I miss my dad and Old Tiger Stadium. Take yours to a ball game. | Letters

I spent many summers traveling between Chicago and Detroit with my friend David. We were just kids, but we were baseball kids, and that meant everything. We’d sit in the stands, ribbing each other about whose team was better, but deep down, we both knew it didn’t matter. We weren’t keeping score the way the grown-ups did. We just loved the game.

And what a place to love it. Just like Wrigley Field in Chicago, at Tiger Stadium it felt like the game belonged to the city. It wasn’t surrounded by parking lots and faceless developments; it was planted right in the middle of Corktown, wrapped in the spirit of the people. The stands felt close to the field, the players weren’t just figures in the distance but real, living heroes, right there in front of us. And then, of course, there were the famous rooftop seats beyond the outfield, where fans turned home-run balls into souvenirs and memories that lasted a lifetime.

Tiger Stadium wasn’t just a ballpark — it was a cathedral of baseball, a place where the echoes of the past mingled with the crack of the bat, where generations of Detroiters came together to witness the beauty of the game. The moment you stepped inside, you felt it. The scent of fresh-cut grass, the way the sunlight poured through the old steel beams, the sound of vendors shouting above the hum of an eager crowd — it was all perfect.

Some of the greatest to ever wear a uniform played on that field. Norm Cash, Al Kaline, and Mark “The Bird” Fidrych — who didn’t just pitch, he performed. He talked to the ball, smoothed the mound with his own hands, and bounced around the infield like a kid on a sandlot. He threw the liveliest fastball I’d ever seen, and his slider was pure magic. Fidrych reminded us all what baseball was supposed to be: joyful, unpredictable, alive.

Opening Day at Tiger Stadium on April 12, 1999. It was the final opener at Michigan and Trumbull.

And then there was Ernie Harwell. If you couldn’t be at the ballpark, he was the next best thing. His voice carried the heartbeat of the city, painting the game in perfect strokes over the radio waves. Listening to him call a Tigers game felt like sitting on the porch with an old friend, watching the world go by. In Chicago, we had Jack Brickhouse, and it was the same kind of magic — the kind that made you feel like the game wasn’t just happening in a ballpark, but right there with you, wherever you were.

Back then, summer was baseball. It was playing in the streets until the streetlights came on, it was hoping your dad could take you to a game, it was sitting together on the back steps with the radio on, listening to the call of the ninth inning. My dad is gone now, and I miss those days more than I can put into words.

So, to those who still have their fathers — take them to a game. It doesn’t matter where, it doesn’t matter who’s playing. Just go. Sit in the stands, share a bag of peanuts, listen to the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd. Because one day, long after the ballparks change and the players move on, it won’t be the stats or the standings you remember. It’ll be those simple, perfect moments.

That was Detroit for me. That was Tiger Stadium. And though the old ballpark is gone, it still stands in my heart— forever.

Paul Tenebrini

Cathedral City, California

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: I sure miss Detroit's Tiger Stadium | Letters

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