James Finn Garner

This baseball was signed by all of the 1973 Detroit Tigers. I sprayed it with lacquer before my hands wore off the ink of all the signatures. This spherical madeleine is for:

--all the neighbor ladies (Mrs. Moran, Mrs. Galer, Mrs. Caccavo) who knew baseball and knew the players, and taught me a lot about dedication 

--Father Bueche who was in charge of the altar boy ranks at church and took us down to Tiger Stadium occasionally, before being removed in scandal later

--all the men in the dark recesses of The Bengal Bar on Michigan Avenue—though I could never see you, I heard your shouts and laughs, and marveled at the tawdry pleasures of adulthood, and wondered who painted that near-psychedelic tiger on your vestibule wall

--the dozens of transistor radios -- silver, aqua, cherry red, as the fashions changed -- that I used to listen to Ernie Harwell

--the high school Dad’s Club dads, who always managed to snag a dozen of these baseballs to raffle off on new parent night, gladhanders my dad never could stand

--my mother, who pushed my dad constantly to take me downtown to a ballgame

--my dad, who only very late in his life finally told me he much preferred basketball over baseball

--Willie Horton, “Willie the Wonder,” always my favorite player, home-grown

--and Jim Ray, signing right next to Willie, about whom I remember absolutely nothing.