Good-Bye to One of America's Oldest Ball Parks

One of the oldest baseball parks in America is rapidly approaching a date with a demolition crew. Tiger Stadium, long-time home of the Detroit Tigers, originally opened in 1912 on the same day as Boston's Fenway Park. However, it will soon be nothing more than photographs and memories.

Depressing as it is for thousands of baseball fans, the park's demise is inevitable. Efforts had been made to preserve it in its entirety, or even portions of it. As it stands now, a small section will be retained, but the vast majority of it will soon meet the wrecking ball. Demolition is scheduled to begin early next year, but no date has been set. The sale of seats and other memorabilia from the stadium has already taken place. I have a pair of tattered and worn blue seats in my basement - my own personal piece of history that I will treasure forever.

Nearly everyone in southeastern Michigan beyond their teen years has memories of that grand old structure. I am definitely included in that group. I vividly remember my father taking my brother and me to numerous games, and how much I was in awe of the stadium itself, the atmosphere, and the ever-present aroma of hot dogs that filled every corner. The first game I saw under its massive lights was indescribable.

Sitting in the top row of the bleachers, I watched one of Norm Cash's drives clear the right field roof and roll to a stop on the roof of a lumber yard's building across the street. Watching Charley Maxwell clobber four home runs in a doubleheader against the Yankees made me hoarse from cheering. I once took my 80-year-old baseball-fan grandmother to a game against the Orioles. "Oh, my land," she exclaimed as she watched Boog Powell send a mammoth shot over the roof in right field. I sat with my son in the box seats behind home plate as he discovered that players "say bad words" on the field. That's how close to the action fans were.

Many of the greatest players of all time played there. Al Kaline, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle . . . the list could go on and on.