Great Catch

I'll admit up front that it's a bit odd, but one thing I'll say for listening to baseball on the radio is that there's an added dimension of the game when you can't actually see what happened. Two dimensions, really.

I was listening to yesterday's Detroit Tigers game (Bally Sports and Xfinity don't appear to care whether I can watch live baseball) and, at one point, Tiger outfielder Riley Greene made a spectacular catch to save, the announcers felt, two runs. 

It was euphoric to hear. Dan Dickerson, the play by play man (who has a great announcer's voice by the way) described the action. He sounded excited and concerned all at once as the ball fell to earth, telling his audience about Greene's rush towards it, and exploding himself in happiness when the catch was made. I about jumped from my seat too.

This leads to the first point: having the play told to you adds more excitement than seeing it. Secondly, I actually felt greater relief at hearing about the ball caught than seeing it done. It's almost like reading a book rather than watching a movie or TV show. You interact more profoundly when you have to invest yourself in the process. You don't have to pay as much attention when you see something. You have to hang on each word as you read or have a description delivered to you.

I found I had a greater satisfaction for the result hearing it instead of seeing it. Imagination can be better than reality I suppose. At least at certain times with certain things.

Just as Well

One of life's little pleasures for me is going old school and listening to baseball games on the radio in the garage of our place when in Hessel, in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula. There's something about the anticipation of waiting to be told what's happening which adds excitement to hearing my Detroit Tigers in action. In certain ways, it's better than actually seeing the game. It sparks the imagination. Radio is a book for the ear.

Imagine, then, my consternation when the power went out in the third inning of yesterday's game. Zach McKinstry had just aggressively took third on a Riley Greene single. Dan Dickerson, the play by play man describing the actions, had just called McKinstry safe when the radio clicked off. 

Hitting the on button did not turn the thing back on. I checked the power box in the garage and the breakers were on. Trying the house itself, I found the breakers all on in the electric panel in the back bedroom closet. Flipping lights throughout the house with no response told me what I had by then presumed: there was a power outage. I looked up the local power company on my phone (for of course I had no other Internet access with no power), Cloverland Electric for what that's worth, and reported the issue. Their site told me that around 1300 people in my area had no electricity but they were working on it. So, as the afternoon had bright sunshine in a cloudless sky, I settled into a lawn chair under a cedar tree and read a book.

A couple of hours later as I was in the kitchen, the light came on. Racing out to the garage, I turned the radio on just in time to hear Dickerson proclaim, "...and Texas beats Detroit in the the first game of this series, five to nothing."

I guess it wasn't the worst time for the power to go out. It saved me a bit of anguish.

The old ballgame at work

Hey Pops,

Well, I had the ballgame on the radio at work yesterday, for the first time in almost three years. I had been avoiding it since then, even though the Tigers play their share of afternoon games these days. It just didn't seem right. But today, well, it felt like the time.

Listening to Detroit beat Oakland sure brought back the memories. All the times that we would be in conversation only to stop talking when Ernie or Dan's voice would rise a decibel or gain excitement. We'd then forget what we were discussing to give quick cheers for the home run or great defensive play.

One of the runs we scored yesterday involved a runner on third who couldn't score because V-Mart's fly to left was too shallow. Yet Miggy was on first, and tagged to run to second. The cutoff man took the throw from left and threw to second without checking Martinez back to third. He streaked home to score on that toss to second, and Miggy ended up safe himself. You would have gotten a kick out of that unusual play.

A particular memory which came to mind was that game where Fister was pitching against the Royals and struck out nine in a row. I think even Phil got into it, though he's not the baseball fan we are. We laughed and cheered more impressively at each whiff, and were almost stonily silent between pitches, our anticipation growing, only to laugh harder when the announcer described Fister's confusion at the boos which greeted the tenth batter's ground out. He hadn't realized the record he'd just set.

Anyway, I think I'll have that old radio on again every time the Tigers have a weekday afternoon game. It's been silly that I've avoided listening for so long.

Until the next game, we'll see ya Pops.