Two Near The Dugout, Please

I wonder what happened to Eric the ticket taker. He could have moved, with the rest of them, to Comerica Park in 2000, but somehow I doubt it. There aren’t as many windows at CoPa as at old Tiger Stadium, after all. Now the windows are manned, or womanned, by younger whippersnappers. In Eric’s day, it may not have been a prerequisite that one be over 40, and overweight and male, but that didn’t stop ‘em.

Eric was an enabler for a hooky player and bored bachelor, back in the day. I’d check out of work early – or maybe I didn’t go in at all, if it was a day game (something was the matter with me for 24 hours) – and squeeze my car into a space at the business lot on Abbott, near Trumbull. A small hike to the ballpark, and if you made it without any of the bums looking for some spare change, then you almost wanted to go back and do it again, for that must have been a fluke.

I can’t remember when I began using Eric to finagle seats for me by the visiting team’s dugout, but once I did, there was no stopping me. Other than Eric himself, of course.

I was on TV back then, on cable downriver hosting a bi-weekly sports call-in show. One day – this is circa 1991 – I made a solo trip to Tiger Stadium. Back then, before wife and kid, it wasn’t unusual for me to make a sojourn to the ballpark to take in the Tigers game, or to Joe Louis Arena to catch the Red Wings – all by my lonesome. I’d eat dinner out and prowl downtown, too on occasion, sans accompaniment. Probably a bi-product of being an only child.

So I’m standing in line, waiting to buy a ticket, and Eric is in the window – not that I knew his name at the time.

“I know you,” he said.

Beg pardon?

“You’re Greg Eno. ‘The Sports Guys.’”

That’d be me, but how do you know THAT?

Well, he watched the show – fancy that. Lived in Taylor, if I recall.

I didn’t ask for any special treatment – just a good seat, and one, please. Amazing the good folding chairs that can be found when you’re looking for a single.

Amazing, too, what can be dug up when the ticket taker sticks his thumb into the pie.

“Here’s a good one,” he said that first time. Then his head swiveled back and forth and his voice got low. “Close enough to game time. Visitor’s dugout.”

Pleased with my good fortune, I also understood him clearly: if you get to the stadium not long before the first pitch, old Eric can set you up with prime seats – the ones not being used by the mucky-mucks that day.

That first game, I was enamored. Eric had me so close to the dugout that I could put my pop on it in between foamy sips.

I tried it again, a few weeks later. I looked for Eric’s window, and sidled up to it a few minutes before game time.

“Whaddya got?,” I may have said.

This time I was more observant, and he – and I’m not making this up – literally backed away
from his counter and looked below it, as if he had lost a contact lens. He withdrew a ticket.

“Here you go.”

I’d pay my $20 – and actually I think it may have been shortchanging Eric – and settle myself into the hard blue plastic as the Tigers were taking the field.

Sometimes it was later than that. Perhaps a couple of outs had already been recorded by the time I took my spot near the opposing dugout. He’d even ask me to come back to his window in 5-10 minutes, on occasion. Aside from blemishing my scorecard, that was totally acceptable, considering where Eric was placing me.

One evening, I took my friend John Nixon, testing the Eric process. Could he do for two what he had been doing for one?

He could. The Indians were in town.

The Indians were awful then – losing about twice as many games as they were winning. Nixon started talking to pitcher Greg Swindell, who was sitting at the end of the dugout, his back against the wall, his head bobbed over the side that was open to the fans. And Swindell talked back. The Indians manager was John McNamara.

“How’s Johnny Mac?,” Nixon asked Swindell.

Swindell spoke out of the side of his mouth, as if he was letting us in on a little secret.

“He’s losing it,” Swindell said of his manager. “He’s losing it.”

A few weeks later, McNamara was fired. He had, indeed, lost it.

The replacement was Mike Hargrove, one of the coaches. When Hargrove was a player, he went through so many rituals, gyrations, and maneuvers in the batter’s box, between every single pitch, that he had a nickname: The Human Rain Delay. He’d back out of the box. He’d unstrap his batting glove and re-strap it. He’d tug on his jersey. He’d adjust his helmet. He’d stretch his arms and rotate his shoulders. He’d dig his foot back into the dirt as if he was planting himself. He did this between every pitch.

So after the game, which the Tigers won, I waited for Hargrove as he walked back to the dugout from the coaching box.

“Hey, RAIN DELAY!,” I yelled in his direction.

He looked up to see from where the cry came. The nickname was still stuck to him, even as a coach.

One day, an afternoon game against Texas, I sympathized with Rangers outfielder Gary Pettis, a former Tiger. Eric had me in what was becoming my usual location, near the Rangers dugout. In this series, the Tigers had won the first two games in their final at-bat. And on this afternoon, they did it to Texas again. Three straight walk-off wins.

As the crowd cheered, Pettis trudged in from centerfield. He happened to look up and we made eye contact, perhaps 25 feet away from each other. I gave him a slow head shake of empathy. He nodded and shrugged his shoulders and turned his palms up. Translation: What are ya gonna do?

I stopped going to Eric after the 1992 season. I was married and no longer was it as fun to go to ballgames alone, knowing that my lovely bride was by herself. Besides, by then Mike Ilitch had bought the team and the word was that a lot of the old guard was being weeded out – the ushers, ticket takers, etc. In some cases, that was a good thing, considering the Tigers employed some pretty surly, sour folks back then.

So I doubt Eric was even with the team when the Tigers left Tiger Stadium after the 1999 season. Probably just as well. Today, the Tigers sell out just about every game. Even Eric probably couldn’t set anything aside nowadays.

It was fun while it lasted.