There Used to Be a Ballpark

Now the children try to find it
And they can't believe their eyes
`cause the old team just isn't playing
And the new team hardly tries

And the sky has got so cloudy
When it used to be so clear
And the summer went so quickly this year
Yes, there used to be a ballpark right here

Those are the words that sum up Joe Reposo's maudlin tune about the loss of innocence. Written for Frank Sinatra, the song was titled There Used to Be a Ballpark.

Baseball of late has become a bittersweet passion for my son. My boy the high school ballplayer is learning the harsh reality that the higher up the mountain he climbs, the weight of each step becomes heavier and heavier, as the air sustaining him becomes thinner and thinner.

Yet the flame burns within him as bright as ever.

Meanwhile, my son the rabid baseball fan is in the process of "collecting" major league ballpark experiences, an interest I also had at his age. Unlike me however, he has a father who is almost as passionate about the game as he, and is willing to frame summer vacations around visits to ballparks. This summer has been particularly fruitful as we made it to three new parks (for us), bringing his total including the two hometown parks, to seven.

In addition to the extant parks, my passion extends to visiting the sites described in the Reposo song "where the field was (once) warm and green and the people played their crazy game with a joy I'd never seen."

I wrote about two such sites on this blog. In a post from 2012 called "In Their Footsteps" I wrote about the thrill of standing upon a spot where something important happened. In this case the spot was the former left handed batters box of Old Comiskey Park in Chicago, where luminaries such as Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson performed their magic. The significance of that spot was not lost on my then eleven year old son. The site of the old lost ballpark with a monument marking where home plate and the batters boxes once sat is now the parking lot for the new(er) ballpark across the street.

A month later I wrote a piece called "The Corner" about the patch of land at the intersection of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues in the Detroit neighborhood of Corktown. At the time of that writing, control of the site where two ballparks stood, was bitterly contested by the city of Detroit who wanted the site reserved for potential commercial development, and a group of baseball enthusiasts who hoped the site could be used as a public space devoted to baseball. That group, who called itself the Navin Field Ground Crew, much to the chagrin of the powers that be, took over the abandoned site, brought the field back to playing condition, and encouraged passionate, like-minded fans to come back to the park to play ball, get married, even scatter the ashes of loved ones on the hallowed ground where their beloved Tigers played for over 100 years. It remained that way until this year when the site was taken over by the Detroit Police Athletic League who plans to build their headquarters on the land formerly occupied by Tiger Stadium's grandstands, and retain the playing field, making it accessible to the public on a limited basis.

The three cities my son and I visited this summer were New York, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Last year we visited St. Louis. The current ballparks in those cities were built in the retro style, doing their best to emulate the classic ballparks of old while providing visitors modern amenities such as luxury skyboxes and up-to-date concession stands designed to separate fans from their money as efficiently as possible.

Miller Park, Milwaukee

Way back in 2010, we went to a game up in Miller Park in Milwaukee. You can read about that visit here. That park in contrast to those mentioned above, while paying lip service to the past in the form of superficial design elements found on its outer facade, is a thoroughly modern ballpark complete with a retractable roof. Miller Park was built to replace the fifties vintage Milwaukee County Stadium, which stood only a few feet away.

From 1903 until 1953, Major League Baseball was remarkably stable. During that period there was no expansion or contraction, and all sixteen teams in the two leagues stayed put in the cities in which they played. Several things changed after the Second World War. More and more people were moving out of the big cities and into the suburbs, and the automobile became the primary means of transportation for many Americans. The old ballparks built in a bygone era where people got around by streetcar, were ill equipped to handle people coming from the 'burbs in their cars. Making it worse, television and other amusements were competing for the public's attention. Adding to that, games were broadcast on the tube making some people feel no need to go down to the ballpark.

As you might surmise from its name, Milwaukee County Stadium was built with public funds and administered by the local government. It wasn't the first major league ballpark to have that distinction, more on that later, but it does have the distinction of being the first "build it and they will come ballpark", constructed with the expectation that it would attract a big league team to its city. They built Country Stadium atop a defunct stone quarry on the outskirts of town, on a site with acres of land, perfect for lots of parking spaces.

By the fifties, Major League Baseball was in trouble and it was becoming clear that cities like Boston, Philadelphia and St. Louis could no longer support two teams. So in 1953, the oldest team in baseball, the Boston Braves headed west for greener pastures in Milwaukee. That move proved to be a huge success as Milwaukee's new team set attendance records year after year. Their success at the gate was matched by their success on the field. In the thirteen year existence of the Milwaukee Braves, the team never had a losing record, a feat never duplicated in baseball. These Braves, led by baseball immortals Warren Spahn, Eddie Matthews and Henry Aaron, were one of only two teams who beat the Yankees in the World Series in the fifties. If anything, the Milwaukee Braves were victims of their own success. In the mid-sixties the owners, well aware of the success of their original move, looked to make even more money by exploiting a then untapped resource, the south. So in 1966, the Braves packed their bags again and headed down to Atlanta. Five years later, Milwaukee snagged another struggling franchise, the Seattle Pilots, who have played in Brewtown ever since. They were christened with a nickname that has adorned the uniforms of players on several teams in that city since the mid-nineteenth century, the Brewers.

Pretty much a no frills ballpark, there was nothing particularly beautiful about County Stadium as a building. It was a deceptively large ballpark, at its maximum it could hold well over fifty thousand fans. Despite all that, it was beloved for its intimacy; it didn't look all that big and the fans were never far away from the action. As it was set in a ravine created by the old quarry, it sported a lovely view of the Story Hill neighborhood, which sat beyond team mascot Bernie Brewer's chalet in the center field stands, from where he would slide into a huge beer stein after every Brewer home run.

Ballparks are not designed to last forever, their typical life expectancy is about fifty years. County Stadium exceeded that by seven years. Lots of memorable games in that ballpark in those years, I even saw a couple of them. But the craziest game had to be the one that took place on May 26, 1959 when "Hard Luck" Harvey Haddix of the Pirates, (more on him later), retired the first 36 Braves he faced in the game. In the bottom of the thirteenth inning, an error on a ground ball to third hit by Felix Mantilla broke up his twelve inning perfect game. Eddie Matthews sacrificed the runner to second, then Hank Aaron was intentionally walked. Haddix next faced Joe Adcock who blasted a home run to right-center field, but it wasn't quite over yet. As the Braves were running the bases, Aaron headed for the dugout, thinking Adcock's ball hit the outfield wall for a double which would have ended the game with Mantilla's run. As Aaron left the base paths, Adcock kept running his home run trot, passing up disappearin'  Hammerin' Hank, making both men out and nullifying his home run. However since Mantilla crosssed the plate before the infraction and the third out occurring, his run was ruled to have counted thereby ending the game, the no-hitter, and a chance for a "W" for Haddix. Final score Braves 1, Pirates 0. The Committee for Statistical Accuracy in Baseball would later decree that a no-hitter constituted  "a game in which a pitcher or pitchers complete a game of nine innings or more without allowing a hit." Since Haddix did not complete the game without allowing a hit (Adcock's home run would eventually be ruled a double), any reference to a no-hitter, let alone a perfect game would be washed away in the record books. Sadly all that Harvey Haddix would have to show for one of the greatest performances in the history of the game, at least in the record books, was a tough luck "L".

Helfaer Field, built atop the infield of old Milwaukee County Stadium

Unlike the sad memorial to Comiskey Park in the middle of a parking lot, the folks up in Milwaukee got it right by building a little league ballpark on the site of old Country Stadium. Today, youngsters can play the game at Helfaer Field in the shadow of the statues honoring the great Milwaukee Braves and Brewers players their parents and grandparents rooted for, a true field of dreams. Perhaps even the spirit of old Harvey Haddix is there rooting them on.

Next up: New York and St, Louis

Regarding History: There Used to be a Ballpark Part III

The Corner

The mere mention of the intersections "35th and Shields" or "Clark and Addison" to any true Chicagoan, will induce at the very least a smile of recognition. In the same fashion, to the people of Michigan, who in my experience identify themselves much more with their home state than do the people of Illinois, the words "the corner of Michigan and Trumbull" have the same kind of magic. So intrinsically tied are the intersection and what stood there in the minds of the people of Michigan, that the building that occupied the site for nearly 100 years bore the nickname: "The Corner"

The building and that corner in the neighborhood of Corktown, not far from downtown Detroit, in the words of one person: "brought more people together... in the State of Michigan" than any other.

The building was Tiger Stadium, for 87 years the home of the Detroit Tigers.

There's something about an old ballpark that evokes the kind of reverence that few other buildings could. Even the site of a long lost baseball field as I pointed out a few posts ago, has the kind of emotional pull that could be matched only by sites of a famous battlefields, or perhaps one's first kiss.

Here's a beautiful aerial view of Tiger Stadium I pulled off the web as it looked in happier days, perhaps in the eighties:

No one could accuse Tiger Stadium as having been particularly beautiful, let alone architecturally significant. Yet the significance of buildings is based upon so much more than that. I was never inside the ballpark but from every report I ever heard or read, it was one of the best ballparks ever in the major leagues to watch or play the game. Consistently it was rated among the top five ballparks in which big leaguers preferred to play. Its most distinctive feature was the upper deck that hung over the playing field providing a uniquely intimate experience for fans. Not to mention the history of the game of baseball, and occasionally football, written inside the walls of the joint. Consider this:

• Babe Ruth hit his 700th home run there on July 13th, 1934.
• Thirteen years earlier the Babe hit a home run to dead center field, the ball clearing the bleachers (single deck at the time) and landing on the fly across the street from the ballpark. The spot where it landed would be just beyond the right edge of the above photograph. It is considered one of if not the longest home run ever hit during a major league game.
• Due to the debilitating disease named after him, Lou Gehrig benched himself there in May 2, 1939 which would end his streak of 2,130 consecutive games. That would be the last game of his storied career.
• Hall of famers who called Tiger Stadium their primary place of business included Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg, Al Kaline and George Kell, among many others.
• Tiger Stadium, originally Navin, later Briggs Field, was the second ballpark built on the site at Michigan and Trumbull. It opened on exactly the same day as Fenway Park in Boston, April 12, 1912. 
• That site hosted nine World Series, the Tigers won four of them, all in the second stadium.
• In the 1971 All Star game, in a blast that rivaled Babe Ruth's 1921 homer, Reggie Jackson hit a home run that hit the light transformer above the right field roof.
• On September 27,1999, Tiger journeyman catcher Robert Fick hit a rooftop grand slam off of Kansas City Royals pitcher Jeff Montgomery, marking the 11,111th home run at Tiger Stadium, and the ballpark's final home run, final run, and final hit.

In the year 2000 the Tigers moved out of their old home for a beautiful new stadium downtown. For almost ten years the venerable old park remained, crumbling as a result of benign neglect, while its fate rested in the hands of the City of Detroit, and a number of groups who hoped to save it in some form. Despite being virtually bankrupt, the city pumped four million dollars into keeping the abandoned Tiger Stadium standing. They reached the breaking point in 2008 and finally made an ultimatum with the preservation groups, telling them to either come up with the money, or the landmark would come down. From the photograph below you can see the results.

Here's how the site looks today, from an image grabbed off GoogleMaps:

Despite being declared a State of Michigan Historic Site in 1975 and residing on the list of the National Resister of Historic Places, since 1989, Tiger Stadium was demolished partially in 2008 when there was still hope that a diminished plan to save the original part of the stadium surrounding the infield could still be worked out. When that fell through, the coup de grace was delivered the following year. Here is a link to a sequence of heartbreaking photographs of the demolition. As you can see, the demolition crew was careful not to destroy the actual playing field. Also remaining is the flag pole that stood in center field, in play no less, one of the endearing idiosyncrasies of the ballpark.

Now that the stadium is gone, believe it or not there is yet another bone of contention between the city and some folks who want to preserve what's left of the field. The city government wants to develop the site for commercial purposes, most likely a Walmart, and have fenced off the nine and one half acre site. Meanwhile a group of wildcat preservationists is defying the city, trespassing on city property and passionately taking care of the field with the intent of using it for of all things, playing baseball. Here is a link to a lovely little film posted on the Detroit Free Press site about these folks.

Here is an NPR story about the group known unofficially as the "Navin Field Grounds Crew" and the reaction from City Hall who is giving the folks a tough time, no doubt relating to liability issues. In a quote of classic bureaucratese,  a city official made this incredible remark about the site:

...it cannot be a space for playing baseball. That space is not meant for that.

As a preservation issue, an abandoned stadium is a tough sell. There are few adaptive reuse opportunities for such buildings. With seating capacities well into the tens of thousands, their use as a venue for events that would draw a tiny percentage of that would be ridiculous. They take up a lot of space that could in most cases, be put to more productive use, and it simply costs a fortune to maintain them. The most important thing in my mind as a proponent of preservation, is that once you remove every practical function from a building, what's the point? True there is the historical and sentimental value of keeping an old building as an old friend. But in reality, buildings like people, have life spans. If a building no longer has any purposeful use, it's like having your old friend lying in the hospital on life support, technically alive but clinically dead. Unfortunately Detroit is filled with many such buildings, one of whom, the Michigan Central Station, can be seen in the background of a few shots of the video linked above. That building has stood abandoned since 1988 and continues to await its fate. Until something is done in either direction, it will remain Detroit's most spectacular ruin.

As far as Tiger Stadium is concerned, sorry as I am to say this, I don't have a quarrel with the decision to knock it down. In its ten year period of disintegration, it served as a constant reminder to all who saw it of the decrepitude of the neighborhood. In my opinion, without any hope of funds to restore it properly, it's better that it was allowed to die a natural death.

With the building gone, a new opportunity has arisen for the community. The field is still there, pretty much as it was when Robert Fick hit his grand slam in September, 1999. The site should by all means be made accessible to the public. The folks featured in the film and NPR piece are a dedicated group, who should be given the opportunity to bring the site back to life. I have no doubt that with a little help from the city, (mostly by leaving them alone), the state and yes the Tigers organization and other private groups, that empty lot at Michigan and Trumbull might be turned into a public park where visitors could walk the ground trodden by so many baseball legends of the past. By itself, such a park may not generate much revenue for the city. But considering all the people around the country who are passionate about baseball, done right, that park could draw folks from all over who would chomp at the bit to swing a bat in the batter's boxes where every American League batter between 1901 and 1999 did the same, or pitch a ball from the very mound, or catch a fly ball from the very spot where...

As they are divisional rivals of my team the White Sox, I was never a Tiger fan. Still I have many fond memories of my cross country trips to New York, passing through Detroit radio air space where I would always look forward to hearing the late, great Ernie Harwell calling games from his beloved Tiger Stadium.

Here are his final words from the last Tiger game ever played at "The Corner":

The tradition built here shall endure along with the permanence of the Olde English D. But tonight we must say good-bye. Farewell, old friend Tiger Stadium. We will remember.

If they built a park at Michigan Avenue and Trumbull Street that preserved the old field, I would certainly consider taking a trip to Detroit with my son. We'd go to The Corner and maybe join in on a pickup game there on that hallowed spot. Then perhaps we'd take in a Tigers game at Comerica Park, or a Red Wings game at Joe Louis Arena depending on the time of year. We'd buy some souvenirs, have dinner and maybe spend the night. Then the next day we'd check out Belle Isle, the DIA and some of the other sights of that long neglected city. Heck maybe we'd even stop in the new Walmart built somewhere in old Corktown and buy some stuff. I'm sure lots of others would do exactly the same.

As for the idea of building a Walmart on the site of old Tiger Stadium, all I can say to city officials is this: go to Google Maps, type in "Michigan and Trumbull, Detroit", click on "Satellite View" and try to find another empty spot in the vicinity where you could build it.

It won't be hard.

The point is that contrary to Daniel Burnham's famous quote, not all the great ideas are big ones; some great ideas start out small and grow bigger and bigger.

This may very well be one of them.