From the Road: Day One

BIG FAN Tour begins, Cavs Shock, Morning boxscores, Morning Joe, The Strand, and why I'm wearing a tie today.

BIG FAN Book Tour: Day 1 — New York City

Hi everybody. The BIG FAN Tour begins! I’m in my classically tiny New York hotel room — How small is it? It’s so small, you put the key through the keyhole, and you break a window! I tell ya! — and I’m about to get ready to head over to appear on Morning Joe. Then we’re doing Pablo Torre Finds Out. Then we’re doing our sold-out event at The Strand tonight with Seth Meyers. The tour is rolling!

I actually did my first event Sunday in Charlotte, and it was fantastic. We had a small get-together at the house, and as you can see above, Margo got a BIG FAN cake! Yeah, that book in the middle is cake! And we ordered Buffalo Wild Wings to celebrate that most American establishment where Mike and I started the book — we spent eight hours in a Buffalo Wild Wings in Dallas on the opening Sunday of the NFL season. Then we all hung out for a little while at the Barnes & Noble, just a few minutes from our house. Good times.

This week will obviously be pretty scattered and wild, but I’ll try to offer some quick thoughts from the road.

— I was absolutely stunned by Cleveland’s blowout victory in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against Detroit. I went in entirely sure that the Cavs would lose and probably lose big. Cleveland had bombed out in Game 6 at home, the Pistons had been all-but-unbeatable in Detroit, the Cavs’ James Harden had shot something like 9% in Game 7s, and so on.

But it’s easy to forget as a fan that sometimes the other team will stink up the joint.

And the Pistons did just that. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the Cavs played beautiful basketball. Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley were monsters. Donovan Mitchell went into Superman mode when needed. Sam Merrill, of all people, took over the game at times. And while Harden went 2 for 10 from the field and 0 for 6 from three — I mean, his Game 7 shooting woes seem to happen too often to be a coincidence — he was a steadying force. He turned the ball over just once all game and was plus-31.

The Cavs had 31 assists in the game. The Pistons had 30 total field goals in the game.

But let’s not kid anybody: The Pistons were awful, horrendous, no energy, no defense, terrible shots. Cade Cunningham scored 13 and didn’t make a three-pointer. Tobias Harris didn’t make a shot all game. The only reason the Pistons lost by 31 is that the Cavaliers missed 16 free throws. It should have been even worse.

Maybe it’s the Cleveland in me — or maybe all fans feel this way — but I truly expected the opposite to happen. This Cavaliers team is so hard to figure out, so wildly inconsistent, and that’s where my mind’s focus was. But the truth is that Detroit, even after winning 60 games this season, is ALSO hard to figure out and ALSO wildly inconsistent, and as a fan, you just don’t give equal consideration to the opponent. I saw Detroit as this big, scary, defensive monster that swarms and forces a billion turnovers and then lets Cade Cunningham and Duncan Robinson and Tobias Harris cut your heart out. They were that often in this series. But in Game 7, they were horrendous.

— It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t credit my pal Mike for calling it, by the way.

Our text exchange:

— I have subscribed now to boxscore — hat tip to great pal, Tommy Tomlinson, for reminding — and that means every day I get an old-fashioned, 1970s style newspaper baseball page, complete with the standings, the leaders, today’s schedules, and, yes, box scores from each team. It makes me very happy. Look, Shea Langeliers is leading the American League with a .337 average! Whoa, Kyle Schwarber already has 20 home runs! If only there were a way to print this stuff out on old newspaper newsprint and have it delivered to my doorstep every morning so that I could put on slippers and walk out to the driveway in my robe, while waving to neighbors, and then sit at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a danish and just read over the box scores. If only.

— Speaking of Tommy, Mike and I did a fun interview with him for his newsletter.

— It still blows my mind that FIFTY SEASONS is up and available for preorder BEFORE BIG FAN even hits the shelves. We’ll have plenty more to say about it in the months ahead, of course, but I think you’ll get a pretty big kick out of it.

— I’m going to wear a tie to Morning Joe. I know that’s random, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. I don’t wear ties often anymore. I’m not planning on wearing ties to any of the events because BIG FAN doesn’t feel like a necktie sort of book. It’s more of a baseball cap kind of book. My goal, actually, is to wear a baseball cap celebrating the local ballclub in each city; though I have to actually go out and buy one in each city, so it might not happen (I brought my trusty Cleveland cap just in case).

But I’m going to wear a tie for Morning Joe and the other TV appearances coming up because, well, because of my dad. I’ve talked about this before: My dad worked in a factory. He fixed and maintained sweater machines. It was a grueling and messy job; he’d come home with oil and grease on his clothes and his face. When I interviewed the wonderful Phil Niekro for the Hall of Fame movie “Generations of the Game,” he told me about his dad coming home from the coal mine, and Phil could barely even see his face, he was so covered in dirt and dust, and I nodded and understood.

My father put on a tie maybe five times in my entire childhood. It was always a big deal. And there was this understanding between us that wearing a tie meant, I don’t know, something larger. Success, maybe? He never said so, but I think he always wanted me to have a job where I wore a jacket and tie.

Anyway, I'll be wearing a tie on Morning Joe.