Down at 'The Corner'

The seemingly endless "efforts" to save Tiger Stadium have seemingly ended.

Barring a multi-million-dollar miracle before the end of July, Detroit will be a lesser city with the total destruction of the old ball park.

With that in mind, a handful of friends and I went down to The Corner July 14 to soak in the nostalgia.

I snapped some pictures and marvelled at how well-kept the field seemed to be from behind the security fencing. But the best part was being there with my high school friends Doug Belles, Mike Weathers and Dave Luedtke.

They are just a few of the friends who shuffled down to Tiger Stadium in the lean years, when we were in high school and college.

From when we got our driver's licenses in 1995 to the parks closing in 1999, we went to what at the time seemed like too many games and now feels like not enough.

Those years, while we complained about the team, were amazing. It sounds sappy, but I fell in love with baseball in those four years.

I had played Little League, but growing up the Lions and Pistons were my teams. I cared little for the Dead Wings of my youth, and beyond 1987 never really paid much attention to the Tigers.

From seeing the Tigers take on the NL East in the first years of inter-league play with (hot dog) vendors selling fresh, hot "Bobby Bonilla's" as the Tigers played the would-be World Series champion Florida Marlins, I found an experience at the ball park rivaled by few things in the world and grew to appreciate seeing a home-team win.

Those years of 'Fan Stand' tickets and 'Dollar Day' smorgasbords made experiences like seeing Magglio Ordonez's pennant-winning home run all the more exciting. Knowing I was one of the fans who had truly been there when it was the worst made the best times amazing.

Even beyond that, though, the memories I have with friends — like Andy Melitz, who I will forever be grateful to for getting me a ticket to the final game at the Corner — are of the most value.

Whether it was sitting in the bleachers as Mark McGwire shelled the left-field roof in batting practice, or sitting in the right- field overhang to see the eternally-expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays, those memories are where Tiger Stadium will always stand, and there's nothing the Detroit City Council can do about it.