Open Thread: A Baseball Lovefest

I love sitting in the warm sun of the outfield seats with a beverage and a hotdog.
I love the look on a kids face when he gets his first foul ball.

The players. Every one of them for one reason or another. If I have a chance to watch every game like last year, it feels like I know them and how they are feeling. I love to watch a bunch of guys become a team. I love Detroit, no matter what goes on. My family made yearly trips to Detroit and my sister bought her wedding dress there. I remember the stories my dad talked about going to Briggs Stadium and the nights listening on the radio. It makes me feel young and connected to lots of other people. That’s about it: Always a Tiger.

I love when the pitcher and batter both know the pitcher is bringing the heat and it’s just a matter of where the ball ends up.

I love that when the games start none of BS people complain about really matters. It just becomes the best game in the world again.

I love that baseball hats are really the only piece of team sportswear that transcends its sport. Also, that baseball jerseys are really the only jersey that doesn’t look completely ridiculous away from the game.

Settling into my seat, scorecard in hand, ready for the day’s drama to unfold, watching players take their warmups.

Sitting behind Magglio in right field.

Seeing other people sporting their Tigers gear—instant solidarity.

Listening to a game on radio if I can’t be there. Baseball is a perfect radio game, but it’ll never be the same without Ernie.

…watching a guy that used to be a hated enemy become a hero before your eyes. Kenny Rogers and Magglio Ordonez come to mind.

…walk off home runs. No better feeling.

…seeing Zoom hit 100 on the gun.

…welcoming heroes back after years apart. ’68 and ’84 Tiger reunions, etc.

…making jokes about Nate Robertson and Brandon Inge when I’m secretly rooting for them to do well.

…April. When everyone still has a chance.

The smell of freshly cut grass as you walk to the seats.

The crack of the bat on a hard hit line drive.

The way Granderson canvases the outfield

The surprises you get when going to a new ballpark for the first time.

Opening day. Rain or shine, cold or warm. There is no better sporting event in the world.

Old school jerseys. Juan Berenguer, Rusty Kuntz, Nate Cornejo. I have seen them all at the ball park.

Spring training, let’s you know that winter is almost gone.

Going to Lakeland to watch spring training, it feels like a minor league game only with all your favorite players. Craig Monroe said “What’s up” with a head nod. You don’t get that during the regular season.

Summer days knowing their is a Tigers game almost every night.

Making the same "Polonco looks like the Brain (from Pinkie and the Brain) joke every year, and trying to figure out who should be his Pinkie (Adam Everett, I’m looking your way.)

Sitting behind the bullpen, watching Todd Jones pay kids to go get him peanuts then signing a ball as there reward (We will miss you Joney and your amazing mustache)

everything about baseball, and I truly love the Tigers. I love the 2006 Tigers team the most. I will always remember the way that season felt.

I, of course, am a fan of other sports and teams, but there is nothing like baseball. I always say to people, if you took the Detroit Tigers and put them on a hockey rink, I’d root for them over my favorite hockey team. Or if you put them on a football field, a basketball court, etc, the same thing, I’d root for the Tigers.

As Bob Costas says in the Ken Burns documentary, there aren’t many things in your life you care about your entire life, but baseball is one of those things. Baseball is a relationship. The length of the season, the day to day nature of it, just makes it different than any other sports. It gets into your soul. How many nights did we all find ourselves back watching the Tigers after a tough lost last year?

…Polly taking 10 pitches before driving one past the inept 2B for a single.
…Rod Allen saying bizarre things.
…keeping track of the Tigers’ win/loss record against Rod Allen wearing his glasses (win)/not wearing his glasses (loss). This is frighteningly accurate.
…Saturday day games on TV, that one time they’re on FSN.
…Inge making the catch a third where other 3B wouldn’t even dream of making the leap, let alone the catch.
…Leyland doing that “slow, I-want-a-new-pitcher walk out to the mound”.
…Gene Lamont looking like a penis in the battling helmet.
…Cabrera cranking the ball time after time, even if he doesn’t go yard.
…Granderson running down potential doubles.
…Magglio’s hair.

I miss…
…Todd “Bases Loaded”/“Roller Coaster” Jones. Admit it. You’ll miss him too.
…knowing that Edgar Renteria will be the butt of all “Tigers suck” jokes, no matter what point of the season it is.
…Pudge at the plate.
…The Gambler (as Jason Beck pointed out) putting on a clinic defensively at the mound.
…Matt Joyce. Big League Stew posted a picture of him with the Rays and it was tough to look at.

- hearing the words “Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.” Winter is almost over.
- watching Granderson step into the box for the first at-bat of the game. Doesn’t matter what game it is.
- watching the sunset, seeing the game transform from day to night right before my eyes.
- hating the Twins, White Sox, Indians, Yankees, and Red Sox (and everybody else too…)
- seeing a ball fly towards the gap to eventually land in Grandy’s outstretched glove.
- breaking in a new glove and hearing about everybody’s different ways of doing it.
- watching opposing batters get frustrated at how quickly Verlander works on the mound.
- talking about pitching changes, defensive substitutions, and pinch hitters in the late innings.
- thinking back to the days when my entire day consisted of playing baseball, eating, and watching the Tigers.
- the designated hitter. Give me a 3-run bomb over the double switch any day of the week.
- the guy that yells at the opposing outfielders even though 99.9% of the time they can’t hear him, but only for about the first 15 minutes.
- taking a picture in front of the giant Tigers every time I go to Comerica.
- PNC Park in Pittsburgh. The seats on the third base line give you the greatest view you could ever ask for in a baseball park.
- thinking back to the only game I ever went to in Tiger Stadium with my dad.
- finding the brick that my family bought for my grandmother in the sidewalk at Comerica. It opened the year after she passed away.
- eating peanuts at a game.
- the home whites. There has never been and never will be a greater uniform in any sport.
- everything about this game. It will always be America’s Pastime, even if ESPN insists that football is now.
- the Detroit Tigers, win or lose. Here’s to a good season everybody.

I love….

-Remembering the first game my dad took me to every time I go to a game in Detroit
-The one game a year I take my mom, dad, brother, sister, and nephew to (every year)
-Watching Grandy roar around second on his way to another triple
-Walking down the streets of Chicago and seeing fellow transplants wearing the Old English D (there are a ton of us here)
-Watching Magglio’ s whip swing (much more impressive in person)
-The feeling you get just before every game starts, in that you don’t know what is going to happen but the possibility is there for something great.

Cannot wait to get home to the D for my first game this year.

I love it when the Tigers win two games in one day!