North Star Writers Group

I was cleaning out the basement the other day when I found the baseball bat collecting cobwebs in a remote corner of the room. I picked up the Louisville Slugger and, after running my fingers gently over the Al Kaline autograph, I blew off 30 years worth of dust, struck a menacing (my word) pose over an imaginary home plate and took a couple of practice swings.

It was almost spooky that I would come across the long-forgotten bat signed by my boyhood hero at a time when I’m venting daily at the lack of respect sports writers, network-TV baseball analysts and others are showing for my Detroit Tigers, who are the best team in baseball, at least as I write this.

I call them my Tigers because I grew up in Flint, Michigan, and in one way or another I’ve been rooting for them since the day in 1949 when I was 10 years old and attended my first Tigers game at old Briggs Stadium in Detroit.

I was already hooked big-time on the team by the time Albert William Kaline played his first game for Detroit on June 25, 1953. The soft-spoken and talented outfielder who spent his entire 21-year major league career with the Tigers was the ultimate boyhood hero.

That assessment comes from a man who dreamed of being a Major League baseball player but never had enough talent to do it.

I was one sweet defensive player who gobbled-up grounders and dove for sizzling line-drives. But, unfortunately, I also had to take my turns at the plate and they were never what you would call pretty. I could hit the daylights out of pitches thrown by pigtailed Paula Chapman, my first girlfriend at Oak Street Elementary School. But then I’d have to face evil David Spencer, the school bully, who threw more curves at you than Marilyn Monroe.

During Al Kaline’s 21-year career he had 3,007 hits, bashed 399 homeruns, won 10 Gold Glove awards and carried .987 career fielding average. He played in a dozen All-Star games. He is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

During Bob’s career it was always the same story. David Spencer would unleash a wicked curve. Bob would panic and run behind the backstop. Catchers didn’t even use signals when I was at the plate.

“Hey David,” the catcher would yell out to the mound. ”It’s Batz. Throw him curves.”

I thought about all of this and more the afternoon I found that bat in the basement. When I was done remembering, I took two more quick swings and returned the bat to the corner.

I’ll haul it out again in October when the World Series opens in Detroit.

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