Today's entry takes us to my basement, or as the sign reads, the man cave. The cave has been a work in progress my entire life as I've accumulated quite a bit over the last 47 years. There is a story behind every view. With that, here is the cave.
What better place to start than the Bob Seger shrine. No explanation is needed as to why there is a Bob shrine.
Our tour leads us onto the Mother Cup wing of the cave. Here we get to see up close the domination the Seadogs have had over the Sons of Liberty in recent years. Oh, the sweet taste of victory.
For the baseball card wing, it was pretty simple. I had a few boxes of cards from the late '70's that were collecting dust. Doke, Jim and I sat around one afternoon enjoying a few soda pops and going through the boxes. We threw what we deemed the coolest cards into a pile. We dug into that pile and pulled out the final and waa-laa. Every card choice has a story. Just look at the cards closest in this picture. You have Lou Brock above wacky relief picture Kevin Saucier above Detroiter John Mayberry who is next to the showman himself, Tito Fuentes, who could tap his bat on home plate like no other.
Moving on, we come to the heros of my youth, and post youth wing. I got the Barry picture from a shop downtown. I can't believe the Trammell Sports Illustrated cover survived five-plus moves but it did. The far right picture is Billy Sims, my favorite besides Fidrych growing up.
Which leads us to Mr. Fidrych. What can you say about his rookie season? What a great time to be just getting into sports for me.
And to my MSU brethren, you are not seeing things. I have some U-M love in the man cave as there is a salute to the only U-M player that earned one, Anthony Carter.
And yep, that is the last Lion championship team pictured there. I hope I am alive to see the next one.
Moving on,we come to the Verlander no-no area. I was at the game back in '07 with a senior group of all things. The blue hairs were rocking!
I got the Fidrych picture in person from him when he had an appearance at the local Meijers back in '05. I was buying some laundry detergent as well that day so I'm in the autograph line holding said detergent. Fidrych joked that he had never signed detergent before. Good person.
And yes, that is a Mateen Cleaves bobblehead. I did a paper in grad school on how the Pistons could re-market themselves; a girl in my group who knew someone at the Palace gave us those.
Above we have the baseball I caught in 2010. Where did you go Brennan Boesch? It was a Father's Day for the ages.
Above we have newspaper clippings from the last professional football championship in the area, the 1983 USFL champion Michigan Panthers!
Below that is the Ernie Harwell/Paul Carey salute that the local paper put together. The best broadcast team, ever.
The Captain Morgan was in the basement of my previous house when I moved in there and made the move to Novi with me. I can't stand the stuff but the captain has a presence.
A shout out to Jim M. for the Isiah donation to the cave. Love him or hate him, he was one heck of a basketball player and am fortunate to have seen his career evolve.
No, I did not save the paper in '68 when the Tigers were playing as I would have had other things to do in life at the time, like having my diaper changed. I was one. My friend Suzanne's grandmother gave the team photo to me, I took it to a frame shop and they cleaned it up.
The Zumaya picture below that is one of my favorites. Two champagne bottles saluting a full house. His career might have been a short one but that night was a good night.
Autographs really don't do much for me but I've accumulated quite a few signed artifacts via gifts or contests over the years. The latter was how I got this signed Rip Hamilton photo awhile back. The mortgage company at work had a contest and once they drew numbers, yours truly had an addition to his basement.
I actually took this picture one afternoon near the old ballpark. Every Tiger fan whose is 30+ should know this crossing by heart.
Barry, Bird and Magic. Not a bad threesome.
The man cave needs some sex appeal and if Barry, Billy, Tram, Magic, Bird, Isiah, etc... are my sports heros, you can't go wrong with Raquel as the Jordan of sex symbols. A fine addition to the cave.
The tour today ends in the Tim wing as we get to see me miss a lay-up against South Lyon back in '84. The yellow Milford frame used to be a warm up shirt for that season. The shirt became a "big man in a little shirt" recently so I clipped it a bit here and there to make what you see.
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| SPARTY ON! |
