Tigers Doubleheader

Yay, it's Friday! Normally I don't stress about the whole "Yay, it's Friday" thing as I normally don't work Fridays. Yes, go ahead, hate me. I work four ten-hour days and then get to laze about on Fridays, but whenever there's a holiday in the week, I'm back to 8 hour days, which aren't bad actually, although I feel like a complete slacker leaving at 2:30, but not enough as to stay and work when I'm not being paid. I'm sorry, but they don't pay me enough to donate my time to this company. Don't get me wrong, I love my job and the people with whom and for whom I work, but this is a major corporation and has shitloads more money than me, so guess what? My time is my own, thank you very much. Especially when there's important things to be done at home.

Yesterday was a great day to be at the ballpark for an all too rare doubleheader! It was just Glen and me as everybody else was busy pretending they weren't slackers. ;-) Now, if any of you watched any sports highlights shows yesterday I'm betting you saw big footage of the first game. My Tigers were not impressive during the first game. And that might be putting it mildly. Now, we all know the Tigers are not the best team in the league, but nor are they the worst. LOL! That fine distinction belongs to the team that beat the frickin' pants off us yesterday. Yup, the Tigers lost 26-5 to the Kansas City Royals breaking two records along the way! KC had NEVER scored that many runs in one game their history and the Tigers had never given up that many runs. Sad, isn't it?

Jason Johnson pitched the first game for the Tiges and he walked his first two batters. I was glad for him because he got that whole worrisome perfect game problem out of the way right off the bat. The Royals scored EIGHT runs in the first inning. Now, you're probably thinking, "Wow, that's not very good." And you'd be right, but then came the third inning which was INTERMINABLE! I mean, it literally lasted damn near an hour and that was just the top of the inning! The bad guys in blue scored ELEVEN runs in that inning. Glen and I were just laughing, because what else can you do when your team decides it's time to channel the 2003 Tigers? Hell, after that incredibly mind-boggling 3rd inning, Alan Trammel pulled Pudge and Carlos Guillen to save them for the second game.

Thank God for the second game, though, because it salvaged the day away from work. The 2004 Tigers showed up for that game and they won 8-0. Good solid game from everybody, especially Carlos Guillen, who made a spectacular catch by jumping 25 ft in the air to snag the ball that would have been a freaking single in the first game, and Jeremy Bonderman who pitched 8 solid innings and had 9 strikeouts. He had a miserable middle of the season, but his last four starts have been very good for him. The nice thing about the second game is that we got the #1 line-up! No Eric Munson (whose fielding leaves something to be desired). No Jason Smith (who rivals Eric in his fielding abilities). Pudge behind the plate, Brandon at 3rd and Dimitri Young DHing like he's supposed to.

Baseball's not hockey, but hell with the lockout looming I'm going to enjoy what I can. It's funny, or maybe not so, when you think about it, but I loved baseball in the 70s and even early 80s, but then I got sidetracked with college and working and I didn't have time for it. And then like a lot of people after the strike I just couldn't be bothered to watch it. But last year I went to six or so games – this is good when you think about how bad the Tigers were last year – it rekindled something in me. I don’t watch every game (that's reserved for the Wings and Champ Car), but I do turn it on and check out the score regularly and I've been to quite a few games already this year. And we're hoping to get to at least one more game this year – aiming for Oct. 2, the last weekend and a Saturday night game which means fireworks! I haven't seen any this year, so that would be nice.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a gorgeous sunny Thursday afternoon in Detroit in September. Thanks, Glen, for having the brilliant idea!!!