A foretaste of the feast to come

So...I went to the game last night, unfortunately the Twins did not make it out on to the field.

Instead I was treated to rainy skies, cold wind and distant, distant seats. All of this made me ask myself: "Why aren't we building a retractable roof again?" (And do I really need to pay 16 bucks to sit in the Skyline section?)

There were some nice moments: desperately trying to convince Shanshan, a Chinese Masters student, that baseball actually is fun, when you can watch it being played, having my colleague Leslie (a die-hard Angels fan) promise to root for the Twins--just to be ornery, sharing sunflower seeds with Conor--my colleague/Tigers fan. AND, there were also two totally kickass moments.

1) As the Tigers honored their 1984 World Champions, little old Sparky Anderson, great manager/adorable old man took the mike, and like a hip-hop god proudly proclaimed: "THIS CITY WILL BE BACK AGAIN!!!!" [Roar] "And this young fella, [points to Jim Leyland] is bringing it back!!!" [Roar] "He's a great guy, and in the other dugout, what a guy, folks I've got to tell you, you won't find two better men walking onto a baseball field than Ron and Jim!!" [Awkward applause]...apparently Tigers fans don't like Gardy, but apparently their beloved Sparky Anderson thinks he's a badass--Sparky Anderson is correct, and therefore, my new favorite little old man of all time!

2) I sat at the end of our row, closest to rival fans, which, in this case, was a familial horde and one little boy--the little boy kept looking at me as if I was contagious, scared little eyes, clutching his stuffed tiger in fear. As I moved aside for him to put on his coat, I was kind, and then asked him a question in my best: "Kindly-Teacher" voice.

"How much can I clap for my team if we do something good? Can I clap 5 times? 3 times? Just once? This is your home stadium, so I'll let you tell me."

"NEVER!" shouted the mother and aunts or neighbors or crazy ladies around us "NEVER CHEER! NEVER SAY ANYTHING!!" The Kid, I swear, said: "you can clap as many times as you want, they are your team..." What a cool kid, eh? Somebody taught him manners and sharing and politeness...these kids today are pretty darn cool as far as I'm concerned.

So it was a washout, so it was disappointing, so I must now try and sneakily watch whilst typing up 5 chapters of Research methods notes...at least we learned that Detroit has some totally awesome people, and will make us Midwesterns proud whoever wins.

I just still want it to be us.