About 48 hours after winning the Little League World Series, the boys from the Taylor North Little League stood on the field at Comerica Park on Tuesday afternoon, watching the Detroit Tigers take batting practice up close and personal.
Miguel Cabrera walked over. “What’s up guys!” the newest member of the 500 Home Run Club said. “What’s up?”
Cabrera worked down the line of players, giving each a fist bump.
“Good job!” Cabrera said, breaking into a giant smile.
The boys were allowed to step onto the Comerica Park grass, typically forbidden for anyone other than players and staff, and they gathered around Cabrera for a photo.
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The Tigers treated Taylor North like royalty, which was certainly deserved. It’s been a long time since we have had anything to celebrate around here.
The Taylor North players spent about an hour on the field before the game, getting autographs, team pictures and selfies with several players.
Jeimer Candelario even gave a player his bat.
Because he asked.
“It was like a dream come true,” Kale Harris said. “A lot of us have been watching the World Series since we were 6, 7 years old. And we never thought we’d be able to come here and let alone win it. But dreams do come true.”
As Eric Haase took batting practice, Harris stood in awe, watching a ball soar through the air.
“Oh, wow!” Harris said. “Oh my gosh.”
A group of about 150 parents, players and coaches went to the Brush Fire Grill for a special dinner.
They ate Little Caesars Pizza, of course.
But on the way, they ran into more royalty.
Tigers great Willie Horton.
“He just told us to listen to our coaches and coaches are like schoolteachers and kind of just listen to them,” said Gavin Ulin, a second baseman and pitcher who closed out the championship. “And teams are like a family and you guys got to stick together.”
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The hardest championship to win
If you followed this team on TV — and it seemed as if the entire state was cheering them on — what you saw was only part of the Little League story, especially during a pandemic.
It took a village to get this team to the championship.
Even for the coaches to take off so much from work.
Taylor North manager Rick Thorning is a corrections officer for the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department.
“I’ve been off for, I want to say, close to 30 days,” Thorning said.
He didn’t have enough vacation time saved up, so other members of the department worked for him, taking his shifts.
Isn’t that the spirit of this championship? An entire community coming together?
“I really have to thank them,” he said. “I’ll pay them back this coming up month, for people working for me.”
The other big issue was COVID-19.
The players went through testing every two days and each team was kept in isolation.
If one member of the team tested positive, the entire team would have been sent home.
But on Saturday night, the testing was done and the boys were allowed to take off their masks and be kids again. They ended up playing Wiffle ball with teams from Hawaii, Ohio and South Dakota.
[ Taylor North’s Little League World Series championship to be celebrated with parade ]
“That was awesome because it was up to Coach Rick and I to keep them busy,” Coach Guido Ulin said. “There’s only so much to do. We had pillow fights, tag in the dark in the dorm, we just tried everything and anything.”
One of the secrets of this team’s success was playing travel ball.
While many Little Leagues have lost players to travel ball, this organization found a way to embrace it and allowed its players to play both. They played 49 travel ball games this year, in addition to a full Little League schedule.
And that’s a testament to how this entire organization came together.
“It was amazing,” said Rachel Footlander, a member of the Taylor North board of directors. “Just the love that these kids have for one another. They all yell — one, two, three — family! We’re just one big happy family. We really are. Everybody loves everybody. Everybody looks out for everybody. It was amazing.”
‘They earned every bit of our love’
Tigers general manager Al Avila talked to the team during the dinner.
“Congratulations on behalf of the Detroit Tigers and the Ilitch family,” Avila said. “We’re all very proud of you. We’ve been following your games on TV. (Manager) AJ Hinch and I are already scouting a little bit.”
He laughed.
“Breaking out the contracts,” he said, smiling.
The team stood in front of a banner. There were balloons and posters with each player’s name.
“The state of Michigan is proud of you of you and we’ve been following you guys,” Avila said. “You are literally champions of the Little League World Series, which is what we’re trying to do — be world champions of the Big League World Series. So we’re gonna take a cue from you guys and, hopefully, follow you down that path.”
Then the boys posed in front the 1984 World Series trophy.
All the attention, as Hinch said, was earned.
“We talked about earning things around here and they earned every bit of our love and appreciation,” Hinch said. “We were following them. The games were on in our clubhouse and people were talking about it. When a team from Michigan beats a team from Ohio, it matters around here so just a really, really cool opportunity for us to give back to a group of kids that love the game and brought a lot of special memories.”
But there was a surprise at the end.
Before the game Tuesday night, a video tribute played on the giant Comerica Park scoreboard, as the Little Leaguers stood in front of the dugout,.
And the crowd broke into a giant cheer.
Each player was introduced and jogged onto the field.
As the team stood on the field, it got even better.
Eleven members of the Tigers came out and gave them jerseys.
And they posed for more pictures.
Big leaguers standing with the Little Leaguers.
The Chevrolet Fountain went off.
And Queen’s famous anthem blared over the loudspeakers: “No time for losers. Because we are the champions of the world.”
How freakin’ cool.
The Tigers — heck, the entire state of Michigan — couldn’t be more proud of the boys from Taylor North.
Well done.
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Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff. To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/jeff-seidel.