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Detroit city council voted today, and decided against a resolution to authorize the immediate demolition of Tiger Stadium. Though the stadium was partially demolished in June, and has not hosted a Tigers game since 2000, part of an American landmark still stands at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull in Detroit.

This signals at least a temporary victory for the movement to preserve the stadium, headed by the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy, who look to preserve the field, and part of the stadium structure for public parks and greenspace, and museum. Of all the proposed plans for Tiger Stadium’s redevelopment (one past proposal included building a Wal-Mart superstore on the site), theirs is the one that does the most to respect and revere Tiger Stadium as a landmark in the history of Detroit, and of America.

The conservancy is attempting to raise money to pay the city, and hoping for public donations to pay the city the $219,000 ransom that it has asked (today was their deadline, and they’ve reportedly come up short thus far). To that, I ask “why?” Why must it be up to donations from the public to save this landmark. The city of Detroit should see the benefit in preserving this piece of its history. And if not the city, surely the deep-pocketed patron saint of Detroit sports, pizza tycoon, and current Tigers owner, Mike Illitch would not be too badly hurt financially by sending a few hundred thousand dollars over to city hall to keep this landmark standing. The money he spent on Dontrelle Willis alone last year (0 wins, 24 IP, 9.38 ERA) could likely finance preserving and refurbishing Tiger Stadium several times over.

Tiger Stadium, much like the city of Detroit at times, is barely still standing. At the same spot where it has stood since 1912; where generations watched Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg, Al Kaline, Mickey Lolich, Kirk Gibson, and the Bless You Boys; and where I personally watched most of my first Major League Baseball games, and saw Cecil Fielder smack the cover off more than a couple of balls. If the Boston Red Sox, or the Chicago Cubs ever moved to new stadiums, there would be no question that Fenway Park (which opened the same day as Tiger Stadium, by the way) and Wrigley Field would still be standing in some form as the rightful landmarks in their respective communities that they are. It behooves the people with the money and the power to do so, to ensure that Tiger Stadium is preserved in the same way. So that future generations have this piece of history preserved for them. So young Michiganders (and Canadians like me if they grow up close enough to the border) years from now can say that they stepped on the same field where Ty Cobb played, where their grandfathers saw a city nearly destroyed by race riots come together to support their team in the 1968 World Series, and where people in a city in a seemingly eternal economic spiral have always had something to hope for. In a hard luck city like Detroit, good memories can sometimes be hard to find. But for nearly a century, they’ve been easy to come by at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. Here’s hoping they stay there. 

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