Monday, September 27, 2021

The Great Old Stadiums of Detroit and Other Memories

                                                



Sometimes when I first awaken I start reading before my eyes are able to accurately focus.  Thus, the other morning I read "Ted Williams lists the books she read while writing her latest novel . . .” And I thought: I didn’t know Ted Williams wrote novels.  And when did he change genders?  Then the words swam into focus: Tia Williams. Tia.  Idiot.  But I thought about Ted Williams.  The last batter to hit for an average of .400.  A baseball career interrupted by serving as a fighter pilot in two wars. 

 

My uncle Chuck talked about seeing Williams launching a ball over the right field wall and out of Tiger Stadium (probably Briggs Stadium at the time, felled by the wrecking ball in 2009).  The amazing thing, my uncle said, was that he had a pin in his shoulder, holding it together.


Tiger Stadium, Michigan Ave and Trumball.

 

My uncle also saw Jake LaMotta fight.  Twice, if I remember right.  LaMotta fought over 80 times professionally and about a quarter of them were in Detroit, mostly at the old Olympia, then home to the Red Wings.  But LaMotta also fought in Tiger Stadium, as did Joe Louis before him. Even if you don’t follow boxing you may have seen Martin Scorsese’s’ version of LaMotta in Raging Bull.  It must have been something to see that rage in person.

 

The last time I was in Tiger Stadium was the year before I left Detroit and also Al Kaline’s last season.  Number 6. In Little League the best player on the team wore number 6 to the envy of everyone else.  I remember watching Kaline foul off about 20 pitches that night and that was when it dawned on me that he was doing it on purpose, waiting for his pitch. This late awakening to a subtlety of the game probably explains a lot about my track career (as Coach George Harrison, our high school’s baseball coach once quipped).  Kaline waited for his pitch and stroked it gracefully into the outfield for a single.  He passed away last year at the age of 85 and had been in the Tiger organization for 67 years. Everyone loved that guy. 




 

I have been blessed to see a lot of amazing athletes do their work in person.

 

We went down to Cobo Arena (“repurposed” 2010—2015) to see Julius Erving play in an exhibition game against the Pistons. Exhibition because he then played in the old ABA, his enormous hand on the old red, white, and blue basketball.  He sported an tremendous Afro, and, as he was known for, defied gravity right before our eyes.

 

I don’t remember anything about the Red Wings game I saw at the old Olympia Stadium (demolished 1987) except for the hushed reverence that moved through the crowd when Gordie Howe took the ice.  Number 9.

 

Once I was running down Golfview, the street bordering Dearborn Country Club. A tournament was going on and as I passed the first tee, which was right next to the fence, I realized Jack Nicklaus was teeing up.  It must have been a Masters Tour.  I stopped and walked to the fence.  I was ten feet away from the tee. Nicklaus teed off. I was amazed by the power and precision of his swing.  When the club struck the ball it was like a small explosion.  I am not a golfer, but don’t let anyone tell you golf is not a sport.

 

My wife happened to be in Louisville when Muhammed Ali died.  She came back with a photograph of herself and Chuck Wepner.  “Who is he?” she asked me.  Chuck Wepner!  He knocked Ali down in the 9th round!  He almost went the distance, TKO-ed by the Greatest with a few seconds left in the 15th round.  Wepner has been the subject of several movies, of which one you know well: Rocky.

 

I should have mentioned this above, but maybe it fits better here at the end. Ted Williams apparently was an atheist and had his body cryogenically frozen for a possible return here on earth.  But I suppose he had already attained a bit of immortality.

 

Maybe we all have a dusting of immortality in us, if there’s a spark of us left in someone‘s living memory. I remember best the athletic feats of my teammates and friends and I wouldn’t trade those memories for anyone else’s. I remember playing football our senior year down in Southgate on a Sunday afternoon in 1970.  We couldn’t win the league championship unless we won that day against Aquinas and the teams were evenly matched. Mick DeGiulio, all 115 pounds of him, streaked down the left sideline and our quarterback Pat Sarb hit him on the longest pass play of the season for the game winning touchdown. Number 18. It’s cool to see the greatest athletes of all time do their work in person. But Mick’s touchdown against Aquinas? Man, I’ll never forget that.