8701170263
DETROIT FREE PRESS
870407
Tuesday, April 07, 1987
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM
OPENING DAY
Copyright (c) 1987, Detroit Free Press
ON THE MOUND, SWEATING, IS WHERE MORRIS BELONGS
"Jack, if . . . " a reporter began.
"Jack, but . . . " a reporter began.
Oooh. This was too tempting. Jack Morris couldn't resist. He sat back
against his locker and began to sing.
"If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Mer-ry
Christ-maasss."
Pause.
"Dandy Don Meredith," he quoted, " 'Monday Night Football.' "
Jack Morris, Monday afternoon baseball.
Welcome the return of a pitching star. It was Opening Day, it was cloudy
and gray, he had the same locker, the same uniform, the same wait before the
game started. He was richer, wiser, older, angrier, but he was here. Above
all else, he was here.
That counts for something, doesn't it? It's more than we could say for
Lance Parrish. Sure, the Tigers would eventually lose this game, 2-1, in extra
innings. But when we last left this drama at Tiger Stadium, no one was sure
whether Morris would pitch in Detroit again. Remember? Can you even remember
last season, when he finished 21-8?
How much had happened since then?
There was the Jack Morris Shops America Tour. There was the midnight
agreement with the Tigers. There was the arbitration hearing, and the
arbitration ruling. We had Morris in football season. Morris in hockey season.
Wasn't that Jack Morris in the Wall Street scandal? Wasn't that Jack Morris
helping the contras? Wasn't that Jack Morris on the Academy Awards?
"Can this even be fun for you anymore?" someone asked the pitcher as he
stretched before Monday's opener. "With all that's happened, can you still
just innocently go out and pitch?"
"Well, I've learned this," he said. "The only way a baseball player can
last a long time these days is if he's a star and if he keeps completely
quiet."
He paused, then grinned. "So, people like me, in other words. . . . "
'Hey, Palmer, you're a bum' In other words, what? Are doomed to the
limelight? Well, OK. He handles it well. He is blunt and intelligent and cocky
and generally co-operative.
But above all, Morris is a baseball pitcher, a Detroit pitcher, and
sometimes you forget that, but not Monday, because this was his eighth Opening
Day start in a row, and as he sat there watching the clock, tapping his foot,
waiting for the call, touching his arm unconsciously, just to make sure it was
there, you realized that he was as tired of the bull as the rest of us. Let's
go already. Pitch.
"BOOM BOOM!" Darrell Evans yelled.
"Let's get out there!" Morris answered.
And when he went out there, in the cold and the wet, when he took the
mound, and the Tiger Stadium announcer called his name, there was a mixed
reaction from the sell-out crowd. Mostly cheers. Some boos. Didn't matter. He
was here. He could win them over.
"You know," he had said minutes earlier, "I would never yell at a player.
I've only done it once in my life. There was a seniors golf tournament a few
years ago at Oakland Hills, where I lived, and Arnold Palmer was on the fourth
tee, which was right behind my back yard.
"So I leaned over the fence and yelled, just to see what it was like,
'HEY, PALMER, YOU'RE A BUM!' "
He shrugged. "And you know, people looked at me and said, 'You're a real
bleep.' "
Best dressed in sweat Well, leave it to Morris to make his one heckle in
life Arnold Palmer. But then, that always has been his pattern. Take on the
big boys. How else does one win more games than any other pitcher in the
'80s? Watch Morris challenge guys like Don Mattingly and Rickey Henderson
Monday, and here is what you realize: This is his element. Not some board
room. Not the pale glare of a TV light. Jack Morris is best dressed in sweat,
in anger, pitching mound anger.
Forget the final score. One earned run is pretty damned good. And when
Morris was throwing heat in the top of the 10th, grunting, heaving, keeping
the Tigers alive, no one talked contract. And he didn't ask for overtime.
So he lost. He was here. That has to reassure the Tigers. They are without
Parrish, waiting on Kirk Gibson, and praying no one gets hurt. "Morris will
get his 20, of course," we write, "but let's focus on . . . "
What a statement. Morris will get his 20. Do you know how hard that is?
Monday ended badly. But at least it was baseball. No more contract talk.
No more Wall Street. No more if and buts, or candy and nuts. He is here. So,
finally, is the real season.
"Did you buy anything with all your new money?" came the last question to
Jack Morris about money, let's hope for a long time. "A new car? A new house?
A jet plane?"
"I bought a puppy," he said.
COLUMN;DTIGERS;BASEBALL;GAME; FIRST