Date: Wednesday, 5/21/08
Time: 7:05 PM (ET)
Time of Game: 2:39.
Time: 7:05 PM (ET)
Time of Game: 2:39.
Attendance: 36,495.
Weather: 62° F, Wind 17mph in from Leftfield, Cloudy, No Precipitation.
Winner: DET, 9-4
Comments: Detroit put this game away early, with a 7 run, 8 hit 3rd inning, that included a Marcus Thames Grand slam. Five straight hits followed by a grand slam. To be fair, the team has not really performed too well this season. They were picked to win the World Series by some, but have yet to really wake up and make a run at it. The teams in the AL Central are just beating up on themselves, an no one is really running away with the division currently.
I'm beginning to think that I am a good luck charm. My home team record so far on the trip is 7-1 after this game.
For all they say about Detroit, they surely do not mention Dr. George Barahal (picture: right). I parked my car downtown 15 minutes to first pitch. I literally ran to the box office, stopping for a moment to get a group of kids to take a picture with me and the ballpark, and had the amazing fortune of running into Dr. Barahal at the box office window. He was speaking to the box office attendant, and the conversation went something like this:
Dr. Barahal: So you can't resell these tickets?
Attendant: Sorry, but we can give them away and tell the recipient to buy you a hot dog!
Dr. Barahal: (shrugs) Well, ok. (starts walking down the street towards the gate)
Having paid $10 for my parking spot, I felt this my cue to jump in and say "I'll take one of those!" Dr. Barahal was walking towards the gate to enter the game, and I looked down and noticed these seats were no ordinary seats. This man had just given up two lower-deck, 100 level seats, just 13 rows behind the visitor dugout! I immediately caught up with him, thanked him, and told him about the trip. He smiled and said "I'm glad those tickets went to a real fan," then said he'd catch up with me later, and that he was going to go up to the stadium club as it was turning out to be a pretty cold evening. Still, he promised to be down at the seats later to join me.
Dr. Barahal turned out to be a 91-year-old psychologist and a season ticket holder with the Tigers for 50 years! Furthermore he had attended the 1934 world series where the Tigers took on the St. Louis Cardinals and lost the series 4-3. He bought me a beer and never allowed me to buy him anything back. Pretty soon it started to rain, and he retreated back to the stadium club never to return.
I want to thank Dr. Barahal for making that stadium a bright spot in my trip. Comerica Park is a great little intimate park. Every seat is a good one and the fans are true, though their energy has been sapped a bit by the sad start of a potentially great Tigers team this year. Even though I say its a "little" park, the field his huge. A ball that makes i
t to the center field wall in this park makes it a stand-up triple. And, of course, we can not get out of the shadow of the big auto makers in Detroit: General Motors has a huge fountain in the outfield, that the tigers turn on to celebrate home runs.
I did not get to see much of downtown Detroit. It was cold and rainy and all I could think of was running back to the car as quickly as possible. But, I did get to see the old tigers stadium, before they tore it down. Sadly, as you can see from the picture, it's been stripped of the lettering, and most of its old glory at that, but I'm glad I took the time to see it.
I stayed with my friend Jessica's Aunt Marilyn, a retiree and long time employee of GM. It was extremely sweet of her to house me with such short notice, and
given that I'm driving a Honda. People in Detroit are proud of our nation's auto industry with good reason, this city was built on it, and people put pride in thier work here. Given the disastrous entry of foreign cars into the US markets in the 60's, 70's, and 80's, I'm lucky I didn't get my car keyed downtown, much less broken into.
I think it hits me more and more every day just how immature I am at the age of 26. I think maturity has a lot to do with having convictions, but the idea of "conviction" makes me wary. It frightens me that I may believe in something strong enough that I change the way I percieve the world to start fitting my beliefs. On the other hand, its tough to make strong relationships with people when you do not have a clear model of the world you're willing to stick to, and some perception of your place in it. Its tough to understand and relate to people that you can't pin down. And, it is tough to relate to, and trust others if you do not know your own place in the world.
Thanks to Aunt Marilyn for making my stay in Detroit a pleasant, and restful one. And thanks to her dog whose name escapes me at the moment, for being a very sweet dog.
Winner: DET, 9-4
Comments: Detroit put this game away early, with a 7 run, 8 hit 3rd inning, that included a Marcus Thames Grand slam. Five straight hits followed by a grand slam. To be fair, the team has not really performed too well this season. They were picked to win the World Series by some, but have yet to really wake up and make a run at it. The teams in the AL Central are just beating up on themselves, an no one is really running away with the division currently.
I'm beginning to think that I am a good luck charm. My home team record so far on the trip is 7-1 after this game.
For all they say about Detroit, they surely do not mention Dr. George Barahal (picture: right). I parked my car downtown 15 minutes to first pitch. I literally ran to the box office, stopping for a moment to get a group of kids to take a picture with me and the ballpark, and had the amazing fortune of running into Dr. Barahal at the box office window. He was speaking to the box office attendant, and the conversation went something like this:
Dr. Barahal: So you can't resell these tickets?
Attendant: Sorry, but we can give them away and tell the recipient to buy you a hot dog!
Dr. Barahal: (shrugs) Well, ok. (starts walking down the street towards the gate)
Having paid $10 for my parking spot, I felt this my cue to jump in and say "I'll take one of those!" Dr. Barahal was walking towards the gate to enter the game, and I looked down and noticed these seats were no ordinary seats. This man had just given up two lower-deck, 100 level seats, just 13 rows behind the visitor dugout! I immediately caught up with him, thanked him, and told him about the trip. He smiled and said "I'm glad those tickets went to a real fan," then said he'd catch up with me later, and that he was going to go up to the stadium club as it was turning out to be a pretty cold evening. Still, he promised to be down at the seats later to join me.
Dr. Barahal turned out to be a 91-year-old psychologist and a season ticket holder with the Tigers for 50 years! Furthermore he had attended the 1934 world series where the Tigers took on the St. Louis Cardinals and lost the series 4-3. He bought me a beer and never allowed me to buy him anything back. Pretty soon it started to rain, and he retreated back to the stadium club never to return.
I want to thank Dr. Barahal for making that stadium a bright spot in my trip. Comerica Park is a great little intimate park. Every seat is a good one and the fans are true, though their energy has been sapped a bit by the sad start of a potentially great Tigers team this year. Even though I say its a "little" park, the field his huge. A ball that makes i
t to the center field wall in this park makes it a stand-up triple. And, of course, we can not get out of the shadow of the big auto makers in Detroit: General Motors has a huge fountain in the outfield, that the tigers turn on to celebrate home runs.I did not get to see much of downtown Detroit. It was cold and rainy and all I could think of was running back to the car as quickly as possible. But, I did get to see the old tigers stadium, before they tore it down. Sadly, as you can see from the picture, it's been stripped of the lettering, and most of its old glory at that, but I'm glad I took the time to see it.
I stayed with my friend Jessica's Aunt Marilyn, a retiree and long time employee of GM. It was extremely sweet of her to house me with such short notice, and
given that I'm driving a Honda. People in Detroit are proud of our nation's auto industry with good reason, this city was built on it, and people put pride in thier work here. Given the disastrous entry of foreign cars into the US markets in the 60's, 70's, and 80's, I'm lucky I didn't get my car keyed downtown, much less broken into.I think it hits me more and more every day just how immature I am at the age of 26. I think maturity has a lot to do with having convictions, but the idea of "conviction" makes me wary. It frightens me that I may believe in something strong enough that I change the way I percieve the world to start fitting my beliefs. On the other hand, its tough to make strong relationships with people when you do not have a clear model of the world you're willing to stick to, and some perception of your place in it. Its tough to understand and relate to people that you can't pin down. And, it is tough to relate to, and trust others if you do not know your own place in the world.
Thanks to Aunt Marilyn for making my stay in Detroit a pleasant, and restful one. And thanks to her dog whose name escapes me at the moment, for being a very sweet dog.
2 comments:
I'm glad to see that the Dylan did not end in Colorado:
"It frightens me that I may believe in something strong enough that I change the way I percieve the world to start fitting my beliefs. On the other hand, its tough to make strong relationships with people when you do not have a clear model of the world you're willing to stick to, and some perception of your place in it. Its tough to understand and relate to people that you can't pin down. And, it is tough to relate to, and trust others if you do not know your own place in the world."
I think this very insightful and very true. Although it sounds gimmicky, I think the trick of getting around this feeling is realizing that you are not as unattached as you think (or have thought since, perhaps, a time when you feel you were 'awakened'). What's happened is that you made a move downward in terms of analysis but not yet adjusted to yourself there. Realize that you're not choosing at all, but seeing... then the relating will be only that - seeing something new.
Also, find light-hearted ways to explicitly define yourself... I think it's particularly relevant to your trip - athletics and their meaning to so many of us:
"It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift."
(2)...
it's the caring that we need, not the thing to care for. and it's the caring that, perhaps, must come first for some of us. when doing so for something admittedly 'foolish' we can feel again what 'caring' is like and learn to know it for what it is, separate from the thing about which we care. and we understand more what role caring plays in our lives... we're not so driven by need (for not having had the chance 'to care' for so long!). we're content. and then, when we're not looking, maybe we 'see' something that we truly love. if so, we are fortunate. if not, at least we're healthy.
that's my 15 cents.
Post a Comment