OT: Tiger Stadium also 100 years old this weekend
With all of the media attention on Fenway turning 100 years old this past weekend, Tiger Stadium also turned 100, although it is no longer around of course. What are your thoughts on Tiger Stadium? For me it was where I spent many days watching Chet Lemon or Kirk Gibson, while sitting in the outfield with my Dad.
I think it is a shame that the city does not do more to recognize the old stadium or site.
It opened the same day as Fenway, and Babe Ruth hit his 700th HR there as well...
Here are a couple of stories regarding the site, and the old Stadium:
Those things don't bother me too much, I still love Bo and his legacy at Michigan.
I don't think you can measure success solely on Nat'l Championships. His Rose Bowl record wasn't the greatest, however he was the recipient of what I can only describe as bad luck.
We can play 'What If's' all day, but:
- heart attack before first Rose Bowl. I assume that diminished his team's ability to prepare & win the game, lost by 7.
- had undefeated Michigan gone to the 1973 Rose Bowl instead of OSU, and beat USC (which I don't believe is a stretch and is a logical assumption as both UM & OSU were pretty evenly matched teams that year), Bo could have had his Nat'l Championship in '73.
- had the refs properly called Chas.White's phantom touchdown a fumble in the 1979 Rose Bowl, the game outcome would have likely been different, garnering Bo a Rose Bowl victory, lost by 7.
Are you out of your f-ing mind?!! Time for a review of some Michigan 101 coursework:
1- nobody cares about "national championships" (except Notre Dame) because they are mythical beasts, beyond the control of men.
2-Rose Bowl transcends records. Simply being there is the point. It's the reward for a Big Ten championship. It's nice to win but it's hardly a bad thing to lose a Rose Bowl.
Bo didn't fire Ernie Harwell. It wasn't his call. It was pathetic that blame was shifted to him but to his credit, he did not complain.
April 23rd, 2012 at 10:35 PM ^
Tiger Stadium had to have money poured into it in the mid 70's to even get it to last as long as it did. That's part of the reason you see the old green seats in the older pictures, and then the blue and orange the last 25 years or so. I still have two of the blue seats in my home office. The best sports memories of my lifetime are walking up the catwalks of the upper deck, out on to the upper deck itself, and seeing the field.
The average lifespan of a baseball stadium is roughly 40-50 years. If you get much past that you're really on borrowed time without pouring serious money into the place. For every Fenway, Wrigley, and Tiger Stadium, I can show you an Ebbets Field, and all the cookie cutters built in the late 60's to early 70's. They're all gone. Even the majority of Yankee Stadium only stood for 51 seasons (1923-1973) before it was essentially gutted and rebuilt. And that only stood for 33 seasons (1976-2008).
We're very lucky to have had Tiger Stadium for as long as we did. It would not surprise me in the least if the rumbling about replacing Comerica Park begin in about 20-25 years. The place is already 13 years old.
As for Bo and his comments, he was selling the point his superiors wanted him to sell (read: Tom Monahan). The ballpark was doomed the instant it was sold to the City of Detroit in the 70's.
We can very respectfully disagree. Ebbets Field got plowed under because the Dodgers left! And it is New York, where real estate is like gold.
Yankee Stadium, and the Yankees themselves, are always an exception. There are rules, and then there are the Yankees.
As you rightly point out, all of the cookie-cutter multi-use stadiums of the '70's are all gone. And good riddance. Because they mostly all sucked. People looked at them and thought, 'Heck, Tiger Stadium, Wrigley Field and Fenway Park are all 60 years old and they are better than this!' And we are still saying the same thing.
It is essential to have neighborhoods around ballparks, and in that repsect the City of Detroit failed Tiger Stadium (not vice versa). That's what makes Fenway and Wrigley such destinations. It's what makes Cubs games, and not White Sox games, sellouts.
Not all old ballparks were great, to be sure. The Polo Grounds was hardly a ballpark. Forbes Field and Crosley Field would have needed wholesale renovations.
And I won't try argue that renovating Tiger Stadium would have given the current franchise owners everything that they have now; it could never have done that. Location, luxury boxes, some amenities (although there is every good reason to suspect that an entire neighborhood of amenities could have been built around Tiger Stadium had there been the civic will to do so); all were made possible by a new building in Illitchtown.
Anyway, in the end Comerica Park is the triumph of an owner's financial interest and the lack of city planning over history and fan experience.