Kevin was in a great mood when we woke up Saturday morning, September 26th.
The forecast called for one of those beautiful early fall days in Michigan—sunny skies and temperatures in the low 70s. I knew I wanted to do something with Kevin and take advantage of what might be one of the last really nice Saturdays of the year.
Then I received a text from my boat club. There had been a last-minute cancellation, and a boat was available if we wanted it. On a sunny 70-degree September day, that was pretty tempting.
But I had been thinking all week about something else.
Saturday was going to be Justin Verlander’s last time on a major-league mound, and fittingly, it was going to happen at Comerica Park.
Tickets had disappeared almost immediately after the announcement that Verlander would make one final start. But that Saturday morning, I decided to take a look at the resale market anyway.
The choice between the boat and the ballpark suddenly became pretty easy. I wanted to be at the ballpark.
I wanted to see the pitcher who had meant so much to the Detroit Tigers and to this city for so many years. I wanted the nostalgia. I wanted the opportunity to witness one of those rare moments in sports when everyone in the building knows they are watching the end of something special.
And maybe most of all, I wanted to spend the afternoon at a Tigers game with Kevin.
Baseball has a funny way of connecting different periods of our lives. Going back to Comerica Park with Kevin and watching Verlander take the mound again would bring back memories of Tigers games past—different teams, different seasons and different times in our own lives.
At about 10:30 that morning, I found two great seats on SeatGeek. A few clicks later, they were ours. Kevin and I jumped in the car and headed downtown.
Back at the Ballpark
Having been to so many Tigers games since my youth—first at old Tiger Stadium, and then at Comerica Park after it opened in 2000—I’ve always prided myself on knowing just about every nook and cranny of downtown Detroit. I know the traffic patterns, the shortcuts and, usually, where to find parking that other people might overlook.
That knowledge was put to the test Saturday.
As we got closer to Comerica Park, I quickly realized just how big this day was going to be. It seemed as though everyone else had arrived before us. Lots were full. Traffic was everywhere. Every one of my usual parking ideas seemed to be a dead end.
I started wishing I had bought those tickets a little earlier that morning. But luckily we caught a break.
Attendants began opening the Detroit Lions parking garage, and I quickly darted into line. We had a spot. Now we just had to high tail it to get inside.
I had one more bit of veteran Tigers-fan knowledge working in our favor. Rather than heading toward the crowded main entrance, Kevin and I made our way to the back entrance at Comerica Park, which I’ve found can usually get you into the stadium a little quicker.
We still weren’t quite quick enough to see everything. We missed the huge ovation Verlander received when he jogged out to the bullpen to begin warming up. I hated missing that moment, but at least we made it to our seats in time for the national anthem.
And then came the moment we had driven downtown to see. Justin Verlander took the mound at Comerica Park one last time.
The crowd rose to its feet. The roar filled the stadium.
Our view from the stands as Justin Verlander took the mound at Comerica Park one final time.
Kevin and I stood there with everyone else, watching No. 35 take his place on the mound.
For just a moment, it felt like old times. This is the nostalgia I was hoping for when I decided to buy tickets for this game.
Remembering Where It All Started
I remember when Verlander first arrived in the majors in July 2005. You could tell immediately there was something different about him. Here was this young pitcher who could routinely throw a baseball in the upper 90s and, somehow, seemed capable of throwing even harder as the game went along.
By his first full season in 2006, we knew the Tigers had found something special.
Verlander went 17–9 with a 3.63 ERA, striking out 124 batters in 186 innings and winning the American League Rookie of the Year Award.
But to Tigers fans, those numbers were only part of the story.
This was a franchise that had hit rock bottom just three years earlier. In 2003, the Tigers lost 119 games, finishing 43–119 in one of the worst seasons in Major League Baseball history.
So as the summer of 2006 unfolded, there was this growing realization among Tigers fans that something had changed. We suddenly had a legitimate No. 1 starting pitcher—a young ace who looked capable of leading our beloved Tigers back to relevance.
What none of us expected was how quickly it would happen. Almost out of nowhere, the Tigers became one of the best teams in baseball. They won the American League pennant, rolled through the playoffs and were headed to the World Series. Just three years after losing 119 games.
For Tigers fans who had endured all those losing seasons, it was almost hard to believe. And right in the middle of that transformation was this 23-year-old rookie named Justin Verlander. We didn’t know it at the time, of course, but we were watching the beginning of a career that would eventually make Justin Verlander one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history.
Verlander eventually left Detroit in 2017 and went on to add remarkable chapters to his career elsewhere. He won championships. He won more Cy Young Awards. He continued building a résumé that will someday take him to Cooperstown.
But I think most Tigers fans always felt, at least a little bit, that Justin Verlander was still ours. Detroit was where it started.
We watched him grow from a hard-throwing kid into an ace. We watched the no-hitters, the strikeouts and the playoff games. We watched him win a Cy Young Award and an MVP. And perhaps most importantly, we watched him help bring baseball back to life in a city that desperately wanted its Tigers to matter again.
So even after he left, I never really stopped thinking of Justin Verlander as a Detroit Tiger. That’s why there was something so fitting about this final afternoon.
Incredibly, this would be Verlander’s first start at Comerica Park in a Tigers uniform since August 2017. After everything he accomplished, and everywhere his career took him, Justin Verlander had come home to Detroit to throw his final pitches.
One More Glimpse of the Ace
Nobody really knew what to expect once Verlander started pitching. He hadn’t pitched in a major-league game in six months. At 43 years old, this wasn’t about helping the Tigers win a pennant or adding another accomplishment to his résumé. This was a farewell.
I think most of us would have been perfectly happy to see him throw a ceremonial few pitches, maybe an inning or two, wave to the crowd and call it a career.
Instead, something pretty amazing happened. Verlander looked like a pitcher. He was cool and calm on the mound despite the emotion surrounding him and a crowd hanging on virtually every pitch. And every time he got two strikes on a batter, you could feel the anticipation building throughout Comerica Park.
We all wanted the same thing. One more Verlander strikeout. And Verlander gave us six of them. Pretty amazing.
Sure, there were reminders that this wasn’t the Verlander of 2006 or 2011. He gave up two solo home runs. But there were also these wonderful little glimpses of the ace we had watched for two decades—the confidence, the competitiveness and, every once in a while, that familiar fastball.
At one point, the radar gun flashed 95 mph. Forty-three years old. Six months since an injury and his last major-league appearance.
For one last afternoon at Comerica Park, he was giving all of us a chance to remember what it felt like to watch one of baseball’s all-time great pitchers go to work. He would eventually go 5⅓ innings, allowing just two runs while striking out six.
The Comfort of a Familiar Place
What made the afternoon even more special for me was Kevin. Through all of these emotional innings, he was remarkably calm and relaxed.
I sure wish I could read his mind sometimes, or that he could tell me exactly what he was thinking. But as I watched him sitting next to me, he seemed completely comfortable with the familiarity of everything around him.
The sounds of the crowd. The smells of the ballpark. The green grass. The Old English D on the uniforms. Baseball has been part of Kevin’s life for as long as he can remember.
When Kevin and his brother Brian were growing up, Ruth and I took them to a number of Major League ballparks around the country. We made some wonderful family memories at places like Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, and Camden Yards, along with a number of other ballparks we visited over the years.
And, of course, there was Tiger Stadium.
A few years ago, I wrote about how baseball became such an important part of raising our two sons and the lifelong memories it created for our family.
Those memories are particularly meaningful to me now.
After Kevin suffered his traumatic brain injury in 2001, baseball remained part of our lives. Comerica Park had just opened the year before, and over the years Kevin and I continued going downtown together to watch our Tigers. I know Kevin remembers Justin Verlander.
But sitting beside him Saturday, I found myself thinking that perhaps something even more important was happening for Kevin. He was back in a place he knew.
There is something comforting about returning to a familiar place, particularly one connected to so many good memories. I can’t know exactly what Kevin was remembering as he sat there watching Verlander pitch. That’s one of those things I wish he could tell me.
But I could see that he was comfortable. He was happy. And he was back at the ballpark. As a dad, that meant as much to me as anything that happened on the field that afternoon.
Then Came a Moment Nobody Expected
Verlander came back out for the sixth inning. He got Brandon Lowe to pop out in foul territory for the first out. Then Tigers manager A.J. Hinch walked out of the dugout toward the mound.
Everyone in Comerica Park knew what that meant. This was it. Verlander was coming out of the game.
The crowd immediately rose to its feet, ready to give him one final ovation.
But before Hinch could even reach the mound, a little girl suddenly came running onto the field. It was Verlander’s 7-year-old daughter, Genevieve.
She ran straight toward her dad and wrapped her arms around him.
The scene from our seats at Comerica Park as Justin Verlander left the mound for the final time.
And Justin Verlander—the fierce competitor we had watched stare down hitters for more than two decades—was suddenly just a dad hugging his little girl. You could see the emotion overcome him.
Verlander would later admit he had no idea the surprise was coming. His family and the Tigers had managed to completely blindside him.
It was such a wonderful way for his career to end.
And sitting there next to Kevin, the moment hit me in a way I hadn’t expected.
I had spent much of the afternoon thinking about baseball and memories—about Tiger Stadium, Comerica Park, Verlander’s incredible career and all the games I attended with Kevin and Brian when they were growing up, often with Ruth, their Grandpa and friends.
Now, here was Verlander saying goodbye to baseball with his daughter in his arms. For all the statistics, trophies, strikeouts and championships that will define Justin Verlander’s baseball career, this was the image I’ll remember from his final game.
A father and his child on a baseball field.
Maybe that’s because, at that very moment, I was sitting next to my own son, surrounded by memories of all the baseball we had shared together.
Verlander’s teammates gathered around him on the mound. The chants of “J.V.” echoed through Comerica Park as he eventually made his way toward the dugout with his family.
Kevin and I stood and applauded along with everyone else. We had come downtown hoping to witness a little baseball history. Instead, we got something even better. We got one more baseball memory together.
There Was Still a Game to Finish
After Verlander and his family disappeared into the dugout, a number of Tiger fans started to exit their seats and head for their cars. I saw women with tears in their eyes as they walked past us. They got what they came to see, and the game from that point on wasn’t as meaningful.
But Kevin and I decided we’d stay for the rest of the game. And it didn’t disappoint. As if the afternoon hadn’t already given us enough, the Tigers had one more memory waiting for us.
Detroit entered the bottom of the ninth trailing Pittsburgh 3–1. The Tigers scratched across a run and suddenly had the tying run on base. Then, with two outs and two strikes, rookie Eduardo Valencia launched a two-run walk-off home run.
Tigers win, 4–3.
More than a Baseball Game
On the afternoon Justin Verlander took the mound at Comerica Park for the final time, the Tigers somehow found a way to give him—and the sellout crowd—one last dramatic ending.
Kevin and I had come downtown hoping to witness a little baseball history. But somewhere along the way, the afternoon became about something more than watching a baseball legend throw his final pitches.
It became a day filled with memories—of Tiger Stadium and Comerica Park, of Verlander and all those exciting Tigers teams, and of the many baseball games we shared with our boys over the years.
As I sat there next to Kevin, watching Verlander embrace his daughter on the mound, all those years seemed to come together for a moment.
Baseball has given Verlander a Hall of Fame-worthy career. It has given me and my family countless memories. But on this particular afternoon, it also offered a simple reminder that seemed bigger than the game itself.
Spending time together and making memories with family is everything.
It certainly has been for me. And watching the emotion on Verlander’s face as he embraced his daughter, I suspect he feels much the same way.
As Kevin and I walked back to our car through the crowded streets after the game, my mind wandered ahead. How cool would it be to be in Cooperstown in July 2032, when Verlander will surely be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Having been there on this sunny fall afternoon in Detroit to see his final pitches and emotional farewell, celebrating his induction in Cooperstown sounded like a great plan.
But then I caught myself. Why rush ahead? This was a day worth simply enjoying for everything it had been. Kevin and I had shared a nostalgic day together that we’ll always remember.
There was only one thing that could have made it more special.
I only wish Brian and my grandson George could have been sitting there with us.
