"Number 41. Designated hitter, Victor Martinez."

 In 2011, the simple fact that my internet speed could finally handle the workload of streaming MLB.TV meant that I could watch the baseball playoffs for the first time since I was a teenager. 

Baseball is one of the first things I remember being good at.  I could draw well.  I had a penchant for above average mimicry. Then baseball, well, it made sense to me from the first time I played it, and as I grew older, I became pretty darn good at it.  The first year I played, I was five years old.  My Mom was the coach.  My babysitter, her assistant.  “Paging Dr. Freud.”  I had no interest in what professional baseball players were doing, I only wanted to play it.  

At age nine, the Detroit Tigers installed a foundation that has yet to crumble, even if the structure built above it collapsed.

In 1987, the American League East division had seven teams.  Wild Cards were still seven seasons away, and the first place team from the East, played the first place team from the West;  the winner of that best-of-seven series advanced to the World Series to play their National League equivalent.  Simple as that.  As the calendar flipped into October, the Detroit Tigers found themselves facing division rivals the Toronto Blue Jays at home in Tiger Stadium for the last three games of the season.  The Jays had just lost four games in a row after winning seven straight previous to their slump, and as they headed to Detroit, the Tigers were one game behind the Jays in the standings. 

Long, exciting story short, Detroit won all three games.  I remember the last game vividly.  Frank Tanana, the Tigers junk baller, who once upon a time had one of the most vicious fastballs in baseball, and who in the late 1970’s had to “…learn how to pitch” after an arm injury that stripped him of his most useful tool, pitched a complete game shutout.  A veritable kitchen sink containing every pitch the game of baseball had to offer, provided it was thrown under 85 MPH.  

Nine innings, no runs from Tanana.  The Tigers were held to three hits by Jays pitcher Jimmy Key, one a solo home run from Larry Herndon in the second inning.  I was only nine years old, but for the first time I would feel the knot in my stomach that every sports fan knows, despises, but also kind of looks forward to having.  The masochism that comes from attaching your emotions to the success and failures of a sports team.  To sports fans, it’s a familiar feeling that is almost paralyzing, and borders on true fear.  Were that particular feeling attached to anything real within our lives, I think most healthy people would choose to avoid it.  That last game, every baserunner the Jays had felt like a personal death threat.  My Dad and I sat in the living room in front of the two-hundred plus pound, wood encased coloured television, listening to George and Al call the game on Channel 4. Two outs in the ninth, Blue Jays third baseman Garth Iorg hits a weak ground ball back to the mound, Frank Tanana gloves it, takes a few steps towards first base, makes the toss to Darrell Evans and everyone on the television screen is jumping up and down.  So was I.  It wasn’t calculated, it was involuntary.  The Tigers won their division in the most exciting possible fashion the first year I started to follow baseball.  The high. 

The low.  They advanced only to lose to the Minnesota Twins four games to one.  However, during game three, I was allowed for the first time ever to leave the dinner table before my parents had finished.  I was given permission to make something in my life important.  I watched Detroit’s spectacled right fielder Pat Sheridan hit a home run in the 8th inning while my parents ate in the other room, and the Tigers won their only game of the series.  I jumped up and down with my arms in the air again.  Again, the high, and then two more lows, and the Tigers were out of the playoffs.  (Goddamn you Tom Brunansky!)

Then, the steroid-era, my out of control obsession with music, and general teenage flakiness led to full-on baseball disinterest by 1996, until it faded to the point of absolute indifference.

Cut to, high-speed internet, MLB.TV, playoffs 2011.  For unknown reasons, my interest in baseball had started to awaken.  Nostalgia?  Clichéd stories of sons reconnecting with lost fathers?  Autumn boredom?  Reading about baseball had piqued my interest in the game again, maybe that was it?  I honestly don’t remember.  Luckily, someone remembered that time for me, except it wasn’t my life, though oddly, this is almost exactly how I might explain it.  Author, and fellow baseball enthusiast Stacey May Fowles did, and it comes pretty darn close to perfectly laying out the feelings I experienced.

“In 2011, I fell in love with baseball again.

There were many reasons and incidents and forks in the road that were responsible for that particular (re)turn of events, but the strongest memory I have, the one very bright spark that beckoned me, was watching Justin Brooks Verlander pitch for the Detroit Tigers in the postseason…and all of a sudden there he was on my television screen. The way he worked on the mound was just so incredibly beautiful that it lit my way in the dark, gave me something to care deeply about when I couldn't summon care about even the most basic of human tasks. In some ways it felt as if he had extended a personal invitation, and despite how hard and awful everything felt at the time, I accepted. The whole glorious world of baseball opened up to me all over again, and season after season it healed and helped and as I've said before, saved my life. 

I can't entirely explain it, but for whatever reason I found so much comfort, so much poetry in Verlander's distinct pitching style that I went on to follow it around like a devotee. It was like a song I liked to play when I was feeling down, a favourite movie or book that brought me solace, a reliable thing to unabashedly love and enjoy when life was really hard. Thanks to his talent, I would find myself booking my schedule around his starts, and developing an unlikely affection for the Tigers as my 'second team.'"

The first time I read that, I was not only moved by it (the entire essay is a beautiful piece of work), but mildly creeped out that I was reading the words of another person that easily could have been my own about a VERY specific moment in baseball.  (And by a Jays fan of all things?!)  Over the years I have often stated to my partner “…Verlander’s pitching today” as though it were a unique variety of stop sign I had invented.  My passive aggressive (though in no way acceptable) version of saying, “THIS is what I want to do right now,” while hoping that I could.  I watched the Tigers continue in 2011 to the American League Division series, and lose to the Texas Rangers, but it didn’t matter, the seed was planted.  In 2012, it grew like my own personal triffid of obsession.  

Justin Verlander was my favourite pitcher. The world of pitching has always been fascinating to me, especially the successes, but the failures can be equally interesting, if not heartbreaking.  To watch the best pitchers in the league fall apart on the mound is like watching a unicorn being ripped apart by lions.  It hurts for me to watch, even if it’s the Tigers taking part in the feast.  One of my least favourite things in the game of baseball is watching a young pitcher get tossed into the meat grinder.  It pains me.  Honestly, I’ll sometimes turn the game off for a while just so they can have some "privacy" during this horrible moment in their life.  To watch a kid who hasn’t developed their poker face yet?  Awful.  You can almost see them looking desperately for their Mom in the stands.  I understand it to the point where I don’t want to be reminded of it.  

When I played baseball, I grew up pitching.  I hated it.  It was like stage fright times two.  From the simple act of overhearing comments at baseball games, it is evidently something that a lot of people assume is very easy.  It is anything but.  Consider this, the median age for an NHL player for the 2017 season was 27.  In baseball, it’s not unusual for a pitching prospect to make his debut at age 25.  There is much to be done before the big leagues.  Mechanics.  Arm slots.  Release points.  Learning to hide, or not “tip” your pitches.  Learning your batters, and conditioning both mental and physical. You have to develop muscle memory, and even when you have accomplished all of these things, you will still have a coach go over EVERYTHING with you when your outing is over, even if that outing went well. Oh, and don't overuse your arm, you know, that thing that you rely on for your future, because the wrong twinge of pain could mean your career.  ie. the majority of your life, and everything you have worked for up until that point.  No, nothing about pitching is easy. Take Verlander for instance.  On the mound, he is a collection of twitches, blinks and fidgets held together by pacing, and tugs at his uniform sleeves.  Lastly, the classic pre-pitch Verlander big breath, shoulders up, shoulders down, then the delivery.  Nothing about his demeanour screams “cake walk”. Even when one of baseball’s best veteran pitchers is out there making it look easy, it’s very evident he’s doing everything he can to not vomit on live television. 

So, up until the 2011 playoffs, I’m not sure I had ever witnessed a pitcher like Justin Verlander.  He could maintain a 95-101 MPH fastball through nine innings while also throwing a curve ball and slider that made the best hitters in the game look like beer league softball Dads who cracked the 6-packs early.  I watched him pitch for Detroit from the 2011 playoffs until August of 2017, when he was traded to last year’s World Series winners, the Houston Astros as the Tigers went “full rebuild”.  Within that time, he was an All-Star three times, won the American League MVP Award the same year he won the American League Cy Young Award (the league's best pitcher), and was part of four playoff teams, bringing the Tigers to the World Series in 2012.  He also had off-season core surgery that served him up a sub-par 2014 effort that was difficult for any fan to watch.  (And for Verlander too, who more than once shouted a post-home run word or two that was never meant to be picked up loud and clear by the television mics.)

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With most baseball fans, you have a “favourite pitcher” and a “favourite batter”.  My “favourite batter” is Victor Martinez.  “V-Mart”.  Number 41.  He started his career in 2002, quickly becoming an All-Star catcher with the Cleveland Indians, and one of the best offensive catchers in the game.  In 2009, he was dealt to the Boston Red Sox at the trade deadline, where he spent the remainder of 2009, and the 2010 seasons putting up very impressive numbers, making the All-Star team in 2010. 

In the 2010/11 off-season, the Detroit Tigers signed him to a four year contract.  Again, Victor put up excellent numbers, and in August of that year, suffered a knee sprain, but was able to finish the season, and join the Tigers in the playoffs.  That off-season, Victor tore his left ACL training, needed surgery, and missed the entirety of 2012.  Fast forward to February 2015, when shortly before Spring Training, Victor tore the medial meniscus of that same knee, had surgery, and missed a quarter of the season recovering.  By this time, he was almost exclusively a designated hitter, on the rarest of occasions playing first base, and catching only five games post-2012 during inter-league play.  I watched him become one of the slowest runners in the game, a statistical deficit on the base paths, and every time V-Mart slid into a base, myself and other Tigers fans held their breathe in the hopes something in his legs would not pop.  Then, last year, we watched as Victor ran to first, clutched his chest, immediately ran off the field, and was rushed to the hospital.  Twice this happened.  An irregular heartbeat.  When Victor was 7 years old, his father died of a massive heart attack. Last year V-Mart was 38, and after the second heart incident, his season was over.  Surgery. 

In my Tigers fandom, I’ve been fortunate enough to watch not only one of the best pitchers of his generation play for my favourite team, but also one of the greatest hitters.  Possibly THE greatest.  Miguel Cabrera.  When “Miggy” was at his peak, he made historical feats look effortless.  In 2012, he was the first player to win the “Triple Crown” in 45 years.  (Leading the league in batting average, home runs, and runs batted in.)  In 2011/12/13/15 he led the American league with the highest batting average.  He was so consistently great, I realize now that I took him for granted.  It was Miggy’s continuous excellence at the plate that it made me appreciate V-Mart all the more, because you could see it.  Miggy is a magician. Victor is a mechanic.  Everything Victor does at the plate, his intensity, his focus, his swing, his approach to hitting is visible.  It reeks of hard work.  And if you can’t see it, you can easily read about it.  The papers talk about him being the first guy in the gym in the morning.  The first guy swinging off the tee.  Up until this season, Victor would head into the belly of Comerica Park between innings to work on his swing in the cages while the game was going on.

From the 2011 playoffs, until now, I’ve loved watching Victor Martinez take his at bats.  It’s like watching someone who is exceptional at their job.  He's obviously talented, and wouldn't be in the majors without some kind of natural skill, but it's evident he's a person who takes a massive amount of pride in what he does.  Someone who always wants to do the best they can, even when they can’t.  I’ve never been under the impression that baseball is a sport or a form of employment for Victor.  It seems like a craft, an art.  Sure, he wants to win, but I think he’s like an engineer who keeps working at streamlining his design into the most workable, efficient tool possible.  That’s not an easy thing to do when your best days of athleticism are behind you, and your body is telling you to stop via-systems failure.  Given his age, physical deterioration, and the fact he is playing on a non-contending team, his 2018 season has been pretty impressive.

I write all of this because Victor, who is four months younger than myself, who I have watched play a ball and stick game every summer for seven years will play his last game ever on September 30th, 2018.  The rebuilding Tigers were predictably nowhere near a playoff birth this year, and this man who’s ability and workmanship I admired for almost a decade will turn into memories and numbers on a website.

Last week, the Tigers played their last series of the season in Cleveland, the city where Victor got his start; where he made his name.  Before last Saturday’s day game, the Cleveland Indians held a ceremony for Victor.  He was honoured with the presentation of a plaque to the roar of a near sold out stadium of nostalgic fans.  Kind words were spoken, the mandatory tribute video played, Terry Francona, Victor’s former Red Sox manager, now the Cleveland skipper, by his side.

A 39 year old man, who has been playing a game with stoic intensity since 2002 fell apart.  He didn’t even try to hold it in.  Body shaking sobs, to the point where he had to put his plaque down and quickly hug Indians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti like it was an emergency.  The kind of hug where you bury your face in someone else because you want to feel like you’re safe, and not alone.  The kind when your soul purges your insides out, not because you want to, but instead have to.  It was hard for me to watch, because I get it.  I’ve been there.  It’s a death sob.  A part of his life is gone now.  Cleveland held a funeral for it, and he stood there in real time and watched it happen.  In all of my years of watching sports, I've never seen an athlete emotionally let go like that with the exception of Michael Jordan, who collapsed in grief on the locker room floor after winning his first NBA championship post-the death of his Father.  The Bulls won the championship on June 16th, 1996.  Fathers Day.

Victor’s last game in Detroit is on my calendar.  As is his last game of the season.  He won’t know I’m watching, and even if he did, he likely wouldn’t care, but I have to do it.  It will be a funeral for me too, and I know from experience that if you aren’t there to say goodbye, it never fully sinks in, and you’ll end up regretting it.  It’s just sports, I know, but it isn’t, and that I know too.  I’m genuinely astonished at how sad this makes me, but I have a feeling every other sports fan I know (or have never met) understands completely.  For true sports fans this isn’t just entertainment or distraction.  Eventually we reach a point in our life where the game absorbs so much of us, while we absorb it, that the line between the two becomes blurred and what we are becomes what it is.  It becomes part of our self-definition, for better or for worse.  Our teams success magnifies ours, while it’s failures do the same.  Somewhere along the line, the “game” became the middle of the spider web that our life spun too many important threads around, and for myself, Victor is a thread very close to that center.  My generation has been reminded of our own mortality multiple times over the last few years.  Artists from our youth we admired passing on.  Victor retiring from baseball feels similar, but instead of the reminder of death, it’s the reminder of age.  Of deterioration.  I have found my Kryptonite, and it is the passing of time.  The same time that has been staring me in the face since I joined the world, and who is now letting me know regularly that I was never calling the shots. 

As Victor and I head into our 40’s, starting what are essentially new lives, myself with a new job after leaving one I regretfully committed to for far too long, and Victor heading towards whatever waits down his path, it’s a strange notion to consider that while our “best days are behind us”, our best days are more than likely in front of us as well.  It certainly feels that way.  People seem to think we should all be scared of 40.  Why?  I haven’t figured that out yet.  Instead I’ll wait for a new “favourite batter” and fingers crossed, I’ll be around to watch him retire too.  Then I can move on to the next era of a game, and the life that we play.