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.