0104040331
DETROIT FREE PRESS
010404
Wednesday, April 04, 2001
METRO FINAL
1A
Photo ERIC SEALS/Detroit Free Press;Photo KENT
PHILLIPS/Detroit Free Press
What will fans do for a baseball? From the left: Carlos Mitchell of
Ann Arbor, Mark Carey of Whitmore Lake, Don Manzella of Milford and Todd Carey
of Whitmore Lake demand a ball from the Twins warming up in the outfield.
"They kept giving the balls to young kids," said Mark Carey, 30. Of the four
friends, attending their first Tigers opener, only Manzella, 34, got a ball.
On Opening Day, Angel Cauchon of Detroit has a roarin' good time in the Tigers
costume she made in 1984. (PHOTO RAN IN STATE EDITION, PAGE 1A.)
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 2001, Detroit Free Press
FOR ONE DAY, EVERYTHING WRONG JUST SEEMS RIGHT
There were plenty of reasons to be negative, to wag your tongue at the whole
thing. The baseball team looked, on paper, pretty grim. Not much hitting. Not
much pitching. The one supposed "superstar" from last year was now playing for
another team.
And then there was the ticket deal. In order to get seats for Opening Day --
if you were not already a season-ticket holder -- you were forced to buy
tickets for another game as well. No second game, no first game. What does
that suggest about management's confidence in the product?
The ballpark itself? It was still beautiful, but no longer brand new. No
novelty anymore. And to top it off, it was gray and cold before the game, even
though forecasters had promised sunshine and spring weather.
So you stuffed all that into your parka before the Tigers' season opener
Tuesday, and maybe you packed in some other sour baseball filler, the Alex
Rodriguez contract, the Darryl Strawberry fiasco, the fact that nobody except
the Yankees seems to have a chance to win anymore.
And by this point you were sulking and low, stooped over, ready to write off
the whole dang Opening Day tradition as an idea whose time had passed, an
anachronism as stale as, well, whenever the Tigers last made the playoffs, if
anyone can remember back that far.
And then you bump into Brandon Inge, the 23-year-old catcher who had never
played a major league baseball game before Tuesday, and here he was, dressing
by his locker, his major league locker, which, of course, he had never had
before either, putting on his regular-season major league uniform, which he
also never had before, and he was talking about driving to the ballpark for
Opening Day, which he also never had -- well, you know the rest.
And you can't help it.
Spring begins again.
"Are you nervous?" I asked Inge as he pulled a blue undershirt over his
cherubic face and short, straw-colored hair, and tucked the shirt neatly into
his white Tigers pants.
"Not so much nervous," he said, "I can't describe it . . ."
And then he smiled, a smile that would light up a basement, the smile of a
thousand farm boys, a thousand sandlotters, a thousand kids throwing the ball
off the brick wall and racing to scoop it up and whip it to an imaginary first
baseman.
"...I just love baseball," he said.
The awestruck catcher
Inge was all the stories -- good and bad -- about the Tigers' first day of the
2001 season. The bad part, of course, is that he has to be the starter at all.
The Tigers traded last year's catcher, Brad Ausmus, in an off-season deal, and
were set to go with newcomer Mitch Meluskey. But Meluskey is suffering from a
shoulder injury. Less than a week before Opening Day, he was declared out for
the year.
So the Tigers needed a catcher, and it was a little late to be getting any
good veterans. Pretty much the only available option was Inge, who began last
season in Double-A. Like it or not, he's the catcher, he'll be calling
pitches, he'll be the guy blocking the plate and making stops and, of course,
batting against pitchers he's never faced before.
That, for victory-starved Tigers fans, is the bad part.
The good part is all the above through the looking glass. That here was a kid
who grew up in Virginia, playing baseball, he loved baseball, and unlike so
many other kids who turn to basketball or football, he craved the bat and the
glove and this was his sport all through high school, through the minor
leagues and now, this.
"I've never been to an Opening Day before," he said. "Not as a fan. Not as a
kid. Never. This is my first. I don't know what to expect."
He knew enough to get up at 7 in the morning. He knew enough to leave the
place where he's staying, in Ann Arbor, by 7:30. He knew enough to take M-14,
and I-96, and Woodward Avenue and park in the players' lot and walk into the
cathedral they call a stadium.
And now here he was, about to go out there and face his first major league
pitch, his first major league catch. And there was no cynicism, no attitude.
"What was your reaction when Phil Garner told you that you'd made the team?" I
asked him.
"I said to myself, 'Finally.' "
"Finally?" I asked.
"Finally, this dream is going to come true."
The dancing broadcaster
The other Tigers players got dressed around him. There was Bobby Higginson and
Dave Mlicki and Deivi Cruz and Damion Easley. And as they dressed, several
reporters milled about, as they always do. And then along came Ernie Harwell,
the radio voice of the Tigers since, well, it might as well be forever.
"Hello, hello, hello," Ernie sang.
And then someone turned up the stereo, and a rap tune came blasting, some
up-tempo thing by the artist Nelly, who was singing, as near as I could make
out "Un-du-lay-un-dulay, E.I, E.I!"
And suddenly, Ernie Harwell began to dance.
Not rap dancing. Just dancing, his hands in his coat pockets, his feet
shuffling back and forth, sort of like a jig, or as he would later explain it,
"Trucking," a dance step from the '40s.
And the players started smiling and nodding their heads at Ernie. And a few
were urging him on so he kept going, doing this little boogie around the
locker room as the rap music was blasting. And I thought to myself, "Well,
now, this is your 16th straight Opening Day in Detroit and here's a picture
you haven't seen before . . ."
And suddenly, I was smiling, too.
There is something about baseball, dang it, and at times you wish there
wasn't. Maybe it's just our youth. Maybe it's that baseball is the only major
sport that begins when nature intended things to begin, in the springtime.
All I know is this: a half-hour before game time, I was walking with manager
Garner down the tunnel and out to the field. And he was talking about nothing
in particular and then he came upon Inge, who was just inside the dugout, with
his catcher's gear, the pads, the mask, the chest protector, and he was
getting ready to put it on, which might have meant he wouldn't run out for
introductions.
"Brandon," Garner said, "you'll put that on afterwards. I want you to run out
with the team. OK?"
And Inge smiled that smile again and he said, "OK."
Garner nodded, dug his hands in his baseball jacket pockets, and walked up the
concrete steps. He looked to the sky and announced, to no one in particular,
"Well, the sun is about to come out now, isn't it?"
It was Opening Day.
Was there a choice?
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Catch "Albom in
the Afternoon" 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760) and simulcast on MSNBC 3-5
p.m.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
BASEBALL;TIGERS;BRANDON INGE;OPENING DAY;INTERVIEW