The Doug Report: Adjectivially Speaking

Sun!

That was my first thought as my Frontier Airlines jet touched down at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport early Thursday evening. It seems as though for we Michiganians glimpses of the sun outside the months of July, August, and – maybe – early October are random and fleeting.

Warmth!

That was my second thought. Despite the best efforts of the aircraft’s cooling system it was quite evident I was no longer in Michigan.

This fact was made even clearer later that evening when a call home elicited this comment from my soon-to-be 7-year-old son Jake: “Dad, will you please bring back some warm air. Every baseball game I have it’s always cold and wet.” (Included in my luggage home was a one Zip Lock baggie filled with 85-degree Arizona evening warmth!)

Friendship!

That was my third thought as I spotted Mike’s red Infiniti easing onto the North Curb outside baggage claim; Mike and I go back to my sophomore year of high school when I was the 13th man on the Lakeview High junior varsity basketball team and Mike – younger brother of Husky great Tom – was a freshman trying to make a name for himself.

How else – beside friendship – can you explain someone leaving his family near dinner time to drive 45 minutes one way to pick you up at the airport? And then put you up in his guest house for a long weekend.

Uninspired and inconsistent!

Is there any other way to categorize the Tigers’ performance of late? The two nights I saw in the desert only served to verify this description. The list of transgressions on Friday was lengthy:

• Magglio not running hard out of the box on that second-inning double-turned-single-and-throw-out;
• Cabrera lollygagging (cue Robert Wuhl) after the pop up back of first;
• The lack of communication between Renteria and Guillen in the seventh;
• Guillen’s total aim job of a throwing error (also in the seventh); and,
• Leyland’s decision not to insert Brandon Inge for defensive purposes with a three-run lead and Guillen not due up for three more innings.

Of course Saturday came along and there was Raburn’s dropped double-play ball; Cabrera running for that very same pop up; Pudge’s savvy dropped pop up bunt in the eighth; and Leyland making the necessary defensive substitutions in the ninth.

Fellowship!

Could there be a better place for men to be men than at a baseball game on a warm summer evening? That’s what I thought of as I sat there under the stars and slowly cooling evening air with John, Mike, and Tom.

Just talking baseball, reminiscing about glory days (cue Bruce), and quoting guy stuff like Fletch, The In-Laws, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Slapshot, Bull Durham, and the like.

Ridiculous!

That’s what I thought most of Saturday about the sizeable group of 20-somethings that tried to be Tigers’ fans sitting in front of us. Drink flowed from the moment they arrived and they thought nothing of getting up and changing seats – or leaving – during game play.

It’s a pet peeve of mine, but I was brought up to respect the game and its fans. That meant you didn’t leave your seat until between innings or pitching changes; the same was true of your return. If you want to socialize and not watch the game, then do everyone a favor and do it on the concourse.

Trust me when I say no one wants to see you – no matter how much you paid for your new chest or how nattily attired you may be; we all paid decent money to watch the game.

Lucky!

As I pen this on an old-fashioned steno pad at 38,000-feet, I realize how lucky I am to have a wife and two children who allow me to do something foolhardy like traveling 2,000 miles across the country to watch a pathetically underachieving baseball team and hand with the fellas for a few days. To them I say thank you!