OK, so I lied

Of course, it's sports that makes me resurrect this blog. No promises for the future.

It’s one of those things: everyone knows where you were when (fill-in-the-blank: Challenger, 9/11, JFK (I’m too young), etc). I think sports fans have a list of sports moments that they will always remember, and I added another to the list about two weeks ago. At 7:00pm Annika had her piano recital, and afterwards we were picking up Jake and Abby from the Eriks’ house. I was outside holding Zach to keep him happy, and I sat in the driver’s seat to turn on the radio. The Tigers were on, and the first thing I heard was “24 up and 24 down!” as the Tigers finished the top of 8^th inning – Armando Galarraga had pitched a perfect game through eight innings. I immediately grabbed my phone to call Dad, going through their home number, his cell phone and finally Mom’s cell phone to reach him. They had just gotten home from the piano recital too and I informed of the situation – ironically, I had made a similar call only 3 days earlier when I discovered online that Roy Halladay was in the midst of his perfect game. Once off the phone with Dad we headed home – the Tigers were batting in the bottom of the 8^th. At home I asked Lisa if she would put Annika, Abby and Jake in bed if I took Zach and headed next door to see if our neighbor was watching the game – we don’t have cable so our house was no good for that. She agreed (bless her) and I went on over. Sure enough, Mel and his wife had the game on, and they gladly let Zach and me in. The Tigers scored a couple more runs in the 8^th, and then the Indians came up in the 9^th. Mel’s wife was meeting Zach for the first time and took a turn holding him. Fortunately, he behaved himself. On Galarraga’s first pitch, Mark Grudzielanek crushed a ball to center field, and Austin Jackson ran a mile to make an incredible basket catch with his back to the infield. Comerica Park is really deep in center, so that may have been a home run in other parks. The next batter grounded out weakly, and then the third batter hit the grounder that sparked the call heard round the world – Cabrera backhanded the ball going to his right, spun and threw to Galarraga covering at first, who was there in time, but Jim Joyce called the runner safe. The play was close enough that it was hard to tell whether the ump was correct, but I remember yelling “Oh no!” in Mel’s family room. After watching some replays, realizing how bad the call was, and seeing the next batter get out to end the game, I headed back home. I called Dad immediately, and he just answered the phone and said “He was robbed.” We spoke for a minute, and then I got on Facebook and corresponded briefly with other baseball fans. I felt empty, in a sports-only kind of way, for the rest of the night. During my drive to work the next morning, it was all over the radio, but the fallout was quite uplifting, amazingly enough. This is what I love sports for – moments like these, and sharing them with other people.