"My Opening Pitch"

 My Opening Pitch

Asking me what my favorite thing about sports, is a lot like asking an alcoholic what their favorite drink is. I will say however, much like that alcoholic all the things that I love about sports come at me in one giant blur. And in being a Detroit sports fan, alcohol can sometimes seem like a helpful means. I am kidding about that last part, as it is actually quite cool to have successful sports teams in Detroit to root for. It is nice to have the Lions too.

Since I live in Metro-Detroit, I am a die-hard Piston, Red Wing, Spartan and Tiger fan. It also helps that I was born and raised on sports, baseball specifically. That is why above all others, the Tigers are my team. The team that I would follow come hell or high water. I have played basketball, football, soccer, I even wrestled. But baseball was the one true sport that I loved and was actually better than average at. My fondest memories of sports all revolve around that game as well, whether those memories happened on or off of the diamond. When I think of baseball, I think of my first game at Tiger Stadium, my first hit in Tee-Ball, my first championship and my many, many strikeouts.

My favorite time playing this game had to of been either in 2002 when the team that I was on and that my dad coached, the Pirates, won the St. Gertrude “Mustang” Division Championship. Or in 2006 with my 8th grade team, the St. Isaac Jogues Chargers, when we went undefeated on a team that almost did not exist.

I vividly remember the semi-finals game against the Devil Rays in 2002. We were up by one run in the bottom of the seventh inning. There were two outs and runners on second and third, I was playing shortstop. The batter ripped a line shot into left field, where my friend Pat was playing. I turned around and yelled at him to get the ball. He just stood there. So, I kept on yelling. Pat did not budge, so I ran into left field to retrieve the ball, it was at this time I noticed nobody else on my team was moving and as I turned to look at home, I noticed nobody on the opposing team was moving either. It was at that time that Pat with his eyes wide and mouth wide open, pointed at my glove. I slowly glanced down at my glove and noticed the ball that I was yelling at Pat to get was nestled precariously in my glove, just barely hanging on the top of it. I did a double take and then looked at Pat and said, “You could have told me I caught it!” 

For many more years, Pat and I would be on the same teams. One of those was our middle school’s team, the St. Isaac Jogues Chargers. In 5th-7th grade we had pretty okay teams, but we were nothing special. We did have a couple really good players who decided to bail on our team in hopes of better competition in Federation ball two weeks before practices were to start for our last season in 2006. The team was in dismay and my teammates and I scrambled to fill the roster. We were looking for people with two arms and legs. If you could hit and throw, then that was a bonus.

Eventually, we found enough people to resemble a team. I remember before our first game our coach came up to us after practice and said, “Boys, you better pray your Rosaries tonight, because what is going to happen tomorrow ain’t gonna be good.” 

My friend Joe was our best pitcher and I was the team’s catcher. Every time he got chaotic, I would start to sing “Big Poppa” like in the movie Hardball. I did this as I was on deck and Joe was batting when there was one out and the bases were loaded and were down 2-0 in the bottom of the seventh. Joe called time and I “waved my hands in the air like a true playa” and he smiled. On the next pitch he ended up winning that game on a walk-off triple. We also ended up winning the last nine games as well, going undefeated for the first time in my school’s history. 

Both of those seasons were like my very own sports movies. But as for ones that I watch to this day, Field Of Dreams, Sandlot, Rookie of the Year, Mighty Ducks, the Natural, Slapshot, Remember the Titans, Radio, Little Big League and Bull Durham are the first films that come to my mind. By now, I could say every line from those movies, but every time I watch them I get reminded why I love sports. How could you not get goose bumps when Terence Mann goes into his “People will come, Ray” monologue, when the lights explode and the iconic music plays as Roy Hobbs is rounding the bases, when Porter shouts “Pickle!”, or even when Gordon Bombay gathers his Mighty Ducks and leads them in their chant, “Quack, Quack, Quack!”

I also enjoy sports documentaries. ESPN and HBO always seem to produce the best of the bunch, especially ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentaries. Of those I would say that my favorites are the documentaries on the USFL, the origins of Rotisserie League Baseball, the story of Marcus Dupree and the documentary about the Wayne Gretzky trade to the Los Angeles Kings. In all honest though, all of them are amazing. As for HBO’s documentaries there are the docs they did on the Brooklyn Dodgers and the “Broad Street Bully” Philadelphia Flyers as well as their series When It Was a Game. I have also spent many a night sitting in my living room watching Baseball’s Golden Age with my dad.

I love researching old teams, logos and players and have way too much useless sports knowledge, you could ask me the starting line-up for the 2004 Detroit Pistons or 2003 Tigers and I would probably know them by heart, I blame my brother for this.

But one thing I do not blame my brother or even any person in my family for is the sports education they gave me. It is weird because whenever my dad gets into debates about sports players from when he grew up with his brothers or friends, I can go toe to toe with them. I remember one time specifically, when my father’s friend Kurt asked me who were the three greatest hockey players off all-time, I replied, “Howe, Gretzky, Orr”. He grinned in approval. Then he asked me for the greatest baseball players off all-time, I said, “Cobb, Williams, Mays”. Kurt then grabbed my dad’s shoulder and said, “You raised your son right”.

The great thing I love about being a Detroit fan is that with every team or sport, that Detroit team has had a handful of great or iconic players that are synonymous with their sport. People like Gordie Howe, Barry Sanders, Ty Cobb, Bob Lainer. I personally, never really had athletes that I looked up too. Sure, growing up in the 1990’s I was Ken Griffey Jr. fan and would wear my hat backwards like he did. I was also a huge Dan Marino fan. But when I lost my teeth, I would pronounce his name, “Dan Burrito”. And there are of course those Detroit athletes that will never get their just due, like Alan Trammel, Chris Osgood, Willy Horton, Ben Wallace or even Jack Morris.

But, if I were to pick one sports figure that I idolize, it would be without a shadow of a doubt, Jimmy Valvano. To some that name might ring a bell, but others have no clue of his story and to me that is a shame. Jimmy Valvano was a college basketball coach most known for his time at North Carolina State, and defeating the Houston in the NCAA Basketball finals on a last second tip-in in 1983. But he is not my favorite sports figure for how he coached, but he is my favorite sports figure for how he lived. He gave an iconic speech at the 1993 ESPY Awards. He was dying of cancer in front of the thousands of people there and the millions watching at home. But amidst that, he gave one of the most poignant speeches I have ever heard. It is known for his line, “Don’t give up… Don’t ever give up.” But for me personally, there is one part of his speech that I use as a kind of mantra for my life. He said while speaking in regards to living a full life, “…But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week; you're going to have something special…" That is transcending the margins and sports to me just in that quote. 

When I am looking for good sports journalists or commentators to quote, I immediately think Bill Simmons. He runs a sports website called Grantland and it is the best run sports journalism website you will ever find. They did a retrospective article on the Pacers/Pistons Palace Brawl last year, and it was the most riveting journalism I have ever read. Bill Simmons to me is the one person I try to emulate the most in my writing. He has a way of making his 2,000 word articles just flow and feel effortless for the reader. There is also Rick Reilly, who is writer for ESPN. He writes very feature-like editorials on popular sport subjects and no matter what, he also has the right tone in every article. He did absolutely extraordinary articles on the Penn State scandal. But I like his tongue in cheek articles the best. 

Of course I would be remiss if I did not mention local journalists like Mitch Albom or Lynn Henning who both write for the Detroit newspapers. Though I disagree with just about everything Lynn Henning has to say about the Tigers. As his solution to any Tiger problem is to bat Ryan Raburn more. And as for actual commentators, as in the people who announce the games. No one will ever be as good as Ernie Harwell. 

Even though that might have even seemed like an incoherent ramble for five pages or so, let me just consolidate those random thoughts into one summarizing point: I love sports. I always have and always will. I will continue to root for the underdog and cheer for my Tigers until I lose my voice. I will support Detroit sports until the day I die. And who knows, maybe after I die, I might support the Lions too. God knows they need all the help they can get.