Dear Detroit Tigers:

[wields_a_pen]

I remember lazy summer afternoons in my youth, days where the heat was so insufferable that sitting in air conditioning was almost too painful to bare in contrast. Having seen every film playing at the Star Gratiot, my father would emerge from his home office mid-morning and scoop me into his 1993 Lincoln, driving the 8 miles to Corktown in

Comments

[zjkjoseph]

I'm glad I stumbled across your LJ, because this entry is amazing. For years, I was only a casual Tigers fan; I would keep track of their record and stats, but never watched the games and therefore never maintained a connection with the team. There wasn't much incentive for me to tune in either. I'd rather go about my daily life than devote a couple hours to Willie Blair, Jose Lima, and all the other guys who made the Indians look so good.

But this year was different. From the start, it was refreshing to see the team start winning games, and it almost made my head hurt that this franchise could attain first place without the advantage of well-placed meteors and plane crashes. Even so (especially as a State grad,) I expected that other shoe to drop around July 20th and have the Tigers finish in third place, just like in 2000 when they couldn't string together anything down the stretch.

The wins kept coming though; not as easily as before, but enough for me to pay attention, watch some games, and genuinely care about the team's fate. Making the playoffs after such a tight run was exhilerating, even if they had to face the steamrolling Yankees with a seemingly depleted pitching staff.

Postseason baseball is a different animal; the game gains so much more charisma when entire seasons, reputations, and careers are on the line. The crowd senses this as well, and their energy makes the games all the more exciting.

In all my years of watching sports though, I have never seen a better crowd than the one present for games 3 and 4 of the Yankees series. Every hit, every out, every electric Rogers scream brought out a louder cheer than the last until the final, cleansing out that exonerated two decades of losing in downtown Detroit. I didn't know a crowd could maintain that kind of energy for a whole game, and they were duly rewarded with the celebration after game four.

For me, the season ended after Magglio's home run. Sure, Rogers brought the electric one more time in the World Series, but the rest of that was such a God damn waste of time.

I'd rather have it all end with one of Detroit's top five sports moments as a reminder of all the happy and unlikely memories of the team that pulled a crumbling city back together.



Hm. Didn't mean to make an entire post as a comment there, but I got on a roll. Still, awesome entry.

[wields_a_pen]

All I can say to such an amazingly unexpected comment is this: that I was having a superbly shitty morning at the office and your comment put a huge smile on my face. At this early point in February, I am doing nothing but counting down the days until baseball returns. Because with that return, winter will die away and Michigan will transform from being a gray wasteland into a kind-of-sort-of sunny place, and I'll take that any day over this weather.

Magglio's homerun is probably the most incredible sports moment I will ever witness in person. Tops even being at the Wings/Avalanche goalie fighting game 10 years ago (holy shit, that was a decade ago, wasn't it?) The Tigers did somethimg magical for this city because nothing was expected of them, they didn't have a costly roster filled with famous names. It was nearly all rookies and nobody's that were stepping up and taking control. Just the way the sport was meant to be played.

T-minus 2 months until opening day. Red Wings hockey and Pistons basketball aren't enough to get me through the winter. Spartan football is far from ever being enough to get me through anything.

I need baseball. Period.

[zjkjoseph]

Your entry was touching, in that "sports as life" kind of way, so I had to say something. I'm glad it made the drudgery of work more bearable.

It's funny that you mention the Wings craze being ten years ago, because I was just thinking about how far they have fallen out of the collective consciousness. In 97 and 98, all anyone could talk about was the Red Wings. Every night, the Joe was rocking, and The Grind Line could have won an election in Wayne County.

Despite all that, there wasn't that fan unity that I felt with the Tigers. Instead of tying together a bunch of affluent suburbs, the Tigers put a shine on Detroit itself. Maybe because it all happened so suddenly, maybe because it happens to be in a visitable part of the city (who would hang out by the Joe?) maybe it's history, but the Tigers are Detroit.

If you're having a bad day, click on some of the videos in this link. It works well.

Add me back as an lj friend thingy. If you're a quarter this good of a writer with regularity, you'll entertain me quite well.

(I swear, I don't always write this much. The real world has sucked quite a bit out of me.)

[wields_a_pen]

Just added you back; I'm terribly slow at these things sometimes, which is funny, since I spend most of my time at the office not doing any actual work. Perhaps if LJ started to actually notify me of my comments, I would actually see them!

The article on Spring Training last week in the Detroit Free Press was just about the best thing I've read in months in the paper. I devoured every single word and actually, for two unrealistic seconds, considered if I could make it down there to watch the spring games in Florida. Alas, I have no vacation days left, so I guess I'll have to wait until April!

Please forgive my angst-ridden, crass and often annoyed livejournal entries. I live in Lansing, after all, it's not like there's much positive to write about here! :D

[zjkjoseph]

That's cool; I don't write nearly as much as I used to (fuck you cubicle sucking away my creativity,) and when I do I normally make mention of having no one to hang out with over here. Thus is a product of living in Grand Rapids: Lots of boring if you're not in the city, and I'm 15 minutes out. Balls.

It's going to be weird to start a baseball season with people intrigued in the Tigers. I rather like World Series talk compared to "We have a second baseman?"

The commenting doesn't work so well when tired, so... enough for now!