Our review of Comerica Park - Day 21 of our trip in Detroit, Michigan

Our trip to Detroit was nice.  My whole family is from Detroit and when I was a kid, I visited there several times.  I got a chance to visit my mom’s family who I had not seen in about 30 years.  We had a nice lunch in a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant (another Detroit icon).  Here we are right here.  My brother Rick, who we stayed with in Detroit, gave Michael and I a great tour of Downtown Detroit, including Belle Isle and Gross Pointe.  It’s weird to be able to look across the Detroit River and see Canada.

My family from my mom's side - from L-R Reggie, Teresa, Me, Michael and Roger

The hamburger works great for keeping the rain off

Every Detroit native knows this place

Anyway, in all the times I visited, I only got to see a game in old Tiger Stadium once.  I was Michael’s age when I saw this game back in 1977 with my father.  I remember it vividly.  Tiger Stadium had charm, but it was a horrible place to watch a game.  Our seats were obstructed view seats in the upper deck of the right field bleachers and the game was delayed by over an hour for rain.  But the best part was that I saw Mark "the Bird" Fidrych pitch for the Tigers against my White Sox and the Sox won.

Mark Fidrych was a lunatic.  He used to talk to the ball on the mound
and clean the pitchers' mound  with his hands like he's doing in this picture.

The experience was far different this time.  Two days earlier, we suffered through 97 degrees and high humidity.   This time, it rained all day in Detroit, the temperature was 62 degrees, and we were concerned that the game would get rained out.  To our surprise, the rain stopped about 15 minutes before the game was to begin and the game was played.  We had great seats and Comerica Park is way better than old Tiger Stadium to watch a game.  Michael and I went to the game with my brother Rick.  It was a pretty nice evening.

My brother Rick and Michael

Michael and I next to the statue of the great long-time Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell

Crappy day in Detroit

Like many of the newer stadiums, Comerica tries to capture the old school look everywhere.  But in Detroit, it fits right in with all of its surroundings.  Detroit is an old city that has been hit hard by the recession.  But there has been some new development of homes and businesses around the stadium, which is a good sign for the area.  Anyway, inside it’s a great place to watch a game.  From behind home plate, you get a great view of downtown Detroit.  The scoreboard sits in left field and is huge.  Unfortunately, it’s cluttered with a lot of advertisements and it has three very small matrix and video boards.  I like what Chase Field and Miller Park have done with theirs – the whole thing should be one big video board. 

Downtown Detroit in the background

Me and my main man

The food was great according to Michael (I was still full from lunch).  The one thing that I really liked was that the stadium is full of Tigers history.  Everywhere you look along the concourse there were pictures and monuments to the Tiger greats like Al Kaline, Ty Cobb, and Hank Greenberg as well as pictures of all of their all-star players throughout the decades.  The Tigers haven’t won the World Series since 1984, but you wouldn’t know it.  Finally, the fans were very cool.  I remember the fans being very rowdy back in ’77 at Tiger Stadium.  This time, they were more subdued, but they showed up in force – over 30,000 on a night when the weather was awful.  The Mariners beat the Tigers 3-2.  Overall, I’d give the stadium an 8/10.  Here’s Michael’s take:

Hi everyone, it’s Michael.  I REALLY liked Comerica Park.  The scoreboard was really cool especially the two tigers on the top of it.  When they played Eye of the Tiger at the park, the eyes glowed in those tigers – Very Cool!  What was also cool was that I got a couple of players to autograph my souvenir baseball.  And what was even cooler was that one of them got a hit when he came in late in the game just because he signed my ball.  Overall, I give the stadium an 8 out of 10.

That's me with the 42 on my hat.  That guy got a hit late in the game because he signed my ball.

Next up is our review of Progressive Field in Cleveland.  Since we already saw it earlier today, I can tell you it won’t be good.