This will likely be my last baseball entry of the year since last night was the final game for which we have tickets. I'm sure I'll mention baseball here or there but this concludes my baseball blog exercise. Since the Tigers still have a few more games, I'm not in much of a concluding mood. As such, I thought I'd pick up on an idea from my last entry that seemed to resonate with a couple of café visitors: "Next Sunday when I’m at what I assume will be the first World Series game ever attended by a Saskatchewan Martin, I’ll be cheering our team on. But I’ll also be there for my grandfather, looking, listening and taking it all in as he would have done." Here are a few observations based on my own looking, listening and "taking it all in."
1. Last night was sort of like Christmas. Like Christmas, it's a special, magical time and people were kinder, gentler and more patient with each other than they usually are.
2. Light fluffy rain is beautiful and silent in the ballpark lights. It looks like the sky in the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
3. Cold is cold. Even though 46o F is technically warmer than 44 o F, after three hours of sitting in 44 o, the fact that it warmed up to 46 o in the later innings didn't make much difference.
4. There are some really nice dads out there. Like the man who sat next to us who took his 10 year old daughter to the game. They were so happy together, I don't think they even noticed the cold. At the end of the game, he was taking pictures of her against the scoreboard and I said, "Do you want me to take a picture of the two of you with your camera?" and he said, "No, that's ok... Well, ok." I snapped one that was so beautiful I thought he and I would both cry when we looked at it.
5. The creativity of these two vendors made me smile. 1: " Hotdogs...Get yer hotdogs here... They double as handwarmers... Get yer handwarming hotdogs here." and 2: "Mildly cold beer, here... Mildly cold beer."
6. There are lots of songs that have the word "Detroit" in them and I heard most of them last night. Some are better than others.
6.5 Case in point: that Journey song "Don't Stop Believing." You know those lines: "Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit/ He took the midnight train goin' anywhere." I've heard it a million times but it never occurred to me that there isn't a South Detroit. Dale overheard guys in the mens' room talking about this as the Journey song was piped through the park. "There's no South Detroit!" "Sure there is. It's called Canada." I'm stunned. No South Detroit. Hmm. Even though I live in what I guess is "South Detroit," it never occured to me. I guess this is why you should never learn geography from bands with mullets.
7. I love the Supremes. I mean, I really really love the Supremes.
8. John Mellencamp came to sing his "This is our Country" song/ commercial. It's kind of catchy and, if I were American, I think I might be moved by it. I can't imagine a Canadian writing a song like that. I'm not sure what that says about our nations. But it was cool to see him. And then Anita Baker sang the national anthem which was stunningly beautiful.9. I'm going to miss my Tigers. I'm trying not to think about it. I know the leaves have just turned here but, how long til Spring?
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