Ghosts of Tiger Stadium

On July 23, 1967, Detroit was pulsating in rage and hemorrhaging blood. It started on 12^th Street, a predominately black neighborhood, when a police raid broke up an illegal gambling bar (called a blind pig) late in the night. Crowds begin to thicken outside as the police came out to the wagons with the arrested in chains. As the police sirens faded in the distance, the crowd lingered in eerie silence. A stone flew out of the crowd and shattered storefront glass. As the morning dawned the mob was ripping the city apart.

The Detroit Tigers were playing a doubleheader against the Yankees that day and when most people arrived for the first game they had no idea what was happening three blocks north of the stadium (pre-24 hour news coverage). As the second game was wrapping up around 7:00 pm, a wall of black smoke was rising over centerfield. For an afternoon and early evening, thousands of fans watched the Tigers split the doubleheader to the Yankees while fires engulfed the city.

The Tigers lost the pennant race by one game later that summer. In 1968, they won the World Series. Fans will tell you that it was the team that distracted the city from further destructive violence. It was the team, the ballpark that pulled the city back together again. The reality is that the riots in Detroit never ended. But there is something about the game of baseball and the stadiums and parks where it is played in that these are the places where the soul of a city resides. Where we can all come together – whether in a box seat or a bleacher, whether from your living room or a sports bar – to wait for another collective memory to be made, to witness heroic feats, to share an experience with our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers that we never met but still root for the same team.

And when teams stop playing in those stadiums, they still carry with them the gravitas of a battlefield. It is easy to imagine ghost crowds coming out to watch their heroes one more time – a sanctuary from the onslaught of time and change that is happening all around us. Like James Earl Jones says in A Field of Dreams:

They'll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game, and it'll be as if they'd dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces. The one constant through all the years, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

Demolition on Tiger Stadium began two days ago. The fate of 12^th Street has finally reached the walls of the stadium forty years later.

For more reading:

What do you do with an Old Park? - Jim Caple
The Tigers, Burning Bright in Detroit - Washington Post, 2006
Old Tiger Stadium in Tatters - USA Today, 2006
Beginning of End for Tiger Stadium - Detroit Free Press, July 1, 2008
Save Tiger Stadium

Priceless Cards

Last night I was on my couch surrounded by piles of 2D cardboard players from 1990. I was flipping through the cards reliving the sound of scratching as the cards slid over one another. Separating the tops of starchy plastic sleeves and carefully reaching in for the top edge and slowly pulling each one out. Feeling the slick gloss of the Upper Decks and the rough Topps where a piece of gum once rested on the card inside its wax wrapper.

I sorted, counted, and replaced the cards back into the 80's Reebok shoe box. These cards are called "commons" because they are not star players. I don't even remember most of these players. So I put them all up on craigslist for free. I don't want them anymore but I couldn't bring myself to throw them away either. One thing I have learned from craigslist is that you can always find someone who wants your trash.

I also had a whole album of cubs players (over 270) that I was getting rid of but I listed it seperately on craigslist for a cubs fan. Within an hour I had over 3 requests for the Cubs cards - each email pleading with me what a big cubs fan they were and why they would give my beloved cubs card a good home. You would think I was giving away my cat.

Before I went to sleep last I emailed back the first interested parties that they could come get their cards. When I woke up this morning I received this email:

I am very interested in the cubs cards that you have for my 10 year old grandson. He is a huge fan. Today is a difficult day for him, being father's day. His dad passed away in march and I know the Cubs is a team that reminds him of his dad because he was also a fan. We live near Chicago, but are in town near Champaign for a family reunion. Please call me if they are still available.

I had already given away the other cubs cards so that wasn't an option anymore. But there must be something I can give to this boy. I called and told her to come over with her grandson. Then I went back and pulled out a binder of cubs cards I had planned on keeping and a baseball with machine printed autographs from the 1987 Cubs team and a cubs souvenir "mini-bat."

When they arrived I met Jared and his younger brother and their grandma and handed the album to Jared. His eyes widened barely reaching out for the album as if to show he wasn't sure I was going to give it to him. He looked at the ball and pointed to one of the names - he told me this player's name was his middle and last name. I opened up the album and pointed to that player's 1986 Topps card. As they left he looked into my eyes and said hoarsely, 'thank you.' I got a lot more for those cards in that one 'thank you' than I ever hoped for looking feverishly through price guides growing up.

On the Auction Block Today

In about 7 hours, the auctions on about 9 of my baseball sets will be ending. I collected baseball cards during the late '80s/early '90s boom. I remember my first cards - 1986 Topps - and pretending the kitchen floor was a baseball diamond and making my own all-star team - placing each player's card in their respective position. Those cards had worn edges and corners because I played with them. A few years later I discovered money and what you could buy with money. These cards, I was told, were worth money and maybe in the future (if I didn't play with them) could be worth a lot of money. But what's the fun in buying cards and not even taking them out of the box to look at them? I never became the professional collector but it definitely marks a transition for me from childhood to adolescence. Baseball cards were able to bridge that gap.

I have so many memories of going down to the local baseball card shop (Decatur had 2 then) and buying a "box set" (a box full of unopened packs of baseball cards) and ripping them open right there in the store. The smell of wax wrappers and crisp cardboard cards. Trading hundreds of cards in one sitting with my best friend Bryan Batthauer. Completing a set on your own. Looking up how much our cards were worth in our monthly Beckett's price guides. There were so many kids collecting cards that the card companies printed more cards to meet the demand. Today these cards are worth much less than what we paid for them back in 1990. But there was something exhilarating thinking about what they could be worth that has compelled me to hold on to these cards.

I'll keep some to pass down to the next generation but I'm emotionally tired of lugging these heavy boxes of potential worth around with me. In the end the cards that are worth the most to me are not the rookies that turned into superstars and juiced. No, I'll sell those. The ones I'll keep are the ones that still have the power to stir up memories of being a kid again.

If you want to give these cards a loving home... bid now.