Sending love to Chet Lemon
Remembering the 1984 season
Today I read a piece about Chet Lemon that broke my heart. He’s one of the very few players from my collection of 70s baseball cards who hasn’t yet reached 70 years of age, meaning that he was still a very young man when the 1977 Topps card that I featured in an earlier piece mentioning him appeared. He was just 22 years old at the time, embarking on what would turn out to be a long career in the major leagues.
But the 1984 card shown above depicts what had to be the peak of his playing career. For starters, he was chosen as a starter in the All-Star game, which was played that summer in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. He had been an All-Star twice during his years in Chicago, but being voted by the fans—with those punchcard ballots that were only available at the ballparks in those days—was something that only happened to him once. And for most big leaguers it never even happens at all.
But the 1984 Detroit Tigers also had a season to remember, which the city of Detroit plans to do this weekend. After a 35-5 start, they led their division from wire to wire, swept the Kansas City Royals in the best-of-five playoffs (one round was all there was back then) and beat the San Diego Padres in five games to win the World Series.
1984 was a heartbreaking year for this Cubs fan, as they let a 2-0 series lead against the San Diego Padres slip away in the National League playoffs. I’ve probably written about this a dozen different ways, and here’s something I found from a now-defunct blog that I used to write. In many ways, 1984 ached until 2003 came along, and that really ached until 2008 came along, and that nearly drove me insane until 2016 finally arrived.
Perhaps the only consolation I took away from 1984 is the realization that even if the Cubs had made it to that year’s World Series, Chet Lemon and his Tiger teammates would probably have beat up on the Cubs as badly as they had on the Padres that year, if not even worse.
Reading the piece about Chet Lemon and the health issues that he and his family are facing, and have been for many years now, makes me realize that disappointments over a sports team losing a game or a series is nothing in the grand scheme of life, especially when a series of strokes too numerous to fully count has left this championship athlete—and one who who has also engendered a love for the game in untold numbers of young kids since he retired from playing the game—unable to speak more than a few words, or to use his right hand at all.
The article offers a strong sense of the unwavering love and support that Chet Lemon receives from his family, which is certainly more meaningful than any individual or team accolade could ever be.
When the heroes from the summer of 1984 are introduced in Detroit this weekend, some will undoubtedly find it difficult to see Chet Lemon in his current state, although several of his teammates—including Willie Hernandez, Aurelio Lopez, Dave Bergman and Dwight Lowry, together with manager Sparky Anderson—are no longer with us here on this earth. Chet Lemon is still here, fortunately, and I hope that Tiger fans will give him, along with his loving and supportive family, several hearty “dee doughs” to celebrate this fact, including at least one for me.
UPDATE: Today I learned of the passing of Chet Lemon at the age of 70. I’m so glad to have written something about him on my humble little Substack page while he was still with us, and I’m also glad that he and the Detroit Tigers and their fans had one last chance to be together last year. I’m sure that it’s a sad day for a lot of people today. Godspeed to him.
