Take Me Out to the Ballgame

The author social distancing
as a kid in Tiger Stadium.

 Say good-bye to Opening Day in July. 

Opening Day is back where it belongs, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Following 2020’s shortened season, a full schedule of baseball starts today. No more cardboard cutouts. No more piped-in sound effects. Covid robbed us of in-person baseball viewing like Mike Trout steals homers. Last year was the first season since second grade that I didn’t attend at least one game. 

 

Baseball is back and I can’t wait to get to the ballpark.

 

Nearly all 30 teams are welcoming some, if not all, fans this year. Numbers range from only 1,000 fans in Detroit to a full-capacity stadium in Texas. The local Dodgers and Angels are opening at 20 percent capacity. Imagine a game with only 8,500 fans. Having my own row with nobody sitting behind me or in front of me sounds heavenly. 

 

I much prefer baseball on TV but getting to a game in person is still special and it’s something I like to do at least once a year. It’s an annual pilgrimage. It’s a real-time flashback to one’s youth. It’s paying homage to sitting in the stands with your dad or your best high school friend. It’s a few hours of uninterrupted conversational catching up with a buddy. 

 

It’s an annual invitation to become a kid again.

 

Televised baseball is great, but it doesn’t give you the ballpark experience. The smell of the hotdogs and the popcorn. The beauty of the manicured grass so green you’d think you were Ireland. I like watching the grounds crew prep the field and the players warm up. I like to rise when the home team takes the field and remain at attention for the national anthem. Sitting under the lights or in the sun watching nine defenders move in synchronized movement is wondrous. 

 

It takes multiple TV replays to see everything that happens after one pitch. The crack of the bat is like a shot from a starter’s pistol. It signals the simultaneous movement of nearly a dozen participants. The ball skips into the corner, and when it does, my behind lifts off the seat. I begin to track the action unfolding gloriously before me. The batter become a sprinter, rounding first with pin-point precision. The right fielder retrieves the ball, turns, and throws. A runner from first rounds second and chugs for third. The third base coach windmills him toward home. The cutoff man catches and whirls in one fantastically fluid movement. The pitcher backs up home. The catcher readies to receive the ball and then tries to make a sweep tag. I leap to my feet when the gloved fingers of the runner slide smoothly across the plate. It lasts a few seconds, but it’s as beautiful as a ballet. And it’s worth the price of admission.

 

Especially if you’re talking 1980s prices. Which is when my journeys to the ballpark increased in earnest. Dad ushered me into a lifetime of live baseball, but in the 80s I was old enough to go on my own. I lived in Detroit and the Tigers were competitive. A group of friends would drive Motown’s sunken Lodge Freeway to downtown Detroit. Tiger Stadium didn’t have a parking lot. We’d park on a nearby side street to avoid paying massive city-lot prices. Within seconds a neighborhood boy would arrive on his banana-seated bike, offering to watch our car for a buck. We’d buy peanuts for another buck from a vendor before crossing the footbridge that spanned the freeway. Then we’d feel the heat of the summer sun radiating off the white-washed walls of my once beloved stadium.

 

Ticket prices to sit in the bleachers were cheaper than a movie. Once inside, the bowels of Tiger Stadium were dank and gloomy. We’d walk up a concrete ramp to the upper deck. We’d step in the footprints of decades of Detroiters who watched the Tigers battle American League stars from Lou Gehrig to Cal Ripken, Jr. But then we’d emerge from the darkness, into the kingdom of light that the bleachers provided. Sometimes we could spread out. At others, we’d sit shoulder to shoulder. At some point, the sun would set, and the lights would spark to life. We’d watch Tiger heroes Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, and Jack Morris. We’d hope for a Tigers’ win and see opponents do the unforgettable. I remember Angels’ rookie Wally Joyner hit homer off the facing above the rightfield upper deck. Then there’s a Jose Conseco blast that nearly struck the 125-foot flagpole (Flagpole History) that stood before the bleachers like a ship’s mast. 

 

The flagpole was actually in play.

Those summer nights slipped past like a pennant waving in the breeze. Back then, none of us knew what our lives held in store. No did we know that we were creating memories, as the line from Field of Dreams goes, “So thick that they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.” 

 

I’ve sat in cheap seats and box seats in stadiums all over the country. Like Tiger Stadium, some of them are gone. I’d like to visit the few ballparks I’ve missed. But I’d rather have the opportunity to watch one more game with my best high-school friend in Motown. Or to catch one more game with my dad. In the meantime, I’ll go to a game in Anaheim with my dearest local buddy. After the pains of 2020, it might be a memory of a lifetime. 

A great day for a ballgame.

 

Maybe you’ve got a ticket to a game today. Go ahead and play hooky. Or stay home and cook some hotdogs on the grill. Set the DVR and pop your favorite beverage. Make it a great day. Create some memories. Because today, baseball is back. 

 

Tiger Stadium.