Tiger Stadium was a dump when I was a kid...it smelled like piss and ceegar smoke down in the tunnels in the 60's yet lasted another 40 years. But it was a classic alright and everybody from The Babe and Ty Cobb and Hank Greenberg to Teddy Ballgame (Ted Willams) to Mick and Al Kaline, and later Reggie and Harmon Killebrew sunk cleates into that dirt. They tried everything to save it but the foundation was crumbling after a hundred years and the support posts were beyond repair...Overhead pieces would fall off over the winter but still the diehards fought for it and were crushed when it was finally bulldozed. The field, at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull was just rescued and opened for local teams. The stadium itself is gone but they have the original flagpole which was in fair territory in deep center field. The Tigers won four championships there....nowhere near the Yankees gloried past but not bad for a blue-collar city with true-blue fans real close to the field. When we got on an enemy player he could expect to hear things about his mother, if he had skinny legs or a unibrow, or what kind of slump he was in, and if he was an outfielder could expect to have hot coins winged at him....I remember Roger Maris picking up a quarter once that had been made almost red hot with pliers and a cigarette lighter....he dropped it like a....uh, hot coin and was shaking his hand and swearing about his burnt fingers....of course we roared laughter and never let him forget it in later visits. It was said if a player got V.D. from a chippy, Tigers fans would hear about it and hound the guy mercilessly. What a place.
I'll take that cigar smoke and piss ANY DAY of the year over that piece of shit comerica park. Those pics there of old classic TIGER STADIUM just prove in spades how that place was 10 times nicer than that shithole they play in now.
Magnum had good taste in cheering on the CLASSIC Detriot Tigers who played in Tiger stadium.
the owners really ruined the game,first with free agency making it so now so that every year on opening day you dont recognize half the players anymore and then if that wasnt enough for them either,they then started tearing down classic ballparks.
it used to be every fall classic during the playoffs and world series i always watched them,did not care who was in it.Now unless it is the royals or cubs or dodgers now also.i wont watch baseball playoffs or world series anymore.
It used to be every team had just as much a good shot as the other one of making it to the world series but those good old days of players playing their entire career with ONE TEAM are over with now.
The good old days of george brett and frank white playing with one team the royals are over with or alan trammel and lou whitiker with the tigers,you will never find that happen again in this fucked up world.
the owners and players have ruined the game. I always looked forward to those days of seeing Brett and White playing against trammel and whitiker,you ALWAYS knew the players from BOTH teams every year so you got excited about the upcoming season and going out to the ballpark and seeing them play a certain team because of that.
Back when i was little,it was UNHEARD OF for Johhny cuoto after just 4 years with the reds,jump so quickly to another team like that,that was just crazy thinking back then for a player to not want to finish how whole career with one team,two teams at the MOST.
teams that dont have the cash to keep their players like the reds,padres,A's,twins,pirates,they dont have a prayer of ever making it to the world series now.
MLB baseball is as fucked as the NFL sadly.
