Detroit manager Jim Leyland arrived at the Tigers’ training camp Monday in Lakeland, Fla., exactly 50 years after he first showed up there as a pencil-thin 18-year-old prospect.

If you were expecting sepia-tinged memories about a kid from Ohio basking in the sunshine and seeing his dream laid out in front of him, well, you don’t know Leyland. Or at least not well enough.

“I remember going over to watch the big-league guys as soon as I got there and saw the caliber of play. And shortly after that, I had a good idea I wasn’t going to make it – not as a ballplayer, anyway,” he recalled during a telephone interview.