DOWNTOWN — Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland remembers the day well because he left a little of himself behind in that Georgia heat.

During his playing days, Leyland was a catcher, and this was the kind of day that you didn’t want be a catcher, let alone a minor-league catcher, with no backup around, handling both games of a doubleheader in Savannah, Ga.

“I lost 11 pounds,” he said in the visiting manager’s office at Busch Stadium…

TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals inexplicably annual interleague series against the Detroit Tigers begins tonight at Busch Stadium. It will be the Tigers’ first visit to the Cardinals’ crib since Brandon Inge waved past an Adam Wainwright slider and good bye to the 2006 World Series.

But it’s not like the Cardinals haven’t seen the Motown Nine since then.

In a constant quirk of interleague play, the Cardinals continue to play Detroit every season. This…