History Lesson

In 1974, my parents were in their early twenties, and 39-year old, rightfielder Al Kaline was on his farewell tour with the Tigers.  The rocket-armed “Mr. Tiger”, having never played a day in the minor leagues, was relegated to a full season at designated hitter and turned in a pedestrian but respectable line of .262-13-64 in his final Major League campaign.   On June 19^th of that season, the Tigers wrapped up a 3-game set in Texas against the Rangers.  Joe Coleman scattered five hits over six innings of work, allowing only a single run.  John Hiller blew the save in the eighth, but held on to win it in the 11^th on a double by shortstop Ed Brinkman, who plated Mickey Stanley.  The following day, June 20^th, 1974, while the Tigers were en route to the Bronx for an upcoming set with the Pinstripers, my mom gave birth to her first son, Kaline John Carter. 

Fortunately for my brother, he never developed a love for America’s pastime.  Let’s face it, you wouldn’t want to be a kid named “Zuckerberg” who loved entrepreneurship above all else.  That’s an uphill battle.  I came along on Thanksgiving Day in 1978, and despite Dad’s serious attempts to convince Mom to name me “Detroit” (yes, DETROIT), which to this day causes me to question  my father’s sanity, my mother’s reasons for staying married to him, and the overall state of the universe in the 1970’s, rational heads prevailed and I was named after a semi-famous actor, the late Keenan Wynn.  Of course, my parents were not interested in making life easy for their children.  So they tweaked the spelling into something nobody would ever be able to pronounce correctly on the first attempt,  and I became the only Kenon John Carter to ever grace this planet.

In 1983, my sister Lauren joined the clan and became the first Carter kid with a justifiable name.  By this time, I had pretty much taught myself to read by way of the “Topps Baseball Card” method.  Every day, seemingly, Dad would bring me home a pack of baseball cards.  I would sort them, learn them, and cherish them.  The ’83 set featured the rookie cards of future Hall of Famers Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, and Ryne Sandberg.  I would sort my cards and mimic the batting stances and pitching windups of every player on TV.  I quickly became known around the family circle – which is pretty much the only circle you run in when you’re four years old – as a baseball “whiz kid.”  I knew the roster of every team, along with stats and jersey numbers.  I was quite an entertaining party favor. 

In 1984, Sparky Anderson’s Tigers rattled off 104 regular season wins, spanked the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series, and easily dispatched of the San Diego Padres in five games to hoist the World Series trophy for the first and only time in my life.  At six years old, I have no recollection of this magical ’84 season, and cannot draw on it to bring any joy to my life today.  Jack Morris, Dan Petry, Willie Hernandez; Kirk Gibson, Lance Parrish, Alan Trammell, and my all-time favorite player Louis Rodman Whitaker led the Tigers to the promised land probably one season too early for me to participate in the celebration.

In 1987, two years after the final Carter kid, my sister Lindsay, was born, the same nucleus of players once again topped all of their AL East foes, but ran into a Kirby Puckett-led Minnesota Twins team that broke my heart in the ALCS.  As Trammell’s & Whitaker’s careers came to an end, the Cecil Fielder & Bobby Higginson era was ushered in, followed by the Jeff Weaver/Mike Maroth phase, collectively known as “Fifteen Years of Ineptitude.”