John U. Bacon

The summer before Mac McKenzie became our little league baseball coach, I spent the season picking dandelions in right field, and batting last. But just weeks after Coach Mac took over, I rose to starting catcher, lead-off hitter, and team captain. Trust me, I was no bigger, faster or stronger than I was the previous season. But I had one thing I didn’t have the year before: confidence. Instead of playing back on my heels, I was up on my toes, and swinging for the fences.

I’m sure Coach Mac’s influence planted my desire to become a coach myself – and later, a teacher, too.

Last summer, when I wrote about Coach Mac, I admitted I had no idea where he ended up after his family moved to California the next year, or even if he was still alive. Well, a couple days later, I got a thank you letter from Coach Mac himself.

Just getting it thrilled me, but his message was even better. It was direct, honest and funny – just like the man himself. He told me about his family, about moving to Scottsdale, about his two bypass surgeries. In 1990, he received a heart transplant. He said he’d read my books and had every intention of writing years ago, but never followed through. But that day, when his wife found my story on line, this is what he wrote:

“I was blown away to see my name and the wonderful things that you had to say about me and my influence on you. I have had a very good and successful life with a few plaques, awards and complimentary speeches given to me, but none compare to what you said and how you have honored me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

I don’t know if Coach Mac got choked up writing it, but I got choked up reading it. I promised him I’d write him a longer letter soon, and fully intended to. But my fall filled up with travel and speeches, deadlines and classes. I kept waiting to find enough time to write The Perfect Letter – and kept waiting. I wrote down Coach Mac’s name on my to-do list month after month.

Three nights ago, I was teaching my sports writing students at Northwestern University how to write a profile. I told them their subject doesn’t have to be famous. It could even be one of their former coaches. Then I spontaneously launched into my story of Coach Mac, right down to the sweat dripping off the tip of his nose while he smashed grounder after grounder during practice. I couldn’t resist telling my students how great it was to hear from Coach Mac – which provided just another reminder I still needed to write him. I scribbled his name down yet again.

I got my final reminder the very next day, when I received an email from a friend of Coach Mac’s I’d never met before. His message was as simple and direct as Coach Mac himself. “We lost Mac yesterday.”

This hit me harder than I expected. After all, I couldn’t have believed he’d live forever. I felt grateful I’d written the story about him – and even more fortunate that Coach Mac had read it, and responded.

But when I went back to read our correspondence, I was chagrined to realize I had never written him the longer letter I’d promised. I felt worse when I saw he lived in Scottsdale. A couple months after he sent me his first letter, I was invited to give a speech in Scottsdale – and if I had kept in better touch, I would have put it together, and Coach Mac and I would have gone out for a beer I would never have forgotten.

Still, we can’t do everything. I realize that. And I’m lucky. I know that, too.

After I drove back to Ann Arbor that night, about game time, I swung by Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, where Coach Mac smacked all those grounders years ago. I was surprised to find the ball field has been replaced by a garden, with a shed in the middle of it. But when I crouched down into my old position, where home plate used to be, I could see it all – right down to Coach Mac, sweat dripping off his nose, tapping me another bunt to throw to first base.

Thanks, Coach. Sorry it took me so long to write.

About the writer: Ann Arbor resident John U. Bacon is the author of the national bestsellers “Fourth and Long: The Future of College Football,” “Bo’s Lasting Lessons” and “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.” You can follow him on Twitter (@Johnubacon), and at johnubacon.com.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

This week marks the 40th anniversary of one of baseball’s signature moments: Hank Aaron hitting his record 715th home run, to surpass Babe Ruth’s 39-year old record. But to appreciate how special that was, you have to understand who Hank Aaron is – and what he faced.

You’ve heard of Babe Ruth, who might be the best-known American athlete of the last century. Ruth loved the fans, and the fans loved him right back.

That’s why, when another New York Yankee, Roger Maris – a nice, humble guy – started closing in on Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a single season in 1961, he became so stressed by Ruth’s fans rooting against him that his hair started falling out.

When Hank Aaron approached Ruth’s career home run record, he had it worse, for two very simple reasons: 714 home runs was the baseball record, a number even casual fans knew. And second, unlike Maris, Aaron is black. Of course, that shouldn’t matter in the least – but it mattered a lot in 1974.

Aaron grew up in Mobile, Alabama, one of eight children. They say his wrists grew strong from picking cotton, and his unorthodox practice of swinging “cross-handed” – that is, holding the bat with his left hand on top, instead of his right – was a habit he didn’t break until a minor league coach showed him the correct way to hold the bat.

Aaron made it to the Milwaukee Braves in 1954, one of the first African-Americans to play Major League baseball. According to Daniel Okrent, a best-selling author who also invented fantasy baseball, the ’50s was baseball’s most talented decade, because in that era every kid grew up playing baseball – not soccer – and, thanks to Jackie Robinson, everybody was finally allowed to play.

Surrounded by legends like Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, Aaron was often overlooked – and that was just fine with him.

He was a complete player, hitting for average and power, and winning three gold gloves for fielding. Yes, he hit his home runs, but not in eye-catching batches. When 50 homers a year was still the gold standard, the closest he came was 47. But he hit more than 30 home runs in a season 15 times – a record that still stands, even though nobody seems to know about it.

After the Braves moved to Atlanta, and Aaron finished the 1973 season just one home run away from tying Ruth’s all-time mark, there was no more hiding.

Aaron was no stranger to racism, of course, but what he faced during that long off-season was stunning – and downright scary. The death threats were so frequent, Aaron feared he might not make it to opening day in 1974. He wasn’t being paranoid: Lewis Grizzard, then the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s sports editor, quietly had an obituary written for Aaron just in case some lunatic followed through on his threat.

After enduring the off-season, Aaron was clearly ready for baseball to resume. The very first pitch Aaron received that season he sent over the fence, tying Ruth’s record. A few days later, on April 8, 1974, he smashed one over the wall in Atlanta to break Ruth’s record, once and for all. Aaron rounded the bases with his trademark poker-face, relieved it was finally over.

As a nine-year-old kid, I was blissfully unaware of everything Aaron had to overcome to achieve that mark. The next day in school, I jockeyed with my old friend Matt Colon for the right to announce the news at show-and-tell – and won, something I obviously remember to this day.

Aaron finished his career with the Milwaukee Brewers, the new American League team, toiling far from the spotlight, just the way he liked it.

When Barry Bonds approached Aaron’s all-time record of 755 home runs, many fans were again troubled, but this time for a different reason: just about everyone suspects Bonds of using steroids. That would help explain why Bonds’ home run production jumped from 16 a year to over 70; and why his hat size increased – in his thirties – from 7 1/4 to 7 3/8; and also why his personal trainer served time in prison instead of taking the stand to testify against his boss. Nonetheless, the toothless people who run baseball did nothing to stop Bonds, who broke Aaron’s record in 2007.

Aaron once again proved his class, congratulating Bonds on the Jumbotron. He also demonstrated his quiet dignity, doing so from afar rather than in person.

Despite setting one of the biggest records in sports, Aaron is not one of the biggest names in sports – probably not in the top ten.

He’s just one of the most impressive.

About the writer: Ann Arbor resident John U. Bacon is the author of the national bestsellers “Fourth and Long: The Future of College Football,” “Bo’s Lasting Lessons” and “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.” You can follow him on Twitter (@Johnubacon), and at johnubacon.com.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

Moses Fleetwood Walker with his 1882 UM teammates.

He smashed the color barrier in major league baseball. During his lifetime, Congress passed sweeping civil rights legislation. No modern baseball player can wear his team number on a uniform. And unlike Jackie Robinson, he was a University of Michigan alum.

Moses Fleetwood Walker was born Oct. 7, 1856 in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. His parents may have settled there due to the eastern part of the state’s long association with the Underground Railroad.

Moses, or Fleet as he was later called, was the fifth or sixth of seven children born to physicians Moses and Caroline Walker. The 1860 census lists two three-year-olds, Moses and Lizzie. The little girl, possibly Moses’ twin, does not appear in the 1870 census.

Soon after Moses’ birth, the family moved to nearby Steubenville, 40 miles west of Pittsburgh. Their neighbors there worked as bricklayers, dyers, pattern makers, tinners, and laborers. Moses attended an integrated school and at graduation chose Oberlin College, one of the first colleges in the nation to admit black and female students. When Oberlin formed its first baseball team in 1881, Moses joined as a catcher.

It was a tough position to play in that era. The catcher had no body protection or face mask. He didn’t even have a glove, but caught barehanded. In addition, in 1881 the pitcher’s throwing position was not 60 feet and six inches from home plate as it is today, but only 50 feet (and before that 45 feet). Pitchers for a time were even allowed to take a running start. Common catchers’ injuries included broken ribs and fingers, facial injuries, and concussions.

Baseball at University of Michigan

In March of 1882 Moses transferred to the University of Michigan to study law. He was accompanied by his wife of four years, Arabella. Moses joined the university’s baseball team, the first varsity sport to be organized on campus. UM baseball operated without a coach from its inception in 1865 until 1890. The sport also operated without oversight by or funds from an as-yet-nonexistent Athletics Department; the first athletics director, Charles Baird, wasn’t installed until 1898. The team had to pay for its own equipment and travel with money begged from fellow students – receipts were often meager.

Financial challenges were plain in 1882 when the UM team planned to play a distant rival. “A more than sufficient sum of money had been pledged for the use of the nine [team members],” wrote the June 24 issue of the UM student paper The Chronicle, “and we supposed that at least $125 could be raised . . . [w]hat was the surprise and disgust of the committee when it was found that the largest amount that could be raised was about $35.” The disappointed team stayed in Ann Arbor.

The team listing as printed in the UM Palladium.

But The Chronicle took note of Walker’s performances. “Walker played a brilliant game,” reported one article, “catching without a passed ball, making five runs, and two base hits, besides three singles. The game was witnessed by a large crowd . . .” In the fall of 1882, The Chronicle predicted a strong season: “Dott, Fleet Walker, Packard, Bumps, Hawley, Davis, Allmendinger, are all back and alive to the necessity of keeping up our ball spirit,” reported the Oct. 21, 1882 paper. “Then we have had added to the list Weld[a]y Walker, a magnificent fielder, safe batter, and phenomenal base runner…” Moses’ younger brother had followed him to Michigan and had joined the team.

Other campus papers praised Moses’ performance, and bemoaned the team’s financial struggles. As if anticipating Walker’s incipient departure, the May 5, 1883 Argonaut wrote, “Montgomery as catcher is a worthy successor to Fleet Walker . . . the baseball committee hopes to get through the season without circulating the deadly subscription paper.”

Despite the accolades, by the fall of 1883 Moses had moved on. “Walker of base-ball notoriety is not back this year,” the Oct. 10, 1883 Chronicle informed its readers. Moses had signed with the minor-league Toledo Blue Stockings. The Blue Stockings soon joined the American Association, a two-year-old professional major league formed to compete against the existing National League. Nicknamed the “Beer and Whiskey League” because it served alcohol at games, the American Association was regarded as boorish by its more staid nemesis league. In addition to the Blue Stockings, American Association members included the Washington Senators, the Cincinnati Kelly’s Killers, the Cleveland Spiders, and several surviving teams that include the Cincinnati Red Stockings (Reds), the St. Louis Brown Stockings (Cardinals), and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

By all accounts Moses had played good baseball on campus and earned the respect of his fellow students. He ruined his debut professional performance, however, by flubbing four at-bats and committing four errors. His performance may reflect the possible reception he received from an audience who had never seen a black baseball player. Reactions from his new teammates were mixed, ranging from racism to friendship. As he would throughout his life in a variety of situations, Moses persevered.

During the summer, Moses’ brother Welday also played with the Blue Stockings. Moses was injured during a game, and on Sept. 4, 1884, he played his last game with the team. Though Moses was a pioneer in integrating major league baseball, his Blue Stockings number was never retired – or even recorded, as uniforms of this era generally didn’t have numbers.

UM students had not forgotten Moses, and hopes rekindled that he would return. “[T]here is good reason to believe too that the nine is to be strengthened this year by the return of Fleet Walker,” noted the Oct. 4, 1884 Michigan Argonaut. If nothing else, at least the team finally had some cash. “It is especially gratifying to note that the base ball association stands on a sound financial basis. We are assured that there are fifty dollars in the treasury and no debts outstanding.”

Recovered from his injury, Moses entered the minor leagues and played for teams in Cleveland, Syracuse, and Waterbury, Connecticut. As he worked to advance himself and develop his talent, his ambitions were countered by a worsening national racial climate.

Race Relations

In 1866, when Moses was just 10 years old, Congress had passed the Civil Rights Act. It countered the post-Civil War “Black Codes” that Southern states had enacted to limit the rights of newly free black citizens. The Act was strengthened in 1868 and 1870 by the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Taken together, these actions sought to ensure federal protection of the rights of all male citizens, black and white, to make contracts, have and transfer property, vote, file lawsuits, and enjoy equal protection of the law.

Legal challenges, however, exploited overlooked loopholes and began to erode federal power, returning control to the states in defining and often limiting black citizens’ civil rights. By 1896, the Supreme Court’s Plessy vs. Ferguson decision allowed for a broad definition of “separate but equal” accommodations that served to enable discriminatory “Jim Crow” laws.

Before this tumultuous era culminated in Plessy vs. Ferguson, Moses had been let go from the Syracuse Stars. The minor-league International League banned the hiring of new black players. The American Association and the National League agreed sub rosa to exclude black players. The racial barrier would last until after World War II.

Patents: Dynamite Artillery Shells, Movie Projectors

Moses returned to Ohio and purchased a hotel in Steubenville and a theater for showing films and hosting live events in nearby Cadiz. He worked as a postal clerk, and at one point was accused of embezzling money. Moses managed his properties and with his younger brother published a short-lived newspaper. Arabella died in 1895, leaving three children: Cleatho, Thomas, and George. Three years after Arabella’s death, Moses married Ednah Jane Mason.

Before he lost his first wife, Moses filed for and received the first of his four patents. In 1891 he patented a refinement for a dynamite-loaded artillery shell.

Moses tweaked the dynamite bomb.

Dynamite guns were a makeshift late-19th-century transitional technology. For most of the 19th century, black powder was the only explosive substance available. When dynamite was patented in 1867, it offered far more destructive power. Inventors scrambled to adapt this technology for military use.

One slight problem with this plan was that dynamite’s explosive force is activated not with a fiery fuse, but with percussion. The shock wave of the firing gun could explode the dynamite-loaded shell while it was still in the gun barrel. Moses designed an artillery shell that contained a suspended piston filled with dynamite. The piston was cushioned by air as the shell was fired from the barrel, to explode on impact with the target. Theodore Roosevelt experimented with dynamite guns; he and his Rough Riders found the machinery too fussy. Superior technology soon made these ingenious yet terrifying armaments obsolete.

Moses had other, less destructive ideas to patent. In 1918, he filed three patents for improvements to movie projectors. His experience with his theater’s film projectors had shown him shortcomings in projector technology. He was granted patents on projector improvements that made it easier to secure film to its metal reel and to tell when one roll of film was near its end.

Moses commissioned a metal-stamping company to make his improved reels, but never turned his creation into a business.

Thoughts on Race

Moses did, however, turn his reflections on race relations into a 47-page 1908 book: “Our Home Colony, a Treatise on the Past, Present, and Future of the Negro Race in America.” His book concluded that the white and black races cannot live harmoniously in the United States. Black Americans, he advised, should shun the de facto American caste system and establish a new settlement in Africa.

“What Negro parent,” wrote Walker in his treatise, “can have the audacity to hold up before his beloved son the possibility of him ever becoming President of the United States?”

Moses’ wife Ednah died in 1920. Two years later he retired. Moses passed away on May 11, 1924.

His still-extant hometown paper, the Steubenville Herald-Star, gave him a lengthy obituary and placed his listing first. The obituary highlighted his career in baseball, detailed his varied occupations thereafter, and expressed community respect. It concluded, “He was a very interesting man to meet in conversation and he had many friends here who will regret to hear of his death.”

Moses Fleetwood Walker is buried in Steubenville’s Union Cemetery.

Mystery Artifact

Mystery Object

The mystery artifact from the last column is a collection of objects that may be viewed in the current iteration of the Yankee Air Museum. Within the current exhibit hall, there’s a display case that contains sample soldiers’ field rations from several wars. The collection pictured here represents field rations for WWII soldiers, or, “K rations.”

Jim Rees and Cosmonican guessed correctly; congratulations!

Today for your consideration is a rather large Mystery Artifact that’s appropriate for the season.

It’s heavy and a little wobbly when it’s set on a table. It’s in quite nice condition, though, with no evident chips or scratches. What might this odd thing be? Take your guess and good luck!

Laura Bien is the author of “Hidden Ypsilanti” and “Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives.” Contact Laura at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

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John U. Bacon

When you’re 68, working in a young man’s game, announcing your retirement is not a surprise. But Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland has a few underappreciated qualities that are worth remembering.

Jim Leyland was a baseball man to the core. Raised in Perrysburg, Ohio, the son of a glassworker, he grew up wanting to do one thing: Play baseball.

He was good, very good, so the Tigers signed him up to play catcher in their minor league system. But just to get to the majors, you need to be great – and after seven years battling to get to the big leagues, Leyland realized he wasn’t great. Not as a player, at least.

So he decided to become a manager, and worked his way up from Detroit’s lowest minor league team to its highest. That climb took him from Bristol, Virginia, to Clinton, Iowa, to Montgomery, Alabama, then Lakeland, Florida, and finally Evansville, Indiana – Detroit’s top farm club.

He polished promising young prospects like Lance Parrish, Kirk Gibson, Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammel into bona fide major leaguers.

They all made it to Detroit, but they left their coach behind. When the Tigers should have hired the man who built that team, they gave the job instead to Sparky Anderson. Okay, so Anderson had already won two World Series with the vaunted Cincinnati Reds. But even as a kid, I thought they got the wrong guy.

Leyland didn’t whine about it. He kept working, until he got to be a big league manager six years later for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They won three straight division titles before the owners conducted a “fire sale,” selling off the all-stars Leyland had helped develop. Leyland could never understand it when somebody didn’t care as much about the game as he did.

In 1997, he took over the Florida Marlins, owned by Blockbuster Video tycoon Wayne Huizenga, and promptly led them to their first World Series title. But the next year, Huizenga held his own fire sale, dismantling a title team. Leyland took a rare shot, telling the press he thought his job was to win championships, but that’s apparently not what his boss wanted.

In 2006, 27 years after the Tigers’ passed him up for their top post, they named Leyland Detroit’s manager. He took the long-dormant franchise to its first American League pennant in 22 years.  Under Leyland, the Tigers won four division titles and two pennants. Not bad.

But Leyland has plenty of critics. Since the computerized approach to managing – made famous in the book and movie, “Moneyball” – took over the game a decade ago, fans expect managers to make decisions by the book, not by their guts. When Leyland makes all-star hitters bunt with men in scoring position, or pulls great starting pitchers for weak relievers, the fans howl, and not without reason.

But I can’t help but notice Leyland’s teams always won. Everywhere. In the minors, in the majors, in the National League, and in the American League – at every level, in eight different states, and five decades.

Perhaps coaching is about more than just computing. A major league baseball team spends almost every day together for eight months a year. They see each other more than they see their wives and kids.

Players aren’t robots, either. To get almost all his players to play their best when they’re playing for him, Leyland did something computers can’t, something we don’t see during games. He must be a hell of a guy, and a great leader, too. He cares about the game – sometimes more than the millionaires who play it – and he cares about them, too.

My dad, who served three years in the Army, told me he likes Leyland because he stands by his troops, and never chews them out in public.

Yes, that’s old school – but that was Leyland. And it worked.

About the writer: Ann Arbor resident John U. Bacon is the author of the national bestsellers “Fourth and Long: The Future of College Football,” “Bo’s Lasting Lessons” and “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football.” You can follow him on Twitter (@Johnubacon), and at johnubacon.com.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

I loved baseball from the start – but it didn’t love me.

When I started in tee ball, I was so short that if the catcher put the tallest tee on the far corner of the plate, I couldn’t reach it. Yes, I struck out – in tee ball.

Our first year of live pitching didn’t go any better. One game we were beating the other team so badly, we were about to trigger the “Mercy Rule,” and end the game. Coach Van pulled me in from my post in right field – where I kept company with the dandelions – and told me to pitch. I wasn’t a pitcher – I wanted to be a catcher, like Bill Freehan – but I’m thinking, “This is my chance.” I walked three batters, but miraculously got three outs before they scored any runs. We won – and I figured that was my stepping stone to greater things.

I was surprised my dad wasn’t as happy as I was. He knew better – but he didn’t tell me until years later: Coach Van was not putting me in at pitcher to finish the game. He was putting me in to get shelled, so the game would keep going. He was putting me in to fail.

The next game, I went back to right field, and the dandelions, never to return to the infield the rest of the season. But when Coach Van and his family moved, our assistant coach, Mack MacKenzie, became our head coach – and my world changed almost overnight.

Coach Mack wore a baseball cap on his big, square head, with his big, square glasses. He looked tough, with a permanent squint and the underbite of a bulldog. When he was smashing ground ball after ground ball, sweat dripped off his pointy nose. He occasionally swore, which was novel then, and we thought that was pretty cool.

But he thought I was feisty, and funny. I could tell he wanted me to do well, and that he believed I would. The effect was immediate, dramatic, and lifelong.

From the very first practice under Coach Mack, I started smacking the ball, as if I’d been waiting years to do it – which I had been. Our first game that season, he started me at catcher, and had me batting lead off. I got two hits – the first of my life – and my teammates voted me captain.

I was on fire for baseball, playing some form of it every chance I had, whether it was “Pickle,” “500” or home run derby. Didn’t matter. I wanted to play.

One Saturday morning, practice was rained out. But, this being Michigan, a little while later the sun came out, so I biked down to the schoolyard to check it out. There were a few puddles here and there, but the biggest one was behind the plate, where I would be, and it didn’t look that bad to me.

I rushed home and called Coach Mack. He told me if I made the phone calls, we’d have practice. I convinced enough of my teammates to come down to convince Coach Mack to come down, too – and we practiced.

After he’d hit ground balls to third, shortstop, second and first, I’d say, “C’mon, Coach Mack – gimme one!” Meaning, roll the ball out, for me to scoop up and throw to first.

“You wanna bunt, do ya?”

“C’mon, Coach Mack! You know I do!”

“There you go,” he’d say, and he rolled one out just for me.

The next year I became a better hockey player, too, and I don’t need to tell you the central role sports have played in my life. But that’s where it started.

I’ve always been too dependent on my teachers, coaches and bosses. When they don’t believe in me, I don’t go very far, but when they do, I’m capable of – well, more. And sometimes, much more. I’m sure this is why I’ve always attracted to coaching and teaching, too. I know how much difference it can make to have someone believe in you.

A couple years later, the MacKenzie’s moved to California. I have no idea where they are now. I don’t even know if Coach Mack is still with us. But he’s still with me.

“C’mon, Coach Mack! Gimme one.”

About the writer: Ann Arbor resident John U. Bacon is the author of “Bo’s Lasting Lessons” and “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football” – both national bestsellers. His upcoming book, “Fourth and Long: The Future of College Football,” will be published by Simon & Schuster in September 2013. You can follow him on Twitter (@Johnubacon), and at johnubacon.com.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

Once in a while something happens that is so unusual, even those who don’t normally pay attention have to stop and take notice.

Halley’s Comet, for example, only comes along once every 75 years. Man has landed on the moon just six times in the entire history of the universe. And Lindsay Lohan goes to jail – no, wait, that happens almost every week.

Well, this week, Detroit sports fans got Halley’s Comet, a moon landing, and a clean and sober Lindsay Lohan all wrapped up into one: The Tigers clinched the American League Central Division, and even more shockingly, the Lions won their first three games.

That’s right: It’s September 30, and both the Tigers and the Lions are in first place. Go find a newspaper – if your town still has one – pull out the standings, and get them laminated. This might not happen again in our lifetimes.

That’s no exaggeration. By 1934, Detroit’s three big league teams – the Lions, the Tigers and the Red Wings – had never won a championship in their combined 45 attempts. But that year, the red-hot Tigers won 101 games, and faced the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

When the Cardinals’ star pitcher, Dizzy Dean, heard the Tigers manager say, “We think we can win,” he replied, “If they thinkin’, they already licked.” Apparently so. Dizzy Dean’s team won in seven games.

The next year, 1935, marked the nadir of the Depression, with the world slipping toward war. The Motor City needed a distraction, and the Tigers provided a great one when they won their first World Series. A couple months later, the Lions won their first NFL title. And just four months after that, the Red Wings won their first Stanley Cup. They called Detroit – hang on to your hats here – the City of Champions.

No city has pulled the trifecta since – and Detroit hasn’t come close. In the ’70s, no Detroit team won a single title, a glorious 0-for-40 stretch. No more “City of Champions.” People started calling the Lions the Lie-downs, the Red Wings the Dead Things, and the Tigers – well, everyone pretty much agreed just calling them the Tigers was bad enough. Hard times were these.

The Tigers were even worse in the nineties, but topped it in 2003 by losing 119 games, an American League record. But manager Jim Leyland, an old salty dog with a gray mustache yellowed from years of chain-smoking, led them back to the World Series in 2006, and he could do it again this year.

The Tigers’ resurgence is surprising. The Lions return to respectability is positively shocking. The Lions are one of only two NFL teams who have failed to make it to every Super Bowl, and the only team in NFL history to lose all 16 games – a perfect mark that no one, by definition, can ever break.

What makes this story better are the long-suffering fans that have stuck with their teams during those down… decades – and the dynasties who own them.

The Ford family owns the Lions, and a large part of a certain car company. The Ilitches founded Little Caesar’s Pizza, and now own the Tigers and the Red Wings, too. Both families have invested heavily in the city, they have never threatened to move their teams to Nashville, and they desperately want their teams to win – though their teams haven’t always cooperated.

But this might be the year. Okay, the Pistons are almost as non-existent now as they were in 1935, but the Red Wings are as good as always, the Tigers have a real chance with the American League’s top pitcher, and the Lions – well, the Lions are undefeated. I can’t recall saying that in October – and tomorrow, you can.

No, these teams don’t solve Detroit’s problems. But they make people feel better, and they bring us together.

And if it all goes right, then maybe – just maybe – Detroit fans will party like it’s 1935.

About the author: John U. Bacon is the author of the upcoming “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football,” due out Oct. 25. You can pre-order the book from Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor or on Amazon.com.

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our publication of columnists like John U. Bacon. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

John U. Bacon

If you’re sick of the big leagues, but not baseball, check out your backyard.

Here in Michigan you can watch the Beach Bums in Traverse City, the Lugnuts in Lansing, the West Michigan Whitecaps near Grand Rapids, the Great Lake Loons in Midland, and the Kings in Kalamazoo. Michigan fans can see six minor league teams if you count the Toledo Mud Hens – and seven if the Tigers start slumping again. Michigan baseball fans haven’t had it this good in decades.

In 1949, the U.S. boasted almost 500 minor league teams, supported by 42 million fans. But their ranks shriveled when major league baseball expanded, TV blossomed and air conditioning made staying at home much cooler. In just three years, attendance dropped almost 80%.

But when major league baseball turned its back on its fans with strikes and lockouts, the minor leagues aggressively courted them. Almost every fan-friendly custom you see at major league stadiums today they stole from the minors, including fancy food, daily promotions, pop music and endless stunts to keep the fans coming back, win or lose. As a result, the minors have grown back to a robust 176 teams nationwide.

Visit one, and you understand why.

You park your car for a couple bucks, and in a couple minutes, you’re in your seat. Every employee you meet seems to be working overtime to keep you fat and happy. They remember the season ticket holders’ names, and welcome them back each night.

The workers shower the fans with free frisbees, candy bars and bunched-up T-shirts fired from sling-shots. Between innings, they sponsor the usual potpourri of minor league gags, including the dizzy bat race, the hula hoop contest and a sumo wrestling match – always involving fans pulled from the stands.

A minor league baseball park is no place for the self-conscious. You should expect to let your hair down and join the show.

Kids play on the grass embankments, stand on the dugouts and sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch – while waving to their parents – and get to run around the bases when the game’s over.

Fans don’t leave minor league games early, because they’re enjoying the whole experience, not just the outcome.

In the minors, even the players aim to please. Unlike the lollygaggers in the majors, the bush leaguers take their at-bats as if they’re being timed, they don’t whine about the umpire’s calls and they actually run all the way to first base on hopeless ground balls. Of course, they’d better, or they’re gone.

The players put their hearts in their work for less than they could make flipping burgers at McDonald’s. So, why do it? Because after four or five years of flipping burgers, McDonald’s will never give you a big league contract. Do any of these guys really have a chance? As one manager told me, “If you got a uniform, you got a chance.”

These guys are doing what they’ve dreamed about all their lives: playing baseball.

Some dreams are a little more modest. I met two brothers who had good jobs at Oldsmobile, but asked the Lansing Lugnuts if they could walk around the park with trash cans. They only got minimum wage – and all the cans they could find. “If it wasn’t fun,” one told me, “we wouldn’t be here.”

He then picked up his trash can, turned toward his buddies in the stands and bellowed, “Get yer trraaaaaash. Cold trash here! Get yer trash!”

And that, in a peanut shell, is the difference between the majors and the minors: Everyone in the minors is making less money, and having more fun.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism; and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

Absentee voter applications are not printed on baseballs. This is just someone's execution of the concept that "Every article should have art!"

Now, you don’t have to go to the game in order to qualify for an absentee ballot. But just to be clear, if you do plan to make a whole day event out of your visit to Detroit to watch the game, that will absolutely qualify you for an absentee ballot. If you expect to be out of town, that’s a legally valid reason for voting absentee.

Maybe some of you would even like to make the short drive in to the ballpark after a Monday night stay at the Westin Book Cadillac – from what I understand, it’s a pleasant place to spend the night, even if you’re not a Washtenaw Communty College trustee.

What about you Chronicle readers who aren’t baseball fans? If you want to vote absentee, the current election law specifies a limited set of other reasons you can use, which include being older than 60, being in jail, or having religious beliefs that prevent attending the polls.

The topic came up a bit more than a week ago, when the Ann Arbor city Democrats hosted a forum for candidates contesting the Democratic primaries for Michigan’s 52nd and 53rd district state House seats. Jeff Irwin, who along with Ned Staebler is running for the 53rd District seat, threw out an idea for a tweak in Michigan’s election laws.

Irwin said he’d like to see “on-demand absentee” voting – citizens would be able to obtain an absentee ballot and avoid the lines at the polls for any or no reason at all. It’s not some new screwball idea – it’s been around a while and enjoys a lot of support, from Washtenaw County clerk Larry Kestenbaum, among others.

For the time being, though, the application for an absentee ballot requires that voters commit, you know, really commit – just like the guy on the mound has to commit to delivering the ball to the plate after starting in that direction – to at least one of the allowable reasons under the state statute. Through June 17, according to the first Absent Voter report sent out last week via email by the city clerk, over 1,800 Ann Arborites have already committed to one of those reasons.

The Absent Voter Report

Last week, the Ann Arbor city clerk’s office sent out an email containing its first Absent Voter report – absentee ballot applications requested through June 17. The first one, as well as subsequent reports, contains an updated list of names and addresses of all voters who have applied for an absentee ballot. That first email indicated that the city has taken delivery of its ballots, so starting this week, the absentee ballots will be mailed out to those who’ve requested them.

How do you sign up for the city clerk’s email alert service? It’s as simple as telling the city clerk you’d like to be added to the “daily AV list.”

Who would want to receive timely updates about people who’ve applied for absentee ballots as those requests roll in? Candidates on those ballots have a clear interest in knowing who has requested ballots and whether the ballots have been returned – both pieces of information are provided in the daily AV list.

As The Chronicle noted back in May, as a part of its coverage of the finalized primary field, someone who’s requested an absentee ballot is highly likely to vote, so from that point of view, candidates typically see them as a good time investment. It’s worth an extra knock on their door or an extra postcard in the mail. Similarly, if the person has already voted by absentee ballot, well, contacting them is not going to change their vote – a candidate’s time might be better invested knocking on new doors.

How Many People Vote Absentee?

Absentee ballot applications are accepted starting 75 days before the election. Calculating backwards from Aug. 3 puts the start of application acceptance on May 21. In the first daily AV list sent last week, 1,860 voters were listed. Broken down by ward, here’s what that picture looks like – the percentages indicate the percent of total ballots requested so far:

Absentee ballot requests
through June 17, 2010
for Aug. 3 primary

214 Ward 1  11.5%
569 Ward 2  30.6%
319 Ward 3  17.2%
475 Ward 4  25.5%
283 Ward 5  15.2%

Total: 1,860

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That percentage distribution of absentee ballots roughly parallels the November 2009 general election absentee voting percentages. Separate absentee ballot count boards – one for each ward – made a breakdown of absentee votes visible in the election results [Ward 1, Ward 2, Ward 3, Ward 4, Ward 5]:

Absentee Voting
by Ward in Ann Arbor
November 2009

236 Ward 1   9.9%
678 Ward 2  28.4%
390 Ward 3  16.3%
551 Ward 4  23.1%
533 Ward 5  22.3%

Total 2,388

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Ward 5 accounted for a greater relative percentage of the total absentee vote in the November 2009 general election than it does in the early requests for ballots for the Aug. 3, 2010 primary, but it’s still relatively early in the ballot request season – the daily AV report for Monday, June 21 added another 49 names and addresses.

How Many Is a Lot of Absent Voters?

Based on the general election of November 2009 and the early absentee ballot application numbers, it looks like the absentee voter numbers for the Aug. 3 primary will, on the very conservative side, be at least 2,000. Is that a lot?

Viewed through the lens of the last two Democratic mayoral primaries, 2,000 votes works out to be roughly the difference between a clear victory and a virtual dead heat.

In 2008, when Tom Wall challenged John Hieftje for mayor, Wall received 3,394 votes to Hieftje’s 7,447. Shift 2,000 votes to Wall and Wall would have still been short – 5,394 to 5,447 – but not by much.

Two years earlier in 2006, when Wendy Woods challenged Hieftje, she received 2,913 votes to Hieftje’s 6,703.  Shift 2,000 votes to Woods and Woods would have prevailed 4,913 to 4,703.

So it’s fair to say 2,000 votes is a lot of votes. It’s easy to understand why candidates for public office in Ann Arbor “work the absentees,” using the daily AV lists – they’re not just almost certain to vote, their numbers are great enough to have a potential impact on the election.

The Penalty of Law

The kind of on-demand absentee voting advocated by Jeff Irwin at the city Democratic Party candidate forum does not currently exist. Absent voter ballots require “application” because Michigan does not currently allow for absentee voting for no reason. An exhaustive list of justifiable reasons that can be checked on the absentee ballot application is:

• age 60 years old or older
• unable to vote without assistance at the polls
• expecting to be out of town on election day
• in jail awaiting arraignment or trial
• unable to attend the polls due to religious reasons
• appointed to work as an election inspector in a precinct outside of your precinct of residence.

The application notes that “A person making a false statement in this absent voter ballot application is guilty of a misdemeanor.” And a call to the state’s Bureau of elections confirmed that the check on the accuracy of statements – including the reason cited justifying the right to vote absentee – is the application itself. In signing the form, an applicant for a ballot is attesting: “I declare that the statements in this absent voter ballot application are true.”

Irwin isn’t alone in advocating for reform that would eliminate the need to commit to a reason for voting absentee. Archived on Washtenaw County clerk Larry Kestenbaum’s blog, Polygon, the Dancing Bear, is part of a Nov. 12, 2006 Ann Arbor News Q&A conducted by reporter Dave Gershman:

Q: What’s the trend you’re seeing in terms of absentee ballots?

A: Absentee ballots are being used more widely over time and you can see the percentage creeping up little by little, year by year. That may also have to do with the aging population as well. If you’re 60 years of age or older you’re automatically eligible to use an absentee ballot without having to state another reason.

And people certainly are aware of the fact that if you choose to vote absentee you can put down that, yes, you plan to be out of the jurisdiction on Election Day even if those plans later change. There has been a movement in the Legislature to enact basically freedom to use an absentee ballot instead of showing up in person without having to state a reason. That legislation, although supported by virtually all of the county and municipal clerks in the state and supported by the secretary of state, did not move forward in the Legislature in the last couple of years. It may in the next one.

Q: And you support that?

A: Oh, absolutely. … If people want to vote absentee they should be able to vote absentee, and the notion of swearing to a reason is really pretty superfluous.

That Q&A was published four years ago. But in response to a recent emailed query, Kestenbaum says: “All those things are still perfectly valid as far as I’m concerned.”

I think the case for on-demand voting is pretty straightforward: it would remove various barriers to participating in democracy. On-demand absentee voting would eliminate the need to make your vote on a specific day, the need to stand in a possibly long line, the need to brave possibly inclement weather, the need to arrange transportation to a polling place, among other barriers.

I don’t think on-demand absentee voting would be a grand-slam home run for democracy. I don’t think that such voting by itself would increase participation in the Ann Arbor August primaries a whole lot, beyond the roughly 14% of registered voters who decided the 2008 mayoral primary.

But improving our democratic process is not about hitting home runs – it’s about getting base hits. And on-demand absentee voting is like a solid base hit, straight up the middle.

For now, you need a reason for voting absentee. Planning an out-of-town excursion on election day – to a Tigers game – just so you can vote absentee might seem a little elaborate. But at least it means you’re planning to vote.

Absentee ballots can be requested by mail until the Saturday before the election. This year that’s July 31. The absentee ballot application form is available on the city clerk’s part of the city of Ann Arbor website. It can be sent via the full range of modern communication technologies: mailed; hand delivered to the city clerk’s office at 100 N. Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48104; faxed  to 734-994-8296; or scanned and emailed to cityclerk@a2gov.org.

Go Tigs.

About the writer: Dave Askins is editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

John U. Bacon

I’d just finished writing my commentary Wednesday night, when a friend tipped me off that I should be watching the Tigers game. He didn’t say why, because there’s a code in baseball against jinxing a pitcher who’s throwing a great game. I turned on the TV, and saw the Tigers were beating Cleveland, 1-0, in the eighth inning. Then I finally realized Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga wasn’t just working on a no-hitter, but a perfect game.

What’s the difference? A no-hitter means just that: A pitcher can’t give up any hits. But he can still let a runner get to first base on a walk or an error, and keep his no-hitter. But to throw a perfect game, the pitcher can’t let a single batter reach first base for any reason. He’s got to get 27 straight outs.

How rare is that? In the 135-year history of Major League Baseball, only twenty pitchers have done it. Twenty. It’s ten times rarer than a no-hitter – so rare, in over a century of Tiger baseball, not one pitcher had ever thrown a perfect game. Ever.

But there he was, Armando Galarraga from Venezuela, pitching a perfect game.

In the ninth inning, with everybody in the ballpark well aware of the stakes, Cleveland’s lead off hitter smashed the ball to deep center field. The Tigers’ Austin Jackson thought it was going to fly over his head. But he chased after it anyway – running full-speed to the fence to make one of the best catches of the year.

After a ground out, Galarraga was just one out from baseball immortality. That’s when Cleveland’s Jason Donald hit a ground ball to first baseman Miguel Cabrera. He scooped it up, and threw the ball back to first base, where Galarraga had run to cover the play. Galarraga caught the ball, and stepped on the bag – a half-stride before Donald did.

Galarraga had done it – or so everyone thought. Everyone, that is, except the one person who’s opinion mattered: Jim Joyce, the first base umpire widely considered one of the best in the business. He had a clear view of the entire play – then he signaled, Safe!

The replay showed Joyce was dead wrong. The fans were screaming, the Tigers were outraged, and even the Indians looked embarrassed. The only guy who was not screaming at Joyce was Galarraga himself – by all accounts, one of the most decent men in baseball.

But if there’s no crying in baseball, there’s no replay, either. Even the lawyers whose ads run between innings are, thankfully, out of place between the lines – no matter how much everyone wished they could fix it.

After the Tigers won, manager Jim Leyland came busting out of the dugout to give Joyce an earful – and to Joyce’s credit, he stood there and took it like a man. Back in the locker room, instead of spouting or pouting, Galarraga said, in his slightly broken English, “I really respect [Joyce], because he say, ‘I need to talk to you. I really say I’m sorry.’ His eyes were water. He don’t have to say much. His body language say more. He probably feel more bad than me. Nobody perfect. Everybody human.”

What do you do next? “You come back and play tomorrow,” Leyland said. “That’s what makes this game great.”

There’s already a great hue and cry to use instant replay in baseball. But if they had used replay that night, we would not have known what a stand-up guy Jim Joyce is, just moments after making a mistake he knows will reappear in the first paragraph of his obituary. We would not have known what a fair-minded person Jim Leyland is, expressing respect for Joyce’s professionalism and compassion for his plight just minutes after the game.

I already knew what a great game Galarraga pitched. A rose is a rose, after all, by any other name – and his might go down as the most famous “perfect” game of them all. But I didn’t know what a great man he is.

We don’t need instant replay. We need more men like these.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism; and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

John U. Bacon

Michigan first baseman Mike Dufek stepped up to the plate in the tenth inning. The bases were empty, which in this game was rare.

Northwestern had shot out to an early 14-0 lead. We’re not talking football here, folks, but baseball. Then, incredibly, the Wolverines clawed back, run by run, until they tied the game with a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth. That brought Dufek up in the tenth inning, with the game in his hands.

That Dufek had even gotten that far was a story in itself.

His genes surely helped. Mike’s grandfather, Don Dufek, Sr., played football for Michigan. In the 1951 Rose Bowl, against undefeated Cal-Berkeley, Don Sr. ran for two touchdowns in the final six minutes to win the game and the MVP award.

Mike’s uncle, Don Jr., played both hockey and football at Michigan – the last guy to do that. The Red Wings drafted him, and so did the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, where he played for nine years. Mike’s other uncle, Bill, also played football for Michigan, and signed with the New York Jets.

Mike’s dad, Joe, turned down Michigan for Yale, where he became an All-American as an outfielder and quarterback. He started eight games for the Buffalo Bills, and played several years in the Canadian Football League. Clearly, Mike had the DNA.

He grew up in Scottsdale, where he played quarterback, too, but excelled in baseball. He wanted to play for Michigan in the worst way, but Michigan wasn’t that wild about him. They finally let him walk on – making Mike the first Dufek athlete not actively recruited by the University of Michigan.

Mike’s freshman year, he barely played on the field, and was barely eligible off it. But then Dufek caught fire. Last year, he led the team with 17 home runs – and he’s carried a B-minus average in sociology. This season, his teammates and coaches named him co-captain. He got it.

But Dufek’s home run total dropped from 17 to just five going into Sunday’s game – the game in which they fell behind by a staggering 14-0. If that was absurd, what happened next was positively crazy. The Wolverines scored 14 straight runs to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth, and force extra innings.

So the score was 14-14 when Dufek came to the plate in the bottom of the tenth. A teammate’s father told him “We need you to end it with a homer” – then his coach said the same thing.

The pitcher threw a change-up. Dufek swung – and missed. He moved up a foot in the batter’s box, in the hopes that the pitcher would throw him another change-up – and he did. “As soon as I saw that pitch, I knew I could hit it,” he told me. “And after I hit it, I knew it was gone.”

Boy, was it. It sailed more than 400 feet, far over the fence in centerfield, deep into the pine trees. The Northwestern outfielder punched the fence, incredulous that they had blown a 14-run lead. It finished the biggest comeback in Michigan baseball history, it was bigger than the biggest comeback in Major League history, and it might just be the biggest comeback in the history of college or professional baseball. Anywhere.

Dufek didn’t know all that as he rounded the bases, and he probably wouldn’t have cared. Coming around third base, he threw his helmet away, then jumped into the mob surrounding the plate. He got so many hugs, he was out of breath.

Mike Dufek might not ever play a single game of pro baseball. But he’s got his degree – and at least one memory none of the famous Dufek men can match.

Could be worse.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism; and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.