If you lived in Detroit in the last 100 years, chances are you’re like me, and you called The Corner of Michigan and Trumbull … HOME. There’s an even greater chance that you shed a tear, or got a chill when the wrecking ball took Tiger Stadium away from us. Well dry those tears, because Baseball is Back at The Corner!!! Thanks to a group of volunteers, Sandlot style ball is back at Detroit’s Field of Dreams!!!
Here is a link to pictures of the cleanup effort and game: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=C4&Dato=20110403&Kategori=SPORTS02&Lopenr=104030804&Ref=PH
Video: http://www.freep.com/videonetwork/882895713001/Tiger-Stadium-Makeover
Here is the Detroit Free Press’s Coverage of the Resurrection: http://www.freep.com/article/20110404/NEWS01/104040353/Volunteers-bat-cleanup-old-Tiger-Stadium-baseball-field
11:58 PM, Apr. 3, 2011 |
11:58 PM, Apr. 3, 2011 |
Tiger Stadium Makeover: Metro Detroit volunteer groups converge on old Tiger Stadium to spruce up the abandoned ballpark and play baseball. BRIAN KAUFMAN/Detroit Free Press
ELISHA ANDERSON
DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERMike Phelan, 54, of Detroit, installs new bases at the site of old Tiger Stadium on Sunday, April 3, 2011. A coalition of volunteer groups gathered to clean up the field and play ball, including The Mower Gang, Navin Field Grounds Crew, and Motor City Blight Busters.
John George, executive director of Motor City Blight Busters, throws a baseball at the site of old Tiger Stadium on Sunday. Volunteers spent the morning cleaning up the field to make it suitable for ballgames. / BRIAN KAUFMAN/Detroit Free Press
Cleanup volunteer Mike Phelan, 54, of Detroit uncovers part of a home plate Sunday at the site of the old Tiger Stadium. The base was buried in hard dirt.
Overgrown weeds clung to the fence, and candy bar wrappers, broken liquor bottles, discarded chip bags and empty cigarette packs littered the ground Sunday morning at the site of the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit.
By afternoon, volunteers had filled several dozen garbage bags with trash and yard waste and installed bases donated by Madonna University, and a pickup baseball game was under way.
Those who wanted to play threw a glove into a pile, which was quickly separated into two piles, and the teams were set.
“I can’t wait until I step on the mound, because it’s where all the greats pitched,” said Dylan Polcyn, 17, of Milford.
He was one of about five dozen volunteers who gave the site a spring cleaning Sunday.
Volunteers from the Navin Field Grounds Crew were there, as they are every week from now through the summer, picking up trash. Tom Derry, 47, of Redford Township founded the group last May to help keep the 9.5-acre site clean, so everybody can use it.
Sunday, his group got some help from the Mower Gang.
Tom Nardone, 41, of Birmingham organized that group’s cleanup efforts using Facebook to recruit and spread the word. The Mower Gang cleans up parks in Detroit, but this is the first time the group was at the Tiger Stadium site.
Volunteers removed weeds that had collected trash, raked the infield, smoothed out the outfield with a lawn roller and planted sunflowers around the field in an area that used to separate the outfield from the stands.
Corn will be planted with the sunflowers in May, an idea taken from the movie “Field of Dreams,” volunteer Suzanne Janik, 40, of Ferndale said.
Chris Brewer, 37, of Mt. Clemens said he teared up as he thought of all the history associated with the site.
“This is sacred territory,” he said.
Cassidy Connelly, 10, of Ferndale and her father worked with the Navin Field Grounds Crew picking up trash.
“I really hope that this will end up making the park look really good so people can enjoy it,” she said.
Anyone interested in helping the Navin Field Grounds Crew can come to the site at 10 a.m. Sundays. For information, search for the Spirit of Tiger Stadium on Facebook.
Nachos Add Peppers 
Wow we had a Blast Thanks to Tom From The Mower Gang and tom from Navin field grounds crew. We will be back. Peace Always John DETROIT George 314-255-4355