Soundtrack of summer

Last night, Major League Baseball’s 91st All-Star Game was played at Coors Field in Denver. The annual Midsummer Classic was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We watched most of the game on Fox Sports. But it also appeared on Fox Deportes (Spanish), the Fox NOW app, foxsports.com, MLB.TV, ESPN radio and live-streamed on fuboTV.

Best pre-game story: The 27-year-old phenom Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels, who can pitch, play outfield and bat designated hitter. No wonder they call him “Sho-time.”

Second-best pre-game story: In his fourth all-star start, former Detroit Tigers ace Max Scherzer, now with the Washington Nationals, can’t hit his weight. But he sure can pitch.

The American League has won seven all-star games in a row. Make that eight. The AL won again, 5-2.

Call me old fashioned (OK, you’re old fashioned), but I honestly miss the days when baseball didn’t last three or four interminable hours. One pitcher on the mound for nine innings. No designated hitter. Simpler times.

It has been 100 years since the first MLB game was broadcast over the radio, an early-August game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies in 1921.

For me, there’s nothing like listening to baseball on the radio. Pure joy.

As a kid, I’d listen to Tiger ballgames on an old pocket-sized transistor radio in the back yard with my Dad, who was usually sipping an iced-cold Stroh’s beer. Can’t recall the radio brand name, but it wasn’t fancy for sure.

Hearing our favorite announcer Ernie Harwell, who could call games like no other, paint a picture of what was happening on the field with his words was mesmerizing. That man could weave a story like he was knitting a scarf.

And unlike today’s TV analysts, there was no incessant chatter from broadcasters to fill every second of air time. Hearing the crisp crack of the bat, the crowd’s muffled chatter, cheers and boos – even that corny pipe organ music – made you feel as if you were inside the park in a premium box seat.

For us, it was the soundtrack of summer.

As a Tigers fan, the one year that stands out is 1968 when they won the World Series, beating the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. Al Kaline, Bill Freehan, Mickey Lolich, Dick McAuliffe … they’re all still among my favorites to this day. Who can forget catcher Freehan scooping up pitcher Lolich in a bear hug when the game ended?

Heck, I still have some of their baseball cards.

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Harwell, known as the “Voice of the Tigers,” called more than 8,500 Major League games spanning over 50 years – 42 of those with the Tigers. He died in 2010 at age 92.

“It’s LOOOOONG GONE!” he’d say in his signature home run call.

Or offer this gem in that sweet Georgia drawl when a fan caught a home run or snagged a foul ball: “A young man from Hamtramck will go home with that one.”

Of course, any Michigan big city or small town could replace Hamtramck. Fans loved it. And so did we.

How did he know that? we wondered. Truth be told, he didn’t.

Even his wife, Miss Lulu, didn’t realize Ernie had made up the hometowns of those lucky fans. Maybe she thought her clever husband was just really good at geography.

This season, Rebecca and I have taken to listening to some Tigers games on the radio. Why? Because our Hulu live-streaming/no ads bundle subscription with “thousands of TV shows and movies” doesn’t offer the new Bally Sports Detroit channel. For the love of Mike.

Honestly, it’s fun. Sitting on the patio sipping an iced-cold beer playing games on our iPads, we find it a welcome distraction from things like cooking and cleaning. Maddie naps on the deck and gets annoyed when we cheer.

Anyway, last night’s all-star game, which was available to us on Fox, was better than most. We flipped channels back and forth between sappy episodes of “Virgin River” to catch the score or get a glimpse of “Sho-time.”

But Ohtani only pitched the first inning (including a 100.2-mph four-seam fastball!) and then batted twice as DH after he left the game, which I still don’t understand. Guess some MLB rules are made to be broken.

Aside: Those hideous uniforms left something to be desired, especially the AL’s, which resembled royal blue jumpsuits more suitable as a toddler’s pajamas. Good grief. No swoosh for you, Nike.

Why can’t they wear their own team’s home or road uniforms like back in the day? That made watching the game so much more fun.

Baseball is a game steeped in tradition. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Jeez, now I sound just like my father.

I’m gonna need new batteries for my transistor.