Mega Detroit weekend, part 1

A no-frills blast through my weekend:

We dropped "the kids" off at DTW on Friday afternoon and then drove over to Dearborn Music, a place I've wanted to go to for a few years. It did not disappoint. I could have easily spent several hours there, but seeing as how we wanted to beat the rush hour and Tigers game traffic in Detroit, we left at (checks Dearborn Music receipt) at 4:10 PM. I bought a splatter vinyl edition of the new Echo & the Bunnymen album Apples For Isaac and impulsively threw in the CD of Jack White's new album, Frozen Charlotte.

Then we decided to drive from Dearborn to downtown Detroit via Michigan Avenue, and I'm happy we did. Aside from being at the Henry Ford (Museum) and Greenfield Village (which doesn't really count), I can't remember the last time I was in Dearborn. I was impressed by how upscale it is, at least what I saw on Michigan. 

We arrived in Detroit and had to drive around the block of our hotel a few times before we could squeeze into a valet spot. (Yeah, "first world problems"). After getting a valet to move our car to whatever vast, mysterious parking structure is used for valeted vehicles, we checked into the hotel (Element by Marriott Detroit--an extremely lovely place). Exhausted from our busy day, we ate dinner in the adjacent restaurant and I was delighted to see they had a Rusty Nail on their cocktail menu.

Saturday morning, we walked over to John King Books from the hotel. I hadn't been to John King in about 33 years. I had the same issue I had in 1993(ish): I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of STUFF in that decaying old factory-turned-bookstore. Though I saw plenty of books, nothing grabbed me. Frankly, most of the books I saw looked old and cruddy, and the one book I was most interested in (Summer of '49 by David Halberstam) was listed at $32.99, far more than I wanted to.pay. So I left this colossus of a bookstore empty-handed. 

Our next destination was the Tigers baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Comerica Park. We had talked months ago about attending the game, but when I saw that Justin Verlander was scheduled to make his final major league appearance in the game, the decision was made. I snagged two nosebleed seats in section 346 of the upper deck, third base side. As it turned out, it's fortuitous I bought those tickets when I did because 41,000 other people decided to go, too.

Though the temperature was only in the upper 60s, sitting in direct sunlight got hot. (I will never stop complaining about the lack of shade at the soon-to-no-longer-be-named-Comerica Park. Fifth Third Park here we come. Blech!). Aside from allowing two solo home runs, JV pitched quite well in his 5 2/3 innings, but the Tiger hitters offered no run support, so it appeared Verlander would be tagged with a loss. In the most exciting finish I've ever seen in person at a baseball game, Eduardo Valencia hit a 2-run homer over the left field fence and the Tigers won, 4-3.

As for JV's dramatic exit from the game. I don't think anyone in the park other than manager A.J. Hinch (who orchestrated the whole thing) expected JV's daughter running out to the mound and giving her dad a hug before walking off the field hand-in-hand. In the moment, I thought it was clever and cute. It wasn't until I saw the video clip of it, and JV's tearful response, that it thoroughly wrecked me. 

I will divide this weekend recap in half and return later with the Shannon/Narducy concert review.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ernie Harwell

The great Detroit Tiger radio broadcaster, Ernie Harwell, died yesterday at the age of 92. It was the news I knew was inevitable, since he had been diagnosed with inoperable bile duct cancer, but was dreading all the same. I knew it would be hard to take. If anyone seemed like he should live forever, it was Ernie. It doesn't seem fair that someone as gentlemanly and decent as Ernie Harwell should be taken away from us. Like generations of Michiganians, I grew up with Ernie's voice. He was one of the people that introduced me to baseball and the Detroit Tigers. He was part of my childhood and young adulthood. There are so many memories I have that are tied to that distinctive Southern accent: my dad outside working on the house or in the yard with his old paint-splattered transistor radio, and Ernie describing the action at Michigan and Trumbull; upstairs in my room on a warm summer night in the great year of 1984, the sound of crickets outside, a breeze pushing up the blind...
Read more

Exhausted on a Friday Night

I am plopped on my couch with a cat and am seriously concerned I might fall asleep before I can do a blog entry. I stayed up too late last night, which is a real hazard when the Lions play a night game. It's a few hours later and somehow, I'm still awake, but probably not for long. We got a second wind and watched the new episodes of Abbott Elementary and Silo, but now I'm back to being exhausted and ready for bed.
Read more

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

After a little trepidation based on its middling reviews, we went to the cinema to see Springsteen : Deliver Me From Nowhere . Perhaps due to my lowered expectations, or maybe because I'm just a pushover who goes to the movies WANTING to like what I've paid to see, or possibly because it actually IS a good movie, I ended up enjoying Springsteen : Deliver Me From Nowhere . (I will henceforth simply refer to it as Springsteen ). From what I gather, the main complaints about Springsteen  is that it doesn't have enough music and that it falls prey to rock biopic cliches. First, about the music: I don't agree with those criticisms. It has just enough music. The movie is, among other things, about Bruce's creation of the Nebraska album. He has finished the 1981  River tour and is renting a house in Colts Neck, NJ, getting inspiration from Flannery O'Connor, the Terence Malick movie  Badlands, reading   microfilm newspaper accounts of the real-life murders that ...
Read more