September 27, 1999
Tiger Stadium sees its last day
By Andy Cole
Sports Writer
I broke a promise to myself in not going up to the old ball park one last time. As it is, my last game in Tiger Stadium was a mid-summer game against the Cardinals. I went. I watched. I ate. They lost, like they lost most games this year. Nothing out of the ordinary, I suppose.
Still, I can't help but think, had I known it would be the last time, that I might have done something different. I could've paid a bit more attention, or enjoyed myself a bit more. I may have found some mirth in that insanely drunk guy leading cheers in our section, instead of just treating him as a general annoyance. As a life-long fan in the only park he's ever seen his favorite team in, I should have enjoyed it more.
Today, the Tigers play their last game in Tiger Stadium. The Kansas City Royals are the opponent, and I'm convinced it was set up that way all along by the league. The Royals were the result of an exhaustive search by the American League brass to find a team Detroit could beat.
I'd always thought that Tiger Stadium was like death and taxes. I would see myself as a happy family man years down the line, taking my children to experience the same things I had. I could also see myself as an overweight, over-the-hill bachelor, screaming at umpires with a beer in each hand, and enjoying myself just the same.
Don't get me wrong. The new stadium is long, long overdue. Tiger Stadium gave me the impression that it was crumbling the first time I went there in 1984, and every time I've been there since. Still, there were those who bucked the building of a park because it would mean the demolition of the old place. There was even a plan made to make renovations to the old stadium so that a new one wouldn't be needed, named the Cochrane Plan after former Tiger catcher Mickey Cochrane, which was perhaps a ploy to draw the support of some of the older fans.
Every Tiger fan has always known, however, what will happen in the end, and that it would be for the greater good.
The grand plan of club owner Mike Ilitch all along was to do what Cleveland did so successfully in terms of team success. Ilitch wanted the club to be a force in the American League by the year 2000, so the new ball park could be filled with enthusiastic fans for a great team.
As anyone who follows baseball knows, it hasn't quite worked out that way. It took a three week stretch of good baseball last this year to make certain that the team wouldn't have the worst record in the majors. The numbers of wins, or, more appropriately, lack thereof, that the AAA Toledo Mudhens put up this year signifies that, outside of free agents, there isn't much help on the horizon. There has been talk of this being the year Detroit finally spends the money to get one or two top level free agents to go with the young talent they have. I'm hopeful, but I'm also pretty sure I've heard that same yarn spun every season since I was 10-years old.
Comerica Park will have all the amenities the new stadiums have these days. Like the parks in Baltimore and Texas, they've tried to give it more of an old-time feel. In addition, they'll be bigger bullpens and dugouts and better accomodations for the players. Basically, they're going to fix everything that has had players complaining about coming to Tiger Stadium for 20 years.
In addition, there will be a new Tiger Den, which in the old stadium was translated to mean "where the corporate folks sit." Descriptions of what might be included in these new boxes have included everything from a canopy to a picnic table to padded seats to delivery of food to your seat on order. I guess these accomodations are for those people who can't decide to have that family camp-out in the backyard or at the ball park.
I guess what bugs me the most about the entire situation is the idea that I'll never get to be an insanely drunk guy, cheerleading in my section at Tiger Stadium, as I'd always pictured myself 20 years down the road. I've never been much of a cheerleader anyway, but it was nice to know that I had the right to be if the urge struck me.
I've heard horror stories about the stadium and the neighborhood, and I've experienced some of it myself. It couldn't be in a worse area. I know people who have been threatened on their way to the game, who have been terrified on their way from the game and who have had their cars vandalized during the game. I've heard Tom Hamilton complaining about the bleacher bums at Detroit on Indians broadcasts, as if he'd even know what it was like to sit there.
People talking that way about the stadium never bothered me much, though. For every one of those horror stories, I four or five pleasant memories to more than balance the scales. Like any fan, I'll think about all the games that have been won and lost and all great players who played in that stadium. Maybe at some point, I'll even dump a 2-liter of Coke on my kitchen floor and let it dry, just to get the same feeling of stepping on those forever-sticky aisles in the old stadium.
Farewell, corner of Michigan and Trumbull. Myself and many people like will miss you more than you'll ever know. You don't know what I'd give for just one more game in that dirty city, that terrible neighborhood, and that decrepit old facility called Tiger Stadium.