Seasons of Baseball

As I am watching the Tigers game on account of the Reds off day and the Nats versus Giants game late tonight, I thought I'd reflect a bit on what I remember of the 1984 Tigers.

It was a time when I was first becoming cognizant of the world around me, when I had already realized that change is a fact of life. I had recently moved to Ohio - it was my second baseball season there, and I had already attended my first Riverfront game. The details of the season are hazy, as I was seven years old, so I can be permitted a little fuzz in my memory, right?

I have a very clear recollection of Sparky Anderson in the Tigers dugout. Sparky had become somewhat of a mythical creature to me after hearing my family tell stories of the Big Red Machine, so I understood the greatness that encircled the man. Back then, some of the playoff and World Series games were day games, so I was able to see bits of them without having to go to bed. But what I remember most about that year wasn't the games. I can't tell you how many games Jack Morris won that season, or how many home runs Kirk Gibson hit. I don't remember what Lou Whitaker's batting average was, nor do I know how many double plays Alan Trammel turned. No, my greatest memory of that team was the Lance Parrish poster on the basement door of my Great Aunt's house in the suburbs of Detroit. (She is a big Tigers fan; I'm sure she's thrilled about the team's success this year.) He became the face of the Tigers in my very young mind - he looked so cool on that poster.

The Tigers beat the Padres four games to one that year, their last appearance in a World Series. Lance Parrish only played in Detroit for two more seasons after that, seeing limited playing time in his final year. By the time I started collecting baseball cards, he had gone to the Phillies, and my '87 Topps card of him in the Tigers gear was outdated. The man who had defined the Detroit Tigers for me would never again don their uniform. I felt great disappointment, only one of many disappointments the game would give to me over the years, and I wondered what my Great Aunt would do with her poster. But I had already learned a fundamental tenet of baseball, of life - change will always happen, and that is the only thing you can't change.

I suppose change is good. After all, if it didn't happen, teams like the Tigers and the Reds would never get their occasional chance to take a shot at the World Series. I'd love to see the two teams play each other in October.