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May 1 – 2

University of Michigan vs Eastern Michigan University

Toledo Mud Hens vs Indianapolis Indians

University of Michigan-Dearborn vs Concordia University

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

University of Michigan Wolverines vs Eastern Michigan University Eagles

Ray Fisher Stadium, Ann Arbor MI

Game Time Temperature: 82°F

Tonight is the first night of the year I’m thinking in Fahrenheit, a switch from Celsius that many Windsorites make when the spring begins to yield to summer and the temperatures begin to soar. It’s a beautiful cloudless evening as we watch players from Michigan and Eastern Michigan go through their warmups. Just a few days ago I was still very much entrenched in Celsius, despite the fact that we were in Chicago, huddled together under Cubs promotional fleece blankets, fighting both the unwanted shade of our seats on the third base side and the cutting wind off the lake as we watched Yu Darvish pitch a gem in a 3-2 Cubs win over the Brewers.

We had planned the Chicago trip months ago, a weekend of baseball, ballet, and beer to celebrate the end of the academic year. Despite the weather, I was happy to be back at Wrigley with all its history and tradition. Whenever I’m there, I think about my father and all the years he watched the Cubs on WGN in his living room in Wainwright, Alberta. He never saw them live, never set foot in Chicago at all. Never saw them when they were any good, like they are now. But those games were part of his itinerant baseball fandom, part of the thread that connected us across the miles from Windsor to Wainwright. “Is it the Cubs’ year?” he’d ask when we talked on the phone in the spring, launching us into a conversation about their prospects. By the time it finally was the Cubs’ year in 2016, he was gone. But when I’m in The Friendly Confines, he’s there with me. Pointing out a “good pitch” from Darvish. Praising a “nice play” by Javier Baez. But he’s here, too, in Ann Arbor, on a night that was made for baseball.

The Wilpon Baseball and Softball Complex on the University of Michigan campus is state of the art for college baseball. We’re in Ray Fisher Stadium, a beautiful park that was completed in 2008 with a capacity of 4,000. Our seats, for which we paid one dollar each, are behind home plate, the brilliant green of the artificial turf contrasted against the dark brown of the similarly artificial basepaths. The traditionalist in me balks at this, but that’s the reality of trying to run a major collegiate baseball program in Michigan, where grass won’t reliably grow until May.

Nothing could be farther from that cold, rainy Henry Ford Community College game we saw a month ago. Tonight is the kind of night you’d decide to go to a baseball game even if you weren’t a fan. I’m sitting in full sun and it’s easy to believe that I’ve never been cold watching a baseball game in my life. I’m wearing my City Cyclery t-shirt, jeans, and ballet flats, but the vast majority of people are wearing maize and blue Michigan gear—“the blue of a summer sky” and “the yellow of ripe corn.” The fact that they sell “popped maize” instead of popped corn adds to the atmosphere of collegiate partisanship. The rest of the crowd is wearing EMU colours, which are described in considerably less poetic detail on the school website as “green and white.”

The outfield walls tell us that University of Michigan has eight regional titles, seven College World Series appearances, thirty-five Big Ten Titles, and National Championship Titles in 1953 and 1962. We’re clearly in the realm of collegiate sports royalty here.¹ Walking across campus, we passed the field hockey and lacrosse fields. From our seats we can see the softball field. I went to the University of Nebraska for graduate work so I understand the scale of college athletics. My first alma mater, the University of Alberta, had 30,000 students when I attended, but I had only the vaguest inkling of the existence of Golden Bears/Pandas sports. A dissertation could probably be written about the difference between Canadian and American collegiate sports.

Kenny Chesney’s “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem” echoes through the park as these student-athletes get ready for the game. Having gone to graduate school at Nebraska, I experienced the impressive athletic amenities available to regular students, but also saw on occasion the hidden facilities available to student athletes. So I know that the rest of the Wilpon Complex is actually the most impressive aspect of baseball at a large Division I school like Michigan. Imagine being a high school baseball player and reading this description on the University of Michigan Athletic Department’s website:

Adjacent to the stadium is a 1,600-square foot locker room that features 30-inch lockers, five television screens, a lounge area, a training room and a nutrition lounge. The locker room connects directly to the 5,750-square-foot indoor hitting facility that includes retractable doors for ventilation during the summer months and is heated for year-round use. The hitting facility includes two dirt mounds, pitching machines, three indoor batting cages and a state-of-the-art video hitting system. Along the left field line are three outdoor hitting cages, in addition to four down the right field line.

Ray Fisher Stadium and the Wilpon Complex might be a world apart from a city field in Taylor, Michigan, and there might be a thousand people here instead of a dozen, but when Michigan takes the field and the first batter for Eastern Michigan strides to the plate, all of that ceases to matter and it’s only the game in front of me.

My friend and fellow Tigers fan, John Wing, believes you’ll see something you’ve never seen before at every baseball game you go to. As I try to re-learn how to watch baseball, John’s approach seems like a good way of structuring my baseball watching.

I’m sure Eastern Michigan would like nothing better than to beat Michigan, the bigger, more prestigious school just up the road from the EMU campus in Ypsilanti. Eastern is, like Michigan, an NCAA Division I school, but the Mid-American (MAC) conference to which it belongs is not the Big 10, even in baseball. And even though some EMU players are from other parts of the country, most of the roster are from Michigan and Ohio. These players likely not recruited by any of the major programs, just as the Wayne State players were very likely not recruited by any Division I schools. Michigan, on the other hand, features players from all around the country. While its geographical location might make it harder to compete for the top recruits, the players who choose to attend Michigan are among the best in the country. To a high school player wanting to play collegiate baseball, who recruits you matters, and slots you into a set of expectations. The Eastern Michigan players would like to transcend those expectations tonight.

Between innings, there are fan contests. For one, spectators had thirty seconds to name as many Disney films as they could. Lori named six but Austin named considerably more and was rewarded for his pop-culture prowess with an unnamed prize and fleeting admiration from tonight’s crowd. Young Caleb has just triumphed in the frozen t-shirt contest. He and another kid struggled to unwrap a frozen shirt while Vanilla Ice serenaded the crowd with “Ice Ice Baby.” It’s unclear what Caleb has won, aside from bragging rights at school tomorrow.

As Max Schuemann steps into the batter’s box for the top of the third inning, a middle-aged man in an EMU shirt a couple of rows ahead of us tells his companions that he expects Schuemann to be drafted this year.² From what I’ve seen so far tonight, there’s no doubt he has the arm to play shortstop at the next level, and a glance at the program confirms that he’s currently hitting .340. And, according to the amateur scout in the next row, he’s got a good glove too, though his full assessment is interrupted by the distinctive sound of ball hitting metal. It’s hit to the left of the second baseman, fielded cleanly, but Schuemann is able to beat it out for an infield single. Schuemann then proceeds to go from first all the way to third on an infield single from Zachary Owings, before finally scoring on a Kolton Schenker single. Turns out he’s fast, too, basically manufacturing a run with his speed on the basepaths. By the time EMU has finished batting, they’re up 3-0 in the middle of the third inning.

There’s a man near us who’s showing his Michigan loyalty by wearing a royal-blue button-down shirt and maize pants. I spend a lot of time thinking about the maize pants and what would compel someone to wear such a colour. Just as I’m thinking how glad I am that Dale never takes his University of Nebraska allegiance as far as wearing red pants, Maize Pants Man walks down the stairs and right in front of us.

Dale says, “Whoa. Did you see that?”

“Yeah! I know. Wow, huh?”

“You saw the movement on that pitch?”

“Sorry. What? I thought we were talking about the guy wearing maize pants?”

“What are you talking about?”

“He walked right in front of us. He was wearing maize pants! How could you miss him?”

“Well, I was watching the game.”

“Ah. Right.” It occurs to me that Dale and I aren’t even watching the same game, which, I also realize, happens quite often. No matter who I’m with, they always seem incredulous at what I do or do not notice at the ballpark.

With runners on second and third for Michigan in the bottom of the third inning, Ako Thomas hits a ground ball to second that yields an out at first, but scores the run and moves the other runner to third. Luke McGuire, the starter for EMU, comes back to strike out the next batter, but Alex Wolanski, the catcher, drops the ball. On the throw to first, Jack Blomgren tries to score from third. Wolanski is a bit up the first base line and has to run back to cover home, where he catches the ball just in front of the plate. Blomgren hits him at full speed, the collision causing Wolanski to roll violently backwards, ball in his raised fist so the ump can see he’s held on. Out at the plate, Wolanski appears to be fine, but it takes Blomgren several minutes to get up. After three innings it’s 3-1 EMU.

In front of us is an older man with weathered skin and no chin, dressed in a yellow Michigan hat, a blue U of M baseball shirt, khaki shorts, and sunglasses. His companion is slightly younger and favours a blue Michigan hat, a white U of M golf shirt, shorts, and GO BLUE sunglasses. They seem to know all the players and it’s clear from their talk that this isn’t the first baseball game they’ve watched together. “McGuire’s pitching well.” “Good offspeed stuff.” I listen to their commentary as I watch McGuire strike out both Jesse Franklin and Dominic Clementi on straight changeups. Friends sitting in the sun, watching the game they love. For me, it was watching East Carolina games with Rick Taylor, our shared love of baseball making us more friends than colleagues. Or all those days watching games at Nebraska before the Huskers were any good, listening to my grad-school friend Kurt Haas yell at the outfielders to hit the cut-off man. We were always on them to do the small things right.

I continue to think about the maize pants while the game proceeds apace. I text John, “I saw something I’ve never seen before in a baseball game. I saw a man wearing maize pants.” He texts back “LOL” and I respond, “And Dale didn’t even see it!” “No kidding?” he writes back, and I hear his bemused sarcasm. “Kind of like Curtis and the bug?” he adds. “Yeah, I guess so.” And then I imagine John’s signature laugh.

In the bottom of the sixth, Jordan Nwogu, Michigan’s freshman left fielder, singles in the second run to make it 4-2 EMU. After all these years of watching mostly MLB, it’s still odd for me to see a player wearing #42, a number that has been retired throughout the majors since 1997, in honour of Jackie Robinson. As Nwogu rounds first base, I wonder if that’s why he chose that number, but my thoughts are interrupted by the Michigan Fight Song, which begins to play when Engleman crosses the plate to score the run. It’s almost like a football mindset brought to a baseball game, a different set of rituals than I’m used to seeing.

Behind me a young woman sits with a couple of friends, one eye on the game and one on her book as she studies for the LSAT, highlighting great swatches of text in green. To my left, a father tells his sons to watch the shortstop and second baseman with a runner on second, to look at how they try work with the pitcher to control the running game. Behind home plate, a Michigan player aims a radar gun at the pitcher, while beside him an intern charts pitches. Between innings kids chase the beach balls that have been released into the stands for one of the many in-game promotions. On the field, the score remains 4-2 EMU after seven innings.

Over the past decade, John and I have been to a lot of baseball games together. It’s probably impossible for me to write honestly about the sport without sharing John’s tale about himself, me, Curtis, and the bug. It’s a story he loves to tell. More than once I’ve met friends of his who say, “Oh! You’re the Curtis and the bug person!” As John tells it:

Attending a game with you was always fun, since you kept score, but you’d also occasionally have to ask me what the last play was because you were concentrating on some fringe aspect of the contest. Your favourite player was Curtis Granderson and when he was in center field, you liked to watch him, even when he wasn’t doing anything. So, late in one game—a tense battle—the Tigers had been ahead and the tying and go-ahead runs were threatening as the bases were loaded with two out. Joel Zumaya, a pitcher who could throw faster than a speeding bullet but had inevitable control problems, was 3-2 on the batter. There were two out. Joel threw the pitch high. Ball four, walking in the tying run. The entire stadium groaned except you. At that moment, you tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to see you looking intently out to center field. You pointed and said, “I think Curtis just got bitten by a bug!”

Man on first for EMU in their half of the eighth. On what is supposed to be a sacrifice bunt, the ball takes a big hop off the artificial turf. The Michigan third baseman barehands it and tries to get the lead runner at second, but the throw is too late. Safe. I can hear Kurt saying, “You have to take the safe out there.” Another bunt moves the runners up and, on the play, the second baseman, Thomas, is hurt covering first base and has to come out of the game. With one out, Jack Weisenburger comes in to pitch, trying to keep it close enough for a Michigan comeback. After striking out the first batter he faces, Weisenburger gets the pinch hitter, Mike Monahan, into an 0-2 count, but Monahan stays patient, taking several pitches out of the zone and fouling off pitches that are close. After an eight-pitch at bat, Monahan draws a walk to load the bases, giving EMU a chance to break the game open, to transcend expectations.

Nate Jones comes to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded. So many ways that EMU can score—hit, walk, wild pitch, error, balk—but so many ways the score can remain the same. In the end, it’s Weisenburger’s fastball that Jones can’t catch, a strikeout that keeps the score 4-2 EMU heading into the bottom of the eighth.

Tonight, I can’t hear the players’ banter and chatter from the dugout, only the blended murmurs of the crowd and the multiple conversations happening around me. There are so many things to see and watch at a baseball game, both on and off the field, and all of it is worth noticing. Perhaps this is why I see bugs biting outfielders, men in maize pants, and all the other “aspects on the fringe of the contest,” as John called them, instead of the dipping movement of a single curveball or the seemingly effortless but magically precise way an outfielder positions himself for an inning-ending fly ball.

Clementi leads off the eighth inning for Michigan with a walk, bringing Nwogu to the plate. Just as the video board in center field flashes that he’s hitting .352, Nwogu singles, putting runners at the corners. Blake Nelson then draws a walk to load the bases.

A woman is bellowing encouragement. She has a smoker’s voice and is waving a U of M flag. I’m not sure what she’s yelling at the players but she’s louder than both dugouts combined. At times, she sounds a little like a harbour seal. “It’s a great day for baseball,” she broadcasts to no one in particular. Michigan is rallying and the lady with the flag is going wild. She’s right. It is a great day for baseball.

Brock Keener comes to the plate with no outs and the bases loaded. Thomas House, a freshman right-hander, is on the mound for EMU so Keener, the switch-hitter, settles in to the left-hand batter’s box. House clearly doesn’t have Weisenburger’s fastball, so it’s going to take some serious sleight of hand with location and a mix of his secondary pitches for him to wiggle out of this jam. But it doesn’t take long for Keener to rip a bases-clearing triple to the right field corner to make the score 5-4 Michigan. Another run scores on a sacrifice fly before the inning ends. Weisenburger returns to shut down EMU in the ninth.

Two bases-loaded at bats. Two moments when everyone in the ballpark hung on every pitch. Two moments when a well-played game teetered on the edge of possibility.

Final Score: 6-4 Michigan