I’ve been a baseball fan, particularly a Tigers fan, since my dad took me to my first ballgame at Tiger Stadium in 1964. I sat alongside my dad the day Denny McLain served up a blooper to Mickey Mantle to hit over the wall in right field in 1968, the year McLain won 31 games and the Tigers went on to beat the Cards in the World Series.

I’m a baseball purist and sometimes have difficulty separating the business aspects from the game, and the men who play this kid’s game that I love so much from the egos their huge contracts so often create. Still, there is nothing like going to the ballpark on a warm spring day, where I can leave the worries of my own hectic life outside the chalk lines and immerse myself in a game that has largely gone unchanged since its inception more than 100 years ago (raise the pitchers’ mound back to where it should be, and for heaven’s sake, do away with the designated hitter!).

I look forward to sharing with Bleacher Report readers my experiences, my opinions and my love of the game of baseball. What do you say? Let’s Play Ball!

J. Conrad