| | Tiger Stadium officially becomes a memory after today, with little doubt its
time has passed. But how can a ballpark hold such a strong emotional bond
with the fans who went there on a regular basis for nearly a century?
The city where I grew up, a little more than an hour west of Detroit, is
about as far removed from the Motor City as it is the moon.
|  | | The quirks at Tiger Stadium include the right-field overhang. |
Jackson, Mich. is a mid-sized town that is Midwestern in every sense, with
three not-so-subtle connections to the big city 75 miles away.
The first is the car parts that are sent from Jackson to the Detroit
factories. Jackson is a place where Little League teams are called Alro
Steel, Melling Tool and Hill Piston. I played for Walker Muffler.
The second is sports. Lions, Tigers, Pistons and Red Wings. All four.
Equally.
The third is what put Jackson on the map -- Southern Michigan Prison, the
state's maximum security prison, with a population made up of the worst
Detroit has to offer. Still, it made sense that one of my heroes growing up, Ron LeFlore, was an SMP alum.
Going to Detroit to see the Tigers was more than seeing a baseball game; it
was learning how the world worked.
The drive down I-94 goes past a 50-foot high Uniroyal tire, the city's
unofficial "Welcome to Detroit" sign. Next comes the General Motors sign that gives travelers an up-to-the-minute count of how many cars have rolled
off the assembly line in a given year. Then the Ford plant, so monstrous it
probably houses more workers in a day than the entire population of the
Connecticut town where I now live.
If ever a stadium fit its city, it had to be that white, oversized warehouse
in the heart of downtown Detroit.
Purists call Tiger Stadium a baseball cathedral, but my first game came three
days after I turned 9 on a snowy December afternoon in 1970 -- Packers vs.
Lions.
Detroit won 20-0 on a Greg Landry quarterback sneak and a Lem Barney punt return to clinch a playoff berth. It's cliche, but in my case very true.
Father takes son to game. Father passes on love of sports to son. Son grows
up to work at ESPN.
My first Tigers game was the following summer. Boog Powell of the Orioles hit a line shot so hard off the facing of the upper deck, I thought it was a
double. It was some time around the fifth inning when my dad yanked loose
a tooth of mine that had been ready to fall out for days. Coincidentally, he
was a dentist. My first office visit.
One night several years later, he bought my friend and I our first beers.
George Brett hit two home runs into the right-field porch. The third time up,
Milt Wilcox dropped him with a nose-high fastball before plunking one off his
rear end. It was the correct the way to play baseball, I was told. Brett
charged the mound after popping out in his last at-bat. My first education in
manhood.
But visits to Michigan and Trumbull were more than hoping to see a roof shot.
It was watching Ron Luciano call a game ... Dave Winfield's acknowledging
gesture after seven innings worth of seagull calls from left field, a few
days after he took down that bird in Toronto ... Mark Fidrych dominating the
Yankees, taking a curtain call ... The first place I thought of to take a
date ... Dave Rozema beating the White Sox during the Tigers' 35-5 start in
'84 ... Taking the tunnel to Canada with my buddies after games because of
its teenage-friendly drinking age ... Kirk Gibson knocking umpire Larry
Barnett unconscious in a home-plate collision after Barnett had stepped into the basepath to call Lou Whitaker out on a close play. Gibby had never stopped running.
But Tiger Stadium is much more complex than just the heightening of baseball
senses.
My parents had to explain the concept of death to a 10-year-old after I
watched, on TV, a wispy Lions receiver named Chuck Hughes die on a frozen Tiger Stadium field in a game against the Chicago Bears.
There was the first time I saw a man sleeping on the sidewalk cradling a
bottle, as people walked by without so much as a second look.
Or the time the glove I brought to the park was taken in the bathroom by a group of older kids.
Once, we returned to our car after a Tigers loss, only to see the car mounted on blocks, the tires gone. After that, my dad always rented a car when he went to the ballpark.
They are called life experiences, but it never kept me from going to The
Corner.
If you added up the totals of all the games I attended at Tiger Stadium, it
wouldn't surprise me if the Tigers had lost more than they won.
But looking back, that isn't important. Just being there was all that
mattered.
Scott Ridge is an editor at ESPN.com.
| |
ALSO SEE
Detroit thumps K.C. in farewell to Tiger Stadium
Detroit mixes past, future in Tiger Stadium's farewell
Farewell to Tiger Stadium
Greatest Tiger Stadium moments
LeFlore arrested after Tiger Stadium ceremonies
 Off Base: The best clubhouse in the game
 |
