Tiger Stadium is now gone, but all Detroit sports fans have their special memoires of that place.
(Getty Images/Rick Stewart)
To start any decision on the history of sports in the city of Detroit, we have to start with Tiger Stadium. Tiger Stadium was the longest-standing stadium in Detroit, and its site of Michigan and Trumbull hosted baseball contests for a century worth of history.
While most fans of the Detroit Tigers have considered Tiger Stadium to be long-gone, the final demolition of the facility didn't happen until 2009. Friday, for the first time I drove by the empty field that now sits at Michigan and Trumbull.
Like most of Detroit, it is a sad sight. The fence along Michigan Ave. that used to keep ticketless visitors out of the Tiger plaza is still there. There is a fence keeping people off the property where the facade of the stadium along the first base line once stood. The entire property is now little more than another empty space in Detroit filled with mud.
The first thing that struck me was how small this field actually is. Tiger Stadium was once one of the largest baseball parks in the MLB, at least by dimensions. However, when we look at the space where the stadium was it doesn’t feel that large.
Think about that for a moment...for all of us lifelong Detroit sports fans and Tigers fans, this was the place...it was bigger than life, right? Ted Williams played on that field, Reggie Jackson hit the towering shot over the lights in the 1972 All-Star Game, and Kirk Gibson hit that shot to the upper deck in right field to secure the 1984 World Series title.
This is the place we came to see our sports heroes - Sparky Anderson, Alan Trammell, Lou Whittaker, Darrell Evans, Lance Parrish, Cecil Fielder, Jack Morris, and Willie Hernandez. This is the place where the ’84 series was won. This is the place, or, this was the place.
In 1988, there was a movement to save Tiger Stadium. This culminated in a fan hug of the stadium itself. I was a part of that celebration, and I will never forget the pride I felt when the organizers informed us that we had enough fans to completely encircle the stadium. I though it was one of the coolest things I had ever done. Sure, I was only 12 years old, but that was awesome.
Yesterday, I stood in the very spot that I did when I was 12 when the fans of the Detroit Tigers hugged their stadium. I stood in the very spot that I stood then some 21 years ago. To my grown up eyes, it didn’t feel like that big of an accomplishment. In fact it seemed quite small.
Part of that is just the pain of realizing your adult eyes see the world differently then your kid eyes did. However, that does not replace the loss of one of Detroit’s greatest landmarks.
Over the years I probably went to 30-40 games at Tiger Stadium. My bet would be that the Tigers lost most of them, especially the ones in later years. However, seeing all that losing never bothered me because taking in a ball game at Tiger Stadium was an event onto itself. No matter if the Tigers won or lost, it was just fun to be around all that history.
Comments
I drove downtown myself on Saturday and had feelings of emptiness as I drove up Trumball from Fort and approached the corner. I went to many of games myself over the years and as soon as you got within ten blocks of Michigan and Trumball there would be thousands upon thousands of people filing in, vendor after vendor selling items, and every business along there waving you in to park so you could wait an hour after the game to get out because of that one car that blocked you in. Even in the dead of winter as you passed, seeing the building gave you a sense that spring training wasn't far off and good times were near. Seeing that empty lot now looks like any other corner in the city, deserted with no sense of hope. A great symbol has been lost. The drive downtown will never be the same for me. Every time I pass the corner will be a reminder of how things were and how things are now.
Right on John, I feel the same way
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