3 posts tagged “tiger stadium”
Wrecking crews sunk their first set of iron teeth into the old, empty Tiger Stadium in Detroit yesterday. I've mentioned here several times that I am one of the many in favor of this. The club stopped playing baseball there in 1999. They should've began dismantling it the very next day. But lo, it has sat unoccupied for nine years, while vandals and the curious helped themselves to what was inside and nature overran the rest of the place. It's an eyesore. Yes, it is a historical sporting venue. I get it. But it's a paint-peeling piece of shit that had its time and now its time has come.
The thing I look forward to the least is already starting to happen, and that is the dreamy, wistful bullshit rhetoric that's going to come down like a weepy little hammer in the months during demolition. Every little shithead who stands in opposition of Tiger Stadium meeting its date with a wrecking crew is going to run off at the mouth about the injustice of reducing this building to rubble. Everyone has an idea. Everyone has a plan that THEY think is the best solution. Turn it into lofts and condos; turn it into retail shopping while keeping the lower bowl of the park; donate it to a university to play their games there; do this; do that. I have suggestion too, you know. How about you all shut off and let the grown-ups handle all of this? I understand historic preservation. It's about breathing new life into something while letting its past continue to shine. I get it. It is happening with the Book-Cadillac building, a regal, domineering structure of the city's skyline that sat vacant for decades before undergoing this massive transformation to turn it into a hotel with penthouses, condos and retail. People will stay there and spend money. It's owners might see a profit. Those owners might invest elsewhere in the city and create a very nice ripple effect. See? That works. Taking a huge baseball stadium, one that doesn't host baseball and never will, and rendering it into a 15,000-square-foot monument, some sort of oversized plaque to the city's baseball past is, well, it's just goddamn stupid.
And so the first leg of my decathalon of being irritated to the point of enragement has begun. Yesterday, in a report appearing at the Detroit Free Press' Web site, was this little nugget: A wrecking crew already poked a hole on the north side of the stadium. And near it, behind the fence, sat Rich, a man identified by the paper as a freelance radio journalist from Bloomfield Hills. That's code for "My ass is unemployed." And this is what Rich had to say about the initial piece of demolition work: "This is my friend," the article read, identifying him as making a sweeping hand gesture toward the stadium. "My friend is leaving me. A punch in the wall is like a punch in the heart."
My friend is leaving me? See, this is what I'm talking about. There are going to be hundreds of people very much like this tool, personifying a decaying object as if it possesses human qualities. This is my friend? How is an empty ballpark your "friend"? Has it loaned you money? Did it help you move that one time? Did it set you up with its sister, which, in this case, would make it a date between Rich and a five-story parking garage. Your friend? Did you two -- and by you two I mean, you AND A BUILDING -- get trashed one night and innocently hook up?
Look, City Chicken embraces nostalgia as good as anyone else. And man, I did have my fair share of wonderful times at Tiger Stadium. I really did. From my first visit to my last, and all of the times in between (which, interestingly enough, as I look back on them, involved me at the park by myself), I have a plentitude of magnificent memories of my time at Michigan and Trumbull. But I let it go, and Rich and those who think like them might not feel as frowny-faced and heavy-hearted as they do now if they would just grow a fucking set and get over it.
A punch in the wall is like a punch in the heart? That may be true for the sad sacks who, nine years later, still can't let go, but a punch in the wall is a tickle compared to the kick in the taint I'm going to administer if I have to endure this melancholy bullshit all summer long.
Bored and unable to sleep in on a Saturday morning, I continued my a.m. driving series through Detroit's Southwest neighborhoods. When I hear that Journey song about the boy "born and raised in south Detroit," this is the part of town I imagine. See, there really is no "south Detroit." You have the East Side, the West Side and Southwest. The rest of the city has its own designations like Woodbridge, New Center, Corktown, Warrendale, Midtown, Brightmoor, Palmer Woods, Hubbard Farms, Delray, Indian Village, the Cultural Center, and so on. But really, the Big Three are East, West and Southwest.
I don't spend as much time in this part of the city as I would like, should, but I have a feeling that will be changing this summer. I've discovered more to this area then I previously thought existed. Color me lazy or sheltered, but I really ventured only as far as Mexicantown and parts of Vernor West, the former being a slew of restaurants with a strong suburban clientele. And while there is nothing wrong with that, but when I venture out into some of the fringe neighborhoods or go into some bizarre-o, out of the way bar in an area no one else I know would go (save for, of course, my homeboy who spearheads many of these ventures), the last thing I want to see is a room full of people who, well, look like me. Give me the obscure, the true local flavor, not some perfumed pig to comfort the young couple from Clawson. And I found a lot of that flavor while getting somewhat lost around southwest this morning, tooling aimlessly up and down Vernor far west than I ever knew existed, down Springwells, Mullane, Lawndale, Junction, etc. Fuck a bunch of farmers market or waiting in line at Toast. I want to see some real shit.
Looks like I missed the taco truck ...
And in a social climate where seemingly everywhere I turn with a camera people are constantly suspicious and nearly always aggressive with remarks and questions like "Why are you taking pictures?!!?" and "Who are you working for?!?!" (for which answers are, in this order: "fuck you and fuck you"), it made my day when I saw this guy.
Nice guy. Totally restores my faith in humanity for at least the next 12 hours, until some some dolt fucks it all up. We need more Carloses in the world -- even-tempered polite individuals just grilling up about 20 pounds of finely seasoned chicken at 10 a.m. on a Saturday.
Swung by the old Tiger Stadium, where recent news reports have been agog with the erection of a 10-foot high fence, the definite precursor to the structure's demolition. That bitch, finally, is coming down.
Just tear it down, please. It's an eyesore and a waste of space in a Corktown neighborhood that is choking on its own potential to be a dominant part of the city. We've all had our fun at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. Great. Great fucking times. But those times expired, so rip the goddamn thing down already.
It seems that with speculation that the old Tiger Stadium will be
torn down (at least most of it), people have become even more
passionate about the rotting, decaying mess of the old stadium. Urban
explorers have been clamoring to get in for years. This group
apparently succeeded. Still, these jokers
got busted. And rightfully so, gouging out the olde English D logo from
the chair backs. Fucking assholes. Reading this subject matter made me
a little nostalgic for the days when I used to frequent the park.
Glom's brother Bill took me to my first game, actually. I was about
22 and Mickey Tettleton hit a 2-run walk-off homer. After that, I'd
gone infrequently, but picked up the pace a little when I was a
journalism student at Wayne State University. Back then, the park had a
policy to open up the gates after the 7th inning. We would listen to
the game on the radio in the college newspaper office and if someone
has nearing a milestone of any nature in hitting or pitching, we'd haul
ass the 6 or 8 minutes (down Warren, left on Trumbull) to the park and
enjoy the last couple of innings. If someone tied it up and it went
extra innings, well, bonus for me.
I cooled out on going to the park, as 1994 strike really soured me
on the game. I boycotted the park and any MLB merchandise for about
four years before I started to return to Tiger Stadium. It closed in
1999 and I had packed in as many games as I could. Seeing some of the
footage of the old park reminded me of some crappy old shots I took
when I didn't have a very worthy camera. I would buy disposables and
shoot what I could, although most images turned out nappy and
uninspired.
Jason and his friend Patrick came to Detroit from SF in the last
summer of Tiger Stadium, when I was trying to hit every other game. I
would typically go by myself because I had few friends at that time and
none of them were into baseball at all. And this was before I'd met
Cigar Mike. Still, Jase came to town and, well, let's just say nobody
got ANY sleep that weekend. We toured the park the morning of a game,
when it was about 97 degrees at 9 in the morning. Still, these are the
few photographic memories I have of Tiger Stadium:
I wish I would've used the flash or at least had a decent camera
because I think, done right, this photo could be fucking priceless. But
I'm stuck with this one for now.
Jason and I were at a game and these people sat in front of us. I
love the image of the bleacher seats. How many great times were had on
those very uncomfortable metal seats? I can count my fair share.
Anyway, these folks are in front of us and dude takes off his shirt,
asking one of his female companions to please apply some suncreen to
his back. She did this to him, which we thought was hilarious.
The moved the park across the way from the Fox
Theatre and while it's a great place to see a game, I still hold that
place in my heart for Tiger Stadium. I hope they do tear it down. I
wish they would turn it down tonight after work. It's like watching a
sick dog that needs to be put to sleep, a dog you loved for so many
years, who asked for no reciprocation, rather, gave to you in return an
unrivaled sense of bliss and belonging. A dog greets you warmly when
you get home and, for me, the stadium did the same when I would park
and get within a block of it, later walking up the ramp inside to see
the lush green outfield rising to greet me. It was a beautiful place to
me, somewhere I could escape in the years when I needed such an exit at
times. It was a salve in the city, an oasis in the madness. The fucking
thing is falling apart and people, like the ones mentioned in the
vandalism article, are drooling at the jowls like a bunch of fucking
jackals, trying to get their hands on shit that doesn't belong to them.
Tear the fucking thing down. Just get it over with already.
