DETROIT — Just for good luck, Terry Collins will keep a Bud handy this week against the Tigers.
Bud Collins, the 92-year-old father of the Mets manager, has been waiting all season for this. He’ll make the 2-hour journey from Midland, Mich., for tomorrow’s game and stay through Thursday’s series finale. He won’t need a crash course on the Mets; he has been faithfully watching every game all season.
“I have a box here that the kids bought and hooked up to my TV, so I can get every game,” Bud Collins told The Post. “That’s where I am, in my chair, watching the game every time Terry is on.”
The Terry Collins homecoming — he grew up in Midland, a town of about 40,000 residents in central Michigan — will include two busloads of locals. Collins’ biggest worry as the Mets prepared to depart Texas on Sunday was how he would find the time to greet everybody coming to see him.
But the No. 1 priority is ensuring Bud Collins is set for the trip to Comerica Park. The younger Collins originally hoped his dad would attend Opening Day at Citi Field, but that plan was scrapped because Bud wasn’t up to the travel.
Asked about his dad’s influence on his career, Terry Collins recalled nearly giving up on baseball 30 years ago, only to have Bud tell him to reconsider.
“I was stuck as a player-coach in Triple-A, and was considering quitting,” Terry Collins said. “My dad said, ‘If you are not having fun, get out. But if you love it, keep doing it. There are a lot of people who get up every morning who dread going to work. You’re not like that.’ He just said to stick with it, and here I am now.”
In Midland, Terry Collins was among the driving forces that brought minor league baseball to town in the 1980s. Collins was working for the Dodgers at the time, and went to Midland with manager Tom Lasorda to help the cause. The Dodgers still have a Single-A affiliate in Midland.
Bud Collins, a former competitive softball player for Dow Chemical teams that won two national championships in the 1940s and ’50s, still plays golf 2-3 times a week and complains that the fairway keeps getting longer and the hole narrower.
He said he was as surprised as anyone when his son was named the Mets’ manager last offseason, after serving as the organization’s minor league field coordinator in 2010. Now he gives a thumbs up to the job his son has done with the Mets, who are 39-39 and exceeding most expectations.
“I know it’s a tough job and I know the team has got problems,” Bud Collins said. “But it appears to me like he’s doing a pretty good job, and [fans] seem to think he’s doing a pretty good job. I’m pretty proud of him, naturally.”
During a recent slump in which his bullpen struggled, Terry Collins received calls from his dad suggesting the manager get games shortened to seven innings. But Bud Collins loves the way the team has battled with Ike Davis and David Wright on the disabled list.
“The team is doing OK for having all the injuries and the quality of their players,” Bud Collins said. “They’ve got some good players and then they’ve got some mediocre players. That’s just my opinion.”
mpuma@nypost.com