Happy 100th Birthday, Tiger Stadium

[Detroitnerd]

Really cheesed me to hear a long, loving tribute to Fenway Park on NPR, with all the Bostonians all happy about how they had preserved their stadium, with all its traditions.

Fenway and Navin Field [[later Briggs, then Tiger Stadium) opened the same day: April 20, 1912.

[Ray1936]

Yup. Tigers beat the Cleveland Naps in 11 innings, while Boston also beat the New York Highlanders in 11. I remember watching the results come in on the telegraph at the Detroit Times.

[Detroitnerd]

Yup. Tigers beat the Cleveland Naps in 11 innings, while Boston also beat the New York Highlanders in 11. I remember watching the results come in on the telegraph at the Detroit Times.

Haha. And you'd have to be 110 today to be a 10-year-old copyboy at the time.

[Downriviera]

Yup. Tigers beat the Cleveland Naps in 11 innings, while Boston also beat the New York Highlanders in 11. I remember watching the results come in on the telegraph at the Detroit Times.

Ray, I bet you remember when the Dead Sea was just sick, too.

[Detroit Stylin]

lol he looks good for his age.....

[p69rrh51]

Really cheesed me to hear a long, loving tribute to Fenway Park on NPR, with all the Bostonians all happy about how they had preserved their stadium, with all its traditions.

Fenway and Navin Field [[later Briggs, then Tiger Stadium) opened the same day: April 20, 1912.

You are so right!!!! I have been to Fenway, while it is a very good place to watch a game Tiger Stadium was a far better place to watch the game especially from the upper deck. Watching all the crap on tv this morning really made me sick to my stomach! Now we have to sit in a monument to one man's greed while Boston gets to revel in their heritage, that really sucks!

[jackie5275]

Well if Fetzer would've maintained it the way Fenway's been maintained it probably would've had a better chance of being a heralded ball park like Fenway is. However, Fetzer, didn't want to make the investment. Looking back, when he sold the stadium to the city for $1.00, that was the beginning of the end. Although I did take some comfort in hearing a report about Fenway in which the players say it's a dump.

[p69rrh51]

Well if Fetzer would've maintained it the way Fenway's been maintained it probably would've had a better chance of being a heralded ball park like Fenway is. However, Fetzer, didn't want to make the investment. Looking back, when he sold the stadium to the city for $1.00, that was the beginning of the end. Although I did take some comfort in hearing a report about Fenway in which the players say it's a dump.

You are very correct Fetzer was not into spending any money at all. On the other hand I chatted with a Gordon Bugby an architect/engineer around the time of the start of the Tiger Stadium fan club. He had a restoration architect come in and look at the stadium, and his was quite suprised that for all the neglect the stadium was structurally in good condition. A fact the current owners went out of their way do keep quiet.

[DownriverGRap]

You are very correct Fetzer was not into spending any money at all. On the other hand I chatted with a Gordon Bugby an architect/engineer around the time of the start of the Tiger Stadium fan club. He had a restoration architect come in and look at the stadium, and his was quite suprised that for all the neglect the stadium was structurally in good condition. A fact the current owners went out of their way do keep quiet.

Not to mention it stood for another 9 years with next to zero maintenance and took over a year to demo!

[Hamtragedy]

Well if Fetzer would've maintained it the way Fenway's been maintained it probably would've had a better chance of being a heralded ball park like Fenway is. However, Fetzer, didn't want to make the investment. Looking back, when he sold the stadium to the city for $1.00, that was the beginning of the end. Although I did take some comfort in hearing a report about Fenway in which the players say it's a dump.

I happened to catch the PBS Fenway spot the night before opening day. Apparently Fenway had been let to rot and was all but written off until the Red Sox were purchased by the current owners, a group not even from Boston [[minor uproar). Whether to generate goodwill or not, they valued the old beaten-down ballpark, despite the Red Sox woeful history [[outside of the Yaz, Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk, Fred Lynn, Luis Tiant days, and the Rocket, the Red Sox sucked in my lifetime, almost as much as the Tigers).

12 years later, a good architectural firm, some great plumbers [[fish from the Charles would occasionally back up from the storm drains onto the playing field after a massive rain), closing off a few streets and some great vision, has made Fenway the treasure of New England. Oh, and a World Series ring or two after a 90 year drought doesn't hurt either.

[Wingnatic]

I'm sure alot of you remember Herbie Redmond

[Occurrence]

I always thought Navin Field and Fenway are both noted as opening the same day of the Titanic sinking?


I can't believe people here 13 years ago werren't throwing batteries at the people who suggested we move the team out of Tiger Stadium. Comerica Park is so medicore. Funny how nobody seemed to like Comerica until the team got good in 2006.

[EastsideAl]

As the years go by the decision by the Tigers to leave Tiger Stadium seems ever more infuriatingly short-sighted. If you visit the Kenmore Sq./Fenway area in Boston, or Wrigleyville in Chicago, today you really have to wonder about all that we potentially lost - not just the ball park itself [[which was heartbreaking enough). The potential was there to have something unique and historical to build around on the near west side, but, as usual, Detroit blew it.

[iheartthed]

As the years go by the decision by the Tigers to leave Tiger Stadium seems ever more infuriatingly short-sighted. If you visit the Kenmore Sq./Fenway area in Boston, or Wrigleyville in Chicago, today you really have to wonder about all that we potentially lost - not just the ball park itself [[which was heartbreaking enough). The potential was there to have something unique and historical to build around on the near west side, but, as usual, Detroit blew it.

Yeah, I think the biggest tragedy from losing the old Tiger Stadium is that the new stadium was built so far away. Even in NYC most people have largely forgotten about the old Yankee Stadium because the new one went up in close enough proximity to maintain the neighborhood. That's why I wish Ilitch would consider building the new Red Wings on the site of the old Tiger Stadium.

[Wheels]

Yeah, I think the biggest tragedy from losing the old Tiger Stadium is that the new stadium was built so far away. Even in NYC most people have largely forgotten about the old Yankee Stadium because the new one went up in close enough proximity to maintain the neighborhood. That's why I wish Ilitch would consider building the new Red Wings on the site of the old Tiger Stadium.

Now that is the best idea I have heard yet. And wile you are at it fix that darn train station too please.

[Detroitnerd]

Now that is the best idea I have heard yet. And wile you are at it fix that darn train station too please.

No, i think the city still wants it to become a Family Dollar or something ...

[gumby]

As the years go by the decision by the Tigers to leave Tiger Stadium seems ever more infuriatingly short-sighted. If you visit the Kenmore Sq./Fenway area in Boston, or Wrigleyville in Chicago, today you really have to wonder about all that we potentially lost - not just the ball park itself [[which was heartbreaking enough). The potential was there to have something unique and historical to build around on the near west side, but, as usual, Detroit blew it.

The question could be asked then, would the Grand Circus Park area be seeing its mini-rebirth if Comerica wasn't built, plus Ford Field probably wouldn't have been built in Detroit either. As much as I hated to see Tigers Stadium go it probably was a positive for corktown as there is less reason to knock down buildings for parking and in the long run there will probably be fewer surface lots in the area around the stadiums as there is sufficient density to call for parking ramps. I believe that when they finally decide where they are building the new Joe a lot of those surface lots wil be built up because there will be no reason for land speculation at that point.

[MSUguy]

As the years go by the decision by the Tigers to leave Tiger Stadium seems ever more infuriatingly short-sighted. If you visit the Kenmore Sq./Fenway area in Boston, or Wrigleyville in Chicago, today you really have to wonder about all that we potentially lost - not just the ball park itself [[which was heartbreaking enough). The potential was there to have something unique and historical to build around on the near west side, but, as usual, Detroit blew it.

Some might argue that this has helped Corktown in the long run. A lot that neighborhod was demolished for surface parking lots for, I have to wonder given the Macdeondian Parking Cartel business practices how much more of that neighborhood would be gone. Would the Slows block have been cleared for more parking?

[EastsideAl]

Some might argue that this has helped Corktown in the long run. A lot that neighborhod was demolished for surface parking lots for, I have to wonder given the Macdeondian Parking Cartel business practices how much more of that neighborhood would be gone. Would the Slows block have been cleared for more parking?

I think a lot of people in Corktown would argue that. They fought against the Tigers and the stadium for years.

But that fate wasn't inevitable. It would have been a matter of proper zoning and zoning enforcement.

The aforementioned areas around Fenway and Wrigley have had a ballpark in them just about as long as Corktown did, and they aren't pockmarked with vacant lots for surface parking. Where such things were once built, they have mostly been filled in with new construction now, and local zoning bans new surface parking lots.

Even new ballparks in places like Denver and San Francisco have helped revitalize once moribund semi-industrial areas that had been largely given up for dead. They did this in some large measure by banning the construction of surface parking lots nearby. In San Francisco they are now even taking the nearby area they used for a large parking lot and redeveloping it for residential and commercial use.

And Corktown has been an actual active residential neighborhood, unlike the areas around the ballparks in those cities. But you may be right, in Detroit where the prevailing planning ethos is "that schitt is old - tear that schitt down!", a saved Tiger Stadium would probably have been surrounded by even more surface parking lot desolation, and even more historic buildings would have been stupidly destroyed.

Hell, look at our 'beautiful' newish ballpark, which, instead of the promised commercial and residential development, is inexplicably surrounded by a newish parking lot wasteland. Isn't it just special what Comerica Park has done for Woodward?

This is what I mean when I constantly harp on the shocking lack of vision around here. We can't even build new things well, or seemingly with any forethought beyond "where will they park?" So despite what dozens of other cities have done, we treat our built history like crap, and treat those who want to preserve it, and see possibilities for future development in it, as cranks standing in the way of progress. A deeply anti-city version of "progress" that seems to consist mostly of hermetically sealed monolithic buildings, ugly concrete parking garages, and, above all else, more wind-blown vacant lots.

[Wheels]

This is what I mean when I constantly harp on the shocking lack of vision around here.

And on that note can you please explain how any of that can be accomplished without mass transit. You can continue to gripe about parking forever but without transit it is a fact of life.

[Occurrence]

And on that note can you please explain how any of that can be accomplished without mass transit. You can continue to gripe about parking forever but without transit it is a fact of life.

Nobody in these parts is going to complain about mass transit until gas goes up and up. This area is going to be screwed when hits $6-7 a gallon someday.

[Detroitgayhistoryguy]

I miss it also, even though I'm not a big baseball fan. The history that was in that place. Here are a couple of photos I took late one night in the last days.

[renf]

This afternoon about 3, I drove by the empty plot where Navin Field/Briggs Stadium/Tiger Stadium once stood. I was pleased to see a group of men
playing baseball on the field. I hope they were commemorating 100 years.

[jerrytimes]

People can't just let it go.

[Ray1936]

Thirty years from now no one will be talking about Tiger Stadium. Unless they rename Comerica Park Tiger Stadium once again.

Personally, I hate these sponsor names of the new ballparks with a passion.