I love this article I read recently written by my brother Tony who lives in Florida. His writing is excellent! Please read!
By Tony Judnich
Judnich@hometownnewsol.com
There are countless reasons why people shell out big bucks to enjoy Major League Baseball games at ballparks around the country.
Here are some of mine.
Growing up in the Detroit area, I joined in the annual ritual of rooting for the Detroit Tigers, one of pro baseball's oldest teams. Like many other Tiger fans, I would watch the games on TV while tuning into AM radio station WJR to hear Hall of Fame announcer Ernie Harwell describe the action.
A Georgia native, Ernie spoke in warm, relaxed tones, as if he was talking to an old friend between sips of sweet tea on a wood porch.
After an opposing batter struck out looking, Ernie often would say the player "stood there like the house on the side of the road and watched that one go by."
How humiliating for that particular player. But how enjoyable for the Tiger fan tuning in.
Ernie and the Tigers went with me when my family and I moved more than 500 miles from the Detroit area to northern Michigan.
I was 12 years old and, for a while, I felt out of place in my new, rural surroundings. To capture a bit of home, I tuned into the local AM station that delivered Ernie's voice.
It was 1984. I recorded the Tigers' games on homemade scorecards, and sometimes I would close my eyes while listening to ballpark sounds on the radio: endless chatter, like a far-off stream spilling over rocks; vendors announcing their wares; and what sounded like boos, but were actually fans calling the first name of my favorite Tiger, second baseman Lou Whitaker.
These sounds comforted me, and the Tigers, who at one point were 35-5, provided numerous thrills on their way to winning the 1984 World Series.
Besides uplifting Detroit out of its blue-collar doldrums, the team also made an indelible impression on a boy who could not resist becoming a die-hard baseball fan.
Later, I would be fortunate to enjoy regular-season pro baseball games back in Detroit, as well as in Chicago, Boston, Anaheim, Calif., and other cities, and spring-training games in various towns. It is always fun to see a city's skyline beyond a stadium's centerfield on TV and then go to that city and stadium in person.
Today, I am lucky because just a short drive from home is Space Coast Stadium in Viera, the spring training home of the Washington Nationals.
At a recent game between the Nationals and the Tigers, I sat behind the Tigers' dugout and next to a Melbourne Beach resident who wore a University of Michigan hat.
"Are you a Michigander?" the man asked amiably.
Later, he mentioned another cherished Ernie Harwell phrase.
After a fan snatched a foul ball that drifted into the stands, Ernie sometimes would say, "A man from (insert the name of any town here) caught that one."
As a boy, I used to wonder, "How does he know where the person who caught the ball is from?"
He doesn't, someone would tell me.
But it didn't matter. I was hooked onto something priceless.
