Baseball in BG #2 (f. Dr. Stats/CPH & Jen, the Lonely Yankees Fan)

5 months ago I wrote about watching the Twins v. Tigers at a bar here in Bowling Green, Ohio. And while much has changed since that date (the gulf oil spill, tea party primaries, Justin Beiber's hair...) some things are constant. Like Liriano V. Verlander, and good friends who love baseball.

So it was to the aforementioned bar we went, Dr. Stats down from Michigan with his master's degree in tow, along with his fellow Tigers fan CPH and our amigo Jen*, a lonely Yankees fan in the den of AL Central fury.

*Note: Jen is the nicest Yankees fan I've ever met, which might make me view the whole team differently except for the jackassery that other Yankees fans engage in while I'm sitting in a class minding my own business.

Sadly (as Stinky put it in a text) tonight's game "isn't going so well..Correction--didn't go so well at all". Liriano felt sick (perhaps he had some of the same sketchy Labatt's beer we had in BG...it was awful...but it was SO cheap!) and Gardy got tossed on a call so bad even the Tigers fans amongst us mocked it.

Still the evening was educative (and not just because we're all education grad students), in the course of many wings and beers I gleaned the following:

1) We might not realize it, but the Twins are to the Tigers, what the Yankees are to the Twins, an unscalable roadblock which seems unflaggingly determined to ruin our lives. As CPH and the doctor told me, since our victory in '87 came at the expense of El Tigres, they have never forgiven us, and no matter how lopsided last night's game got, neither of my comrades in text books thought it would carry over to the next day (I'm not so sure).

2) But just because there's a mild undercurrent of hatred flowing from Detroit Rock City to the Mini-apple, doesn't mean there isn't some respect too. For one, there's mad love for Gardy: no nonsense, dedicated, kinda-like a cooler form of Santa. For two, there was general consensus that Ty Cobb is arguably the greatest player in baseball history. I love him, they love him, if it weren't for all the racism, everyone else would love him too. (Heck! Stinky made him an honorary, alternate reality Twin!)

3) Jen is impervious to my Yankee-bashing. No matter how snide I

get, she shakes her head and laughs it off (Maybe because her team has 27 world titles and pretends that their drunken home run king was an angel--see picture at right). As she said: "I've come to expect no less from you."...I just hope she doesn't expect anything more from me either.

4) If a total stranger asks you "how's it goin' in there?!?" in a public restroom, there is no response, except slack-jawed stupefaction. This is fact, and cannot be denied.

There will be more baseball in BG outings (hopefully with a little less bathroom weirdness), I only hope I learn as much then as I did last night.