Comments on: They might put a parade warehouse on the site of Tiger Stadium

By: bw1980

bw1980 — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 05:54:22 +0000

It’s really a shame that renovation wasn’t in style before we underwent the current stadium building boom that, I suppose, really started in the 90s.

I will say that a lot of teams and fanbases are much better off such as the Astros, Mariners, Brewers, Rangers, Padres, Giants, Marlins, Phillies and Twins.

However, I think the Yankees, Tigers and the Orioles really lost some luster. As a Red Sox fan, I just can’t get as excited for a Sox/Yankees series in the Bronx in that billion dollar stadium built for millionaires to enjoy. Old Yankee Stadium was just magical, loud and you really did feel as if there were ghosts haunting the place. New Yankee Stadium is devoid of character and characters: you could hear a pin drop in that place, it’s massive and it’s symbolic of the country’s shift toward catering to the wealthy and pushing everybody else into the nosebleeds in left field.

Oh well.

By: darthicarus

darthicarus — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 21:26:22 +0000

You did happen to leave out the part that states where the actual field from Tiger Stadium would will be a Youth Baseball Field. The parade headquarters would be positioned where the LF-CF seats and concourse were.

By: mminpacbeach

mminpacbeach — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 20:04:24 +0000

When the Tigers won the WS in 1984, my sisters and I got a square foot of the infield grass on the night they won it. We planted it in the flowerbed at our house. I love Tiger Stadium–such wonderful memories.

By: mybrunoblog

mybrunoblog — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 19:31:05 +0000

The only good thing coming from Detroit these days is “Hardcore Pawn”. A guilty pleasure for sure but I can’t look away.

By: istillbelieveinblue

istillbelieveinblue — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:52:00 +0000

That’s great!

By: kopy

kopy — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:42:57 +0000

Hopefully they think of clever ways to honor the stadium. In Minnesota, the Mall of America was built on the old Twins/Vikings site. On the floor in a corner of the amusement park is the old home plate, and there is a chair affixed to a wall in the exact location it was in when it was hit by Harmon Killebrew’s 520-foot home run: http://media.photobucket.com/image/harmon%20killebrew%20chair/TheVagabondVoyage/Minnesota/HarmonKillebrewChairinMallofAmerica.jpg

The former home of the Minneapolis Lakers is a parking lot: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Minneapolis_Armory_interior.jpg

By: istillbelieveinblue

istillbelieveinblue — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:34:35 +0000

I like what is being done with the old Bush Stadium in Indianapolis. It opened in the 1930′s just down 16th street from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and was modeled after Wrigley Field. It also served as the stand-in for Comiskey Park in the movie Eight Men Out. The stadium was in desperate need of renovation by the late 80′s/early 90′s. The team and the city decided the best course of action was to move into a new stadium downtown. The Indians moved into Victory Field, across the street from the RCA Dome, in 1996. “Beautiful Bush” sat more or less vacant for 15 years. The old stadium is currently undergoing a conversion into apartments within the confines of the old stadium. The original exterior facade, which was modeled after Ebbets Field, is being preserved and renovated. Will this ultimately succeed financially? Maybe, maybe not, but I think it’s a pretty clever reuse of a site that also preserves some of the city’s history.

An aerial shot of the stadium shortly before it closed:
http://bit.ly/O20zBw

Artist renderings of what it will become:
http://www.coreredevelopment.com/apartments/stadium-lofts/

By: aiede

aiede — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:29:57 +0000

It’s not that nobody’s willing to fix it, it’s that the people who are in charge of the city refuse to get out of the damn way. They’re worried about whether the Band-Aid dispenser was installed with union labor when what we really need is a fricking tourniquet.

I spent a lot of time in Tiger Stadium as a kid, and I miss a lot about it, but I just don’t seem to have the same nostalgia chip in my head as others do. The home run I caught from Lance Parrish in the left field upper deck of Tiger Stadium didn’t evaporate when they knocked it down. If they could make the site function as a city park baseball diamond, go for it. If not, then making it the home of one of our cooler nonprofits is a not-terrible consolation prize.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:21:54 +0000

The most surprising thing I read in this post was that Craig has just the one irrational fixation.

By: budselog

budselog — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:55:35 +0000

Detroit is a metropolitan wasteland that no one is willing to fix. You are correct: there are plenty of places to put a rickety old warehouse. Picking this site could only do one thing for them: “hey, when you have to deliver that heinous Dora the Explorer float, pretend like you’re driving to old Tiger Stadium and that’s where we’re located.”

Fucking lame, but par for the course for that city. Damn shame.

By: aarontzach

aarontzach — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:47:23 +0000

Aren’t there about 18,000 empty lots and/or buildings in the Detroit area? Would it really hurt anything to have this one lot stay open for a park?????

By: papacrick

papacrick — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:43:32 +0000

I shed a tear every time I drive by the old site. It’s fun to park outside the fence and relive the good old’ memories and think about what it was like when guys like Greenberg and Cobb played there.