Dan Dickerson should be awarded the Silver Commentator Award, the Benevolence Award, and the Exciting Homer Announcer Without Being a Jerk Award. His enthusiasm and descriptive vernacular always put me there, as if I'm in the park watching the action. His tolerance of Jim Price will be rewarded in the next lifetime.
Speaking of in the park, I took my dad to Friday's game; his last day doing what he had been doing since he was 18 ended at 3:00 and by 3:30 I had us a couple of great seats behind home plate at Comerica. We got there with enough time to get some peanuts and a cold diet mountain dew before the line-ups were announced. Great game: D-train pitched for Arizona, started out shakey, but settled in and went 7 innings i think. The Tigers scored late to go ahead so he didn't get the loss; Galaraga only lasted less than five innings, Bonine got the win, we also got to see Zumaya, Coke, and the guy from the UK. Papa Grande mopped up in the 9th and I got chills watching him come onto the field. I had just finished my tallies for the 8th, looked up to see the bullpen gate open, and it hit me: he was coming in! I set my pencil and scorecard carefully on the cement covered with peanut shells at my feet and quietly proclaimed to no one in particular 'I'm getting up for this'. I stood up and began to clap and yell for this really individual individual. He did his little point and his leap and charged in from left field as the roar of the crowd crescendo'd. Personally, that was the highlight of the game. He proceded to throw about 6 pitches and the Diamondbacks were retired in the 9th. Immediately following, an announcement that the fireworks would be cancelled due to 'inclement weather'. The crowd response to this was a Joyce-like boooo, but emotions quickly changed as very visible and proximate electrical cloud-to-ground discharge and associated BOOM!s dominated everyone's viewport. We drove to Westland with both the wipers and air conditioner on extra-high listening to 97.1 The Ticket broadcasting callers who had been at the game and were driving home through the storm. I was home at just about midnight and slipped into bed, unable to sleep due to caffeine poisoning. I finally nodded off sometime about an hour before 4:30 when I woke up with that very woke-up feeling. I made some Duncan Donuts Hazlenut coffee and turned on some wack TCM documentary on hippies, their drugs of choice, and their failure to relate to the older generation. It was an interesting half hour, so much so that I stayed tuned for the credits rolling up at the end. The narrator, whose voice had quite a soothing tone, turned out to be none other than Cape Fear's very own Robert Mitchum.
Life's good.
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