The ALDS

Last night I stayed up in the office watching the Tigers beat the Yankees to advance to the ALCS. 

I settled in the office because my wireless reception was a little sketchy from my house, and I'd rather sit in an office chair to watch the game without interruption than recline on a couch and watch the game freeze and stop up every other play.

Take the first inning. I get the game going, kick back, watch Austin Jackson strike out (no surprise there) to make the first out of the game. Then - connection goes down. A little tinkering and I get it back up. Now the Yankee crowd is silent and we're suddenly up 1-0. I missed Don Kelly's solo shot. I do a fist pump. Sit down on the edge of the couch to watch Delmon Young bat. Ivan Nova goes to his windup and -

Connection down again.

Nope. Not doing this. I pack it up, move to the kitchen where my wifi signal is a little more reliable, set my projector and computer on my table and get it going again. Now we're up 2-0. Still one out, nobody on base. Delmon hit a solo shot too? Another fist pump. Miguel Cabrera strikes out and there's a murmur from the crowd. Victor Martinez grounds out. End of the first inning.

I sit there at my kitchen table and watch Doug Fister mow down the Yanks on my wall. This might work out fine. And then-

Connection down again.

No question, I'm not gonna put up with this. I migrate to the office, where I sit for the next three and a half hours in an office chair. It's not the ideal comfy setup but it'll do.

The Yankees trot out six more pitchers after the first inning, and each one of them is effective. The Tigers only get one more run and never establish a safe lead. 

But to me the story is the Tigers pitching.

Throughout the game, they let lots of guys on base, but strand 11 of them. Sometimes three in an inning. It's exciting and terrible and scary. I sit, shaking, heart palpitating, hands over my eyes, peering through the gaps like a child in a scary movie. I text my brother - "Can't. Watch." A thousand miles away, he's doing the same, I think. "Sickening," he says.

Scherzer gets Russell Martin to swing like the tinman at a pitch he clearly doesn't want. Joaquin Benoit loads 'em up and walks in a run, but leaves the bases loaded. In the 9th, Jose Valverde closes it out and gets Granderson and Cano to pop out. Then he strikes out Alex Rodriguez who, for the second straight year, ends the Yankees season by striking out. As a Tigers fan, it's beautiful.

I clap, and shout "YES!" - I can do this in the office without fear of disturbing anyone else. At home, the windows are always open and certainly Julio and Beth would hear me and think I'm ridiculous. 

Maybe I am ridiculous.

Soon, all my fellow Tiger-fan-friends are texting me and littering Facebook with Tigers-related statuses. This might be one of my favorite things about Facebook - it gives people far away from each other the chance to celebrate together. Otherwise, I'd have no idea just how many people are out there enjoying and celebrating this along with me. 

I have to talk about baseball

I can't imagine what it must be like to be a Red Sox fan right now. Last night was probably one of the most incredible nights in baseball history, but the nature of professional sports is such that for every incredible play, game, win, whatever, there's a loser on the other side. All they have today is heartbreak. They collapsed historically, wiping out a huge cushion with a horrible September, and then needing just one out - maybe one pitch - to make it to the postseason.

Look for the headlines from their papers at the start of the season, and you'll see they had lofty expectations. "best team EVER" one of them says. Not just the best BoSox team ever, but the best team. Ever. Then they started 2-10. And they finished 7-19. They bookended their season playing .237 ball. In between they played 81-43. If they had played that way all season, they'd have won 105 games and would have the best record in baseball.

But today their season is done.

Luckily, I am not a Red Sox fan. I can almost empathize. But not quite.

Like most Tigers fans, I've been waiting almost five years for tomorrow when we play a postseason game for the first time since 2006. Our hope is different - get us to the postseason and we'll see from there. When we miss the postseason - and we've done that a lot - we get to thinking about next year. It's always cautious optimism. We're not arrogant enough to publish a headline like "best team EVER." We've been humbled by some awful, awful decades.

We collapsed, hard, in 2009. Like the Red Sox, we blew a big lead in the division and let someone catch us. Unlike the Red Sox, we actually made it to the tie-breaker. That game, number 163, forever ruined the number 163 for me, probably. But it's one of the best games I've ever watched. Extra innings, a bunch of lead changes, it was incredible. We just wound up with fewer runs in the end. Season done. No playoffs, no world series, nothing.

Enter 2011. I'm living here in Puerto Rico. With my tax return, I spoil myself with MLB.TV. Suddenly, I can watch every. single. Tigers game. Ask the people here, they'll tell you I was often found in my man-cave, watching the Tigers projected up on my wall. They might remember the day I emerged and told everyone that Justin Verlander had just thrown a no-hitter. I know I do.

From the beginning, I had a good feeling about this season. And, thus far, some amazing stuff has happened. Justin Verlander threw a no-hitter and is a cinch for the Cy Young, even played well enough to force people to explain why a pitcher shouldn't be an MVP. Could still get it, for all I know. He'll definitely get votes. Miguel Cabrera won the batting title. Actually, that was kind of a big surprise. Our closer was perfect - everytime he came into the game with a close lead, we won.

But on top of all of that, we get to play tomorrow, in primetime, against the Yankees. There is nothing like seeing your team in the playoffs. (Hasn't happened with the Lions in a while but... who knows?)

And I like our chances. And I suppose I ought to make a prediction.

I favor: Us.

How could I not? I didn't watch all summer just to abandon hope in the postseason.

I honestly think our lineup can handle any pitcher out there. I think we'll get by the Yankees, then the Rangers. In the NL, I'm going to pick the Cards over the Phillies (This is just a gut feeling. Philly has incredible pitching, but they won't get enough offense) and the DBacks over the Cards.

I'm picking the Tigers over the Diamondbacks. Sorry, Tram and Gibby.

Game 163

I can’t fault anyone for not caring about baseball. It probably has the least action of any team sport, especially out of the ones that are nationally televised. No other sport has stretches barren of action like baseball. Ground out. Fly ball. Foul. Foul. Foul. Foul. Pickoff move. Pickoff move. Pickoff move. Foul. This is not the hard-hitting, breakaway touchdown-running game of football. It’s not the fast-paced head-to-head contest of basketball, hockey, or soccer. It’s a bunch of guys who spend the majority of three hours standing in the grass between opportunities to wave a piece of wood at a little piece of hurtling cowhide.

To be sure, my attachment to baseball is purely sentimental. I couldn’t pick this game up now. But I’ve been with it for years. I fell asleep to Ernie Harwell’s voice as he called games when I was a kid. All I knew was that the Tigers were the good guys, and if they won, I won. I didn’t know anything about pennant races or playoff rotations or magic numbers then. They were awful for years, but loyal fans stayed with them, assured that winning seasons would return, and they did. So I’ve got emotional stake in them, my team.

Today, I consider myself as big a baseball fan as I have ever been. Never have I cared, thought, or known more about baseball than now. Last week I went to a game when the Tigers had a chance to clinch the division, to ensure a playoff spot, and I literally dreamt of baseball the night before.

Tonight is their biggest game of the season. And unfortunately, it’s drenched in disappointment. If I would have written about the Tigers last week when I wanted to, this blog would have been a lot different. But much has changed since they were up three games with four to play. The reality is: they shouldn’t have had to play today. They shouldn't have needed game #163. They should have clinched long ago. You can count on one hand the teams that have dropped a seven game lead in the last month of the season, and none has ever blown a three game lead with four to play. No team has ever failed to make the playoffs leading their division since May 10.

Tonight, they have to win to get in, and they have to do it at the Metrodome, potentially the last Major League Baseball game ever to be played there. And they’ll have to play with the off-field drama of Miguel Cabrera, the MVP candidate who went drinking with the opposing team over the weekend, during the most important series of the season. Not only did he go drinking, he went heavy-drinking. Like, blow a .26 on the breathalyzer heavy drinking. (If I remember my Responsible Decisions classes from middle school, that means something like 26 beers.) He went home and got into a fight with his wife. She called the cops, and the general manager had to pick him up at the police station in the morning. That night, with scratches on his face from his scuffle, presumably still drunk or hungover, he went 0-for-4, just like he did the day before, and the next day he went 0-for-3, effectively ending any MVP talk. He’ll play tonight, and he’ll get booed. He’d get booed at home, too. I’d boo him. I don’t know why he even played on Saturday. He should have been benched. Hungover, scratched – the guy shouldn’t have been batting cleanup.

But all of that aside, they still have to play the game. They’ve still got a chance. And I’m still going to watch, because it’s my team. While they were fading away over the weekend, epic-failing to end the season, Tigers fans everywhere gave up on them, groaning, mourning the end of a season filled with, apparently, false hopes. But if they win tonight, it’s all forgotten, the season will be a near-miss but a success nonetheless.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but if they can win, there’s a great story in there. If Rick Porcello, the 20 year old rookie, can win the most crucial game of the MLB season so far – not just for the Tigers, but for any team – it all wraps up nicely. The Rookie comes through, the story continues, and that knucklehead Cabrera gets off the hook for nearly killing our season. We’ll begin to think about the Yankees, who clinched weeks ago and haven’t really played a meaningful game since. We’ll talk up our pitching staff, we’ll look ahead to the ALCS, the World Series, and we’ll dread a rematch with the Cardinals.

So, the game starts in less than an hour. Maybe you’ll be into it, maybe not. I assume that by the time you read this, it will be long over and we’ll be looking at the Yankees or we’ll be looking at firing and trading a few select staff and players.