I'm back (sort of)

So I thought I would check in to see if anybody had made any comment sto my most recent posting -- a small item about the pleasures of walking the dog.

Much to my surprise, I discovered that ... and the other 189 tomes that had been offered since coming into existence, had disappeared into cyberspace. I put it down to a computer malfunction and decided to check back later.

Before I could do so, my good friend Steph Harris (god bless a reader) sent me a note asking where the hell my blog had disappeared to?

Time to move to action.

After some detective work that would have made Sherlock Holmes proud.that Google, the parent organization that, in a way, oversees, these enterprises, had detected some nefarious activity and had temporarily put me out of business. To restore myself, I needed to upgrade my computer with various anti-hacking devices and get a new password.

For the technologically challenged, this takes a little while ... and a lot of patience.

However, I have had years of practice at being patient. After all, I am a loyal watcher of Detroit Lions football games. So, I did what I was asked to do and -- voila!! -- we're back in business.

If I was really gutsy, I would ask if anybody (besides, of course, Steph) missed me.

But, as one also learns when watching Lions' games, being patient is one thing. Being gutsy is something else altogether.

So, I will settle for happily being back in business.

Until we meet again ...

Walking the dog can be an adventure for all concerned

Normally, Lynne walks The Happy Dog in the morning and I take the night shift. On weekends, however, I usually take at least one morning and Lynne takes the other. So it was that we did our usual jaunt on a fine summer morn. I have always been fascinated in watching Pete on these adventures.

He seems to carefully pick the places he does business. He will walk up to a plant, sniff it and decide it unworthy of his ... er ... attention. He seems to have personal favorite stooping places. There is no rhyme or reason for this I can tell.

We will be going along at a nice clip when he suddenly stop and sniff up a storm at a plant or a tree. I am told they recognize smells of other critters. Whatever the reason, this behavior is often without warning. In the winter, it has sent me flying a few times.

It just makes you wonder what is going on in that head. Dogs are fascinating creatures to me. They seem to be more predictable than cats but, every now and then, they take off without warning. Rex Harrison was lucky he could talk to them.

43 years later, the memory is still strong

My long-suffering wife said to me one day, "Why is it you can remember old batting averages but forget to take out the garbage?" My response (allegedly) was, "Because I don't have a passion for the trash."

Anniversaries like today are why.

43 years old today, I spent an amazing 9 1/2 hours inside Tiger Stadium. I arrived at 11:30 a.m. and left at about 9:05 p.m. During that time frame, I saw the Tigers sweep the Red Sox in a frantic, frenetic doubleheader before a full house. The first game went 14 innings. Both games ended with Gates Brown, a cult hero of sorts in Detroit, driving in the winning run. In the first game, it was a home run in the 14th inning. In the second game, it was part of a four-run ninth inning rally.

It was a helluva day of baseball.

I remember it all. We got there for batting practice. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Earl Wilson, the Detroit starter, didn't get out of the first inning of Game 1. Boston scored four runs. But the Tigers kept pecking away. Wayne Comer homered at one point (I think it was his only homer of the year). Don Wert tripled to right center to tie the game in the 8th inning. Mickey Lolich pitched five innings of terrific relief. Brown pinch-hit for him and lined a ball that barely got over the right field fence. I remember Ken Harrelson looking in disbelief as the ball barely went in the lower deck in right.

The second game offered more tension. As I recall, Reggie Smith (or maybe George Scott) hit a two-run homer off John Hiller. Norm Cash bombed a two-run shot to tie the game. Boston went ahead with three in the ninth (I think Smith ... or Scott ... homered again). But I can still see the Detroit rally. Five hits in a row ... each one inching a little farther than the previous one. Suddenly, the game was tied and Brown grounded one that somehow snuck through the middle of the infield to win the game.

Bedlam.

In 9 1/2 hours, I think I only left to go to the bathroom or to get a coke between games. I remember taking the Grand River bus home. My mother thought I had been out screwing around and ready to ream me out until my brother Frank came to my rescue by telling her he had listened to the end of the second game and, indeed, it had gone past 9:00 p.m.

I think back to that day now and marvel. 9 1/2 hours at a ballpark? I would have a hard time doing it. But when you are 15 and your club is in the middle of a pennant race, it seemed easy to do. Besides, the Tigers won both games. Is there a better way a 15-year old baseball fan could spend a day?

This all happened 43 years ago today. Yet I can remember it like it was last week. As for taking out the garbage ... you will have to ask my wife if that happened on time.

The joys of West Coast baseball

When I was a kid growing up in Detroit, the Tigers showed roughly 40 games a year on TV. The Saturday afternoon home games were shown as was a select group of 25-30 away games. There would be midweek night games from eastern and midwest time zones. Occasionally, you might get a whole series from, say, Yankee Stadium.

When the team went to the west coast, however, the only games ever aired were the occasional Sunday afternoon game. Night games were never considered.

That meant we listened to Ernie Harwell describe the action from Oakland, Anaheim and Seattle. Often times, I listened to those games through a tiny transistor radio. It was great fun.

What made it fun was the feeling you were being let in on a secret. By the time the games started, you knew how everybody else had done. You knew if the Tigers needed a win to keep pace or gain ground on their foes. You rarely saw Anaheim or (later) Seattle on TV. That meant the ballpark existed in your mind's eye more than anything else. And when you let your imagination run wild at a ballpark ... well ... that is a very good thing.

Times have changed. Nearly every game is televised locally. National TV doesn't go there very often because of the late starts. (For a while, ESPN used to do some games. They gave up on that a few years back. Pity.)

But there is something about West Coast games that I still like. You feel like you will know a result that may no appear in the morning paper. The players somehow look different. Even if we struggle to stay awake, they look fresh to me. It is almost as if the players are performing in a dream. It's hard to explain, I know.

Staying up until midnight or later to watch baseball is still a thrill. You to get see things the rest of the country know little (or nothing) about.

If you pick up the morning paper in New York or Washington, you might see this line: Minnesota at Los Angeles, late. But I already know that Ervin Santana pitched a wonderful complete game and Mark Trumbo hit a mammoth homer for the Angels in a 5-1 victory.

It may have cost me a little sleep but it was worth it.