Not Much To Drum About…

As Rock and Scott mentioned, I was at Tigers batting practice I mean, the Indians game last night. What do you do when the Tribe is getting a monumental butt kicking?

The crowd began to file out after the 6th inning. After Jason Michaels flailed away to end the Tribe half, the rows behind home plate and the dugouts began to empty. I looked at my friend Tom and said “I don’t think they are going for hot dogs.” Nope, they had given up on the Tribe for that night. And truthfully it was probably because the Indians had appeared to give up first. Marte, Michaels, Carroll and Shoppach replaced Sizemore, Martinez, Blake and Dellucci. It was a line change. Actually it was worse than a line change, because the first line was never coming back in.

We stuck around, mostly because I don’t pay my money to leave halfway through a game, and I don’t get to go see the Indians as often as I’d like. So after the Tigers half of the eighth, I notice a lone solitary man sitting at the top of the bleachers, drum perched beside him begging to be struck. I had forgotten about that drum, because we hadn’t heard it all night. The Indians never really threatened to do anything. So we made our way to the top of the bleachers and sat down by the man who has seen 34 years worth of Tribe baseball with his drum sitting next to him.

John Adams is fairly well known in Cleveland. If you are a Tribe fan you have probably read about him in the Plain Dealer or the Beacon Journal. You most certainly have seen him at the ballpark, and you have definitely heard the rhythm of the drum that he beats for the Indians, whether they are winning or not. John will ‘celebrate’ his 35th anniversary of banging the drum in August. He frequently has kids ask him for his autograph at the games, or ask him to pound the drum once, which he gladly allows. John is great for the Indians. He is another ambassador of the game, but one the fans can interact with.

When Travis Hafner came to the plate to start the ninth, John began pounding the drum. The few thousand (and few is the right word here) people that remained started clapping and cheering, as if they all suddenly remembered at the same time that anything is possible. There were no runners on base, but John wanted the team to know that he was still behind them. He told me so. And one by one as the Indians made outs to end the game, John beat the drum for each one. Just as he’s done before, and will do again tonight.

John couldn’t have been nicer to any of the people that came up to him and asked for an autograph, or just to talk with him…including me, who really just wanted a picture taken with him, but got so much more from my brief encounter with ‘the drummer’.  Go Tribe, tomorrow is another game.

(photo credit- mom)