So here are my top 5 reasons why I am completely amped for the ensuing 2009 Baseball season to begin.
1. No expectations, circa 2008 season: Let’s face it, everyone, and I mean everyone, thought the Tigers were going into the playoffs last season. These same people (which, again, was everyone) thought there was a better-than-good chance they’d be playing into mid–October in the ALCS. And most thought Detroit would be adding another World Series Champs banner to their resume. Heck, given all of the wheeling and dealing (see #2) the Tigers did in the offseason, one could hardly blame those predicting the Tigers as the AL Champs even before a preseason game was played in Lakeland.
The excitement leading into this season has the bizzaro-2008 excitement. It is more reminiscent of the typical Tiger’s season. 2006 aside, Detroit has been miserable for the last 20 years, including the worst record in MLB history in 2003 (43-119) and two other seasons in that time where the club won just over 50 games (53 in 1996 and 55 in ’02). It hurt to type that.
Despite this despicable recent history, Detroit always has a certain buzz leading up to Opening Day and seeing that in the last 20+ years the Tigers only have had one notable season – 2006 – the excitement has to root itself in the city’s love for baseball rather than an insatiability for a World Series. I’m not saying we want to be the joke of the AL Central because the Royals have been typecast in that role…I kid, I kid…but really the Royals have that role locked up. I just mean that no matter who is on the roster, the city conjures up an excitement irrespective of predictions and expectations…more on this in #5.
2. New talent without the hype: Okay, so this section should probably be titled “1(a)” instead of being a second, separate entity; but one can’t have a Top 4 list, it’s simply un-American.
Going into 2008, the Tigers signed Miguel Cabrerra, Jacque Jones and Dontrelle Willis. The hype, attention, and fanfare surrounding these acquisitions was hardly undeserved…at the time. This plan backfired in epic proportions. I’m talking a backfire worse than the Joker’s plans to conquer Gotham City; and even on the scale of Joker backfires it’d be worse than Cesar Romero as the Joker not Heath Ledger as the Joker, the latter of which actually did some significant damage to Gotham.
Anyhow, Willis signed a three-year, 29-million dollar contract and the D-Train was late leaving the station and derailed shortly thereafter with an injury from which he still hasn’t recovered.
The Tigers traded Omar Infante for Jacque Jones, and while Infante was not really fitting in the lineup, Jones was a bigger bust than Willis. I swear Jones went like 0-100 with 80 strikeouts, and went down looking at the third strike 100% of the time. If there were a guy on last year’s opening day roster I began to like less than Brandon Inge, it was Jones. Sidenote: with Jones gone Inge has regained number 1 in my heart. Jones never wanted to be here and it showed.
Now Cabrerra. He’s amazing. I don’t think he has reached his peak yet…writing that gets me all giddy. He fills the seats and can change a game with a swing of the bat. He brings a youthful enthusiasm to a team managed by the Marlboro Man himself. Sure his eight-year, 152.3-million dollar deal - the biggest contract in Tigers history - scares the bejesus out of me what with injuries and uncertainties surrounding professional athletes; but he is a great young player and I haven’t been this excited for a Detroit sports acquisition since, …thinking… since,… still thinking…since, maybe Grant Hill came to the Pistons. Maybe.
Getting back to the point, this season brings with it some quality youngsters and some key position players, but no signings that have the ESPN Ticker working overtime. Gerald Laird is a solid, proven catcher that, for now, fills the void left by Pudge last year. Adam Everett has solid fielding skills. And, with fingers crossed, I hope that with Everett and Laird in the lineup and succeeding that Inge is demoted to grounds keeping duty. Edwin Jackson is a quality arm in the starting rotation that should be good for around 12-16 wins. Rick Porcello is a phenomenal young pitching arm from what we’ve seen and read. Not to mention guys like Jeff Larish, Clete Thomas, and Ryan Raburn who all have shown they can play in the Bigs and need help playing consistently.
3. The Pistons and Wings: The Pistons will not do anything in the playoffs this year and thus basketball in Detroit will end sometime in April or very early May. The Wings are as solid as ever, but we need to have more than one sport in the news. The Wings inevitably sweep (or, god forbid, get swept), while the other series go on to six or seven games, and there is tremendous lull in Detroit hockey between series. I almost called Detroit, “Hockeytown” in that last sentence but I absolutely refuse to use that moniker…Montreal or Toronto are Hockeytown, not Detroit. You’re welcome, Canada. The point here is that even if both the Pistons and Wings go deep into their respective playoffs, they’re over in June, and we have no other teams besides the Tigers until the NBA and NHL start up again October.
…wait a second, what about the Lions? The Lions are not a team. They are a sorry excuse for a team and a poor excuse for Ford to boost his ego (or what’s left of it) and suck hard-earned money out of the pockets of Southeast Michigan’s workers. Sell the team! SELL THE DAMN TEAM! Oh, wait, this is a Tigers’ page…
So, Detroit needs baseball to get us through the humid summer and divert our attention from the downturn in the economy and the perpetual downslide of the Lions, even if just for a few hours a few times a week.
4. The Times They Are A Changin’: I’ll admit that this is just to round out the Top 5. If it is an odd number can one still “round it out?” I’m really curious about this. Anyhow, the start of baseball season is the unofficial start of spring around the league, but especially for those of us in the Midwest. I don’t give a damn what Puxatawny (spelling? I’m not looking it up) Phil says, Opening Day and baseball season starting is the end of Winter. Period. I’ll email my friend Kangas who studies weather and what not, yes I think it’s a complete bullsh*t job too, and I can get an official ruling on this, but I don’t really care what science says. I know it. Everyone else knows it. The first day of spring is each team’s Opening Day. This will be in my platform should I ever run for public office.
5. Opening Day in Detroit: I don’t care who is on the team, what the expectations are, or the degree of humiliation the last season brought to the Tigers; Opening Day has a palpability about it that is borderline eerie. Really though, for all intents and purposes, Detroit is a ghost town and one expects to find it all but abandoned on any given day. I have never seen Detroit so alive as on Opening Day; save for the occasional summer festivals; boat races on the river; and the mandatory, every third year Red Wings Stanley Cup Victory Parade. In the shadows of the decrepit buildings of Corktown fans stream in and out of bars, grill at tailgate parties, and adorn the Old English “D” with an immense amount of pride, excitement, and hope in a city that in the last twenty, heck the last forty years, has had little to be excited about.
Now I’m sure that other cities boast about their own Opening Day festivities, and they probably are a blast. But it is completely paradoxical from the normal day in Detroit that the feeling and energy are so amplified that the cold, rain, and snow that often accompanies Opening Day in Detroit goes unnoticed.
I think I should write a post about Opening Day…I think I will…but for now I am proposing that the day be recognized as a city-wide holiday. It surely has the right feel.
