1. The JournalSPORTS
Page 14 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2012 PRESCOTT JOURNAL
By Caitie McRae
In the heart of Mich-
igan, lying northwest
from Cleveland and
southeast from Minneap-
olis, at 42° 19’ 53” N, 83°
2’ 45” W, there sits a city.
I feel the need to describe
its whereabouts in detail
because it’s become an
overlooked, non-descript
wasteland; a promising
future that collapsed by
the wayside. Some call it
Motor City; others, Hock-
eytown. But for Detroit,
which at one time was
the mecca of Motown and
the birthplace of the as-
sembly line, its enticing
character has dwindled as
much as its population.
My boyfriend and I
had tickets to the Dec.
11 Lions-Vikings game. I
had been a big Lions fan
(and admittedly, my pas-
sion for them has grown
this season) since the
days of Tim Taylor’s Super
Bowl parties on Home
Improvement episodes,
so not only was it ob-
viously mandatory that I
get my butt to a game but
that I get to experience,
firsthand, the D.
My boyfriend, being
the real-life version of
ClarkGriswold,madesure
we left dark and early at 4
a.m. sharp to begin our
trek along I-90 through
the good ol’ US of A. His
enthusiasm and almost
manic excitement some-
times scared me; there
were many times where I
thought we’d veer off onto
the scenic route to visit
the world’s second largest
ball of twine and end up
at Wally World. But I knew
that, like me, he couldn’t
wait to see the city itself.
After 12 hours and
way too many pit-stops
of American artery-clog-
ging, “would you like fries
on your salt?” fast food,
we sped past the sign wel-
coming us to “Pure Mich-
igan” and into Motown
itself.
Maybe the shock that
camealongwithourarriv-
al into the city is partially
my fault; I had ignored
my friends’ warnings of
Detroit’s high murder rate
and the nostalgic musings
of adults over the age of
50 claiming the city wasn’t
what it used to be. I didn’t
want it to tarnish the im-
age of the city I had con-
jured up from all those
years of watching Tim
Taylor blow up the dish-
washer or glue his head
to a table; I had a carefully
crafted image of Detroit in
my head, and the rows of
boarded-up houses and
dilapidated buildings that
greeted us was enough to
put a dent in our weekend
before the weekend even
began. As we drove (cau-
tiously) along the main
strip to our hotel, all I kept
thinking about was Dave
Chappelle’s stand-up rou-
tine about being taken to
the ghetto: “Liquor store,
gun store, liquor store,
gun store…” . For every
semi-decent building,
there were four crum-
bling ones. Unoccupied.
‘For Lease’ signs smacked
all over them. Windows
busted out of exquisite
nineteenth century build-
ings that had been re-
duced to a decayed pile of
broken brick. The Detroit
Free Press Building? Six-
teen floors of unoccupied
space. The Packard plant?
Decrepit and abandoned.
The city was like a ghost
town out of the Wild West
movies where you’d ex-
pect a tumbleweed to roll
by; in fact, my boyfriend
was able to do numer-
ous u-turns along a main
boulevard, with absolute-
ly no oncoming traffic,
right smack in the middle
of the day.
Eerie.
But to be fair, the part
of the city which is home
to Ford Field and Com-
erica Park is modern and
inviting, but it’s a small
section; a few blocks of
peace interrupted by in-
your-face ruins. Nonethe-
less, we ended up really
enjoying our weekend.
My Lions defeated the
Vikings 34-28 and we
got to sit so close to the
turf I could almost reach
out and snip a lock off of
Jared Allen’s mullet. But
for all the anticipation of
the game and the posh
quarters of our hotel, the
most important memory
to me and one of those
“Oh-my-God-I-can’t-
believe-that-happened”
moments took place on
Monday, Dec.12, 2011. It
wasn’t the surprise I got
when I sipped/gagged on
the worst Bloody Mary
ever made (3/4 vodka and
a splash of tomato juice
somewhere in there….
maybe) or the beaming
smile on my face when I
realized our hotel’s room
service gave us extra tater
tots for breakfast.
No. It was bigger than
that.
We were leaving that
afternoon but my boy-
friend decided he wanted
one last Clark Griswold
moment and that we
should attempt some
sight-seeing. We ended
up, albeit briefly, visiting
the Motown museum and
the abandoned Highland
Park factory (the birth-
place of the Model-T)
but it was our visit to the
old Tiger Stadium—or
should I say field—that
has etched a permanent
spot in the “amazing mo-
ments” section of my
brain.
What was remarkable
about the field was how
unremarkable it was. The
stadium itself had been
torn down in 2009, but
the Tigers had played
their swan song at that
location 10 years earlier.
The field had now been
reduced to a non-de-
script, fenced in park with
copious amounts of litter
covering the perimeter. It
looked like your average,
run-of-the-mill field, the
kind of place you’d take
your dog for a walk but
not your child because
the amount of garbage
could almost guarantee
your toddler would pick
up a used needle. And this
litter wasn’t the same kind
of empty nacho trays and
plastic cups you get after
an MLB game that’s the
aftermath of a crowded
stadium and cheering
fans; this garbage repre-
sented the carelessness
and ignorance of a city
suffocating under the
death of their auto indus-
try. There were no signs
leading us to this histor-
ical mass of land; we had
to Google Map it. In fact,
when we drove into the
city on the previous Sat-
urday, we passed right by
it, not knowing it was the
home of the Tigers for 87
years. How would we have
known? The city is nearly
bankrupt with next to no
funds to support upkeep
of these historical proper-
ties; the old Tiger Stadium
is one of the undeserving
victims, its regal, exorbi-
tant features now a disfig-
ured hodgepodge marred
by unfortunate circum-
stances.
“We should try to get
in,” I say to my boyfriend,
as we stand squinty-eyed,
peering through the
fence, marveling at the
upkeep of the infield, soil
still in-tact.
“Yeah, I think I saw an
opening in the fence,” he
says.
An opening in the
fence?Ididn’tbelievehim.
Here lay the remnants of
a stadium which at one
time housed over 52,000
fans, brought friends and
family together to em-
brace America’s Pastime
surrounded by Tigers
jerseys, chili dogs and
luminous stadium lights
and now two regular Joes
can just traipse onto this
iconic soil? No way, this
mythical opening in the
fence couldn’t possibly
exist.
It did.
As we pushed past the
rusted gate, I felt a bizarre
mix of awe and guilt. The
awe part came from my
instant recognition that I
was walking onto a field
that saw the 1984 Detroit
Tigers win the World Ser-
ies over the San Diego
Padres. I could hear the
faint cheering of the
crowd and the cracking
of the bat and in a totally
cliché Field of Dreams-
esque moment, I could
almost see the ghosts of
baseballpastmakingtheir
way around the bases.
A total shock-and-awe
moment.
However, as I made
my way toward the in-
field, I became aware that
my shoes were pressing
into the same grass as
Ty Cobb’s cleats did; the
sand I was sifting through
my hands was the same
sand that Joe DiMaggio’s
jersey slid into when
stealing second, or the
same sand that Babe Ruth
spit onto when standing
at bat. I started to realize
how much this moment
would have meant for so
many Tigers fans and I
began to feel guilt. Guilt at
the thought of how many
times a father turned
to his son in the stands
and said “Oh wow, how
cool would it be to get a
chance to walk out onto
the field?” The moment I
was experiencing, purely
by accident, was a mo-
ment that so many fans,
die-hard or not, would
have envied. How did I,
a first-time tourist to De-
troit and fairweather fan
of baseball, deserve this
opportunity?
The Chicago Cubs.
The Lovable Losers. The
boys have been suffering
through the debilitating
“curse of the Billy Goat”
for 103 years.
103 years.
Fans of The Boys in
Blue going their entire life
without seeing their team
win the World Series. And
their children after that.
And their grand-kids after
that; all waiting a lifetime
for the expected to un-
expectedly never happen.
And then Tigers fans,
fantasizing their entire life
about being escorted to
the dugout and shaking
hands with The Georgia
Peach; or getting a Louis-
ville Slugger autographed
by Charlie Gehringer as
he stands at second base
during practice; or having
the director of player per-
sonnel nod at them to go
hit a few to Willie Horton
out in left field.
I’m standing in left
field.
I’m right there, the
yellowing grass beneath
my feet and the deafen-
ing sound of disinterest
and indifference blaring
from adjacent, unkempt
buildings. The moment, I
should say, has come ex-
cept I’m not the one that
shouldbestarringinitand
to be frank, I don’t know
if Tigers fans of baseball
past would want to see
what this stadium has
been reduced to either.
It’s like the way people are
shocked and sickened to
see a beloved one’s disin-
tegration after a terminal
illness; pluck a Tigers fan
from the Gehringer era,
place them outside these
frail shambles and watch
as they sink their head
into their hands and de-
mand to God how this
could have happened.
Now standing over
homeplate,I’matthecore
of a long-held desire by
so many Tigers devotees
who never got a chance to
be where I am now.
How accessible it has
become.
How depressing, really.
Tiger Stadium used to
give Detroit a heartbeat;
not that it doesn’t have
one anymore but it’s faint
now, muffled by the dis-
graced and dejected cit-
izens turning to crime as
a desperate solution to a
lack of industry; the in-
evitable ignorance of their
surroundings that comes
with this, as they only see
the Detroit of today and
can’t fathom the Detroit of
yesteryear. Sure, much of
the city’s population can
appreciate the undercur-
rent of history that Detroit
basks in but teetering on
the brink of bankruptcy
and waiting for someone,
anyone, to throw this city
a rescue buoy steers their
focus away from nostal-
gia; places like Tiger Sta-
dium only a faded mem-
ory.
As I make my way
towards the corroded,
paint-chipped gate, my
feet still pressing into
grass that had been run
on, stomped on, slid on
and spit on by the likes of
Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig
and Mickey Mantle, I pick
up a piece of concrete.
“It’s part of the sta-
dium,” I tell my boyfriend,
as I turn the piece of jag-
ged rock in my hand. “I
think I’m going to keep it.
You know, as a souvenir
type-thing.”
As we pull onto the
highway, the ashen sky-
line of Detroit and silhou-
ette of all that is, and all
that once was, passes by
in our rear window. Our
car jerks along the rugged,
unpaved asphalt, the jag-
ged piece of history crum-
bling apart on my back-
seat with every bump in
the road.
An implosion of history, a tsunami of memories
Morris Group staff member Caitie McRae took a lap of the
bases of an old abandoned field that was, for nearly a cen-
tury, Tiger Stadium in Detroit.
It was once one of baseball’s national treasures, but all that remains of Tiger Stadium is an
abandoned field in Detroit and generations of memories.
A sports weekend road trip to Detroit for one of our staff members turns into a dis-
covery of one of baseball’s lost and forgotten treasures,and a memory of a lifetime