Friday, April 9, was an unofficial holiday for people in Michigan. It was Opening Day in the Motor City, with the Detroit Tigers playing their first home game of the 2010 season. The date also marked an official holiday in this state – it was Ernie Harwell Day.

Downtown Detroit was absolutely packed, and crazy, before the clocks switched over to 12 p.m. Tailgaters, bars with lines out their doors, remote broadcast from numerous radio stations, and several other baseball related festivities took place from mid-morning until the first pitch was thrown at Comerica Park at 1:07 p.m..

Among those there to capture the moment were Oakland University’s own Neal Ruhl, Kyle Bauer, and Mike Parsons of the Real Deal on Sports. The WXOU trio hosted a remote broadcast from the Town Pump Tavern downtown. A live video of the Real Deal on Sports show was streamed on Mlive.com.

Mlive.com sought out the WXOU hosts at the Tavern as a means to provide a new and fresh aspect to its Opening Day coverage.

“It was nuts down there, we had the whole nine yards going on,” said Ruhl, the host of the Real Deal on Sports since its WXOU debut in 2007. “It was just your classic opening day. Everybody was into the spirits of the whole thing because baseball season doesn’t officially start until the Tigers play a home game.”

Ruhl is also the color commentator for Oakland University basketball broadcasts on WDFN-AM (1130). But he, like everyone else downtown Friday, was all about baseball.

“The fact is that Detroit is a baseball town. I know everybody likes to call it Hockeytown because there are a lot of hockey fans here, but this has always been a baseball town,” Ruhl said. “It’s the same atmosphere for Opening Day every year. Even in 2003, when the Tigers avoided becoming the worst team in baseball history by one or two games, it was packed. There wasn’t really a difference between that day and today. Obviously people are going to be a little more amped up when the team’s good, but fans here just love the Tigers.”

And by early standards, the Tigers do appear to be good. They added to the party by knotting a 5-2 win over Cleveland. Adding to the celebratory theme was the previously mentioned Ernie Harwell Day.

Senator Randy Richardville, of the 17th District in Monroe, was the driving force behind making April 9 2010 officially recognized as Ernie Harwell Day – an effort to honor the longtime Detroit Tigers broadcaster who was diagnosed with terminal cancer this fall. Richardville was a guest on the show.

“I think my story is going to be like a lot of other people who grew up in the Detroit area, but I remember listening to Ernie Harwell on the radio every night as a kid once my parents thought I was in bed,” Ruhl said. “That’s one of the beautiful things about radio, is a guy like Ernie kind of becomes your friend, because he’s there every night. It’s a sad situation but at the same time it puts things in perspective and I know a lot of people who grew up here have fond memories of listening to Ernie throughout his career.”

The official attendance for the Tigers game against Cleveland was announced at just over 45,000. It was a record-setting crowd for Comerica Park.