Tigers 4ever

The Yankees' ending their season to the Tigers makes it even worse, since I was a Tiger in my youth:

My own baseball career kicked off in 1980, with my being drafted by the Tigers. And by “drafted by the Tigers” I mean “my older brother was a Tiger, so they had to take me.” #2 overall pick! (cue Jordan comparisons.) My whole Little League career is much too long to fit into one chapter here, but I do have fond memories of the beginning of it. There was a real Rockwellian sense to the league when I started – there were only four teams, everybody knew each other, everybody’s mother worked the concession stand etc.  My first year was also the first year we all got baseball pants; before, everybody’d be out there in their Toughskins.

As much as I knew about baseball (or, looking back, as much as I THOUGHT I knew), before Little League my baseball life had primarily consisted of playing catch with my older brother. We’d go outside and throw the ball back and forth to each other until I, fed up with the broiling heat and gnats engulfing my head, would “accidentally” throw the ball over my brother’s head and into the corn field behind him. Now, my brother is still one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. But over the years, I pulled the ol’ “whoops!” trick maybe, oh, 19,000 times…and EVERY time my brother would spin around like a dog that sees a pork chop flying over it’s head and sprint after the ball…while I walked back inside the house. Oh, every single time I would get my ass beat once he got the ball and came back inside; but at least I was back inside in the air conditioning. Prolly watching reruns of “Family.” Cough. The other game we came up with during those years was a game that involved a crushed Coke can as a “ball.” We’d play behind the shed, wherein one of us would pitch the can and the other would try to hit it over the shed for a home run. Hits the roof it’s a triple, over a certain line a double etc etc. Needless to say, after about 18 seconds the “ball” is basically a shredded disc of aluminum. You know what wins in a battle between shredded metal and human skin? Needless to say our hands would be shredded and bloodied almost immediately; also probably needless to say at this point is that of course it wouldn’t stop us from playing for another 3 hours. Though I did have to give up my idea for salt mittens.

In a move that would foreshadow the first time I got a girl alone in a car years later, I spent the first 3 weeks of practice with the Tigers having no idea where third base was. I’m not kidding – I’d round first base, sprint to second and then turn on the jets to…left field. I’d slow down once I came upon the left fielder, who would of course be standing there wondering why this idiot was running at him. Then I’d stand there, as if on a base, ready to take off, while the next batter was at the plate. Base hit, I’d take off for home. It never occurred to me that you know what…this base seems to be over twice as far away from the other bases. And is in the grass. And there’s no actual, you know, BASE anywhere nearby. And on the the way to home plate, I do seem to pass a base. But what’s really funny is it wasn’t til about three weeks of this that somebody finally spoke up and pointed out my mistake. I wouldn’t expect my brother to, as I’m sure he was amused by his little brother looking like an idiot. But I do feel like the left fielder could’ve spoken up during any one of those long, awkward at-bats while I was standing next to him all alone in a field. Or, you know…THE COACH might’ve said something. But hey, at what he was getting paid, maybe he just didn’t wanna get involved.