Tiger Stadium, previously known as Navin Field and Briggs Stadium, was a multi-use stadium located in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit. The stadium was nicknamed "The Corner" for its location at the intersection of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues. It hosted the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1912 to 1999, as well as the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL) from 1938 to 1974. Tiger Stadium was declared a State of Michigan Historic Site in 1975 and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1989.
The last Tigers game at the stadium was held on September 27, 1999. In the decade after the Tigers vacated the stadium, several rejected redevelopment and preservation efforts finally gave way to demolition. The stadium's demolition was completed on September 21, 2009, though the playing field remained until 2018, when the site was redeveloped for youth sports as the Corner Ballpark.
History
Origins
In 1895, Detroit Tigers owner George Vanderbeck had a new stadium built at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues. That stadium was called Bennett Park and featured a wooden grandstand with a wooden peaked roof in the outfield. At the time, some places in the outfield were only marked off with rope.
In 1911, new Tigers owner Frank Navin ordered a new steel-and-concrete baseball park to be built on the same site that would seat 23,000 to accommodate the growing numbers of fans. Navin Field opened on April 20, 1912, the same day as the Fenway Park in Boston. While constructed on the same site as Bennett Park, the diamond at Navin Field was rotated 90°, with home plate located in what had been left field at Bennett Park. Cleveland Naps player "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, later banned from baseball for life following the Black Sox Scandal, scored the first run at Navin Field.
Over the years, expansion continued to accommodate more spectators. In 1935, following Navin's death, new owner Walter Briggs Sr. oversaw the expansion of Navin Field to a capacity of 36,000 by extending the upper deck to the foul poles and across right field. By 1938, the city had agreed to move Cherry Street, allowing the left-field seats to be double-decked, and the now-renamed Briggs Stadium had a capacity of 53,000. In 1961, new owner John Fetzer took control of the stadium and gave it its final and longest-lasting name: Tiger Stadium. A fire gutted the press box on the evening of February 1, 1977. In 1977, the Tigers sold the stadium to the city of Detroit, which then leased it back to the Tigers. As part of this transfer, the green wooden seats were replaced with blue and orange plastic ones and the stadium's interior, which was green, was painted blue to match.
By the early 1990s, both the city and Tigers ownership wanted a new park, but many campaigned to save the old stadium. Plans to modify and maintain Tiger Stadium as the home of the Tigers, known as the Cochrane Plan, were supported by many in the community, but were never seriously considered by the city or the Tigers. Ground was broken for the new Comerica Park on October 29, 1997.
Features
Tiger Stadium had a 125-foot (38 m) tall flagpole in fair play, to the left of dead center field near the 440-foot (134 m) mark. The same flag pole was to be brought to Comerica Park, but this never happened. A new flagpole in the spirit of Tiger Stadium's pole was positioned in fair play at Comerica Park until the left field fence was moved in closer prior to the 2003 season.
When it closed, Tiger Stadium was tied with Fenway Park as the oldest stadium in Major League Baseball; the two parks opened on the same date in 1912. Taking predecessor Bennett Park into account, Tiger Stadium was the oldest Major League Baseball site in use in 1999.
When the park was expanded in 1936, a second deck was added over the right field pavilion and bleachers. To fit as many seats as possible in the expansion, the second deck was extended over the fence by 10 feet (3 m). The overhang would occasionally turn some extremely high arced fly balls into home runs. Spotlights were added above the warning track to illuminate the area beneath the overhang.
Like other older baseball stadiums such as Fenway Park and Wrigley Field, Tiger Stadium offered "obstructed view" seats, some of which were directly behind a steel support column; while others in the lower deck had sight lines obstructed by the low-hanging upper deck. By making it possible for the upper deck to stand directly above the lower deck, the support columns allowed the average fan to sit closer to the field than at any other ballpark.