Michigan and Trumbull was the address for professional baseball in Detroit for 104 seasons. From 1896 when Bennett Park opened, until the last game at Tiger Stadium in 1999, Michigan and Trumbull was the most famous street corner in Michigan. This book takes you on a visual tour of baseball in the Motor City from the beginning of the Tigers franchise to the historic final game played at Tiger Stadium. Here you will find Tiger legends Cobb, Gehringer, Greenberg, Kaline, Lolich, Trammell, and others, many captured in never before published photographs.
On April 28, 1896, baseball fans traveled in horse-drawn buggies to watch the Detroit Tigers play their first baseball game at the site on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues. Starting out as Bennett Park, a wooden facility with trees growing in the outfield, Tiger Stadium has played a central role in the lives of millions of Detroiters and their families for more than a century. During the last century, millions of fans have come to Michigan and Trumbull to watch the Tigers' 7,800 home games, as well as to attend numerous other sporting, social, and civic events, including high school, collegiate, and professional football games, prep and Negro league baseball contests, political rallies, concerts, and boxing and soccer matches. A companion to the narrative history, almost two hundred rare photographs capture the spirit of 140 years of baseball in Detroit. A Place for Summer furnishes a sense of the relationship between the community, its teams, and the various fields, parks, and stadiums that have served as common ground for generations of Detroiters.
This book is a fan's love letter to baseball played at the Corner of Michigan and Trumbull, in downtown Detroit, first at wooden Bennett Park (1896-1911) and then at its steel and concrete replacement known by three names: Navin Field (1912-1937), Briggs Stadium (1938-1960), and finally, Tiger Stadium (1961-1999). The Cathedral at The Corner was where-together with our great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, siblings, children, godchildren, and friends-we have cheered our Detroit Tigers. Although the structure is gone, the memories remain. This book is a tribute to the characters on the field, in the stands, and those in the neighborhoods surrounding the ballpark, as well as to the broadcasters who brought the action to us when we couldn't be there. It is from those characters and those who knew them, loved them, or both from which many of the book's stories come from. Baseball is a game of statistics, their inclusion critical to the history told, but it's the back stories that give the book its humanity, humor, and liveliness.
Built in 1912, Detroit's Tiger Stadium provided unmatched access for generations of baseball fans. Based on a classic grandstand design, its development through the 20th century reflected the booming industrial city around it. Emphasizing utility over adornment and offering more fans affordable seats near the field than any other venue in sports, it was in every sense a working-class ballpark that made the game the central focus. Drawing on the perspectives of historians, architects, fans and players, the authors describe how Tiger Stadium grew and adapted and then, despite the efforts of fans, was abandoned and destroyed. It is a story of corporate welfare, politics and indifference to history pitted against an enduring love of place. Chronological diagrams illustrate the evolution of the playing field.
From the successful Detroit Free Press team that brought us The Corner: A Century of Memories at Michigan and Trumbull, comes Corner To Copa: The Last Game at Tiger Stadium and the First at Comerica Park. This title covers, in photographs and through game commentaries the closing game at Tiger Stadium and the opening day game at the new stadium, Comerica Park.This collectors edition title includes a special gatefold section with full information on the new stadium. A fitting tribute to the end of an era and the beginning of a new chapter in Detroit sporting history!
Tom Stanton's The Final Season offers a powerful memoir of fathers, sons, and the end of a baseball era. Maybe your dad took you to ball games at Fenway, Wrigley, or Ebbets. Maybe the two of you watched broadcasts from Yankee Stadium or Candlestick Park, or listened as Red Barber or Vin Scully called the plays on radio. Or maybe he coached your team or just played catch with you in the yard. Chances are good that if you're a baseball fan, your dad had something to do with it--and your thoughts of the sport evoke thoughts of him. If so, you will treasure The Final Season, a poignant true story about baseball and heroes, family and forgiveness, doubts and dreams, and a place that brings them all together. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, Tom Stanton lived for his Detroit Tigers. When Tiger Stadium began its 88th and final season, he vowed to attend all 81 home games in order to explore his attachment to the place where four generations of his family have shared baseball. Join him as he encounters idols, conjures decades past, and discovers the mysteries of a park where Cobb and Ruth played. Come along and sit beside Al Kaline on the dugout bench, eat popcorn with Elmore Leonard, hear Alice Cooper's confessions, soak up the warmth of Ernie Harwell, see McGwire and Ripken up close, and meet Chicken Legs Rau, Bleacher Pete, Al the Usher, and a parade of fans who are anything but ordinary. By the autumn of his odyssey, Stanton comes to realize that his anguish isn't just about the loss of a beloved ballpark but about his dad's mortality, for at the heart of this story is the love between fathers and sons--a theme that resonates with baseball fans of all ages.
An exhilarating, splendidly illustrated, entirely new look at the history of baseball: told through the stories of the vibrant and ever-changing ballparks where the game was and is staged, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic. From the earliest corrals of the mid-1800s (Union Grounds in Brooklyn was a "saloon in the open air"), to the much mourned parks of the early 1900s (Detroit's Tiger Stadium, Cincinnati's Palace of the Fans), to the stadiums we fill today, Paul Goldberger makes clear the inextricable bond between the American city and America's favorite pastime. In the changing locations and architecture of our ballparks, Goldberger reveals the manifestations of a changing society: the earliest ballparks evoked the Victorian age in their accommodations--bleachers for the riffraff, grandstands for the middle-class; the "concrete donuts" of the 1950s and '60s made plain television's grip on the public's attention; and more recent ballparks, like Baltimore's Camden Yards, signal a new way forward for stadium design and for baseball's role in urban development. Throughout, Goldberger shows us the way in which baseball's history is concurrent with our cultural history: the rise of urban parks and public transportation; the development of new building materials and engineering and design skills. And how the site details and the requirements of the game--the diamond, the outfields, the walls, the grandstands--shaped our most beloved ballparks. A fascinating, exuberant ode to the Edens at the heart of our cities--where dreams are as limitless as the outfields.
Conference Pride by Jim Gumm Growing up in Tennessee, Jim Gumm was surrounded by fans of Southeastern Conference college football teams. When Jim was younger he was a huge baseball fan and loved the Cincinnati Reds. He even worked on the grounds crew for the Reds in 1979. In the early 1980s, his passion shifted to college football and he is now a diehard fan of the sport. Conference Pride: The Ultimate Book about SEC Football from 1933-2016 is a result of his passion. This book takes actual, on-the-field, results of Southeastern Conference football and shares them in a clear and concise guide. No opinions and no interpretations – this book reports the facts. With details from individual games and decade by decade trends, Conference Pride is an invaluable resource for any SEC football fan. From Alabama to Vanderbilt, from 1933 to 2016, from conference wins, Associated Press rankings, and head coaches, Conference Pride has all the facts to help you support your favorite SEC team.
George Brett: A Royal Hero is the most complete volume ever compiled about the 1999 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee. His legendary career is reviewed in precise detail through articles that appeared in The Kansas City Star from the early 1970s through 1999. No one followed George Brett with greater interest nor wrote of his exploits with greater insight than the sportswriters of the Royals' hometown daily newspaper. Brett's career, 21 years with the Kansas City Royals, included 12 All-Star appearances and one batting title in each of the three decades in which he played.
