Tiger Stadium--Paul's Major League Baseball Stadium Webpage

Because I grew up in Denver before it had a major league baseball team, I didn't begin my ballpark quest in earnest until after college. Tiger Stadium was the exception. I visited it twice on visits to relatives in Detroit. I was ten and twelve. And while I had been to a few Denver Bears and Denver Zephyrs games at Mile High Stadium, my only two childhood major league games were at Tiger Stadium. Because I was a kid, I can't give you a fully accurate description--I just thought it was incredibly cool. I didn't notice it was in a horrible neighborhood--in fact, I wandered out to the concourse alone during a rain delay to look at the skyline. I didn't pay any mind to the 1912 architecture and the beams that obstructed my view from the second deck down the left-field line--I had nothing to compare it to. This sounds cliché, but what I remember of the stadium was all that gorgeous grass. Also the funny stuff on the scoreboard.

There was a very long rain delay, which means I got to hang out with my aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandmother for a while watching highlights of the 1979 World Series. I remember thinking it strange that the umpire would stop the game in the middle of an at-bat and not wait until between at-bats. The rain delay was awfully long, as was the game, which didn't finish off until 12:51 AM. I laughed out loud when the PA announcer said: "The next Tigers home game will be against the Boston Red Sox...tonight. Drive carefully. Good morning."

My cousin Joe--maybe six or seven years old?--clued me in that Richie Hebner was the absolute greatest player in world history. When Hebner came to bat in the third inning, Joe shouted from our upper-deck seat: "Keep your eye on the ball, Richie!" Even at ten, I found such advice to professionals to be superfluous and silly. Or was it? Hebner homered.

I went to the 1982 game shortly after visiting my great-grandmother in the hospital. She was 90 and a bag of bones. I knew she was a baseball fan and a Tiger fan, but only after talking to her in the hospital did I realize quite how hard-core she was. She not only knew that the Tigers were playing Oakland, but said something like: "Every team has their really good players, and they have Henderson. He's something else." Not bad for a woman born in Kaliszka Gubernia, Poland.

I'm not 100% certain, but I may have tried to score the game when I was 12. I remember copying the names, anyway. Maybe I just wrote the home runs down. No evidence survives.

In short...I have little memory snippets--mostly of the games--but Tiger Stadium will always hold quite a bit of sentimental value for me. I have no memory of its many problems...just memory of excitement, family, and two good games.

BASEBALL STUFF I SAW THERE:

Looks like I saw Fred Lynn hit a home run. Jack Morris and Bob Ojeda started my first ever game, but both were driven out early--Ojeda without getting an out.

Rickey Henderson stole a base in the game I saw in September 1982--his 124th of the season, extending his record in the year he stole 130. I think it was the first inning--he was walked and stole second, but Lance Parrish gunned him down when he tried to steal third.

Dwayne Murphy hit a home run off of a light tower on the right-field roof. I remember the sound of that. Crack--fffsssssssssssssss--ping!!! (Okay, maybe the "fffsssss" is added only in my memory.) The crowd was so surprised and impressed that we gave him a polite golf-clap ovation as he ran around the bases. There can't be too many people who have done that in Tiger Stadium's 87 years. If the light tower hadn't been there, I don't know where Murphy's shot would have landed...I swear it was still going up.

Lance Parrish, one of my favorite players as a kid (because of these visits to Tiger Stadium, I grew up a Tiger fan), hit a homer in the Oakland game.

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Written August 2001, updated May 2005.

since May 31, 2005.