Tom Gage is interviewed at a Grosse Pointe ballfield a few days ago (video below). I've seen great moments in baseball," the award winner recalls Saturday. (Photo via WXYZ)
Below is a slightly condensed version of Tom Gage's 13-minute remarks at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, N.Y. He provided the full 2,200-word text to Deadline Detroit. A video will be shown on MLB Network at 11 a.m. Sunday.
Gage spoke late Saturday afternoon at a National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ceremony after receiving the annual J.G. Taylor Spink Award "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing" during a 36-year Detroit News career that ended in March.
By Tom Gage
Wow, just wow. I can’t believe I’m standing here. What an honor. I am, and always will be, overwhelmed by it. . . .
Tom Gage, pictured in his 30s at Tiger Stadium's press box, is writing in the 1980s on a pioneering laptop called the TRS-80, which displayed eight lines at a time. (Photo via WXYZ)
When Jack O’Connell of the Baseball Writers Association called me in December, I recognized the area code – so I thought it might be him – but I didn’t know they called if you finished second or third.
After all, my competition was Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, someone I consider to be a great columnist and the late Furman Bisher, an Atlanta icon for generations.
So when Jack called, the first thing I had to do was sit down, and then I needed to make sure he hadn’t reached the wrong number.
Look, I’m not a famous guy. I know that. I’ve joked with friends that in the Legends Parade later, you’ll find me on the who-the-heck-is-that float.
I’m not a writer who has branched out to television. I’m not a familiar face – what’s worse in this day and age, I don’t have all that many followers.
But after 36 years as a traveling beat writer, hoping to inform and entertain the entire spectrum of baseball readers, I received enough votes to be standing in front of you today. And for that, I can’t fully express how humbled I am.
But who am I?
Well, if you’ve loved baseball all your life, I am you.
If your first memory of watching TV is a baseball game, I am you.
If you couldn’t wait for the first day each spring that the new baseball cards were out, once again, I am you.
I’m an adult version of a kid who wrote game stories after playing All-Star Baseball, a wonderful game of spinners and discs, for hours on the floor of my bedroom. My dog ate a player one day – I mean he ate half his disc – it was Gus Zernial of the old Kansas City A’s – so as a kid I even wrote a story about the disabled list.
Grosse Pointe teacher
I also had a great teacher, Bill Mestdagh at Maire School in Grosse Pointe, Michigan – a man who is my good friend to this day - and Mr. Mestdagh would give us vocabulary lists of 25 words with the assignment of writing a story using all 25. . . .
After the awards ceremony at Doubleday Field, Gage rode in a Parade of Legends on Main Street in Cooperstown, N.Y.
I also remember my Uncle Donald giving me an autographed baseball when I was growing up, which I still have – and on it, a player had written “to my good friend, Tommy Gage – Al Kaline.”
Never did I realize that someday I would call him my friend. Thank you for then, Al – thank you for now. . . .
[Kaline was at the ceremony and plans to attend a private party honoring Gage on Saturday night, Tony Paul reports from Cooperstown in The Detroit News.]
My first job was at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, a wonderful paper to work for and to start at. The camaraderie there was so strong that nearly 40 years later, four of my friends from that sports department are here today. . . .
From the Picayune, I went home to Detroit – and had the great honor of covering the Tigers for The Detroit News – to whom I gave every ounce of effort.
'Removed from baseball coverage'
When I walked away from The News in March because I was being removed from baseball coverage despite reaching this pinnacle, it broke my heart.
I can be objective about my own career, though. I was more of a storyteller than a story breaker, but what I’m proudest of is something my good friend Danny Knobler -- who covered the Tigers for 18 years -- wrote for the program of the New York writers’ dinner in January:
“Tom has covered more than 5,000 games, and never stopped looking for – or finding – new angles. He always had a knack of saying what Tigers fans were thinking.”
It was a privilege to do so. There were wonderful experiences along the way, such as covering legendary managers in Sparky Anderson and Jim Leyland whom I respected for the jobs they did, but liked even more as individuals.
The Tigers, of course, are one of the great franchises of baseball. But they had some bumpy times.
I had some bumpy times, too.
The first manager I ever asked a question of -- loud, but likeable Ralph Houk -- well, he yelled at me just for asking it.
The first general manager I asked a question of -- irascible, but also likeable Bill Lajoie -- cursed me out for asking it.
Tom Gage: "Alan Trammell [is] one of the most admirable individuals I've ever met in baseball." (Photo via WXYZ)
And the first manager I covered after I got on the beat full-time -- kindly, but less than loquacious Les Moss -- answered the first three questions I asked of him by saying “you never know” to all three.
Lessons in reality
About that time, I was thinking to myself: “This is not going to be an easy beat.”
It wasn’t -- and that holds true even now. Baseball is not an easy beat. You miss weddings, you miss funerals, you miss birthdays. I say my son is 29 going on 18 because of all the birthdays I missed.
But I loved the beat. I couldn’t have done it for as long as I did, with all those deadlines, if I hadn’t.
I loved it because every game is different. There is always a nuance to write about, something that makes each game unique. You just have to recognize it.
And I loved it for the individuals of the game. There are great players who are great people -- too many to mention. But one I absolutely have to is Alan Trammell, one of the most admirable individuals I’ve ever met in baseball.
I liked self-effacing players the most. I also liked players with humor. Still do.
Walt Terrell shows humility
There was the day that Sparky passed Hughie Jennings as the winningest Tigers’ manager of all time. After the game, with the help of media relations director Dan Ewald, there was a banner in the clubhouse thanking the players. “I couldn’t have done it without you” it read.
One of my favorites, a down-to-earth, hard-working pitcher named Walt Terrell, saw the sign and waved me over. “He could have done it without me,” said Terrell. “Would have gotten there faster.”
I also liked Enos Cabell, an easygoing guy still in baseball with a great outlook on life.
One day – and this was back when reporters flew with the team – Enos went up the galley on the plane to see what the main meal was going to be. The flight attendant preparing it had just gotten up from a conversation with Sparky – but was known to the players as a kind of bossy, no-nonsense type.
“The stone crab will be out in a minute,” Cabell announced about the meal as he came back down the aisle.
Thinking it was a comment about the flight attendant instead, Sparky answered “that’s not nice, Enos. Her name is Esther.” . . .
Accused as an 'evil wizard'
I’ve seen great moments in baseball, five no-hitters – and some terrifying moments. I was in a shaking press box at Candlestick Park for the 1989 World Series earthquake after writing the day before that only an act of nature, rendering the field unplayable, could save the Giants.
I received a lot of nasty mail for that , as if I had caused the quake. Someone accused me of being an “evil wizard”
Tom Gage: "If you've loved baseball all your life, I am you." (Photo by National Baseball Hall of Fame)
And I was in Tiger Stadium the day that Tigers’ president Jim Campbell, a curmudgeon I liked a lot, finally modernized the entertainment by inviting the San Diego Chicken to town – only to have it go all wrong in a game against Boston.
As the Chicken raced in from center field, waving pennants and accompanied by the movie theme music from “Rocky”, the Tigers up the wrong scoreboard message. Instead of introducing the Chicken, it read: “Reid Nichols pinch-running for Yastrzemski.”
The first pinch runner ever in feathers.
I’ve been blessed, though. I had a wonderful family life growing up. My mother loved baseball, my father loved ballparks – the perfect combination. . . .
Two of my sisters are here, two brothers-in-law, my son JT (of whom I am so very proud), my daughter-in-law Melinda, and her parents. Plus many other family members, and so many friends who’ve come long distances -- including one from Seattle that I still throw a football better than.
My career has been work and it’s been fun – but it wouldn’t have been the splendid balance it was if I hadn’t had a true saint at home understanding my job. And, more amazingly, understanding me.
My wife, Lisa, is the light of my life. I met her at a Christmas party she almost left before I got there -- and one I nearly didn’t go to. I’m glad she didn’t. I’m glad I did. And it’s to you, my dear Bayer, that I dedicate this honor.
Fateful turn: Newspapers, not law
You know, it’s funny how life takes it turns. I changed my mind about law school because I wanted to be a journalist.
The year I joined the Detroit News, the paper’s baseball writer took another job. And at that fortuitous point, my pen became my bat.
Now there’s this incredibly special occasion.
The great Whitney Houston sang a song called “One Moment in Time” In it is this line:
“Give me one moment in time, when I’m more than I thought I could be.”
Lovers of baseball, friends, colleagues and to all my loved ones – this is that moment in time for me.
From the bottom of my heart, and from the depth of my soul, thank you.
WXYZ aired this three-minute report Friday night:
