Last day at Tiger Stadium

Not a dry eye in the house, and no one wanted to leave. American history is filled with passion and deep emotions. Somehow we feel closer to history when we can stand in the very spot where it was made.

It is no wonder that millions of Americans are now mourning the loss of a true American icon.

Tiger Stadium has been the site of many historic moments since 1912, and the location has hosted baseball games since 1896. The last game ever to be played on that field of dreams took place Monday evening before a crowd that bought all the available tickets months ago in just a matter of minutes.

Baseball has been the diversion of millions of Americans for more than a century. Generations of fathers and sons have had baseball as a common love which has helped bond those relationships forever.

I can remember going to baseball games with my father and grandfather as a young boy. Many an afternoon was spent in my grandfather’s living room watching a ball game. We cheered together and lamented together, but we were together having one heck of a time enjoying our common love of a game that has captivated millions.

When I see a ball game today I often think of my father and grandfather and those special times we enjoyed together. I remember the great ballplayers I saw, and the ones they told me about. My grandfather bought one of the very first color televisions just to be able to see baseball games in color.

There are very few old ballparks left in use. There is history in the dirt at those parks. History that will be lost to future generations. Reading about history is not the same as actually being there in person.

There is something about being able to say you have been in a place where history was made. Somehow we gain a closeness to the event when we can say we were there, even though we missed the even itself by many years.

Detroit Stadium has seen them all from Ty Cobb to Mark McGwire. All the great players of the past century made their mark in some way on Tiger Stadium. Of course the Lions were there too, but that just doesn’t have the same impact.

There are other stadiums disappearing into history this week as well, but none have the same emotional effect. All season long there have been fans from all over the country making a pilgrimage to Detroit to see one last game.

I made the trip in May with my 10-year-old son, Michael. I wanted him to be able to one day tell his kids that he had been in Tiger Stadium. It was an emotional event — for me, not him. As we hung around the stadium after the game taking pictures, I noticed others doing the same thing. First a picture here, another there, then over there until finally the ushers began encouraging us to leave.

We didn’t want to say goodbye. Others were having the same problem. It was too difficult to leave knowing we would never return. We would never be in that place where so much history had been made again.

Two grown men were wiping the tears from their eyes as the usher asked them to leave.

“I know it’s tough, but you’re going to have to go,” she told the men.

We helped them procrastinate. I took a picture of the two of them and they did the same for us. The usher patiently waited, but the time had come for us to leave.

“What’s the matter Dad,” Michael asked as I wiped a tear or two myself.

“I had no idea this place meant so much to me,” I told him. He looked at me like I was weird. It was weird. I had never been there before in my entire life!

The memories came flooding through my mind. First the memories of games I watched with my grandfather and father on television, then the games of baseball history that I had only read about or viewed on old videos. Even though I had never been there before, it was like an old friend I had always known.

The crowds have continued. Detroit has had great attendance all year, and it’s been because so many people just wanted to have one last chance to touch history. All season they left with a tear in their eyes, but during this final series the tears turned into a flood.

I grew up in Massachusetts and therefore I am a die-hard Red Sox fan, but I am also a great fan of the game. Baseball has been my diversion. It has been my escape from the realities of life. As a boy it was a way to have fun, but as an adult it was an escape back to the simplicities of boyhood.

My childhood heroes were baseball players — and John Wayne. Just as I shed a tear or two when the Duke left us, my eyes were damp when I said goodbye to Tiger Stadium.

During the past couple years we’ve incorporated visits to old ballparks into our travel and vacation plans as a family. Michael and I have recently been to Candlestick Park (sorry 3Com, I have always stuck with Candlestick), Dodger Stadium, Yankee Stadium, and Fenway Park.

Somehow the fact the Astrodome is also closing this week did not cause me to rush to Houston. It’s too new and just hasn’t had that emotional tie the older parks seem to have. There are more than likely many ball players rejoicing over the closure than those who are upset by it. Astroturf has always had many enemies — including me.

Candlestick will also come to an end this week. Sure, there have been some historic moments there, but it was a terrible ballpark. The cold wind blowing through that stadium at all times of the year did not make many people feel very attached to that field of ice.

Fenway will be gone in a couple years, and I’ll be a basket case. Fenway began at the same time as Tiger Stadium in 1912 and now reigns as the oldest baseball stadium in America. Fortunately they are doing some neat things to preserve the ball field and the Green Monster, so we will still be able to touch history in Boston. Fenway Park is as much a part of our national heritage as the Old North Church and Bunker Hill.

Yankee Stadium may not last much longer. Red Sox fans hate the Yankees with a passion that is hard to describe, but you can’t help but be awed when you go to a game in that edifice. Just being in the “House that Ruth Built” was exciting without even seeing a game played. It was a thrill just to be there. If the time ever comes that the Yankees get a new home, I, for one, will be astonished.

This time when we left Yankee Stadium it was Michael who had a tear in his eye, because the Yankees beat Seattle, and Michael’s hero Ken Griffey Jr. didn’t hit a home run that day.

The Milwaukee Brewers were supposed to move out of their stadium at the end of this season as well, but that won’t happen for another year because of a tragic construction accident earlier this summer. The new stadium is now scheduled to begin use in 2001.

Tiger Stadium was one of a handful of unique baseball stadiums that housed history and memories. Generations of families were tied together by the events and players. It became a symbol and a shrine.

And so they cried. Grown men and boys. Tough old ball players, wives and girlfriends, boys who thought they were tough, and even the press all cried — and no one wanted to leave. This time even the ushers cried and didn’t push so hard to get people to leave when it was all over.

There’s never been a better wake then the wake they threw for Tiger Stadium last night, and there will never be another Tiger Stadium.