This story, by legendary Detroit columnist and longtime TSN contributor Joe Falls, Adam Duvall Jersey first appeared in the Oct. 5, 1968, i sue of The Sporting News, after the Tigers and Detroit icon Al Kaline had clinched a spot in what would be a cla sic World Series they won over the Cardinals, four games to three. It had been more than 13 years since a 20-year-old Kaline, already in his third major league season, had a two-homer inning against the Athletics that was chronicled in TSNs pages. The storys close: Detroit is convinced The Kid has arrived. Indeed he had.DETROIT, Mich. The ritual is always the same. The Tiger team bus is rolling in from Friendship Airport in Baltimore, and Al Kaline sits there looking out of the window. He is looking for the three smoke stacks just behind Cedley Street in Westport.Westport is a suburb of Baltimore. It is not a tree-lined, flower-filled suburb of ranch or colonial homes. It is Baltimore in the raw-old, shabby, run-down Baltimore. Kaline grew up in a row house on Cedley Street and somehow those three smoke stacks always loom up in his mind when he thinks about those boyhood days in Baltimore."We lived right behind a power factory," said Kaline. "Everytime I take my kids to Baltimore, I take them around to Cedley Street and show them where I lived. I show them that power factory and those three smoke stacks. I just want them to know that life was never always this easy."Mark Kaline is 11, Mike Kaline 6. The le son their father is trying to teach them may not leave much of an impre sion on them. But their father knows he is living the "good life" and he appreciates it. He wants his sons to know it, too.The Soot is Far Away Al lives on a quiet, tree-shaded lane in the picturesque village of Franklin. Just down the road is the old wooden cider mill. It's a good place to go on autumn afternoons, for a cold cider and some hot cinnamon doughnuts.Kaline lives in an air-conditioned ranch house with his attractive wife, Louise, and their two boys. The soot and the grime and the dirt of industrial Detroit are far away."Nobody has to tell me how much I have," said Kaline as he sat out on his patio with a frosted ice tea at his side. "Even this past July, when I took the family to Baltimore Louises mother wasn't feeling well and she wanted to spend some time with her. I took a look at where I used to live and realized where I live now ... well, nobody can have more."TSN ARCHIVES: Kaline was shaking his head, astonished that all of this could happen to the son of a Baltimore broom maker.As a boy, Al lived for only one thing. To play ball. He wanted to be a major leaguer. "My dad was always there to play catch with me," said Kaline. "He'd be on his feet all day long at the factory Jesse Winker Jersey and he'd come home dead tired. But we'd go down to the corner and start playing catch. He'd hit me some fly balls. Pretty soon some of the other kids would come around and then he'd slip off and go home."It wasn't until later ... a lot of years later ... that I realized what my parents had done for me. They never asked me to get a job. They never asked me to work. God knows we could have used the money. Once they saw I had a chance to be a ball player, they let me alone. They let me play."Today, estimates of Kaline's financial worth range up to $500,000. He never has been in the $100,000 cla s as a ball player. The reason he never has been a $100.000 ball player? He doesn't hit home runs the way a Mickey Mantle or a Willie Mays might, and for the first 15 years of his career, he never played on a pennant-winner.Rather, he built his salary much the way he performs on the field surely, steadily, without much fanfare. He Derek Dietrich Jersey received an estimated $70,000 from the Tigers this season, and probably will earn $80,000 next season. Kaline is well advised and has set up a deferred payment plan with the Tigers.A big night for Kaline is a steak at Schacht's and then a movie. He likes to play golf, but it's not a pa sion with him. He'll read in spurts nothing for a couple of months, then two novels in two weeks. And he doesn't get on the sports writers for what they may say about him, no matter how harsh the criticism.Cautious Around Writers Kaline is careful in his comments to the newspapermen. He is honest, but is careful never to criticize another ball player. It is part of his creed. If the newspaperman wants to knock a player, fine; but don't ask Kaline to do his dirty work for him."I'm really not so interested in what they say about me." Kaline said, "as I am in HOW they say it. I can learn more about a writer in how he says something than in what he says."In other words, he tries to find writers who are as fair to him as he is to them. The disarming part about interviewing Kaline is that when he's going bad, he knows it better than anyone else. He is the first to criticize himself. Sometimes he is almost honest to a fault in appraising himself.Kaline has the reputation of being a moody, sullen and sometimes surly individual. That's because of his abruptne s with some newspapermen and photographers. Some of this reputation is merited, some of it is exaggerated. He might pose 20 times for a photographer. Everything will be fine. But he might make a snide remark the 21st time and, human nature being what it is, this is what the photographer remembers.TSN ARCHIVES: Deep down, Scott Schebler Jersey Kaline is a quiet, sincere, honest individual who often thinks le s of himself than other people do. When he rebels to the pre s, it is often a case of expre sing displeasure at his own performance.Earlier this season, Kaline played in his 2,000th game as a Tiger and the reporters flocked around his locker to get his sentiments about reaching such a milestone. Kaline was short to them. He didn't think anything of it. He didn't consider it an accomplishment. All he did, he felt, was pull on his uniform 2,000 times.Later, when the reporters had departed and he realized he had been rude to them, he sat in front of his locker grumbling to himself: "Damn, damn, damn I did it again. Why do I act that way? It's nothing to play in 2,000 games, but I should have realized they were after a story. I just should have treated them better. Will you please apologize to them for me?"It was the same when he hit his 307th home run to break Hank Greenberg's record and become the greatest home-run hitter in Detroit history. He knew why he broke the record. He broke it simply Scooter Gennett Jersey because he played more games than Greenberg.How can anyone compare me with Greenberg?" he said. "I'm not a home-run hitter." And this was the tone of that interview, that he was proud to break the record, but that he wasn't impre sed by it.Awed by Palmer Kaline is a sociated with the Lincoln-Mercury Sports Panel and his old bo s there, Gar Laux, tells about the time he took Kaline to a golf tournament in Flint to meet Arnold Palmer.All the way home that night Kaline kept sa