Tiger's Baseball: A Short Tale

"It's hard not to be romantic about baseball".  -Billie Beane, as portrayed by Brad Pitt

Sunday, April 15, 2012 marked not only my first Major League Baseball game of the 2012 season, but it was my first Tigers' game on the year as well.  I try to make a point of seeing them play live whenever they come through Chicago.  It's actually really nice because they have at least two or three series against the White Sox every year down here on the South side.  This year is a bonus year because the Tigers are playing the Cubs at Wrigley as well.  As I said before, I try to get to at least one game of every series.  And that's exactly what I did this past weekend.

We had pretty nice seats for my season opener.  Thank you Stub Hub for selling tickets at ridiculously low prices less than 12 hours before a game.

It was almost magical.  Sitting there taking in the sights and sounds, listening to Thunderstruck being played over the loud speaker.  It almost moved me to tears.  Baseball is at its finest when you go see a game live, and I don't care who is playing.  But it's even more special when it's the Detroit Tigers...and even more special when your spouse puts up with it.

So, we progress into the pre-game festivities...Elmo threw out the first pitch.

Morel and Ramirez are so terrible they found a couple of local boys to fill in for the day.

I should also mention at this point it was Jackie Robinson Day, so everyone wore #42 in honor of his greatness and achievements in the game of baseball.  They honored Minnie Minoso before the game.  He was Chicago's first African-American Major League Baseball player.  He's the older one on the left in the #42 jersey.

Here's Gene Lemont being a boss.

Overall it was a fun afternoon.  The weather was perfect.  Cabrera and Fielder are just too awesome.  It was fun to be that close to the action.

Here is a cool shot of Justin Verland and Alex Avila discussing their next start together.  

"Hey Justin."  

"Yeah, Alex"

"You should throw a no-hitter your next start."

"Ok"

You heard it hear first.

Final score Tigers 5, White Sox 2.  

Umpires

I know umpires aren't perfect, but sometimes they are just terrible.

I've had the opportunity to coach freshman baseball this spring and it's been an absolute blast.  Naturally, when working with freshmen it comes with its own set of issues.  Immaturity, silliness, and not quite getting what you want them to get are all just part of the gig.  But for the most part, they are a lot of fun.

As of this publication our team is 4-6.  We've played some close games, we've lost some bad games, and we've won some great games.  Today was no exception.  Today was an epic disappointment is what it was.  Let me set the scene.  The score is 2-1 going into the bottom of the 7th inning (we only play 7 innings in high school), two outs, man on 3rd, we are losing.

*Flashback to 3rd inning*  One of our guys hits a ground ball, close play at first.  Bang, bang, we beat the play.  "Out!", calls the umpire in the field.

*Fast forward to the 4th inning*  Same thing, hard ground ball, third baseman can't handle the ball, bang, bang play.  We beat the throw by a step.  "Out!", calls the umpire.

"What!?  NO!  He was safe!  Sir, this is two plays now where we have beaten the play."

*Fast forward to the bottom of the ninth* Let me remind you there are two outs, we have a runner on third.  Our guy steps into the batter's box.  Ball one.  Next pitch is fouled off.  The next pitch is hit hard to the shortstop.  He bobbles the hard ground ball.  He bobbles it again!  The throw to first....our batter steps on first, takes a step after the bag THEN the ball comes into the glove of the first basemen.  I at this point am holding my arms out indicating "safe" and clapping my hands in excitement.

In that split second I look at the umpire.  He looks back at me.  Raises his fist.  "Out!"

Game over.

I immediately run over to him.  "You've got to be kidding me!  There hasn't been a more obvious call all day!  Our guy should be standing on first in a tie ballgame right now and you know it!

The umpire looks at me and says in a quiet, I-told-you-so, attitude, "out".  "What!?!?", I respond.  "Maybe if you haven't been yelling at me all afternoon", he replies.

At this point in time my head coach has run from the third base line and has begun to intercede, pushing me away.  I don't know what they said to each other.  It doesn't matter.

I need to clarify that I was in the umpire's ear in the 3rd and 4th inning.  I was not yelling, I didn't speak in a condescending tone, I only spoke loud enough for him to hear me. For him to use that against our batter in a close game, where he just hit the game-tying RBI, is sickening.  I was so mad at this umpire for deciding a close game based on his resentment towards me.  I was merely trying to defend my players because we told them never to argue with an official.

Judge me how you will, but as a coach, I'm going to defend my players.  I'm not the kind of coach who argues with an umpire for the sake of arguing.  If it's a close call but I think he made the right call, so be it, I'll keep my mouth shut.  But in today's game something had to be said because this umpire was giving the other team free outs.  So for him to do that at the end of the game set me off.  That's wrong.

If I run into this umpire again I will of course shake his hand and apologize.  It's probably the right thing to do.  I just don't want him to continue ruining games for us if he thinks I have a grudge.

I know umpires aren't perfect, but umpires or any official should never use their feelings toward a coach and have that affect the result of the game.  It's not fair to the athletes, it's not fair to the parents.

Thanks for letting me vent.