Day 17 - Tigers Game

I really wanted to catch a game at ComericaField and I was lucky enough to get tickets. Baseball is so weird. The stadium never filled, but online it looked like the game was sold out. Also, the tickets with the most garbage service fees ever proved very expensive. It cost over $100 a seat for a ticket listed at $79 each! Seriously? Come on MLB, make baseball affordable for kids and fans. As a result, we did not take Bambi, Cary and the kids. Just me, Diana and Judie.

But it was also Aloha Shirt give away. I pressured the gals into leaving stupid early, because I was concerned that Detroit's famously rabid fans would snap up the 15,000 shirts before we arrived. And I'm glad we did. The guy who threw out the first pitch had a pop-up concert in front of the stadium so there was a very big crowd early.

Despite showing up two hours early, we did not get into the stadium until an hour before the first pitch, and they were running low on XL shirts. Phew! I got my "free" give away.

The game itself turned out to be a blast with the Tigers coming back from a first inning 2-1 deficit to win 7-2. The new rules have made baseball so much more enjoyable to watch. More base runners, more base hits, more plays on the bases makes the game exciting and interesting. The old home run or strike out - station to station six-hour game really had gotten boring and dull. This newer 2-3 hour version is a better experience for fans.

Sharing my obsession

From the moment I planned my trip I wanted to pick up a Tiger's hat. An old school white D on a black hat like the one Tom Selleck wore on Magnum PI. While picking out my hat (there are at least 5 variations of this exact motif) IO discovered they also sold scorecards! I love keeping score at a baseball game. During the game I shared my obsession with baseball with my cousins. One of my favorite questions, "Why is the foul pole fair?" (See the end of my blog for the answer). They really seemed to enjoy the trivial and I enjoyed sharing.

Family

Despite how good the game was, the best part was spending time with Diana and Judie together. My cousins. Sisters. Diana is now an attorney, but she has been a mediator for almost fifteen years. Her work is super interesting, and I just love that she is a professional peace maker. Not only that, but she also teaches mediation to high school students to give them the tools to resolve their own conflicts, and the conflicts of their friends.

That is the coolest thing ever. So many of her tools, approach, and the way she thinks of things is fascinating. We should all take a course in mediation. I think the world would benefit from it. It is incredible that people like Diana are willing to make a career out of helping people like that.

Spending time with family has been so rejuvenating for me. Finding connections and similar interests has been wonderful.

The Foul Poles

According to a book I read, it goes like this. Originally, the foul lines (and the foul poles) were foul, but all four bases including home plate were square. This meant the plate at home had two corners. It would have matched the orientation of second base. Allegedly pitchers complained loudly and continuously about not getting strike calls "on the corners." To shut them up, the commissioner ordered the shape of home plate widened and the corners extended into edges so that the plate now has its familiar "home" shape. When they made that change, the plate was no longer inside the foul lines, but now sat on top of them. By rule, home plate is in fair territory and so is anything it touches. Because home plate touched the foul lines, they switched from being out of bounds to in bounds, and the foul poles became "fair" so now if a baseball hits a foul pole in the air, it is fair ball and a home run.