30 September 2009
Time, Gentlemen
(Olde English “D” of the Detroit Tigers Major League Baseball Franchise)
If we were not technologically challenged, Muhammed would probably have tweeted the progress of the double-header in Detroit.
He is our life-line to the Motor City, though he does not live there any more than the rest of us. He is out to the west a little, well beyond the city limits.
Our little band of brothers is spread in a rough quadrilateral bounded by Massachusetts to the north, Mouseville in Florida, west to the broad-shouldered metropolis on Lake Michigan and plopped down amid the Pharisees in Diamond City.
It is time, Gentlemen, to pay some attention to baseball.
It has been a low-level fever right through the summer. All of us have adopted teams, of course, Sox, Marlins, Cubs and Nationals. But none of them burn with the loyalty that came with transistor radios in the high summer held under the covers long ago.
We are an Internet band. Most of us are desk-bound most of the day and share information by e-mail, toggling between business nonsense and our passions.
I often shudder to think what might happen if the two worlds collided, since they are linked so closely to the same keyboard. Suppose our employers discovered what insurrection all those key-strokes were saying?
This was innocuous enough, updates every couple innings through the first game of the twi-night twin-spin.
The situation is enough to finally get your attention. The Tigers were playing the Twins, a blue-collar bunch of workmanlike players who are two games back with five games to go.
It may not matter; whoever wins is on desk to play the Yankees in the Division Series. But that does not matter for a few days. The end of summer hangs in the balance.
The Tigers managed to blow the first one, even as the Senate Finance Committee voted down the Administration’s Public Option for Health Care.
Learned commentators said the full Senate an always put it back in later, and give everyone who voted against it the cover to say they really had opposed it all along.
There are a lot of Senate seats up next year, after all.
The Tigers Hung on for a jittery split, leaning on hurler Justin Verlander, a plucky young man with a wicked fastball who held the hopes of a devastated city on his shoulders.
He squeezed through a sticky situation in the eighth inning, powering the Bengals to a 6-5 win in the second game. If he had failed, the Twins would have been tied for first place in the American League Central. Instead, the day ended the way it began, with the Tigers clinging to a two-game lead.
Detroit Manager Jim Leyland has a great mustache and some old school vices. He doesn’t smoke on the field, but has no problems lighting up for an interview.
Between the two games, he had the choice of calling a team meeting, or holding a prayer session.
Instead, he elected to smoke and watch some television while he told his Tigers to hit the Wendy’s for dinner, if they felt like it.
“It’s September,” he said with a shrug. “There’s five days to go.”
When Verlander got in trouble in the eighth inning, Leyland marched out to the mound. Verlander had thrown 125 pitches, around the place a thinking manager might consider going to the bullpen for relief.
Muhammed sent an e-mail saying the crowd hushed.
Leyland might have been out there for ten seconds. He told Verlander to kick butt and walked back to the dugout, probably wanting a cigarette the whole time.
30,240 people in the stands at Commercia Field rose to their feet.
It worked out. I couldn’t stay awake long enough for the good news, but Verlander pulled it out.
They have almost my complete attention now. There are some other things going on, but let’s keep our priorities straight. This morning the President is going to decide on whether a surge for Afghanistan is in order.
For the Tigers, the magic number is four. I don’t know what the number is in Kabul. Maybe they will figure it out today.
It is September, Gentle Readers, and it is time to get professional.
Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com