Walk-off

The parents took the recuperating patient to a ballgame on Labor Day yesterday.  In other words, Clare (with her right arm in a sling), Michele and I went to Guaranteed Rate Whatever to see the White Sox top the Tigers, 4-2.

StubHub works great if you want to watch mediocre teams; we ended up three rows from the field, maybe sixty feet behind first base.  Four months ago, Clare and I saw Reynaldo Lopez throw seven flawless innings, only to have the White Sox bullpen turn victory into defeat.  Yesterday, Lopez left after seven innings in a 1-1 game.  But the bullpen was still working its “magic,” with Jace Fry grooving a pitch in the top of the ninth to a now-portly if still-ageless Victor Martinez for a 2-1 Detroit lead.

When Martinez connected, a Tigers’ fan a few rows back of us started screaming like his team had just won the World Series.  Sorry, buddy, you visit my house, you show some manners.  I said as much in the parking lot before the game when two Tigers’ fans pulled alongside.  “I hope you had a long ride here and a longer ride back,” I smiled.  We South Siders are always polite.

Anyway, the phenomenon known as Daniel Palka led off the bottom of the ninth with an opposite-field homer to left to tie the score; I started hollering like my team had just won the World Series.  Two batters later, Matt Davidson connected for a two-run walk-off, and I hollered some more, a lot more, to tell you the truth.  Clare told me to stop looking in the direction of that Tigers’ fan.  I did, but kept on yelling.  My throat is still raw the day after.

In a postgame interview, Palka explained, “I’m a big proponent of the 1/9^th of the game” approach to hitting, where the idea is to take off “the first eight innings and then show the people what you got.”  In Palka’s case, that would be his 21^st homer, a major-league-leading six of which have come in the ninth inning.  We also got to watch Palka play right field.  Talk about footwork; it was Astaire-like, not.  But the young man does show off a nice trot around the bases.

Here’s hoping he can work on it another six or seven times before the season ends.