Slave
M,/, HA. 10, 2004
It Happens Every Spring
T
GEORGE
CANTOR
. Reality
Check
he ancient
Greeks
believed
that spring
returned each year
when Persephone was
released from her
three-month captivity
in the underworld,
among the spirits of
the dead.
That is why the first
days of spring carry the
scent of freshly turned
earth, as if from a
grave.
We know better, of course. Spring
begins and the world becomes young
again on Opening Day.
In recent years, the Tigers have car-
ried the unmistakable whiff of the grave
about them, too.
But this new sea-
son has arrived on
the wings of hope.
It has been so
bad lately that I
often see local
children wearing
gear that bears the
insignia of the
New York
Yankees. Now
that's bad.
When I was a
kid, wearing a
Yankees shirt
might not actually
have exposed one
to physical harm,
but it definitely
marked the wearer as weird. The
Yankees were evil and we all knew it.
They blighted our summers. They
crushed our dreams. A pox on them.
Part of the reward of rooting for the
Tigers in those days was to watch them
slowly put together the ingredients for a
winner. And when it finally happened,
the rush of emotion and joy was made
that much sweeter by all the seasons of
suffering and denial. Of course, I was
27 years old when that finally occurred.
But the wait was repaid.
I don't think today's kids are into
denial. They want gratification now,
and if the Tigers can't give it to them,
well, they know who can.
Baseball has brought some of this on
itself, with the inability to control
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor@thej ewishnews. corn
salaries and the rapid movement of
players among franchises. Still, I won-
der if it will taste as good when today's
fans of front-runners finally decide that
their hometown team is worth support-
ing.
I'll be talking baseball a lot in the
next weeks, promoting the publication
of my new book on the 1984 Tigers,
Wire to Wire. That season was an out-
of-body experience for Detroit fans,
cheering for a team so dominant that it
simply destroyed the rest of the league
for the first six weeks of the season.
Even 20 years later, just say "35 and
5" and any Tigers fan will know exactly
what you mean.
My favorite memory of that year,
however, had nothing to do with a ball-
game. I was on assignment in Israel
early that May, the first time I had been
able to visit the Old
City in Jerusalem
and touch the
Kotel.
I had spent the
day with my pho-
tographer, wander-
ing its souks and
narrow passages in a
jumble of emotions
and feeling very far
away from Detroit.
Suddenly, coming
towards us was a sea
of blue baseball caps
with the unmistak-
able Old English D
on the front. It was
a tour group from
Sharrey Zedek, and
when we stopped to greet them, a few
of its members recognized me.
"Can you believe it," they said with-
out preface. "They're 18 and 2."
Even in the Holy Land the magic was
alive.
It was fun to talk to those Tigers and
listen to their memories of that year.
What impressed me most, though, was
how Sparky Anderson told me that he
couldn't enjoy it at all.
"After we got off to that start," he
said, "if we'd have blown it, they would
have hanged me. And I would have
deserved it. So I spent most of the sea-
son worrying.
How very Jewish of him. ❑
George Cantor will be signing copies of
"Wire to Wire" at Borders, Farmington
Hills, at 7p. m. Wednesday, April 14.
The Jewish Theological
Seminary
HONORING
Judith & Joshua Adler
Congregation Beth Shalom
Gayle & Richard Burstein
Congregation Shaarey Zedek
Susan & Melvyn Friedman
Congregation B'nai Moshe
Judy & Robert Rubin
Adat Shalom
Judy & George Vine
Congregation Beth Ahm
For more information please contact the JTS office
JTS
The Jewish
Theological
Seminary
248.258.0055
or
toclouser@jtsa.edu
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2004
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