Detroit

Day 3

Comerica Park, 2007

Question: What does a city look like when it gives up?  
Answer: Detroit
Date: Sunday, July 1, 2007, 8:05 PM
Minnesota Twins vs. Detroit Tigers
Comerica Park
Detroit, MI
Major League Baseball, American League
Promotion: Magglio Ordonez bobblehead, On-the-field Picture Night


Stadium & Fans:
Comerica Park is one of the few things that Detroit can be proud of. It is one of the new "old-style" ballparks, perched on the edge of the livable section of Detroit. It is a great stadium to watch a game, but if only there was something outside the walls.

Detroit was the first place I really became aware the preternatural ability of Midwesterners to line up. An ability this refined simply isn't taught; it is innate to a people. There were two big give-aways for this game: a bobble-head doll and the opportunity to get your picture taken in the outfield. There were huge crowds out early for the game, and they constructed perfect, self-policing, single-file lines that extended for blocks. It is like it didn't even occur to them to try and cut. I saw only one instance, and even that seemed to be a misunderstanding on the part of the almost-cutters, who immediately apologized and went to the back of the line with no further incident. It was a situation that was to be repeated many times over during the trip, and it is completely alien to my state of being.

That said, we sat right behind a group of drunk assholes who kept on holding up their bedsheet sign every half inning trying to get on the Jumbotron. (And they were all Gary "Clubhouse Cancer" Sheffield fans, to boot, with their chef hats. They might have wanted to check the lineups for the game, as Sheffield did not play that night.) Although in their own way they were polite by only holding their signs up during the half inning, they still were quite annoying and loud, even after they got on the Jumbotron. They got into a creepily polite, passive-aggressive fight with an old couple sitting directly behind them.


The Game:
This game was a tight pitcher's duel, with the Tigers getting two-hit through seven innings, while blanking the Twins for a similar time. However, the Tigers broke through with a solo homer run in the bottom of the eighth that decided the game, 1-0.


Scorecard:

Twins vs. Tigers, 07/01/07. Tigers win, 1-0.

It was $1 for a cardstock score card with full lineups for the series built in, and another case of both teams being on one page. But with it being an AL game (and lower chances for double switches), it was less of an issue. However, for no good reason, they put the opposing pitcher boxes in with the other team, which technically makes sense, but was a little confusing.


The Stadium Race:
The race was the Dunkin Donuts Race, and it was won by the Dashing Donut.


Travel & Other Non-Game Activities:
Detroit is a hellhole, and I say that with the possibility of offending hellholes everywhere. The blocks and blocks of abandoned and decaying buildings do not merely suggest a migration, but a lost war. It is though some rampaging Huns invaded from the north, and pushed back the stalwart defenders towards the river, laying waste to everything in their path. And they eventually drove the heroes to the very edge of the Detroit River, where they could easily have cut and run across to the clear and pleasant fields of Canada just across the way, but for some reason, perhaps even unknown to them, they stood their ground. And then the Huns looked about them and truly understood their "prize," and simply left in disappointment. And from their riverside redoubt, the city has consolidated the three block area, and is tentatively sending out new colonies further afield, perhaps with a terror that the Huns may not have actually left the area and could return to sweep them away at any moment.

And not only that, but it was a closed hellhole, as nearly every last part of the city was closed on Sunday. In a particular bit of futility, the riverside mall was open and staffed with security personnel, but all the stores inside were closed. Outside of a microbrew pub we found open further afield, there was nothing to do except wait for the game to start.

We did wander around the riverside for awhile and soaked in the irony. Across the river, in Canada, they had some manner of fair or festival going on, and we could hear the music and merriment, taunting us. In addition to the many signs that told you how to get out of the country, there is actually a monument to fleeing the country right on the riverside. It was in commemoration of the northern terminus of the Underground Railroad, but it still seemed as appropriate today as ever. There was also an overwrought monument to the American Labor movement, which consisted of a large arch. Now, I know the symbolism they were going for, but having a monument to organized labor that seems not quite finished was just too much.


The Hotel:

Super 8, Millbury, OH, 07/01/07 

We got out of Detroit as fast as humanly possible after the game and drove halfway to Cleveland. We stayed the night in a nice, cheap Super 8 that was staffed that night by two friendly Goth chicks. I don't think they got the handbook.

Click here to see all the pictures from this trip.

2007 The Midwest