How Do You Expect Me To Get Any WORK Done?!?!

Jeez. Here I am, trying my darndest to work on my novel, finishing up the scene with the Red man and Rebecca the higher level girl, when I look at my desktop clock and it says '8:33.' Promptly I remember there is supposed to be a Tiger's game on tonight. But when?

I pop over to the Detroit Tigers Weblog and find out it was at 7:15. Sooo...I go to detroittigers.com and see it's in the fifth inning. The Cleveland Indians scored 3 in the first and another in the fifth. It's four to zip. Darn.

I go hop in the car, remembering an errand I was supposed to run but forgot, and then stop at the Speedway for gas. The Indians put on another run, and the Jim Leyland takes Bonderman, the starting pitcher for the day, out. In the bottom of the inning, we score two somehow, and it's a three run game. Not impossible, I think. I drive home, and turn the radio on downstairs, where I eat some of the Teriyaki beef jerky I bought and listen to the game. The Indians add ANOTHER run, to make it 6-2. I'm not feeling so good.

Then Sean Casey hits a double off the right-center wall and the two baserunners who were on already make it home. It's 6-4. The inning ends.

It's the top of the eighth now, and somehow Roman Colon ends the inning with no Indians making it around the bases. Still, I'm freaking out. Can the Tigers do this? Or am I nuts for believing they can?

I'm up in my room again, trying to squeak out a sentence or two into the novel that is not moving very fast because I keep forgetting about it, when I notice on the GameDay application (the one where you can watch the game "live" only you're not watching it at all...it's just a thing that show's who's batting, where the pitches go, and who's on base) that Polanco and Rodriguez have both singled, and that there aren't any outs. I run back downstairs and turn the radio on again. Ordonez comes to the plate. And hits a ball that I swear, the announcers believe has to be a base hit. But it's not. The Cleveland right-fielder, Choo or something, makes a diving catch that leaves everyone in Comerica Park speechless. Polanco gets to third. One out. Runners on the corners. Guillen (who used to be on the Mariners - hehe) comes to the plate. And hits a ball that everyone thought was a home run...until it went just foul of the right field pole. He flies out, Polanco coming home to score, making it a one run game.

6 to 5, Cleveland. Pudge is still at first.

And stepping to the plate is Craig Monroe, sole possessor of the come-from-behind grand slam in that game earlier in the season.

The ball from pitcher Cabrera's hand strikes Monroe's bat and the crowd at Comerica Park can't believe it. A home run, left field. Or it would have been, had it not hooked foul at the last second. And that, many Tigers fans felt, was it. Good fight Detroit, but you couldn't quite make it all the way.

I, on the other hand, was in Monroe's head. If he throws me another one of those, and I can hit it as hard, it's going to be a pitch he'll regret. You know what it is, I thought. Get it this time.

The very next pitch.

All I can remember from the highlights is Pudge pumping his fists as he gets to round third base, the crowd surging up to fight for the game-winning ball. Craig Monroe being lifted up by every fan in the stadium and at home as the man with the golden bat, our own Big Papi.

My novel looks stale now, compared to the drama I witnessed tonight. All the work I'd been planning to do: gone. All the words I'd imagined I'd write: still in my head somewhere. But maybe I, and all other Tigers fans out there, got something better than what we'd been planning to accomplish tonight.

We found out how much our team loves us, their fans, and we know we love them too.

Thank you, 2006 Tigers, for reminding us why.