Something Went Squirrelly In Detroit

It was not a good day for Detroit. The city board voted today to tear down old Tiger Stadium. The Red Wings lost to the Penguins in the Stanley Cup Finals. General Motors just filed bankruptcy, and Comerica Park still has the big sponsored “GENERAL MOTORS” sign hanging over the outfield.* And then the Tigers lost fairly soundly to the Red Sox. But worst of all: they had a traitor in their midst. One of their own who clearly turned against them, and helped cost the Tigers the game.

Of course, I’m talking about this guy:

With all due respect to Jason Bay (who knocked in yet another 2-run homer) and Tito Francona (who managed the Sox to his 500th win as the club’s manager), the star of today’s victory over the Tigers was The Squirrel – a woodland creature just tryin’ to understand why all these humans are messing with his field.

The Squirrel first appeared in the second inning – clearly attracted by the stunning good looks and wit of JD Drew, The Squirrel chilled out in right field for awhile, running back and forth across the turf. During the inning change from the 2nd to 3rd, the Comerica grounds crew foolishly thought they could remove The Squirrel from the field – but The Squirrel was not having it. He dashed up and over the outfield wall, where he promptly collapsed – laid out along the top of the wall. Rocco Baldelli feels your pain, brother.

As always, the NESN cameras were on top of the hijinx – and followed The Squirrel’s every move. Although Don tries desperately to get one of his patented gigglefests started, it just ain’t the same without Remy in the booth to egg him on:

Eventually, The Squirrel had enough of looking in at the action from the outfield, and made a mad dash for the Red Sox dugout. The Squirrel has very good taste. And although The Squirrel was eventually caught and removed from the dugout, it stayed long enough to “wreak havoc” (in the words of the ProJo). The Squirrel also stayed long enough to rain down some jokes on Dustin Pedroia’s head:

“Anyone have AOL?” Francona said. “You know, they have those celebrity lookalikes? When [the squirrel] was behind [Pedroia] at second, that’s what it reminded me of. I’m sure he appreciated that.”

It was clearly not the first squirrel-related comment directed Pedroia’s way.

“I got made fun of pretty much half the game, so it was pretty much a distraction for me,” Pedroia said.

Of course, Pedroia got in a dig of his own:

“The hunting guys on our team, they were licking their chops.”

I think he’s talking about you, Tim Wakefield, Josh Beckett and assorted other BeckettBots.

So it should come as no surprise that my Baseball Boyfriend Mascot of the Day honors go to The Squirrel – who went above and beyond the call of duty as a lucky charm for Daisuke Matsuzaka, and the source of more jokes about Pedroia. Either that, or it was all a well-orchestrated plot by the Monroe company, whose “savingsquirrels.com” advertisements were plastered behind homeplate while The Squirrel ran around in the outfield. In either case, BRAVO.

Now we just have to make sure he hangs around for the rest of the series.

* I thought it was interesting that even though General Motors has not been able to honor its commitment to pay sponsorship fees to have that giant GM logo hang over the outfield wall fountain at Comerica, the Tigers are keeping the logo up there anyway in a show of support for the auto industry — and also added the logos of Chrysler and Ford along either side.