Yesterday, my entire family attended the last home game of the Detroit Tigers' baseball season. The tickets were a 35th anniversary present to my parents and it also was my sister, Erin's, birthday. And, after being in first place since May, all the Tigers needed to do was win and we, along with all of Motown, were ready to celebrate. The game started out great, with the Tigers taking a 6-0 lead, and we all were just waiting to explode. But, as has happened over the last month or so, it all started to slowly fall apart. Starter Jeremy Bonderman, who has been known to blow leads (especially 6-0 leads) blew another one and it was 6-4 before we knew it. He was pulled and reliever after reliever came in and it just kept getting worse and worse. In the end, after 12 innings and over five hours of baseball, the Tigers' lost. They lost the American League Central Division crown, they lost home field advantage in the first round and they probably lost their way right out of the playoffs as they now have to play the Yankees – the best team in baseball – in New York.
This was a gut-wrenching loss to me. The kind of loss that makes you wonder why you're a sports fan at all and why you set yourself up for this in the first place. The kind of loss that makes you cry like a 10-year old (like the little boy two rows in front of us who was crying when the Tigers lost the lead for good). I cried on the way home from the game and I cried later in the evening. It reminded me of how I used to cry after a Michigan football loss until I got used to them and just started getting mad instead. I cried because I was disappointed, because I was mad, because I was sad and because I let my guard down and believed and then it was all just taken away.
I've talked about my "history" with the Tigers before. In addition to being the only pro sports team in Detroit that I really care about, I love the Tigers because of my Dad and because when Kevin dumped me back in 1998, it was working for the Tigers and immersing myself in baseball that got me through it all. To see them do well this year and to finally get smiles instead of weird looks when I wore my Tigers' gear was so nice and so different. All they did this year was unbelievable to me but instead of focusing on that, all I can think about is what was lost yesterday. I never expected a year like this, no one in Detroit did. I never expected a meaningful baseball game to be played in August, much less September AND October. I never expected to be anywhere near first place in the very competitive and probably best division in baseball, the AL Central. But, when the Tigers roared out to that great start and took over first place in May and held on ALMOST to the end, expectations changed. No longer was an improvement good enough, no longer was just being in the playoffs good enough. No longer was going from the worst team in baseball three years ago to one of the best in baseball now good enough. Maybe it's the whole having it and losing it versus never having it at all thing. And, maybe I'm just afraid that we didn't take advantage of what we had and you never know when you're going to get that chance again. It's been 19 years since our last playoff appearance – what if it's another 19? Won't this hurt even more?
I know it's just sports and I know the sun still rose today and the earth still is spinning. But, it's rainy and grey here in Detroit today, and I'm sure the 40,000 plus fans at Comerica Park and the countless fans that watched the game on TV yesterday feel the way the weather is. I don't have much hope for a five game series against the Yankees but, then again, I didn't have much hope for the season and the Tigers proved me wrong. I hope they can do it again.
If not, though, 2006 has been a memorable summer for baseball and that's something Detroit hasn't seen in a long, long time.
