The More Things Change

While watching my Detroit Tigers yesterday afternoon - the home team is always my team, and why not? - I noticed that the starting pitcher, Tarik Skubal, wore number 29. My first thought was, honestly, 'but Mickey Lolich is 29'. It took a moment to remind myself that that great Tiger lefty was number 29. It's not exclusively Mickey's marker.

I thought that knowing others have worn the number since Lolich hung up his spikes; Nate Robertson, another Tiger southpaw, comes to mind. Yet because Lolich wore it when I was a young Tiger fan, as they were becoming my team, he will always be #29. Exactly like #24 will always be Mickey Stanley. Nothing personal and no offense, Miguel Cabrera. You are indeed one of the all time greats. No Detroit Tiger will wear number 24 after you. It's just that there was a 24 before you, that's all.

I'm not the only one, am I? It's as though who we grew up with are impressed into our being. I think that's just how our minds work, don't you?

Four times going yard again

Four Detroit Tigers hit home runs in the first inning of yesterday's game (August 8, 2020) against the Pittsburgh Pirates. That hasn't happened since 1974. I remember that game because I listened to it on the radio just as I listened to yesterday's game over the air.

To be sure, the circumstances were different. Yesterday I sat in the garage up in Hessel; in 1974 I was sitting at the dining room table behind me Pops, who sat at his desk doing his nightly paperwork. 325 miles and four and a half decades make a difference, don't they? 

He had this little black and white transistor radio which he used almost exclusively for listening to Tiger games. I bummed it often. If there's one thing I'd like to still have from childhood, that radio is it. There's a lot of memories of the tinny sound of Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey from back then.

Niko Goodrum, Miguel Cabrera, C. J. Cron and Jeimer Candelario hit them yesterday. Al Kaline, Mickey Stanley, Bill Freehan, and the light hitting and woefully unpowerful Ed Brinkman (me Mom called him a 'banny rooster' for the chicken-like way in which she said he ran) did it way back when, July 29, 1974. That's all of 46 years ago folks.

I was 14 then. At 60 now, I'm older by 22 years than me Pops was on that day (to save you the mathematical gymnastics, he was 38 in July 74). He uttered an unbelieving 'whoa' when Brinkman hit his round tripper. Whether at the Detroits hitting four so closely together or merely at Brinkman's part of the accomplishment, I'm not sure. 

Funny thing is, and I remember thinking this quite distinctly on that day in '74, 'that don't happen much'. Forty-six years later I now get to add, 'indeed'. 

Take me out to the Ball Game

Today's baseball game was a tonic. The Tigers won 10-3, and Miggy hit one of those home runs which you knew was gone off the bat. All you have to do is just sit back and enjoy such magnificent feats. Jarrod Saltalamacchhia had three hits to cross the Mendoza line, one a home run of his own, and Daniel Norris got the win despite not being at his best. Even Anibal Sanchez had an easy Ninth, despite his troubles with the gopher ball the last two seasons. The homeboys were in control all the way.

Yet more than that. I was with good friends who appreciate baseball (and are good friends otherwise), and met a new friend along the way (his rum luck). We jived each other, and we talked baseball even though there were no balks. That last part is an in-joke which I do not choose to explain at this time by the way. But it was the kind of day which, at the very high risk of hyperbole I must admit, made me appreciate life.

Baseball does that. I won't say that other sports cannot do that, but I do believe that other games are hard pressed to the task. Baseball is not so fast that it can't be followed, not so complicated that it can't be readily understood, not so brutal that you risk life altering injuries playing it. It is the game of summer. And summer is of course the high point of the year.

On this day, I needed that tonic. Explain it as you might: dame fortune, good luck, the planets aligned; Providence. But I needed today. And I was not failed.

We Are All Role Models

Miguel Cabrera, the first baseman for the Detroit Tigers, has been arrested on a charge of drunk driving. This is the second incident in about a year and half which involves the slugger and alcohol. It also brings forth a myriad of questions.

Is he sick? What kind of help does he need? If he needs help and is willing to accept it, he should of course get it. Yet we must be careful about calling a problem with alcohol a disease. That kind of thinking can very easily be used to assert that he has no personality responsibility with regards to what he drinks. The man may need help, but he cannot be written a blank check on his actions either.

What should the Tigers do about the situation? Well, again, help him if he will take it. Some question whether he should be suspended from the team. That should not be ruled out. Like it or not, a star of Cabrera's caliber more than many other given individual owes something to the organization he represents, and to the fans. He is a role model and must be made aware of that. He is called to act better, and nothing less than that.

The fact is that we are all role models to one degree or another. Athletes, fairly or not (and we are wont to argue fairly) are held to higher standards, are judged by higher values than the majority of the people. They should be, because they are a form of hero, whether they want to be or not. It is difficult to imagine that that hero worship is not in truth sought by the modern athlete. as such, he cannot claim no obligation in return towards the ones who look up to them.

Hopefully Mr. Cabrera will work all that out, for his own good as much as the for the good of people who know and admire him. Perhaps this latest escapade will remind of him of who he really is, and help him to live to that standard more fully and completely.

Cabrera Should Sit Out this One

Detroit Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera has purchased himself a bit of bad publicity recently. During the wee hours of Saturday morning October 3rd, he sat around sharing a few drinks with members of the Chicago White Sox, whom the Tigers were playing that weekend. Upon arriving home a few hours later there was an altercation with his wife which led to the police being called to their home. The slugger was taken in, team President Dave Dombrowski was called to pick up Cabrera from the police station as he was too inebriated then to drive himself somewhere, and that seems to be that as no charges are being filed against anyone.

In the meantime the Tigers ended their regular season schedule tied with the Minnesota Twins and are forced to play a one game playoff this afternoon in Minneapolis. It is a game which Cabrera ought not play.

Surely, though, that will not happen. After all, this is a big time sports event, which somehow makes it more important than issues of world peace, health care, and social security, to name a few questions one would like to believe more critical to our well being than a simple sporting match. And nothing wrong with hoisting a few with your buddies, after all. Further, Cabrera has not been charged with anything, so there should be no repercussions based on that either.

Well, maybe. Still, hanging out with the opposition during the course of a late season critical series can be argued as detrimental to your team. Friendship might ease any sense of having to perform your best against the visitors. Then, too, there's still the instance of a domestic altercation of some sort. While it may not lead to legal troubles it nevertheless happened, and some kind of message ought to be sent that such behavior reflects on the team whether you care to admit it or not.

Ryan Raburn should play first today and Cabrera should sit it out. It would signal that certain behaviors are at least frowned upon by the Tigers while rewarding a bench player like Raburn for his good production this past season. It may even teach Cabrera something about his duty to his family and, to an admittedly lesser extent, his teammates.

But, again, that won't happen. Sports are judged in a separate court from the rest of the world. We see that kangaroo in action every day.