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

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!

Dante Chinni, co-athor of "Our Patchwork Nation." That's a Tigers cap he's wearing, and it's not accidental.

“I don’t want to be another city. I resent the fact that we are compared to other cities when projects are being proposed.”

That was Ali Ramlawi, owner of the Jerusalem Garden on South Fifth Avenue in downtown Ann Arbor, addressing the April 4, 2011 meeting of the Ann Arbor city council. He was criticizing the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, and advocating against a proposed conference center and hotel project on the Library Lot – the council voted the project down later that evening.

“Ann Arbor will change … but it won’t become Detroit.”

That was Dante Chinni, while riding the the teeter totter on my front porch last Thursday afternoon. Chinni has made it part of his job to compare communities like Ann Arbor – Washtenaw County, actually – to other places in the country.

Who is Dante Chinni? And why should Ann Arbor care what he thinks?

On his website, Chinni describes himself as a “a card-carrying member of the East Coast Media Industrial Complex.” The part of his job that lets him compare one place to another – in a statistically sophisticated way – is a project Chinni conceived called Patchwork Nation. It’s funded by the Knight Foundation. The effort has already produced a book, which he co-authored with James Gimpel: “Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth about the ‘Real’ America.”

Washtenaw County is featured in the chapter that introduces readers to the concept of a “Campus and Careers” community type. The classification, as well as a read through Dante’s Talk, confirm that mostly what defines Ann Arbor – at least for people on the outside looking in – is its place as the home of the University of Michigan. And certainly for people on the inside, it’s difficult to argue that UM isn’t currently the single most important institution in the community.

But some insiders – and by this I mean not just people who live, work and play here, but actual Ann Arbor insiders – are starting to float the question of what else Ann Arbor might aspire to be besides home to “the most profound educational institution in the Midwest.”

Vision of Ann Arbor: Non-Physical (DDA Partnerships)

“The most profound educational institution in the Midwest” was David Di Rita’s description of UM, which came in the context of a meeting of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority’s partnerships committee on Wednesday morning, April 13. Di Rita, a principal with the Roxbury Group, served as a consultant on the RFP review process for the Library Lot, which the city council terminated two weeks ago.

The partnerships committee meeting was one of insiders – both at the committee table and in the audience.

At the table besides Di Rita were: DDA board members John Mouat, Russ Collins, Gary Boren, Sandi Smith, Bob Guenzel and John Splitt, along with Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, and city councilmember Tony Derezinski. Invited to the table mid-meeting were Josie Parker, executive director of the Ann Arbor District Library – who brought along AADL board member Nancy Kaplan – and Jesse Bernstein, chair of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board.

In the audience sat other easily recognizable names: Vivienne Armentrout (former Washtenaw County commissioner), Peter Allen (developer), Mary Hathaway (prominent activist for peace and social justice), Alice Ralph (former candidate for county board, city council, and author of a community commons proposal for the Library Lot), Tom Wieder (local attorney and long-time city Democratic Party activist), John Floyd (former candidate for city council), and Sabra Briere (city councilmember).

Part of the committee’s agenda was a discussion of how to approach beginning a process that the city council has agreed to let the DDA lead. The process could result in the development of different uses for four city-owned downtown parcels currently used for surface parking: the Kline Lot on South Ashley, the Palio Lot at Main and William, the old Y Lot at Fifth and William; and the Library Lot on South Fifth. The Library Lot is actually currently a construction site – the DDA is building a roughly 640-space underground parking garage on the site. [Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor Council Focuses on Downtown"]

Bernstein weighed in for a process that would begin with figuring out a vision: Where do we aspire to be in 30 years? He pointed to the AATA’s process of developing a transit master plan – still in the works – as an example of that kind of approach. [Chronicle coverage: "'Smart Growth' to Fuel Countywide Transit" ]

Parker shared some of the hurdles that are inherent in the library’s future plans for its downtown building – plans that are currently on hold. Those challenges involve the historical relationship between the library and the Ann Arbor Public Schools (the district has a right of first refusal on any offer to sell the building) and the need to ask voters to increase the library millage in order to fund a new building. [Chronicle coverage: "Citing Economy, Board Halts Library Project"]

Remarks from Mouat, a DDA board member, seemed to resonate with Allen, a developer seated in the audience. [Allen has long called for the master planning of the whole area around the Library Lot, not just the Library Lot itself. Chronicle coverage: "Column: Visions for the Library Lot"]

Mouat suggested that the process could include developing a vision for Ann Arbor that is not physical. To explain what he meant, Mouat noted that Austin is known as a “music capital” and Boulder is known as a “recreation capital.” Ann Arbor, he said, is known as the home of the University of Michigan – but what is Ann Arbor beyond the university? he asked. He said that for his part, he could imagine Ann Arbor becoming some kind of “food capital.”

Vision of Ann Arbor: Third Base, Caboose, Engine

Compared to Mouat’s vision of an Ann Arbor that is distinctive, but not based on the presence of the university, Di Rita’s take on Ann Arbor seemed closer to building that vision based on the university connection. In assessing the Library Lot location, he noted that its three major advantages are: (1) the nearby location of other institutions – the library and the transit center; (2) the nearby location of the restaurant and entertainment district; (3) the short walk to the university.

Di Rita sees Ann Arbor as being born to hit a triple – now it’s standing on third base. The question is: Does it want to run home? Ann Arbor could really take things to the next level, he said, but the question is whether there’s a community desire to do that. He said that based on the major stakeholders in the community he’d spoken with, there’s support among them to head towards home plate.

Di Rita noted that one of the things that makes Ann Arbor distinct is that even a person who lives out on Scio Church Road might have strong objections to a proposal for downtown Ann Arbor. In other cities, he said, it’s sometimes the case that only the immediately adjacent neighbors have objections. But that’s not the way Ann Arbor works, he said, and you have to “play the ball where it lies.”

Di Rita sees growth for Ann Arbor, even if it just stands on third base as far as its vision for itself – buildings are going to get built, he said.

Dante Chinni didn’t attend the partnerships committee meeting – by then he had returned to Washington, D.C. But I can imagine him agreeing with at least some of what Di Rita had to say. To Chinni, the most salient and distinctive part of Ann Arbor is the university. And he sees Ann Arbor’s growth as fueled by growth at the university. The Patchwork Nation analysis slots Washtenaw County into the “Campus and Career” community type. But Ann Arbor is surely much more than just the university, right? What does Chinni know – he’s not from here.

But Chinni actually is from here – or more accurately, from around these parts: He grew up in Warren. So he’s at least not as susceptible as other east-coast media types to thinking of Michigan as one place, typified by Detroit. From his Talk:

I mean, most people who don’t live here view Michigan as Detroit. They don’t even really think of the northern part of Michigan. And when you tell them that, Oh, no the county right next door to it, the unemployment rate is really only about, what 6 or 7 percent …

When Chinni was in town two years ago, Ann Arbor was being described by our local officials as a life preserver for the rest of the state. A couple of weeks ago, at a different meeting of Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board members, mayor John Hieftje described the state of Michigan as a train, headed over a cliff. But Ann Arbor was the caboose, Hieftje said, so we’d be the last to go over the cliff.

On the totter, Chinni and I agreed that maybe that train metaphor needs tweaking a bit – instead of a caboose, maybe Ann Arbor should be compared to an engine hooked to the other end pulling Michigan’s train away from the cliff. Specifically in the recovery of Detroit, Chinni sees a role for Ann Arbor:

This is what I think is going to happen: It’s not going to be that Ann Arbor’s just going to grow and grow and get really big and Detroit is to get smaller and smaller and smaller and all the people to move out here. Ann Arbor is going to become a bigger and bigger economic force and eventually that will rub off on Detroit.

And as Ann Arbor becomes a bigger and bigger economic force, Chinni thinks Ann Arbor will change:

Ann Arbor will change as part of that, but it won’t become Detroit. If Ann Arbor is successful at helping Detroit become what it can become, Ann Arbor will change, too. People who don’t think it’s been a change, Ann Arbor has changed since 1980. It has. I know people here don’t want to hear that, but it has changed. It is not the same city as it was back then. I mean politically, the student body has changed – it’s a different place.

So as Ann Arbor changes, I think it’s worth asking if the residents of Ann Arbor will be able to reach a consensus on a vision of this place that might help guide that change. And it looks like an attempt to find that consensus will be part of the DDA-led process to look at those four downtown parcels.

I hope that people who participate in the process along the way are prepared to accept that the community consensus vision might be different from their personal vision.

Patchwork Politics

It’s worth noting that Patchwork Nation is not a project borne out of desire to help Ann Arbor figure out its vision. It was born out of a desire to understand politics in the U.S. on a more detailed level than the red-state/blue-state maps the media tends to use around election time.

That goal led Chinni to take a county-by-county approach, which resulted in an analysis of each U.S. county as one of 12 types: Boom Towns, Campus and Careers, Emptying Nests, Evangelical Epicenters, Immigration Nation, Industrial Metropolis, Military Bastions, Minority Central, Monied Burbs, Mormon Outposts, Service Worker Centers, Tractor Country. [For interactive maps of the Patchwork analysis, visit the Patchwork Nation website.]

I’ve written about the book before, when then-candidate for mayor Steve Bean graced the other end of the teeter totter last fall.

As Chinni pointed out during his ride, everything that’s said about the community types is more true of the type than it is about individual places categorized by a type.

Still, I think it’s natural for anyone who picks up the book to find their own community and decide if Chinni and Gimpel got it right. What will also be interesting to see is if the Patchwork approach begins to serve as a reliable tool for getting more insight into national-level politics.

On the totter, Chinni described how he’ll be partnering with the PBS Newshour on upcoming 2012 election coverage, offering insight on those races from the Patchwork point of view. It’s possible we’ll start to see the Patchwork analysis seep into the approach taken by the media to its election coverage and analysis for the 2012 cycle.

For Chinni’s views in more detail and context, read Dante Chinni’s Talk.

John U. Bacon

Almost all of the major league baseball’s 30 teams have moved their spring training camps in the past three decades, and fully half of them now play in Arizona. Stay-at-home stalwarts like the Cincinnati Reds trained in Tampa for 52 years before moving to Plant City in 1988, then to Sarasota a decade later, then finally to Goodyear, Arizona, last year.

Even the Los Angeles Dodgers, who created Dodgertown 62 years ago in Vero Beach to provide a safe haven for Jackie Robinson and other black players, also bolted for Arizona last year.

Baseball teams have been city-swapping their spring training sites like swingers in a – well, a bad movie about swingers, I guess.

In this permissive environment, the Detroit Tigers stand as a pillar of fidelity. Except for three years during World War II, the Tigers have trained in Lakeland, Florida every year since 1934. That’s 74 seasons, by far the longest marriage in the major leagues.

But why Lakeland?

It’s not the nightlife. Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell told me when he first started going to Lakeland in 1941, “nothing happened there but morning, noon and night – and sometimes they skipped one of those.”

One important consideration for a major league club is the quality of the training facilities. On that score, Lakeland’s have always ranked among the best in baseball – maybe the very best. And the city treats the team well. When the Tigers need a new bulletin board, it’s the city park workers who install it. The city even celebrates the Tigers with an annual barbeque blow out.

But the real cement behind this rock-solid bond was the relationship forged years ago by former Tigers’ president Jim Campbell and a guy named Joker Marchant. You might have heard of Campbell, but even Tigers fans only know the other name because the Tigers’ spring training site is called Joker Marchant Stadium.

Officially, Joker Marchant was the director of Lakeland’s parks and recreation department for 35 years. Unofficially, he was the “Boss Hog” of the city, getting things done that no one else dared to do.

Marchant was a small guy who walked tall, with a big white Stetson on top. He had a taut body, leathery skin and a deep Southern drawl. He always drove a pick-up truck. His only indulgence was leaving work every day at 5 p.m. to go home and watch re-runs of “Gunsmoke.” Then he’d hop back in his pick-up truck and work some more.

One of his employees told me Marchant would never let you down. He said Marchant’s word was his bond, and Campbell was the same way.

Despite their differences in background, Campbell and Marchant both saw in the other a kindred spirit.

A couple decades ago, the Tigers had a minor league pitcher who brought a huge boa constrictor to spring training. When one of Joker’s workers came to him with the problem, Joker told him to put the snake in an extra room in the cafeteria.

When Campbell heard about the snake he was hotter’n a firecracker. The worker told me Campbell gave him the business up one side and down the other, every expletive in the book and he even threatened to fire him.

Finally the worker said, “Joker said it was okay.” At that, Campbell stared at the young man, clenched his jaw, and simply walked away. The worker had said the only thing that would get him off the hook: Joker said it was okay. That is how close those two were.

Near the end of their long careers, and longer lives, Jim Campbell and Joker Marchant – a famous guy from a big northern city, and a small town parks and rec guy from the south – would sit together every morning in the team’s cafeteria, eat breakfast, and talk about old times.

They had become close friends. As unlikely a partnership as the one they left behind, between the Detroit Tigers and little Lakeland, Florida.

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 of 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

And so, it’s done. The Detroit Tigers’ once promising season ended Tuesday in a cataclysmic collapse.

In the American League’s Central Division, Sports Illustrated had picked the Tigers to finish next to last. But by September, they had built a seemingly insurmountable seven-game lead. The team was a tonic for a troubled town in a troubled time. Some pundits even claimed the Tigers season was a metaphor for a Motown renaissance. They started comparing this team to the 1968 Tigers, and the role they played in healing a city that had been torn apart the summer before.

On July 23, 1967, the long-simmering tensions between the police and the people finally boiled over into a full-blown race rebellion – or riot, depending on whom you ask – that lasted five days, the worst in American history.

Enter the 1968 Tigers.

They jumped out in front of the pack early on, and stayed there the rest of the season. That might sound boring, but they won almost a third of their games in their last at bat. Even better, the hero could be almost anybody, on any given night, from big stars to no-names. The team had character, and captured the city’s imagination.

It helped that many of the ‘68 Tigers had grown up dreaming of playing for their hometown team, guys like Bill Freehan, the All-Star catcher from Royal Oak, and the entire outfield of Jim Northrup, Mickey Stanley and Willie Horton, who won a city baseball title playing for Detroit’s Northwestern High.

Even transplants like Mickey Lolich, “Stormin’” Norman Cash and Gates “Gator” Brown would all make Michigan their home long after their careers were over. The love affair between the 1968 Tigers and their town was as real and deep as it was needed.

When the Tigers faced the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, however, few gave them much of a chance. After they lost three of the first four games, almost no one did.

But the cornered Tigers clawed back, game by game. In game five, Bill Freehan blocked Lou Brock from touching home plate. In game six, Jim Northrup hit a grand slam. And in the deciding game seven, Mickey Lolich, one of the fattest pitchers ever to take the mound, gave up only one run – his third complete game victory of the series.

The Detroit Free Press headline read, “WE WIN!” And that’s how it felt. This split city had come back together that summer – all over a baseball team.

The years since have not been kind to the Motor City. It now suffers from severe segregation, a dying auto industry and almost four decades of stunningly cynical leadership. You can say Nice Things About Detroit all you want. This town needs far more help than any baseball team can provide.

Still, this year’s Tigers were a pleasant distraction. They played hard and they had great chemistry, thanks to good guys like Brandon Inge and Placido Polanco. But over the past month they suffered a breakdown of historic proportions, capped by Miguel Cabrera’s drunken Saturday night that ended in domestic abuse.

It was an ugly end to a buoyant beginning.

In 1968, the Detroit Tigers did more than you could ask of any team. Yet Detroit’s leaders couldn’t match their effort.

This year, the Tigers fell short – but if the current leaders can finally begin to rebuild Detroit, that would be a trade worth making.

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 of 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

If you grew up in Michigan in the ’70s, as I did, Bob Seger sang the soundtrack to your summers, and Ernie Harwell provided the voiceover.

When I think about our family trips up north, they’re always accompanied by Harwell’s comfortable cadences filling the car. He didn’t simply broadcast baseball games. He turned them into stories. In Harwell’s world, a batter didn’t merely strike out. He was “called out for excessive window shopping,” or “caught standing there like the house by the side of the road.”

Unlike today’s announcers, who prattle on with mindless patter and pointless stats, Harwell treated his listeners to healthy doses of “companionable silences,” something Zen masters refer to as the delicious “space between the notes.” Harwell said the quiet allowed the listeners to enjoy the sounds of the ballpark itself, which he felt was richer than his own voice.

Harwell was born in Georgia in 1918, a time and a place that valued relaxed conversations on the porch. He grew up listening to Atlanta Crackers games on a crystal radio set. The power of those broadcasts probably hit Harwell more than most. His dad suffered from multiple sclerosis, and rarely left his wheel chair. The highlight of his day was listening to those ball games.

At age 29, Harwell became the Crackers’ play-by-play man. Just two years later, in 1948, Harwell caught the ear of the Brooklyn Dodgers. They were so impressed, they traded their catcher for Harwell, making him the only broadcaster in baseball history to be traded for a player.

Harwell went on to set the record for most games broadcast, including 41 seasons for the Tigers. When Sports Illustrated picked its all-time baseball dream team a few years ago, it tapped Harwell as the radio announcer – a true Hall of Famer.

He’ll tell you Willie Mays is the best player he’s ever seen, that Jackie Robinson was the most courageous, and that a lovable Tigers pitcher named Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, who used to get on his hands and knees to groom the mound, “was probably the most charismatic guy we’ve ever had here in Detroit. A real breath of fresh air.”

In 1997, I was lucky enough to cover spring training for The Detroit News. My first day I was sitting on a bench, watching infield practice, when Ernie Harwell sidled up next to me. We sat there, watching baseball, and chatting like old friends – just the way we all imagined we already were, listening to him on the radio. He invited me for dinner that night with his wife Lulu. We enjoyed a long talk, and he picked up the tab.

Harwell is a deeply religious man, but he never wears it on his sleeve. He simply lives it. This week, Harwell announced that he had an incurable form of cancer, and would not seek treatment. “Whatever’s in store,” he said, “I’m ready for a new adventure. That’s the way I look at it.”

I wrote a story about him eight years ago. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I woke up to the phone ringing. It was Ernie Harwell, calling to thank me for the article. Who does that? That day, of course, soon turned tragic, but I will never forget how Harwell’s little act of humanity stood as such a poignant contrast to all that followed.

A few times I invited him to call in on a talk show I was hosting. “Just ask,” he said, “And I’ll come running.”

I wish there was something I could do for him now. If he just asked, I’d come running.

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 of 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

Three years ago, a few folks in Dexter, Michigan – a small farming town just west of Ann Arbor – were buzzing with rumors that the only house for sale in their neighborhood might finally be sold.  

I found out from my mom, who found out from her hair-dresser, Chantel Williams, who lived next door to the vacant house, that Shani Inge and her husband, Brandon, had bought it. They moved to Dexter even though it’s a full hour from his office. He works at Comerica Park, in Detroit, playing third base for the Tigers. In fact, he just played in his first All-Star game. But you’d never guess it from the way he looks – and certainly not from the way he acts.

A friend of mine I’ll call “Fred Fragner” – because that’s his name – is a home inspector. When Fragner knocked on the Inge’s door to do his job, the guy who answered looked so young, Fragner figured he was probably the family’s kid back from college.

Inge gave Fragner the full tour of the house, ending in the basement. There, Fragner noticed more baseball memorabilia than even the manliest of man-caves typically has.

“You play ball?”  Fragner asked.

Inge looked at him, to see if he was serious. “Yeah, I do.”

“For who?”

“For the Tigers.”

“The Louisiana State Tigers?” Fragner asked, still refusing to believe the guy was old enough to be a major leaguer.

“No, the Detroit Tigers!”

“The Tigers?!? You’re not big enough!”

Inge chuckled, and took it right in stride.

Before Inge left for the park that day, he asked Fragner if there was anything he could do for him. Fragner asked for an autographed baseball card. No problem, Inge said. After Fragner finished his work, on the way out he saw, on the kitchen table, a baseball card signed by Brandon Inge – and five more, just for him. 

In fairness to Fragner, a lot of folks can’t believe the 5-11 Inge is a major leaguer. Inge is so inconspicuous, a local softball team daringly put him on their roster, called him “Charlie” – and got away with it for weeks.

The kids at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital have been quicker on the uptake. Brandon’s wife Shani had worked there, and both their boys were born there. But what hooked her husband was meeting the patients. 

Inge has been a frequent visitor ever since, and didn’t need to be prodded to donate $100,000 to build a new play area for the young patients. Instead of naming it after themselves, the Inges have asked the kids to come up with a name for it.    

Inge was scheduled to meet one of those kids, eight-year-old Tommy Schomaker, this spring. But Inge missed him because Tommy had to be rushed that very day into surgery to receive a heart transplant. When Inge came back a few weeks later, Tommy asked for an autograph. Inge agreed, on one condition: Tommy had to give him one, too – right on Inge’s right forearm. 

When Inge stepped into the batter’s box that night, he looked down at Tommy’s autograph – then knocked the ball over the wall for a two-run homer.   

I’ve never met Brandon Inge. I’d like to, but I don’t need to. I feel like I already know him. 

He’s the All-Star who lives next door.

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 of 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. 

I know for a fact that most of your readers who at one time in their lives traded baseball cards remember the Bird. 1976 is just around the corner in the memories of many of us.

I was living in San Francisco at the time and freezing at the ball games at Candlestick, but out of the fog, through the times zones, came the Bird and he put Detroit on the baseball map and he made me wish that I was back in the Midwest where real baseball was played on warm balmy nights in the summer.

He was only 21.

[Editor's note: Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, a former All Star pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, died on Monday at his home in Massachusetts.]