Here's what the Tigers do to relax in the clubhouse

This story was excerpted from Jason Beck's Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Tarik Skubal’s rise from ninth-round Draft pick to AL Cy Young Award candidate has come with a tremendous amount of work. During the season, much of it comes at the ballpark, where the clubhouse becomes the players’ sanctuary. But what does Skubal do between all that hard work?

What’s a 10-letter word for a common puzzle hobby?

Yes, Skubal -- proud member of the cell phone generation -- fills out crosswords. Not on his phone, but pen to paper.

“Every day,” Skubal said.

He’s not alone. In a clubhouse filled with creature comforts, one of the most popular features is a seemingly timeless one. Each day, clubhouse manager Dan Ross prints the daily crossword puzzle from USA Today as well as the daily Sudoku and puts a stack of them on the counter in the middle of the clubhouse. It’s fairly common around MLB clubhouses, but it’s a ritual for Skubal, putting his mind to work while his body takes a break.

He has company. On start days, catcher Jake Rogers has been known to help him fill it out, or he’ll do one himself.

“Me, Jake, Casey [Mize] does it sometimes,” Skubal said. “Mark [Canha], Shelby [Miller] tries, [Tyler] Holton.”

Rogers said he started on crossword puzzles during his first Spring Training with the Tigers in 2018, following the lead of fellow catchers Grayson Greiner and John Hicks.

“Me and [Tyler Alexander] started doing it, and then Skub got in,” Rogers said. “Shelby just started doing it. You get here early and guys are hanging out, and I’m doing it and then guys are like, ‘I’ll try it.’”

Though the stacks of crossword and Sudoku puzzles are right next to each other on the counter, they might as well be at different ends of the clubhouse. The puzzles have their dedicated camps, with little crossover.

By far, the crossword puzzle is more popular.

“I’m sure it’s seeing other people do it, too,” Rogers said.

Skubal is decidedly not a Sudoku fan.

“Because it's [freaking] hard,” he said. “I didn't have anyone to help me. Sudoku, you can't be the only one trying to do it, because you never know if you're right or wrong. Crosswords, you can just scribble out the letters.”

Said Rogers: “I cannot do Sudoku. The other day, Reese [Olson] was doing it, and I just grabbed his paper and I was like, ‘I’ll get one for you.’ I didn’t get one, and he was like halfway through.”

Tigers rookie outfielder Justyn-Henry Malloy, on the other hand, could say the same thing about crosswords. He said he got hooked playing Sudoku on his phone. When he got into pro ball, that affinity followed him to pen and paper.

“I play Sudoku on my phone. I'll play checkers. I love checkers on my phone. I'll play Wudoku,” he said. “It just keeps my attention. Gen-Z or whatever.”

While Malloy doesn’t consider himself a math person, he likes the interconnectivity, simplicity and logic involved.

“I have 1 through 9. That's it,” he said. “There's too many possibilities in crossword puzzles, in my opinion. But I've also never really taken the time to do a crossword puzzle, if I'm being honest.”

Other games have come and gone through the clubhouse. Immaculate Grid became a great way for current players to recall notable names of past and recent seasons. But as the competition for lower and lower scores heated up, the search for obscure players became too taxing.

“I didn't just want to put in a player. I wanted the percentage to be low,” Malloy said. “Once the guys started making it competitive last year near the end of the season, it was your Immaculate Grid versus someone else's.”

Said Rogers: “When I was doing it, I would just do the first [name] that came to my mind. But a lot of guys were trying to get the lowest percentage that they could.”