Originally posted on Rick's Writing Again on January 24, 2007

Billy Joel Live in Concert

Did I ever tell you about the Billy Joel concert at the Palace of Auburn Hills in November 1998?

We had two nosebleed tickets for the show. No one was opening for Billy ... he was headlining this tour by himself.

We left Vestaburg and headed down to the show on Nov. 18. I had recently purchased my first cellular telephone, so on the way down, I called Ticketmaster. I just wanted to see if there were any better tickets available.

"Hi! I'm wondering if you have any tickets available for tonight's Billy Joel concert?"

"Sir, that concert has been sold out for weeks. But I will check for you. Oh, oh. Uh-huh."

"I take it you may have found some tickets?"

"Yes, sir. I located some."

"Where would they be?"

"How does Row 1 sound?"

"Seriously, front row? For tonight!"

"Yes."

So, suddenly, we had four tickets to a sold-out show. In no certain order, I called everyone I could think of. No one was able to head to Auburn Hills on the spur of the moment to see Billy Joel. One person said, "Maybe." So, I put the tickets behind the little door that leads to the gas tank. No one took me up on the offer.

It was a great night. This guy, presumably a roadie, walked in front of us. So, outlandish me, "Hey, are you a roadie?"

"Well, buddy," he said. "Actually roadies don't like to be called roadies. They are crew members."

"So, ah, you're not a crew member, eh?"

"No, you see that microphone right over there? Yeah, that's where I'll be. Singing back-up."

We talked to Michael for about a half-hour. We talked about Billy Joel, life on the road, rock 'n' roll, and about anything else we thought of. He offered to take my tour program backstage and get it signed. Everyone in the band signed it. Billy signed the cover.

The show was great. Toward the end, they were jamming "Big Shot." From reading several interviews, articles, and books about Billy and his band over the years, I knew that Liberty DeVito, his drummer, could read lips. I mouthed, "Liberty, throw me a drum stick, dude!" He mouthed back, "You better catch it" and suddenly a "Big Shot" drum stick came flying my way. I caught it.

There is nothing like standing in the front row!

Tim Hortons Makes Coffee [Repost from 2014]

Tim Hortons Coffee

[This is a repost that originally appeared in 2014. I like the content of the blog and it contains one of my favorite photos. It's unedited, and while my opinion has mostly changed, it's a nice nostalgia dip.]

Woman Goin' Crazy on Caroline Street (March 2024)

In the spring of 2024, storms caused a change in Old Dominion's concert schedule in Key West. The band played an afternoon show on Sunday. One of the highlights was a cover of a classic by Jimmy Buffett. 

Woman Goin' Crazy on Caroline Street

Pearl Doggy: Grand Rapids Intermezzo

Pearl Doggy: Grant Rapids Intermezzo 

I originally wrote down my thoughts on this special show in January 1995. I wrote a draft about 20 years ago on this blog. I've been experimenting with AI, so I put this post into Google Gemini and asked it to write this in another writer's style. So, here goes ... 

January in Michigan. You get rain, you get ice, you get snow. You get anything. Today, it was rain, like Florida in July. But this was Grand Rapids. This was January. This was Pearl Doggy.

We stood in line, me and Don, John, Paul, and Marc. Four hours early. A thousand-seat club. Pearl Doggy"s first time. A rare thing.

"Major act, thousand-seat club," I said. "Doesn"t happen."

Don agreed. "Incredible."

The line grew. Pearl Doggy fans. Whatever that meant.

"Pearl Doggy rocks," Don said, Beavis-style.

"Cool," I said, Butt-head-style.

The class reunion came up. A weasel for a president. Don didn"t want to go. Neither did I. A deal.

A guy with a sign. "Hundred bucks." Tickets. I had an extra. Thought about it. Briefly.

A green mini-van. "That"s him!" I yelled.

Don, sarcastic. "Mellencamp, driving."

I left the line. Ten people followed. Back doors. Autograph.

"John, autograph?"

"What the **** is this?"

"Fan club thing."

He signed. Scrawled. Illegible. But signed.

Back to the line. The autograph. Showed it off.

"Wow. Mellencamp"s autograph."

They touched it. Like it was some relic. It wasn"t. Just a scribble.

"Can"t read it," I said. "He was in a hurry."

They didn"t care. They saw the name. Pearl Doggy. Grand Rapids. January. A brief intermezzo.

The Summer of '76 (The Bird Was the Word)

On Mark "The Bird" Fidrych

I remember being a youngster, not knowing much about baseball. It was the summer of 1976. I lived in Clarkston, Michigan, at that time. I was four years old. Mark "The Bird" Fidrych took the state of Michigan by storm. The summer of '76 was my initiation into baseball. The great rookie who single-handedly gave the Detroit Tigers respectability appeared everywhere.

The Oakland Press, one of the newspapers we used to get every day, had included iron ons of Mark Fidrych during the summer when he was taking everything by storm. I'm sure that my mom ironed on "The Bird" to a tee–shirt or three of mine.

Fidrych would fix up the mound between pitches. He would talk to the baseball and tell it where he wanted it to go. In his rookie season, he threw 24 complete games. In 19 seasons and 526 starts, former Tiger future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander has thrown 26 complete games — and nine of those were shutouts. 

The game has changed. The most complete games in a season for Verlander is six. The last guy with 20 complete games was Fernando Valenzuela (another rookie superstar in 1981, five years after the Bird) in 1986. Amazingly, Jim "Catfish" Hunter threw 30 complete games in 1975. But Fidrych was an incredible dude in that fabled summer. 

Down the road, even after he had faded from view, I grew my hair like his so it would fly out of my baseball cap. I thought it was so cool. Looking back, I can't even believe my dad would let me wear my hair like that. But it was for a good reason. In fourth and fifth grades, I had my school picture taken with my Tigers shirt and baseball hat on. I was a Tigers fan.

And it all started during the summer of "The Bird." 

A version of this was previously published on the blog. 

Please, Mr. Ford, FIRE MILLEN!

As we enjoy the "resurgence" of the Detroit Lions, I thought maybe we could go back 18 or so years and remember when times were, um, different (but typical). It's crazy to think of the insane turnover and chaos of this particular era of the Lions. 

There was a time before Millen that the greatest player in the game suddenly retired on the eve of training camp. Dysfunction was not exclusive to Mr. Millen. 

Many, many Lions fans have waiting a long, long time …

Baseball playoffs, circa 2006. Fire Millen! 

December 11, 2006

Please, Mr. Ford, FIRE MILLEN!

The following is a true and actual letter that I wrote to Mr. Marty Mornhinweg when Matt Millen, Lions general manager/team destroyer, held a press conference to say he was keeping him as his head coach. Never before had something like that happened! (Oh, yeah, and the Lions business address is listed below, so if you would like to send a letter to Mr. Millen, please do!

Vestaburg, Michigan 48891

January 2, 2003

The Detroit Lions, Inc.
C/O Mr. Marty Mornhinweg, Head Coach
222 Republic Drive
Allen Park, MI 48101

Dear Coach Mornhinweg:

Good luck next season. We Lions fans have faith that you will turn the team around. As a public school athletic director, I realize that whoever has the horses is going to win the race. You and your organization are working hard to bring some stallions to Ford Field.

Many of us longtime fans are used to disappointment and usually don’t even get our hopes up at all when a season begins. We are asking you to change this for us! We want to be excited when camp opens every year.

Many times players and coaches leave the Lions and become successful someplace else. Will you stay in Detroit and become successful there. I would prefer not to look at a team in seven years and say “Remember when Marty coached the Lions? We always knew he would be successful someplace!”

Best of luck next year and in the years to come. It’s a shame the team had to hold a press conference to say “Yeah, we’re bringing our coach back.” Heck, you’re in place, let’s let you develop your team and put it all together!

Thank you,
Rick Heitmeyer


Hey, the guy many times seemed clueless. He was the consolation prize when Millen couldn't hire Steve Mariucci after he fired Gary Moeller. Some of what I say (or all) in the letter is still consistent today (i.e. Artose Pinner, #3, etc.) and we are all looking forward to the day when training camp opens and we have, ah, hope. It reminds of when Randy Smith was the Tigers GM and basically destroyed that team by signing athletes instead of signing baseball players with good character. I'm not ripping the drafting of Matt Anderson, Jeff Weaver, Robert Fick, Eric Munson, or any of those guys. Oh, yes I am. I am a believer in signing talented players who have good character. A team with good character and leadership can handle one or two players with questionable character, but a young team (i.e. early 00's Tigers) with hoodlums ... yikes!

F. I. R. E. M. I. L. L. E. N. (or dude, just resign)

2016 Redux

The 2016 Edition of the Tigers Team Was Abrupt 

The amazing thing about the 2016 incarnation of the Detroit Tigers is just simply how terribly they could play at any given moment.

Cut, take two.

The amazing thing about the 2016 incarnation of the Detroit Tigers is just simply how incredibly they could play at any given moment.

I wrote about this eight years ago. 

I am re–writing about it again today.

Because it WAS the roller coaster effect.

Mr. Avila. 

August 4, 2015, the direction of the Detroit baseball franchise changed. Dave Dombrowski was out as the president and general manager and his longtime assistant Al Avila was now in charge. It's reported the Avila had it in his contract that he would be paid like a GM and could not interview with other teams for their GM openings. Suddenly after an awkward trade deadline scenario where we dealt players to teams with records similar to ours after saying we would be buyers, the Tigers were a much worse team not worth watching with a GM … with a son on the team. Not to mention a manager on the hot seat twisting in the wind.

I believe that Avila intended to fire Brad Ausmus but once one of his lieutenants leaked the information to the media, he had to backtrack and "keep" him. Into the 2016 season, in fact. Ausmus was out–managed many times and he also over–managed many times. The Washington Nationals hired a similarly under–qualified manager around the same time the Tigers hired Ausmus when they brought in Matt Williams. Realizing the team was talented but way underperforming, the Nats fired Williams and brought in a true manager, Dusty Baker. The Nats ended up as a good baseball team in 2016.

The change at the top with no–change in the middle manager seat probably caused much more than confusion in Tiger town. The constant rotation of players from Toledo to Detroit and back to Toledo got old — Buck Farmer up and down 19 times in those seasons. Okay, maybe that's part of the reason the Tigers cannot develop players. Constant injuries finally caught up to Anibal Sanchez; Sanchy as they call him. Remember how we questioned the signing of Mike Pelfry from the moment the ink hit the paper. He signed a two–year $16 million contract. Meanwhile, our old buddy Doug Fister (don't get a Tiger fan started on that deal with the Nats) signed a one–year deal with Houston for $7 million. The large contract for Justin Upton (basically the old Prince Fielder albatross of a contract) was lauded but with caution.

It's was a long season of ups and downs. The team looked amazing then amazingly terrible. And that's not to say that eventually Brad Ausums won't be a good manager — it just won't jell in Detroit.