeding.

”One guy had a cracked forehead and the back of his right ear was just bleeding. The other guy, it was his left ear,” she said.

She said that security told their group there was nothing they could do.

Once she got to her seat, the fans around her were giving her group some good-natured grief at first Greedy Williams Jersey , but after the Vikings scored, one of her sisters got spit on by Eagles fans, and another sister had food thrown at her.

She said she left after the third quarter and ”security escorted us out because I got beer cans thrown at me.”

Hokinson said they were escorted to the car, but they had promised to give a man from Minneapolis a ride to the airport. Security had to go back and retrieve that Vikings fan from his club seat because Eagles fans were blocking him and wouldn’t let him leave.

”It was crazy,” she told the radio station.

When the Eagles fans come to Minnesota: ”I just hope our fans stay classy. Because that’s a whole other level of crazy down there. And I know the fans up in Minnesota, they’re not going to stoop that low. I hope they don’t.”

Yes, that’s classic sweatheart thinking that everyone in Minnesota is so nice.

Not always true. Not necessarily a problem. The all-day tailgating isn’t generally in full 0.20 BAC levels at the Super Bowl as it is on NFL Sundays and the league will generally assemble a massive task force to thwart fan violence.

Vikings receiver Adam Thielen said he hopes Minnesotans hold no grudges.

”You can’t group all Eagles fans into that group,” Thielen said one day after his team bus was pelted with beer on its way out of Philly. ”It’s kind of the same thing with the NFL sometimes. If somebody gets in trouble, it kind of gets put on everybody.”

Still, it might be a good thing Mary Richards isn’t around to toss her winter cap in the air.

It might end up caught and tossed in a toilet