The Detroit Catholic High School League's 62-year run of playing their championship baseball games at the home of the Detroit Tigers died Wednesday amid a chaotic 90-minute swirl of conflicting statements, apologies and an offer to play on another day during Wednesday's early morning business hours.
It would appear at face value the Tigers acted callously in severing the Catholic League's arm into Comerica Park. The Tigers were wrong to make their decision in the manner they did. Four schools, several buses packed with fans, the league's staff members and eight umpires were all greatly inconvenienced.
The Tigers might not understand the long-term repercussions of their actions from Wednesday anymore than they understood the uproar that ensued over Ernie Harwell's firing or the way they treated Sparky Anderson.
This is the same organization who empowered then-team president Bo Schembechler and WJR to fire their Hall-Of-Fame play-by-play broadcaster (Harwell) in the winter of 1991. Harwell is a prince of a man regarded as one of the true gentlemen in Detroit's sporting history. The Tigers blackballed manager Sparky Anderson for refusing to manage non-union ballplayers in the spring of 1995, and Anderson returned the favor by doffing a Cincinnati Reds caps on his Hall-Of-Fame plaque in Cooperstown, New York.
On the other hand, in the big picture, are these baseball games really that big a deal? In life you're going to be disrespected by people that have little or no regard for the way that indignity is handed out. You'll be duped, walked on by people in positions of power, people with lesser morals and egos as big as all outdoors. Why sweat it? Do what you have to do and move on.
Did the Catholic League think using a limited media reach into Detroit's dailies to cry foul, which both embarrassed the Tigers over this snafu, will make it better for their student-athletes going forward? I can tell you I've learned these lessons the hard way, and emotion often is the greater of competing evils. Catholic League Director Vic Michaels, like any man in a position of leadership, is a prideful person -- no harm in that -- and I'm certain there was a healthy amount of sting that followed the events of yesterday.
However, so many metro Detroiters are losing jobs, being foreclosed upon, watching pensions disappear, discovering the bonds and common stock they own are about to be valued worthless in bankruptcy. In the big picture, not being able to play a baseball game at the big ballpark hardly seems like the biggest transgression of the day. Not fairly meted out to be sure but not a capital offense either.
However, if the league had any hope of repairing the rift, did biting back on the hand that fed it for 62 years help that cause? By embarrassing the Tigers, there's no room for internal remorse in the team's decision or the manner it was carried out. Often times, the callous act is a bigger detriment to the aggressor than it is to the offended.
In 1967 the Detroit Lions decided it would no longer offer Tiger Stadium to the respective champions of Detroit's Catholic and Public School leagues. 42 years later, life has gone on, hasn't it? It's the Tigers' right, no matter how callous, to make this decision. They own the facility and therefore, they own the power.
Madonna University or the University of Michigan would both be fabulous facilities to host the league's title tilts, both schools would probably love to have all those potential students on campus and the price is certainly more affordable than Comerica Park.
~T.C. Cameron authored two books on the history, spirit and rivalry of high school sports in metro Detroit and officiates three football, basketball & baseball.
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Posted by: louise | June 03, 2009 at 04:59