The scene in the Upper Peninsula
posted in Random |I had to cover an American Legion baseball district game during the afternoon, and the strangest thing happened. Seemingly every time a late arriver got to the park, a Tigers score update arrived with them and a whisper campaign would quickly spread it through the crowd.
“1-1, top of seventh inning. Zumaya’s pitching.”
“No wait, 2-1, bottom of the seventh inning.”
And then the ballpark announcer chimed in between innings. “2-1, Tigers, heading into the eighth inning.” … and heading into the ninth inning.
And then:
“Your Tigers now have a 5-1/2 game lead over the White Sox: 2-1, final.”
And people applauded. There were folks in Tigers caps and Tigers T-shirts talking about the game, about the young players, about Todd Jones, and even one team exposing its secret weapon: Big League Chew. That might be more common downstate now. But to see it at a ballfield in Negaunee, 10 miles beyond the edge of no where and four hours closer to Milwaukee than to Detroit, that was pretty cool.
And then a car honked in celebration.
Chills.