My Old-English "D," dark-blue baseball cap drooped over my eyes and forehead - mainly because I was only knee-high to a grasshopper - as I walked from the parking lot toward the monstrosity that was Tiger Stadium.
My parents gave the ushers my ticket and I waddled up the sterile, gray ramps past the yummy smells coming from the pizza stands. Naturally, I began to care more about pizza than baseball, but I kept shuffling my feet up the ramp and took my place in the upper deck, alongside my family.
It was a scorcher of a July day and the Detroit Tigers were playing the Oakland Athletics before a raucous crowd.
The A's came into the game the second-seeded team in the American League West Division and the Tigers were third in the East Division, but only a couple games behind the division-leading New York Yankees.
Yes, I know it's sick, but the Yankees were good back then, too.
A couple hours elapsed and my father said he wanted to head out a little early, as to avoid the imminent traffic jam at Michigan and Trumbull, so, we left my first baseball game and packed up into the car.
The Tigers would wind up winning the game, and (oddly enough) it would be the last game I saw in person where that would be the outcome.
Nevertheless, I supported Detroit for the next several years before I realized they sucked, and then became a Toronto Blue Jays fan at the beginning of that magical season where they would win their first World Series.
Then a few seasons later the Blue Jays started to suck, and I realized they were Canadian, so I headed back to Detroit.
I also went back to the Tigers because I knew my love for baseball started with them and I owed the club my allegiance. It would be 13 more years before I wandered back to my home, albeit a new park, but the men in white were still wearing the same old jerseys.
Unfortunately, the outcome was different to that of that game back in 1987, but I still enjoyed every minute of the game. It was pro ball. Nine men on the field diving for balls and swinging at pitches that were 90-plus mph. It wasn't pretty ball, but it was Detroit ball.
A couple of sub-par seasons and escalating ticket prices later - with opening day now behind us - I will once again be mesmerized by the sport where overweight men can reign supreme for at least three hours.
Basketball shmasketball - I'm busting out the rally monkey and baseball cap this week.
OK, well maybe I won't be releasing a rabies-infected monkey throughout Shaw Hall, but I will certainly be glued to the TV this week to check out the Major League Baseball's opening week.
The week began when the defending champs, the Anaheim Angels, took on Alex "Rolling in Money" Rodriguez and his Texas Rangers on Sunday night. But the real action will be at Comerica Park today when the Detroit Tigers duke it out with their divisional rival, the Minnesota Twins.
Detroit, coming off a blazingly stellar 9-19 spring training season, will take on the defending divisional champ today. OK, so things might get ugly, but it's all good.
After all, the Tigers have my favorite player back - outfielder Bobby Higginson - and an old-school man at the helm, in Alan Trammell.
Trammell knows how to win, and we can only help that knowledge will transfer to the '03 team.
About the only thing that could deter me from displaying my allegiance to the Tigers (and all of baseball) would be another strike, so let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.
Another incentive for watching baseball is my favorite NHL team (Toronto Maple Leafs) is likely headed for an early exit in the playoffs.
Therefore, I welcome the new MLB season with more open arms than Steve Perry and his fellow '80s rockin' Journey-mates.
So, as the curtain rises on the 2003 MLB season, I will think back to that hot, sticky 1987 day, where my hat swallowed my tiny head and my love for baseball was ignited.
Kristofer Karol is the State News sports administration reporter. He can be reached at karolkri@msu.edu.
