TORONTO — The throw went straight from second base to second place. Too low, too hard, it ricocheted past catcher Mike Heath, and as Toronto’s Manny Lee raced across the plate with the winning run, the crowd inside Exhibition Stadium leapt to its feet in giddy delight. They won this? The Blue Jays won it? The Tigers lost it? Are you kidding?
There’s no talking to Doyle Alexander. There’s no disrupting Doyle Alexander. There may be no stopping Doyle Alexander. At least, no one has done it since he donned a Detroit uniform last month. He is the least likely of heroes, a craggy-faced, 37-year-old veteran with a personality — at least to reporters — that would compare nicely to a pit bull’s. And who cares? If he keeps pitching the way he has been pitching, the Tigers will give him a door for his locker and his own “DO NOT DISTURB” sign.
I must say I feel pretty good this morning, considering I’ve been dead for six months.
How I came to pass is an unlikely story. It began a few days ago, when I received a note from a reader named Theda Everett. She wrote:
“What is going on here? I just saw the movie ‘The Rosary Murders’ and in one scene your name is listed in the obituary column. I was horrified and upset . . . Can you share a story about it please?”
You could see it coming; if you had any compassion, you closed your eyes. Frank Tanana had loaded the bases in the first inning — a single, two walks
— and now a kid named Todd Benzinger was up for the Red Sox, and he pretty much held the pitcher’s immediate future in his bat. Whack! A long fly ball. Over the left-center fence. Gone.
And so was Tanana.
ANN ARBOR — Must have been the pope.
How else do you explain this thrashing, this 26-7 loss to Notre Dame, the worst Michigan defeat in 20 years? In the opener? Whoa. Michigan doesn’t lose home openers under Bo Schembechler, does it? It hadn’t in the last 18 seasons.
And now it has. Badly.
“Was there anything positive in that game?” someone asked Schembechler after the turnover-plagued defeat by the Irish.
“No . . . no . . . ” the coach answered, biting his lip, “as a matter of fact . . . no.”
So, in other words, no.
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