It was a year ago last week that I met this jackass for beer and wings for the first time. What a fun afternoon. If you’ve ever gotten a chance to revisit a previous, enjoyable era of your life, you know what I’m talking about.
You just thought it was going to be lunch on a Wednesday. Then all of a sudden, you’re remembering incidents that you haven’t thought of for quite some time and you’re laughing. Pure, simple laughter. You’re immediately in a better mood than you were before you got there.
That is one of life’s little treasures. An unexpected wandering through memories that makes you feel good. It’s best when you never really see it coming. That’s what happened that day. Mike and I really enjoyed catching up and bullshitting over beers. Again, if you haven’t had a moment like that, I sincerely hope that you do in the near future.
And so it was, while enjoying that little life treasure, that the idea for us to write this story presented itself. We had just discovered one of the parallels in our lives. Not only are both of us dedicated baseball fans, we had both been planning to see a game in every stadium. That led to us talking about where we were when the Cubs won the World Series in 2016. I don’t think you even have to be a baseball fan, much less a Cubs fan, to know how big of a deal that was.
108 years of suffering. Well over a lifetime of heartbreaking season after heartbreaking season, and the Cubs had finally done it. Chicago and the Chicagoland area had its life flipped on its ear in a very good way. There were so many videos of thousands of people in the streets, in bars, and in living rooms exalted after the biggest Cubs win in anyone’s memory.
This lunch was five years later and these two idiots were still reveling in the moment like it had just happened the week before. I suspect it will be like that for Cubs fans for quite some time.
But where did that love of baseball come from for each of us? Mike has already begun to tell you his version, but for mine we will have to go back even further. Way back. All the way to the late 1970’s. And sooner or later we’ll have to talk about my grandfather.
The best summer of my childhood was in 1984, which led to the Detroit Tigers winning the World Series in October. I’m from the Detroit area. Like so many others, I have a chip on my shoulder when people make fun of my hometown. I wear my Detroit heritage with pride.
The 1984 Tigers were an amazing team during a legendary era of baseball. But for a 12-year old, they weren’t just a team to watch. They weren’t just a team to root for. They were heroes. They were MY heroes. I definitely remember where I was when the Tigers won Game 5 to clinch the World Series. And Kirk Gibson’s fists in the air after his monster home run is an iconic sports image for all of Detroit.
But I can trace my enthusiasm for that team even further back from that 1984 season to an evening in the fall of 1979. This is less than a year after I had been run over by that chicken truck while walking home from school. But I’ve already told that tale. Let’s go to a Tigers’ game.
It was a warm September night in 1979. Dad had come up with tickets for the whole family. Thinking back on this, I have no idea how he got them. We barely had enough money for food and the mortgage. I mean, I wore pants to school that my mom had sewn together with material from a dime store. Not a dollar store…a dime store. It had to be the case that someone at work couldn’t go and needed to dump the tickets, so my dad got them. I don’t know honestly.
But here I am in the family vehicle heading downtown to the stadium with my older brother and sister and my parents. My first game.
The mood is electric. We’re going to a ball game! I don’t even know what that means, really. But everyone riding in this repainted, hand-me-down van is excited, so I’m excited too. We park in a gravel parking lot within walking distance of the stadium. A man had waved us in with an orange flag and told us where to park. I was fascinated from my spot in the back seat.
We get out of the van and I go to ask him questions, but I get redirected immediately by my mother. She gives me “the look” and tells me to walk behind my brother. Normally I would show some fuss at this, but I don’t mind at all. There’s so much more to see. We start walking toward the largest building I have ever seen in my life.
The lights! The people walking in the same direction to get there! The electricity of the moment has not backed off since we got into the van in the first place. It holds strong. It gets stronger. And at the intersection of Michigan and Trumbull, we enter Tiger Stadium.
We emerge into the seating area from the concourse and I see the grass under the lights for the first time. I am overtaken. This is a stage. This is a production. This is a moment. All of these things are kind of lost on me, because I’m 6, but the impact is not. It’s glorious.
Jason Thompson plays 1st base for the Tigers. He has three hits and immediately becomes my favorite player of all time. Until the 7th inning. In the 7th inning, legendary manager Sparky Anderson replaces the starting pitcher with Aurelio Lopez. His nickname is “Señor Smoke.” He is a somewhat portly man who leans back and kicks his leg hard toward 3rd base just before he steps in and delivers the ball. Coolest thing I have ever seen. I imagine rings of smoke circling behind the ball like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon as he throws. Señor Smoke. My favorite player of all time.
Or he was until I figured out in the next few years who Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker were. And later on, Chet Lemon and Lance Parrish, and of course Kirk Gibson. It would be a long, long time before baseball wasn’t my favorite thing.
And these many years later, I’m rounding out a 30-year tour of all of the stadiums. All of those hot dogs, all of those home runs, all of those times where you turn and high five some people you don’t even know because a run scored. It all started with some free tickets for a family that didn’t get to do very much like this. Imagine how my life would be different if we had all just gone bowling instead.
But under the lights in Tiger Stadium at 6 years old, I was hooked. Not in a gateway drug kind of way, I was hooked in a cannonball-into-the-pool kind of way. The next summer, I annoyed my parents into signing me up for tee ball. The hat was too big for my head and pushed my ears out like wings on a very awkward looking bird. And wearing a cup for the first time was weird, but whatever. I got a glove and I was on my way. I was ready to play baseball.
The problem was, I wasn’t very good at playing baseball. I was enthusiastic, but I also fell down a lot. And once, when I caught a ground ball at 2nd base, I didn’t really understand the rules, so I threw the ball at Tommy Churchavera. Poor Tommy was just trying to run from 1st to 2nd. I hit him in the head and made him cry. I thought he should have been out, but my coach and I had to have a talk. Let’s be honest, tee-ball is not as easy as it looks.
Now Dad didn’t have the kind of time it would take to help me bridle that enthusiasm. Or maybe he was just too embarrassed. After all, Tommy did cry a lot that day and my dad knew his dad. He had a lot to manage just then. Truth is, I didn’t just need a coach. I needed someone who loved the game, respected the game, and was waiting for a moment like this to teach the game.
I needed my grandfather.
But that was the start. It was a family ride in a big van to Tiger Stadium on a warm night in September of 1979. I was immediately infatuated with watching baseball. Rooting for the team. Seeing heroes that I didn’t even know were my heroes yet. Then I started my own adventure trying to play the game. I looked awkward and didn’t even understand the rules, but at just 7 years old, I was having the time of my life.
Now, why is the count 3 and 2? Because it’s over 40 years later and I’m going to games in three different stadiums this year. After that, I’ll only have two left.
15 Years Later 
Leave a comment