When my nearly 90-year-old grandpa was forced to go to the hospital for pneumonia, it was the Detroit Tigers that kept his mind off things most.
My family is consumed by the hospital right now. My grandpa has been there since last Thursday.
He went because he could barely speak and his throat was on fire.
It didn't take the doctors long to figure out it was pneumonia. Which turned into a collapsed lung, a throat infection and – for days now – an inability to swallow.
The prognosis is good for the moment, and though we've still got a long journey ahead, the doctors are even talking about when they can send him home.
It's impossible to say how welcome those words are. But as he continues losing weight, having more health problems and his memory fades, we all know it can't go on forever.
I sometimes feel guilty even telling people my grandpa, known affectionately by almost everyone as just "Pops," is in the hospital. He's 89 after all – these things happen. So many people would love for that much time with their grandfathers, grandmothers or parents; accepting sympathy almost feels wrong.
What I won't feel guilty about is wanting every last damn second I can get with the man. Everyone in my family, and everyone who knows him, feels the exact same way.
This week, the Detroit Tigers helped our family hold on to some of that time.
For my entire life, my grandpa, who had a successful baseball career at Eastern Michigan and an even better fast-pitch softball career after, has been the biggest Tigers fan I know. Watching him break down every little detail of the game throughout so many summers is how I first fell in love with the sport.
And though in his later years he has sometimes opted for slightly easier TV programs to digest – think "America's Got Talent," "The Voice" or even "The Bachelor" – once you get a baseball game on, the switch immediately flips and the baseball genius is back.
Unfortunately, as we tried to keep him distracted for the first few days he was checked in, the Tigers were nowhere to be found on his hospital room TV. For whatever reason, the hospital doesn't have FanDuel Sports Network Detroit, the home of the Tigers. That meant he couldn't watch Friday or Saturday's games, the first after the All-Star break.
Finally, Sunday rolled around. Tarik Skubal was on the mound, and the Tigers were on ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball."
"The Worldwide Leader" was already well established on the TV in Pops' room. We were in business.
Pops got to watch as Skubal showed off his one-of-a-kind brilliance, striking out 11 Rangers and walking none while virtuallycarrying the Tigers to their first win in 12 days.
For a man who hadn't been able to eat or drink for days, this was pure refreshment.
When I came back on Monday, Pops couldn't stop asking: "How can I watch the Tigers game tonight? Will tonight's game be on TV?"
Again, the unfortunate answer was no. But what about a workaround?
As I went home to do my night shift for the Freep from my parents' house down the road, my mom hung out a little while longer.
When the clock got close to 6:40 p.m. –first pitch time from Pittsburgh – a FaceTime call lit up my phone: Pops was still asking if there was any way he could watch the game.
After several downloads, 4-5 login attempts and many, many password guesses, my mom had done the impossible: getting the FanDuel Sports Network app set up on Pops' iPhone, nearly a decade old.
I anxiously watched and listened through a blurry FaceTime call, expecting something else to go wrong, before finally hearing Tigers play-by-play man Jason Benetti's unmistakable pipes. That's when I knew we were in good hands.
Pops watched with a giant smile on his face. Well, at least at first. Tigers starter Jack Flaherty struggled to locate pitches in the second inning, and Pops wasn't holding back.
"With two strikes on the batter, you don't throw it down the middle," he said frustratedly as my mom caught it all on her phone.
"Gee whiz, two walks in a row! This is unbelievable."
"Bases are loaded, holy crap!"
It may sound like a lot of negativity, but oh man, this was anything but. The energy, the juice that he's going to need every last drop of to recover from pneumonia, was back, and then some.
On that night, it didn't matter that the Tigers went on to lose, 3-0, to Pirates ace Paul Skenes. Because the magic of baseball is there's almost always another game the next night. And the next. And the next.
And each of those games brings an opportunity for my grandpa, or someone just like him, to live and die with every pitch. Because in a season of 162 games, it's not always about wins or losses, but giving fans something to invest in from March through October (if you're lucky).
For years, the Mitten State was missing a team that could deliver that hope. And though the Tigers enter Thursday having lost nine of their past 10 games, this team has given its fans plenty of reasons to believe.
Sometimes, a reason to believe – and a reason to wrestle with FSND's app – is a lot bigger than just a baseball game.
Andrew Birkle is an assistant sports editor for the Free Press. You can contact him at [email protected] or on "X" at andrew_birkle.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers quietly mean so much to so many. Just like my grandpa
Category: General Sports
