Comerica Park

I was able to attend two games this year on a weekend series against the Royals. This is a pretty nice ballpark. The exterior has several big entrances although the grand entrance is on the first base side. There is the giant concrete tiger at this entrance along with smaller tiger statues on the roof. Along the sides of the park there are tiger busts with baseballs in their mouths. As you walk in the main entrance there is a kid’s area off to the left with a merry-go-round. Of course there are all tigers and no horses. [Are you seeing the theme yet?] The park also has statues in the outfield of people like Cobb, Greenberg, and Kaline. If you have been to Nationals Park, the statues near the left field entrance are done in the same style – trying to depict movement. [Yes, designed by the same artist.]

The field has the strip of dirt between the mound and home plate like Bank One/Chase Field. The view from behind the plate looks to the statues and an impressive brick wall which holds the names of the Tiger wall of fame. The scoreboard, which I am guessing has been updated since the park was first built, is in left field and is nice. The view beyond right field is downtown Detroit. On the downside, there is no scoreboard or indication of balls/strikes in right field.

For the two games I attended I sat in the lower level behind home plate. For the second game I was in the club section. Be aware these are the worst club seats in baseball. In Detroit “club” is code for crappy upper deck seats. There were some cool looking wooden chairs behind the field level seating. If I get back to Detroit I would like to try this section.

Despite the good seats, behind the plate hosts some of the worst fans. Generally unfriendly and the woman to my left demanded the cup holder – which was directly in front of me – was hers. As soon as any one sat in front of her seats that was just a fan trying to sit closer – she called the usher to have him removed. I thought things would be better in upper deck seating. There was a father/daughter attending to my left. A foul ball made it about 5 seats over and the dad pushed his kid out of the way and fought a woman and another kid to get the ball. Nice.

The Tigers are playing well this season and will win their division and I would not be surprised if they won the World Series. The Tigers had Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, and Justin Verlander. I would not get to see Verlander pitch but I did see Scherzer on the Sunday game. They were playing the Royals who were pretty much out of the division race but were hopeful to make the last wild card spot.

 

Tigers lost the first game 1-0. Doug Fister got into a little trouble in the first inning and gave up a run on an Eric Hosmer triple. After that he settled down but Ervin Santana and the KC bullpen were outstanding. On Sunday, Scherzer pitched a gem but the bullpen gave up the tying run right after he came out. They would end up winning on an 8^th inning home run by Alex Avila. Alex’s second HR on the day.

One final note. As I was driving into downtown, I happened to look over to my left at an empty field with a fence around it. [Not your typical cyclone fence.] I was stopped at a red light and it dawned on me that this was the site of old Tiger Stadium. There was nothing to note what it was and the weeds were so overgrown along the sides of the fences that there was nothing to see. A sad end to a classic park.