The
upper bleachers of Tiger
Stadium provided
cheap seats for generations of Tiger fans. Thinly populated
on this last day's game of a last place season, the bleacher
section betrays little of its raucous reputation as the abode
of some of baseball's loudest and rowdiest fans.
The
decision to build a new baseball stadium proceeded through a
storm of controversy and opposition. In the end big money
talked and Tiger Stadium now appears headed for the scrap heap
of history.
Architecturally,
Tiger Stadium is a hodge podge of additions and mistakes that
led to an accidentally wonderful aesthetic. Spiritually,
it provided an island of consistency in a sea of change in 20th
Century metropolitan Detroit tying together generations, suburbs
and cities in common memories.
Tiger
Stadium grew up with modern Detroit. Here Detroiters witnessed
triumphs of athleticism and the ending of the disgrace
of racially segregated sports.
