Tiger Stadium

I visited Tiger Stadium in late April or early May 1997 when I was in the Detroit area for a business trip.  The Tigers were playing the Kansas City Royals, so obviously it was a sparse crowd.  I got there very early and was able to take advantage of an $8 ticket deal which gave you seats in the left field bleachers and also gave you a hot dog/slice of pizza and a soda worth $4.  Thus, my seat was $4!!  I ate my pizza in those seats while attempting to shag some batting practice homers (no luck) and was pretty sure that I saw Tony Clark (at that time the Tigers’ star player) visit with a youth group who had seats out there.

Because I got there so early, I was able to walk around the whole park, sit in some seats and experience the view from different vantage points.  Tiger Stadium was a great old ballpark that afforded fans closeup views of the field.  As opposed to many modern stadiums, the lower deck wasn’t very wide, thus it appeared that most of the seats were in the upper deck.

The concourses were also very narrow on the lower deck and weren’t much bigger in the upper deck, which has concourses similar to Wrigley Field.  Basically a very quaint old ballpark that held a lot of memories. However, I must say that the part of town that the stadium is in leaves something to be desired! 

Because the Tigers were already building Comerica, it was obvious that nothing but necessary repairs were made to the stadium.  For example, in one of the sections that I chose to sit in the upper deck, the extremely friendly usher had a little plastic step stool for anybody who sat in certain rows where a cement step was missing.  The usher was very nice and answered all my questions with pleasure.

The press box was also very close and I was able to get Mitch Album’s attention and get him to wave to me.

The highlight, though was when the Tigers mascot, which is named Paws, actually talked to me!  The Bird never talks to people and can only whistle!  He was very friendly and answered my questions and let on that he was friends with many other MLB mascots. I brought home a Beanie Baby sized Paws for Orangebird, that is still in our house.

I’m bummed that it has been mostly demolished, but am glad that I was able to see a game there.