Henning: Leyland faces tough task in ‘09

Tiptoe carefully through the lair of Janos Skorzeny.

Leyland is not happy about his lame-duck label. He believes he helped put baseball back on the map in Detroit and that it isn’t right to leave him staring down the barrel of a gun, cocked and loaded, which is the Tigers and their scary 2009 prospects.

Of course, he wasn’t about to acknowledge any of that when asked Thursday about his situation.

“Well, I’m not even going to discuss that one time this year,” said Leyland, who went on to discuss it. “That’s not an issue. It’s very simple. If we do well, I’ll probably still be there. If not, I won’t.

“But I’m not going to make that a subject all year long, talking about things that aren’t important, because that’s not really important. What’s important is getting our team to spring training, getting our guys healthy and playing baseball.

“People can speculate all year long (message to Leyland: they will), they can write what they want all year long. But I’m not going to discuss that one time. So, I’ll leave it at that. That’s the end of the conversation for the rest of the year about that.”