Toledo-Toronto-Detroit

By David Marasco

You always walk away from a rain-shortened game feeling a little cheated. I didn't feel cheated after Ohio. Yes, I went on a road trip. No, contrary to what some people thought, I did not attend the Cleveland Indians' shareholder's meeting on Wednesday (in fact, I have dumped almost all of my Indians holdings). Instead I went to Toledo on Friday.

Toledo was an afterthought. The plan was to see a game in Toronto Saturday followed by a game in Detroit on the way back Sunday. Instead of driving all night to get to Toronto my friend Tom and I decided it would be saner to start early Friday afternoon and stop somewhere prior to Canada. By sheer chance the Mudhens were in town so we decided that we should stop in Toledo.

Most of my experiences with minor leagues are at the very low levels. I grew up with the California League, which is A-ball, and I now follow the Midwest League, also A-ball. So in my mind the minor leagues is just a bunch of kids getting their feet wet. Toledo showed me another picture. Toledo is AAA-ball, where a pulled hamstring in the majors means promotion for one of these guys. Toledo and Rochester had a lot of retreads, something you just don't see in A-ball. Names like Bob Hamlin and Kimera Bartee tugged gently on my memories. It's a spin on baseball that I hadn't seen before.

Not much happened for the first 8 innings. There were a lot of double-plays, but no scoring. In the top of the ninth Rochester got a single and then quickly sacrificed the runner over to second. A passed ball moved the runner up 90 feet and then a perfect suicide squeeze brought the man home. The bunt was so good that the batter was safe at first. A steal followed by an out and a hit brought home the second tally of the game.

We go to the bottom of the ninth. A one-out walk is followed by a single to put runners on the corners. A strikeout reduces Toledo to its last bullet. But that bullet comes in the form of a double to centerfield to score both runners. On to extra frames.

The two teams reverted to form for the 10th and 11th. The 12th brought the top of the lineup to bat for Rochester. They started the line moving with a double to left. An out was followed by a walk, and then a single to score a run. After a strike out two more singles brought in two more runs to push the buldge to 5-2. Things don't look good for the home team.

The bottom of the 12th found Kimera Bartee scorching a ball down the left field line. The only thing was that Bartee couldn't decide if his liner was fair or not, so he stood at the plate watching until the umpire ruled it fair. Then he decided to run. He ended up on second with what should have been a triple. I couldn't believe my eyes, it seemed so Kimeracal (yes, that one was for you Steve).

A walk and a single scored a run and brought the winning run to the plate with no outs. A triple to right tied up the game and put the winning run on third. Sadly, the runner stayed at third. Ultra-clutch pitching by Rafael Pina slammed the door on the Mudhens.

The Mudhens were active again in the bottom of the 13th. A leadoff walk was followed by a strikeout and then a single to put runners at the corners. The runner at third tried to score on a comebacker to the pitcher and was cut down at the plate. This play was followed by a walk to load the bases with two outs. Again Pina beared down and got a K to end the inning. We got to the 14th despite loading the bases and having a play at the plate...

The two teams didn't amount to much in the 14th or the 15th, and you got the feeling that neither team really was playing to win anymore. The 1st base ump was talking to poeple in the crowd telling them that he'd meet them in the hotel, and I think that all of the players were in a similar frame of mind... Just let me go home and relax already. It all came to a head in the bottom of the 16th. Rickey Cradle got a two-out single to right, which was followed by a walk. An E6 loaded the bases, but the way things were going Friday night I would have been willing to believe it if lightning struck the batter. No lightning, instead a clean single to left to win the game.

Lots of people took bigs dips in the batting average in that game. Lots of 1 for 7's and 1 for 8's. Ryan Minor was 0-3 with a hit by pitch after regulation, and went downhill after that. Try three straight struckout lookings, followed by a swinging K for an 0-7 with 4 K's in the extra frames. Ouch. Yo, Ryan, they expand that strikezone when they want to go home.

Saturday saw us head for Canada. We were celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first ballgame in Skydome by paying a visit. So what was the Skydome like? It reminded me of the Oakland-Alameda County Stadium. Imagine if Al Davis said "I don't think I've raped the taxpayers enough, those kids in Oakland schools still have books" and demanded a retractible dome. That's what Skydome is like. Nice wide concourses, with the impression that they really want to sell you some stuff (sadly, even though I wanted to exercise my powerful American dollars, I felt that the items they were selling fell below the crap line). A nice idea gone horribly wrong.

I've now seen baseball in three domes (oddly enough, in America, Canada and Japan) and I stand by my statement that domeball is like kinky sex - interesting and exciting if taken in small samples now and then, but probably bad for you if it's a steady diet.

And even with a retractible dome they have an artificial turf field. I'm not impressed with their claim that they have "the fastest groundscrew in baseball," after all, all they are responsible for is the dirt around the bases and the mound. How much easier could the job get?

Somebody better explain baseball to the Canadians. I know that there had to be a good chunk of Frenchie-Montreal folks in the crowd, but why are the stadium folks playing rally music when the Expos have men on base? That's just plain backwards.

They must have imported ushers from Wrigley Field as they were the most Facist I've seen in a while (worse than Atlanta even). On the other hand, some things were much more relaxed. For example, about half of the groups being welcomed on the scoreboard had lewd-themed names. That would never make it past American censors.

No, they didn't play the Stars Spangled Banner. Just the Canada song where they talk about standing on guard. That's what happens when you get Montreal in Toronto. Miguel Batista took the mound for the Expos and brought his can of Whoop Ass with him. He gave up a hit in the first, and the scorer marked two more questionable hits against his record later in the game. He took 122 pitches to record a complete game shutout. Only three times did he see a man in scoring position.

Joey Hamilton didn't fare as well. The former Padre was in trouble early, and got some help from poor Expo baserunning in the 2nd. Had the ball not bounced off of Hamilton and bounced to the catcher for a routine 1-2-3 putout things could have become ugly. In the third a Montreal run was scored as a result of outfield craziness by Jacob Brumfield (bumfield?) but the real damage was in the 6th when Orlando Merced put one over the wall in right for a three run juck. The Expos tacked on a fifth run, but one was all Batista needed.

We drove back to Detroit that night so we could watch batting practice the next morning. Well, we slept through batting practice, but McGwire skipped it so we didn't feel so bad.

I had to get back to Tiger Stadium this year before they made the Big Mistake, but in retrospect picking a Tiger-Cardinal game was a bad choice. The thing you do in Tiger Stadium is move around. Catch a couple of innings from the upper boxes, then watch from the bleachers. Settle in some box seats. Sit behind a post. With 45,000 people in the park to watch McGwire I had to park my behind in one seat for most of the game.

Sigh. They are going to tear down Tiger Stadium this winter. They'll replace it with one of those over-designed "retroparks" where the elite will sip wine in their boxes while Joe Fan will sit in an upper deck miles from the field. "Sightlines" is a dirty word. Whenever you hear about one of these new ballparks the people pushing them keep telling you how great the sightlines are. Beware of strangers bearing sightlines. Sightlines is a codeword for "we'll take out the posts that block 3% of the plays for the people in the lower deck and in order to do that we'll push the upper deck waaay back." Comiskey Park has great sightlines, much better than Wrigley Field. Since we are talking about Chicago, you'll still probably have a Pole in front of you, but hopefully he won't obstruct the view. Of course, the seats in Wrigley are much closer to the field, only a few of the yuppies will miss some plays due to structural supports. No, Tiger Stadium does not have great sightlines. It is close to the diamond and just may be the apex of ballpark design. They claim that the park has all sorts of problems due to age. Funny, but Wrigley Field is only two years younger and seems to be doing fine. You have to go there yourself to understand why it is the best ballpark in baseball, but I've met very few people who have gone and disagreed with me.

The other great thing about Tiger Stadium is the cheap food. The Skydome runs its food through McDonalds, and let me just say that I now know why Mickey D's does not offer a hot dog on its normal menu (come to think of it, I took one out in my jacket pocket, and it is still in my car trunk... I hope it doesn't mutate). Tiger Stadium has good cheap food, featuring what is perhaps the best tasting hotdog in major league baseball. The chocolate malts aren't some nationwide McProduct, but made in a Michigan dairy. And $20 will go very far in Tiger Stadium...

Let's get to the game. Acevedo on the mound for St. Louis and Florie for Detroit. The first scoring was fairly controversial. In the bottom of the third Hasselman was called out at first, when it was obvious that he had beaten the pitcher to the bag. Devi Cruz was up next and he poked a ball over the 400ft sign in the left field power alley (440 ft to center folks). The Cardinals tied up the game in the fourth when Willie McGee scored on a Lankford single. They poured on two more runs in the fifth only to have the Tigers come back with one in the bottom of the frame. Later Dean Palmer launched a Croushore offering into the upper deck in left for a two-run homer and a 4-3 lead.

That would be it for the Tigers. The Cards weren't done though. They batted around in the seventh, scoring three runs. The best play of the inning was a bunt. Polanco was on first when McEwing (the first three men in the order were McEwing, McGee and McGwire... Is Brian McRae available?) laid down a perfect bunt. Jeffries and Palmer charged, and Catalanatto covered first while Cruz covered third. This left nobody covering second, so Polanco turned second and headed for third. He didn't even draw a throw... First to third on a bunt. The other great moment of the inning was when Eric Davis got jammed, broke his bat, and still managed to punch a ball into the outfield for an RBI single. Yeah, you can break his bat, but you can't stop Eric the Red. He later hit a dinger in the ninth.

The Tigers looked not-so-good and lost 8-4. The Cardinals did a lot of work without the longball. It's almost as if they are saying "Hey, we aren't going to sit back and wait for Mac to carry us." The Tigers stacked up their infield on the left hand side, but McGwire still popped two hits through the infield to left. A little opposite Ted Williams action there.

After McGwire's last AB the crowd thinned a bit and I snuck down to the box seats. Quite frankly, I'd trade a full game at Wrigley for three outs in good seats at Tiger Stadium. I don't know if I can pull another trip to Detroit this year, but I certainly should try...