A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Ferris Wheel

On August 12, 2007, I desired to extend my birthday celebration by going to Comerica for that Sunday's game, even though I had already officially celebrated there for my birthday earlier that week.  So, my husband had to work, but I dragged my rather reluctant son with me over to the ball park.  I'm still working on brain-washing him to love baseball.  There's hope--I didn't start to love it until I was 13.

Anyway, I had lured him there with the promise of carousel and ferris wheel rides, sugary snacks and the like.  The game itself did not interest him much.  So, we sat there in the front row in right field behind Magglio, and watched all of one and a half innings before my son starts campaigning for the ferris wheel.  Now, when I'm at the game, I'm all business--normally.  I keep score, do not leave my seat except in emergency (to haul it to the ladies'), and then only when the opposition is batting.  But I resolved to lighten up for this game, so I told my son that we could go to the carousel after Magglio's at bat (he was leading off the bottom of the second).  Well, I was happy we stayed for it, because he promptly jacked one out of the park to the opposite field (but to the right of us).  Satisfied, I proceeded to escort the happy kid to the ferris wheel.

We got on the thing with a dad and his little guy.  The ride starts going, the dad and I began chatting, and then we hear all kinds of cheering.  Imprisoned in the whirling baseball, we just know we're missing it, big-time.  The cheers keep coming, and then I hear Magglio's walk-up song--Mirala.  So we know they batted around.   Suddenly, a sustained, raucous cheer blasts out of the stadium.   Yeah, it was the day Ordóñez hit two home runs in one inning, and there we were, trapped on the flyball ferris wheel.  We scored a total of eight runs that inning, and I saw only that first one.

I took it all in stride, laughing (to keep from crying) as we walked back to our seats.  Round about every other inning, we had to leave again for snow cones, cool drinks, carousel rides, trips to the Tiger shop--even heat breaks in front of the little cooling fans.   

You know what, though?  It's a great memory and I'll never forget what I was doing the day Magglio swatted two in one inning (democratically, it was one to right and one to left), joining Al Kaline as the only other Tiger to do so in club history.

Justin Verlander's No Hitter

In homage to the Tigers' DVD voting contest for "Essential Games of the Detroit Tigers," I am relating my experiences from a couple of the featured games.  Today, it's Justin Verlander's no hitter.

To begin with, I never should have been at that game.  I had already purchased a gazillion tickets and it was only June.  Second, it was a Tuesday night game (although, to be honest, I like going to games during the week).  So, I was sitting at my computer one morning, and I received a new email.  Oh joy, it was a Detroit Free Press free stuff thank you e-mail (sent to subscribers every so often, and featuring fun freebies like tickets to area events, Caribou coffees, etc.).  Well, lo and behold, one of the offerings was two tickets to an upcoming Tigers game.  Naturally, my fingers flew like the wind as I made my selection and sent it through cyberspace.  You have to wait a while to find out if you were one of the "first to respond," as they only had ten pair of tickets available.

Fate smiled on me, and my tickets soon arrived in the mail--infield upper deck box, 16th row, third base side.  My mom was coming into to town, so I invited her to join me at the game.  Little did we know that we were about to experience a piece of baseball history.

I'll spare you the play by play, since you know what happened, but we began to witness Justin hurling some filthy stuff.   The Brewers were hacking away like Florida Southern against our Big League club each spring (no disrespect FS).  The fun stuff was Verlander walking the same guy three times (Hall), Magglio's sliding catch, Neifi Perez' wicked double play turn, and the nefarious sea-gulls, who flew in to gobble up hatchling moths.

I started to get really nervous, in fact, my stomach got all tied up in knots, and was aching like nobody's business from the fifth inning until about two hours after the game ended.  In the top of the seventh inning, Justin is pitching y'all, and the section next to ours tries to start the wave.  I wanted to stand up and shout at the top of my lungs, "Don't you know there's a no-hitter in progress here!?" but of course, I couldn't jinx it, so I scowled and grumbled under my breath a little about the oblivious masses at Comerica, who obviously don't know diddly about baseball.

Luckily, moms was there playing shutterbug, so I've got the Kodak moments all glossy, with my scorecard full of zeros, and my ticket stub to enshrine the game with all proper ceremony.   Now, this is a little small of me, I know, but in the days of heartbreak last year when we didn't make the post-season, I downloaded the no-hitter off i-Tunes and watched it, reliving the past glories of that game.