FanPost

TigerDoc's Gratitude Journal: Detroit Tigers Edition

Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports

Ashley MacLennan challenged us with her "FanPost Friday:What are you thankful for this season?" True, this was a tough season, and it seems like there were not a lot of things to be thankful for. However, there is a lot of research regarding the positive benefits of gratitude. Here is a link to one good summary regarding those benefits:

https://www.happierhuman.com/benefits-of-gratitude/

I would suggest reading the link, it is a good primer on gratitude. If you are not practicing it, you should be, and this article may help you get started. The thumbnail sketch is that there are a lot of physical, social, and psychological benefits to practicing gratitude. But it is an active and intentional habit. You have to work at it. There are even apps for your phone that help you practice gratitude. Use "mindfulness" as a search term if you don't find what you want using "gratitude" as a search term.

I have been practicing gratitude for over a year now and it has helped me out quite a bit. Going through a lot of changes at work that are not all positive, but practicing gratitude has helped me a lot in dealing with those changes in a more positive way. And yes, my gratitude journal has some stuff about the Tigers in it. So here is what I am grateful for:

Baseball: What a great game it is! No other game plays nearly every day for six months, giving us the opportunity to lose ourselves in a game for a few hours and allowing us to forget about the cares of the world.

Bless You Boys: Yes, I am thankful for this site and all of the writers here. You challenge us to think, you share your love for the game and the Tigers with us. Sure, we don't always agree with each other. That is the beauty of baseball. Gone are the days of sitting down at the general store talking baseball with our friends. We now have the internet and this allows us to talk baseball with a much wider network of friends. I can be somewhat of a contrarian, but that is part of the fun. We get to discuss all these different things here and we don't have to agree. And unlike other sites, it is for the most part, very civil. And rarely are the articles purely clickbait which we get far too much of today.

West Michigan Whitecaps: I live in West Michigan and cannot get to Detroit all that often for games. So it is great to have a Tigers minor league affiliate minutes from my home. I have been a partial season ticket holder here for about 5 seasons now, and it was a great decision to commit to going to at least 10 games a year. I get to see recent draft picks try to hone their skills and then follow them as they move up the ladder. I have seen scores of past Tigers and current Tigers Nick Castellanos, Joe Jimenez, Buck Farmer, Spenser Turnbull, Grayson Greiner, Mike Gerber, Christin Stewart, and Matt Hall there. And sometimes we get to see guys come down for rehab assignments, like Jordan Zimmermann this past season.

Dan Dickerson and Jim Price: We could not have a better duo calling our games on the radio. Dan is such a consummate professional and he has a great radio voice. I camp a lot during the summer, and he is on the radio every night sitting around the campfire. He IS summer to me. Jim gets a lot of flack for being a cornball, for his catch phrases, for playing on his minor role on the 1968 team. But he is honest, genuine, and he shares his love of baseball and the Tigers freely.

Never giving up: The first four things on the list are not specific to this past season. But they are positives that helped make this season a great one despite the record. But something very specific to this season was the attitude this team showed all year. They never gave up. The fought to the end in just about every game and that resulted in several dramatic come from behind victories and countless more where while ending up short, made it worthwhile to watch or listen to the entire game. My hope is that this attitude carries through to the upcoming season and beyond.

I could go on, but I think it is best to stop here and let the rest of you share what you are grateful for from this season. If you don't want to write an entire FanPost, then share one or two here in the comments. Have a great day everyone and a Happy Thanksgiving! GO TIGERS!!!!!

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the <em>Bless You Boys</em> writing staff.