DETROIT -- The Tigers have all kinds of athletic abilities, but there are quite a few of them that have some unexpected talents.
Rookie Kyle Ryan, a native of Auburndale, Fla., has an impressive one.
"I hunt anything from squirrels to gators," Ryan said. "We obviously kill it, take it to the processor and they skin it for us. We do a neutral trade. They get the hide, we get the meat and the head. It tastes like chicken. Legitimately, it tastes like chicken. You fry it, you grill it."
One year, Ryan said he and his friends hunted south of Orlando and killed two alligators that were each about 12-feet, 700 pounds.
Ryan, 22, is not the only hunter on the team.
"I started hunting when I went to Alabama," catcher Alex Avila said. "A lot of my teammates there hunted. I had never hunted before and they took me. I got the buck fever. Ever since, I always try to plan a couple of trips in the offseason. It's one of my favorite things to do."
Three years ago, Avila finally got the buck he wanted.
"The biggest one I have been able to take is a 12-point and that was with a bow," Avila said. "Kind of proud of that one because bow hunting is not easy. You gotta get 'em up close, up 40 feet in a tree and sometimes it can be difficult. I got lucky with the buck coming towards me."
There are other outdoorsy sorts on the team, including Miami native J.D. Martinez.
Tigers rookie Kyle Ryan poses with his alligator.
"I like fishing," Martinez said. "I'm more of a captain than a fisherman. Find the fish, that's the hardest part in deep sea fishing. I've caught marlin, swordfish, mahi mahi, sailfish, tarpon, snook, redfish, most every fish."
Martinez said it's a close call on which is the biggest fish he's caught, either a marlin or a tarpon.
"They both took about 3-3 1/2 hours to bring in," Martinez said. "They were frickin' huge. The tarpon had to be at least over 150 pounds, 175 pounds easily. It took us six times under the bridge. We had to chase it. It went back, forth, back, forth, and the bridge had pillars, so it took us in between the pillars. You don't just sit on the boat and reel it in, it's too big. You gotta follow it. That was fun. We had to share because people get tired. You do it for 20-30 minutes and your back's hurting."
Fellow outfielder Tyler Collins also likes to fish, but he prefers the freshwater variety.
"I'm a big angler. That's all I do all offseason," Collins said. "I hunt, too, but I'm really good at fishing. I've never been deep sea fishing. Fresh water, large-mouth bass. I can go pretty much anywhere and catch bass, kind of a knack that I got from my grandfather way back before he passed away. He just passed it on to me and I can catch fish."
Collins' grandfather, Victor Kuykendall, would often take the family fishing.
"We all used to go on trips and he and I were the only ones that could ever catch anything," Collins said.
Collins said teammate Steven Moya is a dangerous man off the field, as well as on it, as he is a brown belt in karate.
"I did that when I was like 12-14 but I stopped because of baseball," Moya said. "My mom didn't like it a lot. But I'm pretty good at it. I don't think anyone want to mess with me."
At 6-foot-7, it's easy to imagine Moya would be quite intimidating if he tried to kick you.
Although he's focused on baseball now, Moya would like to explore his other talents when he's older.
"I also like to play basketball," Moya said. "I like to do too many things. I'd like to do so many things in life after baseball. I can't do it right now because of time. But I would like to try everything. I think I can be pretty good at anything I want."
Reigning AL Cy Young winner Max Scherzer is certainly good at pitching, but there's another game he's good at that might surprise people.
"The game I'm actually really good at is Connect Four," Scherzer said. "I'm a master at Connect Four. We used to play it in Arizona and we got competitive with it. We started figuring out there's a strategy to it, there is. In Washington there was actually one and I think I beat Miggy (Cabrera) eight times in a row. That didn't work out too well."
Catcher Bryan Holaday has a talent that he isn't able to use these days as it's not allowed in his contract.
"I don't get to do it often anymore but snowboarding," Holaday said. "But since I signed, I haven't. But I love snowboarding."
Rookie reliever Blaine Hardy has a talent that his teammates probably need from time to time -- fixing computers.
"I kind of grew up in the era where computers were just coming up," Hardy said. "In high school I took quite a few computer classes. When I went to the University of Portland, I started out as a computer science major. With baseball, it didn't work out because there was just so much studying and I couldn't balance the two. First time at college, I didn't know what to expect and I ended up going with a business degree.
"I'm still pretty savvy when it comes to computers, especially fixing them, more in the hardware part. Don't know programming as much as I'd like to but hopefully when I get a chance to go back to school, I'll get some sort of programming degree because I enjoy it. I enjoy working with computers."
Both Collins and Torii Hunter said they were both pretty good at bowling, but Hunter has another talent that he doesn't really share with the world.
"I can draw a little bit," Hunter said. "I draw people, just stuff that comes to my mind. I've drawn just my bedroom. I sit in my bedroom and just draw things in my bedroom, playing around. My wife is like, 'It's pretty nice, you should do something.' I'm like, nah. My dad was an artist. My son, Torii Jr, actually can draw pretty well, too."
Then there's Phil Coke, who seems to have enough hidden talents for the entire team.
"I'm big in the kitchen," Coke said. "I've actually made suggestions at restaurants because I've got a pretty developed flavor palate, as far as like a wine to go with a specific dinner or whatever, flavor-wise. That's one."
That talent is rather sedate for Coke, who also has some more active abilities.
"I can run a chainsaw pretty good," said Coke, who taught himself after watching his dad. "I spent one offseason clearing a lot of brush from one end of the lake that's like a community swimming hole. One side of it was so overgrown that you couldn't get into any of the other areas of the lake on the far side of it, so I took my saw and I fixed that."
Coke is also the guy you want around if something goes wrong with your car or truck.
"I had a '90 Silverado that the U-joint broke on my drive line and the drive line hit the ground, came up and hit the back of my transfer case for my four-wheel drive and it cracked and started leaking out of this one portion that was bolted on with four bolts," Coke said.
Coke said it happened in the middle of nowhere in Barstow, Calif., when he was driving to spring training seven or eight years ago.
"I ended up walking down the road and happened upon a (transmission) shop that was open on a Sunday," Coke said. "He walked me through his shop and started looking at different parts and pieces and I found the exact one I needed. I bought some sandpaper and some high-heat silicone, so on and so forth. I cleaned up the part as best I could with brake fluid, which is really good at cleaning anything. So I cleaned it up, and this was all working on my back on the asphalt reaching up underneath the truck and lining it up and everything by myself."
Although the delay cost Coke three days, he got his truck running again. He traded it in last year.
"Truck's probably still on the road today in Florida," Coke said.
