Not on the fence anymore

Pater Hyman at Slate has convinced me: It's long past time for Tiger Stadium to be torn down.

Tiger Stadium Must Go
Slate

On September 27, 1999, the Detroit Tigers beat the Kansas City Royals 8-2. The game was entirely inconsequential, except for the fact that the host stadium was to be retired at the game's conclusion, capping a run that dated back to 1896, when a Midwestern hay market was turned into a 6,000-seat ballpark. "The game is over," play-by-play man Ernie Harwell announced at contest's end. "Tiger Stadium is no more."

Harwell was only partly right. While professional baseball has not been played at Tiger Stadium since that day - franchise owner and pizza baron Mark Ilitch moved the team to shiny new Comerica Park in 2000 -the city-owned stadium still stands at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull, a deserted ruin of concrete and steel. Instead of being demolished immediately, Tiger Stadium has become the most prominent symbol of Democrat's post-industrial urban decay. Even now, as there's finally a firm deadline to demolish the stadium to make way for new homes and stores, a persistent group f wannabee do-gooders is making a last-ditch push to save the old ballpark. While their hearts are in the right place, in this instance logic must win out over nostalgia. It's time to tear the damn thing to the ground so that we can get on with our lives.

The Tiger Stadium that exists in the popular consciousness was born in 1938, when then-owner Walter Briggs Sr. expanded the existing park into a two-tiered monster that could hold more than 50,000 fans. This reconfiguration gave rise to what became the stadium's signature features: obstructed views, a center-field wall 440 feet fro home plate, and a rowdy upper-deck bleacher section that hung over the field of play. Like the assembly -line town it represented, the ballpark was more workmanlike than elegant - full of imperfections but entirely lacking in pretense.

The desire to preserve the great ballpark - the home of Hank Greenberg, Willie Horton, and Kirk Gibson, the place where the Tigers won the 1968 and 1984 World Series - is perfectly understandable. I was guilty of the same sentiment. The earliest memories involve toddling down to the stadium with my father to watch the Tigers and the Lions, who played at Michigan and Trumbull until their regret able move to the Silverdome in 1975. While Al Kaline was still in uniform during my initial years of inculcation, the sure-fielding Aurelio Rodriguez - the original "A-Rod" - was my first hero.

But stripped of these golden-hued memories, Tiger Stadium as it stands today is a sad relic. It is literally falling apart, despite the fact that the City of Detroit has spent several million dollars in maintenance since 1999. Various efforts to open the stadium to the public for one final walkthrough have been cancelled because the premises pose a safety risk. Some of the prized memorabilia - signage and locker room miscellany, mainly - that the city wants to auction off to raise money to offset demolition costs has already been hauled away by vandals. What remains is a hollow, neglected shell that serves only to tarnish both the club's legacy and its legends.