LAKELAND, Fla. -- The Detroit Tigers made arrangements Thursday to acquire a special treadmill for their injured slugger Miguel Cabrera after finally locating one -- at the NFL combine.
To complete the final stages of his recovery from ankle surgery, Cabrera needs to run lightly on a special, gravity-defying AlterG treadmill that will allow him to begin aerobic training at less than full weight-bearing. So the Tigers began searching for an available model and eventually found one that has been in temporary use at the combine.
Once the combine wraps up this week, the Tigers will have the treadmill shipped to their spring training camp for tentative arrival early next week. Kevin Rand, the team's head athletic trainer, told ESPN.com the team submitted electrical specs and other details Thursday, then got the official OK later that afternoon.
Cabrera had surgery on Oct. 24 to remove bone spurs and bone chips from his right ankle and to repair a previously undetected fractured navicular bone at the top of the same foot. He was cleared by doctors this week to throw and hit, and to begin a gradual running program that requires him to put just partial weight on his injured foot and ankle.
In the past, Rand said, players like Cabrera would run on an underwater treadmill. But the AlterG treadmill, which was developed by NASA to help astronauts simulate weightlessness, is more precise in determining how much weight a runner can comfortably put on his foot without feeling discomfort or causing further damage.
Cabrera also trained on an AlterG treadmill a year ago, when he was recovering from core surgery, and is currently using one located in South Florida. But when the Tigers began looking into getting a model in their camp so Cabrera could begin baseball activities with his teammates, Rand called a sales rep for the company on Wednesday.
"I said, 'I'd really like to get a demo model in here' and explained the situation," Rand said. "And at first, it looked like they'd have to ship one from California [where the company is based]. But then he got back to me and said, 'There's a good chance we can get you the unit they used at the combine, because that would get there quicker, since we'd only have to ship it from Indianapolis.' I said, 'The quicker we can get it here, I'm all for it.'"
Tigers president, CEO and general manager Dave Dombrowski told ESPN.com on Thursday that Cabrera will continue his rehab in the Miami area until the treadmill arrives, then report to camp sometime next week. The Tigers remain optimistic that Cabrera will be ready "close to Opening Day," but Dombrowski and Rand both said they don't consider the opener to be any sort of deadline.
"We're not in a rush from that standpoint," Rand said, "because the most important thing is to make sure this guy is healthy."
Dombrowski said he'd also emphasized that point to Cabrera, his agent, manager Brad Ausmus and owner Mike Ilitch, by telling all of them that they "have to protect" Cabrera from himself.
"That's Miguel Cabrera," Dombrowski said. "He wants to play. And I told him, 'We want you to play, too.' But we want to make sure that you're not doing anything where you're saying, 'I've got to be in the lineup Opening Day. Let's let this thing take care of itself.'"