The post was originally published on an earlier version of my blog.  I’ve slightly updated and modified the post.  Anything in bold I added to the original post.  Tigers’ opening day is April 5th at Comerica Park!  GO Tigers!

I’ve tried writing this post several times over the last several years.  Sometimes there is so much to say, no mere words can do the subject justice.  Somewhere along the line, somewhere between childhood and adulthood, I forgot what baseball once meant to me.  I also forgot just how intertwined baseball is with some of my favorite childhood memories.

Back in 2012, it all started with me getting the crazy idea that my baseball obsessed ex-boyfriend Brian and I should watch the Ken Burns’ documentary Baseball – all almost 20 hours of it.  I checked it out from the library sometime early in September 2012.  Brian and I then spent the next couple of weeks watching the entire documentary, including great interviews with Bob Costas, Yogi Berra, and Rachel Robinson, the widow of Jackie Robinson, among others.

For me, the most memorable part of the series had to be the clip of Bob Costas discussing his first experience at Yankee Stadium with his father.  As a young child, he was awed by the sheer size of the stadium and the size of the pitching mound.  After the game, fans back then could cross the field to a second exit.  As Bob Costas and his father crossed the field, he became very upset.  He loved baseball so much that somewhere during his childhood, he got the idea that Yankee greats such as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were buried on the field.  He didn’t want to disturb what he believed to be their graves.  The stories of baseball memories bringing together fathers and sons, as well as fathers and daughters, stayed with me.

I found myself asking why baseball is so different from football, hockey, or basketball.  I’m not sure, but I do know this:  there is something about baseball that transcends time.  I have memories of watching the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup in 1996 and 1997 with Dad, as well as countless other games, but my most powerful memories all relate to baseball.

Many of my earliest memories of Dad involve baseball.  As a very young child, I remember watching the Detroit Tigers with Dad and eating Schwann’s black cherry ice cream.  Somehow, Dad ended up attending one of the 1984 World Series games at Tiger Stadium.  At that game, he bought a signed baseball that sat on the roll-top desk in his office for years.  In fact, it might still be there.  I loved that baseball and thought that it was amazing that Dad attended one of the World Series games.  I also remember rummaging through the top drawer of Dad’s desk and coming across his father’s Masonic ring.  In the eyes of a young girl, the Masonic symbol was a baseball diamond.  Above all, there were the games.

Throughout my early childhood, Dad, a former high school athlete who played football, basketball, and baseball, played on a men’s softball team.  As a preschooler, I loved watching Dad play ball.  I liked the entire experience.  I was so proud to have Dad out there in his lucky #3 baseball hat with his well-worn glove.  I loved watching him bat.

Of course, it wasn’t just about baseball.  I also loved playing in the dirt next to the dugout, running around the poker straight pine trees behind the dugout, and playing with the old-fashioned water pump between the dugout and the pines.  More than anything, I loved going to the bar with everyone after the games.  As Dad and his friends, along with their wives and girlfriends, drank pitchers of beer and talked, I played pinball, foosball, Pac Man, and enjoyed pop and chips.  It is no wonder I could relate to adults well as a child.  I spent a lot of time around adults and enjoyed every minute of it.

I also loved spending time at my grandparents’ house.  A trip to my dad’s parents’ home wouldn’t be complete without spending time with their neighbor’s son, Brian K.  We were the same age, and he happened to have something I wanted desperately as a child, a tree house!  I vividly remember one afternoon spent playing in his tree house.  His dog somehow came off his lead, and I became scared as I really didn’t know his dog.  Brian K. told me to hang out in the tree house until he chained up the dog.

That day, his mom invited me to attend one of Brian K.’s Little League game with his family – a big deal in the eyes of a six year-old!  I felt honored to be sitting on the sidelines cheering on Brian K. along with his parents.  At the time, of course, I wanted to be out there on the field too.  While I did play softball for one season at age 11, I am no athlete.  Grandpa Reid, who loved to watch me play, insisted he never saw anyone walk more than I did.  As I’ve always been exceedingly short, no one ever learned how to pitch to me.  Instead, I collected baseball cards.

I’m not exactly sure when and why I started collecting baseball cards, but my favorite will always be the Topps 1987 wood grain cards.  They remind me of Grandpa B.  My maternal great-grandparents owned a cottage on Sage Lake in northern Michigan.  I spent many summer weekends there with my parents, my siblings, my grandparents, and much of my extended family.  At the cottage, Grandpa loved to get all of us grandkids, all girls at the time, in his station wagon to take us to the pop shop.  He let us pick out whatever we wanted.  I picked out baseball cards to add to my collection, mainly ’87 Topps.  I still have my baseball card collection and fond memories of Grandpa asking me if I was sure that is what I wanted.

I loved everything about collecting baseball cards:  organizing them by team, deciding which packs of cards to purchase, and looking up prices. All fun!  It is fitting that I lost interest in collecting cards as I became a teenager.  My last full set dates to the strike-shortened 1994 season.  Around that time, I lost interest in baseball.  Coincidentally, it is also the same year the local IGA, my favorite place to purchase cards, closed.

That same year, Dad took Erica, Garrett, and me to a Tigers game at Tiger Stadium on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull.  That day happened to be Little League Day.  My Dad knew this, so he had my sister wear her softball shirt, my brother his t-ball shirt and hat, and me my old softball shirt.  As a result, we had the opportunity to go out onto the field before the game.  I’ll never forget looking back at the stands of old Tiger Stadium from the field.  I’m grateful to Dad for ensuring his kids had that experience.  There is nothing better than going to a baseball game with your dad.  Having the opportunity to get out on the field of a historic stadium made it that much better.  Somehow I lost interest in the game, but it is still there, was always there, waiting to be rediscovered.

I’m looking forward to cheering on the two below this spring!