The View from 322: Chapter One

Chapter 1: Opening Day

It’s really freaking cold, and I’m not looking forward to two or three hours sitting in a chair outside. 

I’m wearing long underwear, a sweater, and a big puffy winter coat.  Should I wear a hat? I ask myself.  I mean, I have a baseball cap, but that’s more for bragging about my team affiliation than avoiding frostbite.  The only other hat I have is a fuzzy thing with earflaps that makes me look like a dork.  I decide for the baseball cap.  Yes, I’m that vain. 

My father wanders out of the living room, looking like he’s ready to dig out an igloo.  “You know what I forgot?” he says to me.  “A hat.  I have my Dodgers cap, but I’m not sure that will keep me warm. 

“I have a hat for you,” I tell him. 

I hand him the fuzzy one, and he scowls.  “Is it really that cold out there?”

I shrug.  “Your choice.”

He takes the hat.

Whoever decided that Opening Day in baseball should be in early April was clearly not a Detroit native.  The forecast called for snow flurries, with a high of Refrigerator and a low of Ice Box.  No normal person would want to play baseball in this weather, and no sane person would willingly attend that game. 

I grab my keys.

I have been a baseball fan since I was 9 years old, and my hometown Detroit Tigers won the 1984 World Series.  I even owned—on Betamax, no less—a video recording of Jack Morris’s no-hitter that he pitched that year.  I had somehow decided to record it, as if I had a premonition something special was going to happen.  I ended up watching that video until the tape frayed.  I used to literally know how the game progressed, pitch by pitch.  There are still moments indelibly etched in my mind, like when Dave Bergman saved the game by diving to snag a hard-hit ground ball, and then throwing to Morris for the out while sitting on his butt in the infield grass.  Or when Chicago decided to send Jerry Hariston as a pinch hitter, specifically because he had broken up a no-hitter earlier in the year.  I’ve gone to countless baseball games, both in Detroit and elsewhere.  I went to Reds games when I lived in Cincinnati.  I used to routinely go to Pittsburgh with my father when they were playing the Dodgers, so he could watch his boyhood team. 

But I’ve never been to an Opening Day.

Opening Day tends to be a little crazy, and I shy away from crazy.  But this year, for the first time ever, I decided to become a season ticket holder for the Tigers.  Even though I only subscribed to a 29-game package, every season ticket holder gets a seat for Opening Day.  So here I was in my puffy coat, trying to convince myself that this was a good idea.

I had forked over $22 for parking ahead of time, because I didn’t want to struggle to find a spot on the one day all year the game was likely to be sold out.  Even at that price, the spot was about ¾ of a mile from the stadium.  That meant walking through a bitter wind through downtown Detroit. 

We were in good company.  The sidewalks were full of folks wearing Tigers knit caps (which I really, really wished I owned), ambling towards the stadium. 

One of those guys glances at my father, and does a double-take.  “Hang on,” he yells.  “Wrigley Field?  That jacket says L.A.!”.  It does.  My father smiles and explains that the jacket is from Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, a stadium that no longer exists, but which used to host the LA Angels, a team which also no longer exists.  This starts an extended conversation with the guy, who tells us his experience playing in the REAL Wrigley Field in Chicago.  The one with all the ivy. 

We arrive at the stadium, walking past the imposing statue of a giant tiger.  The stadium is also covered with heads of concrete tigers, each with a baseball in its mouth.  Whenever I see them, I worry the tigers are going to choke. 

We get to security, and I get tossed to secondary screening, due to the steel keychain in my pocket.  While my father waits for me to get searched, one of the security guys approaches him.  “Wrigley Field?”  he says, “in LA???”  My father smiles and tells the tale again. 

Our seats are in section 322, in the upper deck.  When you admit you have a little bit of interest in being a season ticket holder, the salespeople immediately descend on you like locusts.  I foolishly filled out a “Learn More” thing with my email address, and they called me the very next day.  Note that I said called: I swear I had never given them a phone number.  Still, a lovely person named Hannah was on the other end of the line to invite me to an informal gathering at the stadium, where I could try out different seats in the stadium.  So, for better or worse, I had chosen 322 on purpose.  It was opposite the scoreboard, so it was easy to read.  It was down the first-base line, which I’ve always preferred.  It had a glass wall in front of it, which meant the kids didn’t have to strain to see over a barrier.  And it was one of the less-expensive options because, you know. 

We sit down, and it starts sleeting.  At least that’s what I think it’s doing.  It’s definitely not snow flurries.  Tiny chunks of ice are pelting everyone in the stadium. Snowflakes don’t bounce when they hit you.  My father asks for help closing the clasp under his chin that holds down the earflaps.  I’m sure my ears are fine, since I can’t actually feel them anymore.  That’s a good sign, right?

My original plan had been to circle the stadium, to survey the different food options, but my father stops at the closest booth to our seats and orders a smashburger and peanuts.  I shrug.  There are 28 more games for me to do a culinary census.  I order a coney dog.   As we get back to our seats, I hear: “Wrigley Field???” 

I can remember attending games in at least six different major-league cities.  It’s possible I have forgotten some.  In terms of the game-watching experience, I would rate Cincinnati as number one.  It’s incredibly family friendly, they have relatively un-annoying entertainment between innings, and on Sundays they would send nine kids onto the field to be “relieved” by the actual Reds fielders at the beginning of the game.  It was a really sweet ritual.  They also used to have a vending spot where all food and drinks were only a dollar each.  I’ve heard they removed it recently, which is a shame.  So long as you were willing to wait in a really long line, you could actually afford to take the whole family to the ballgame and feed them without getting a second mortgage on your house.

Cincinnati may be the best, but Detroit is a solid second.  The best amenity in any Detroit stadium is the fans.  Detroit fans are typically passionate about sports, they have lots of practice rooting for terrible teams, so they really appreciate what good times there are.  They also are tolerant of people wearing opposing-team paraphernalia.  Besides that, the merry-go-round is fun.  Plus, my son’s favorite animal is the tiger, so getting him to go to games won’t be especially hard. 

The trick will be getting him to sit for the actual game.

I don’t need to worry about that for this game.  I only bought two season tickets, so I will mix-and-match the people who go with me each time.  Today it’s my father, who came in from Columbus Ohio to watch the Tigers play the Athletics. 

The Athletics, in case you don’t know, are barely a major league franchise.  Their owner wants to move the team to Las Vegas, and to do that, he has to show that the Oakland faithful don’t support the team.  In order to ensure that, he has deliberately allowed the Oakland stadium to disintegrate due to disrepair, and slashed the payroll to virtually nothing.  The New York Mets have the highest payroll in baseball this year, at $262 million.  Oakland’s is dead last, at $43 million.  For those of you keeping score, that’s 16.4% of New York’s.  The second-to-last team, the Pirates, still pay nearly double Oakland’s tally, at $75 million.  For the record, I have gone to games in Oakland, and they absolutely support the team when the owner isn’t actively peeing on them.  I remember attending a game in 100+ degree heat.  People were literally passing out from heatstroke all over the stadium, and it didn’t matter.  The seats were packed, and the mood was joyful.  Except, you know, for the people in the ambulances getting fluids through an IV. 

As distressed as I am about the situation in Oakland, I can’t help but be giddy that the Tigers drew the Athletics as their Opening Day opponent.  You really want to win your home opener to set the tone for the season.  Despite the hoopla that many local beat reporters are expressing about the Tigers this season, I am unconvinced.  The Tigers have decent pitching, but they simply don’t have enough bats.  Most analyses of the Tigers’ fortunes start with the phrase “If some of their young hitters can take a step forward this year…”  Yes, I agree with that.  If the bulk of their young, blossoming stars get better than last year, the team should be fairly successful.  The problem is there are A LOT of talented young players on the team, with the emphasis on LOT.  I have no doubt some of them will indeed grow from their successes from last season.  But some of them may not progress, and one or two may even suffer the infamous Sophomore Slump. But if you are expecting most or all of the collection of hitters to progress, that means you need a better performance from Spencer Torkelson, Riley Greene, Kerry Carpenter, Colt Keith and Parker Meadows, not to mention pitchers like Casey Mize, Matt Manning, Alex Faedo and Tarik Skubal.  I’m not saying it won’t happen, but I’m married to a statistician, and she would say that it’s…improbable.  She’d assign a very low confidence interval.  Or something.  I don’t usually understand what she’s talking about most of the time. 

We watch as the Tigers employees roll out an American flag that is as big as the outfield.  I shake my head as I imagine how many hours of rehearsal it required to get dozens of people to unfurl it in unison, some running backwards.  Do we really need a Stars-and-Bars that could cover a napping storm giant?  Wouldn’t getting some second-grade class to meander out there, gesticulating with popsicle stick-mounted flags accomplish the same thing?  Plus that would be heavy on the Cute Factor.  Maybe I’m being too cynical.

Someone taps my father on the shoulder as the action starts.  “Wrigley Field?” he says.

So they won, but it wasn’t as easy as it should have been.  Tarik Skubal, who some of the locals have been hyping as a dark horse Cy Young candidate, started the game by mercilessly mowing down anyone in a yellow and green jersey.  He truly was impressive, and if you squinted, you might even begin to see what all the fuss was about.  But then he tired, and in the fifth and sixth innings, I could see from my seat in the upper deck that he wasn’t the pitcher he had been for the first four innings.  I don’t want to be overly critical of Skubal; he is still building up his endurance after being shut down last season due to injury.  Still, Cy Young candidates pitch well in the sixth inning, too. 

We stayed until the final pitch, and then began to wend our way to our car.  The crowd, of course, was jubilant, which always makes the walk back easier.  As soon as I get in the car, I take off my hat, and my ears are throbbing.  Shoulda worn the fuzzy hat. 

I get to do this twenty-eight more times, although hopefully with less ice.  There’s a reason they call it the Summer Game.  I intend this blog section to be a game-by-game account of my adventures as a Detroit Tigers season ticket holder.  I will probably spend more time talking about the experience of watching, than summarizing the game itself.  After all, that’s what ESPN is for.

When I got home, I was completely exhausted.  It’s hard to spend two hours sitting in the cold.  But I have to admit, it was worth it to spend that time with other Detroit Tigers fans. 

Until next time.