We're all behind our baseball team!

Go get 'em TIGERS!!!

(I will send a Tigers hat to anyone who can properly hum the tune of the above song, which I only know because my dad is a) a musical cheeseball b) 61 and c) longtime loyal Tigers fan).

I do NOT believe this. I do not.It's so exciting around here! I am so happy for my dad, my brother, all the people who hung in with the team when they stunk and are now seeing the development of something amazing.

Okay, backtracking, since I think out of the nine-ish readers I have, maybe one of you (Hi Brett!!) is in fact a baseball fan.

The Detroit Tigers are in the AL championship series, after beating the hated (multiple-time World Series winner, best baseball team money can buy) Yankees in the first round. The Tigers! Beat the Yankees! The hell?

Three years ago this team set a record for the worst season in baseball, EVER. Last year, they broke .500 if memory serves, but that's it. This year? WE BEAT THE YANKEES.

Somebody, either another blogger or one of the local sportswriters, said it best: Detroit, still and all,is truly a baseball town. Although we get behind our teams and cheer on the Pistons or the Wings, we're really all about baseball. I certainly feel this way, possibly because I grew up going to baseball games or because my dad is such a fan that I remember baseball being a part of summer as far back as I can remember. I very clearly recall being 14 years old in 1984, sitting in my dad's great seats at the game where they clinched the American League Pennant. Marty Castillo caught the ball and still had it in his hands when he ran to the dugout,and tossed it to the fans. Where it was caught by my baseball-playing, wide-eyed brother.
He's still got it, and got Castillo to sign it a few years ago. J said he held the ball in his hands, turned it around wistfully, and told J that many people had said over the years he should have kept it. I hope it gave him some consolation that instead of some asshole who'd sell it on Ebay, it was caught by an 11-year-old boy who, 22 years later, still counts it among his prized possessions.
I'll never forget that, never forget the crowds spilling along Michigan Avenue and the Mounted Police trying to keep things calm, the honking and the cheering and sense of general elation.
Like now,those were tough times for the city and for Michigan. As is the case today, the auto industry was not doing well, jobs were being lost, plants were being shuttered. Few people were escaping the feeling of foreboding that all could be lost. But then, like now, a baseball teamm united a painfully divided city and gave us all a bright spot in the gloom. It's happening again, and for that I am thankful.