The Final Season, by Tom Stanton

On July 12, 1977, my parents took me to Tiger Stadium to watch my first major league baseball game. The Tigers were playing the expansion Toronto Blue Jays, but the main attraction was Mark Fidrych. "The Bird" had taken baseball by storm the previous year, captivating fans and baffling hitters with his quirky mound behavior. He was named the American League's Rookie of the Year in 1976, and the future seemed bright.

Injuries had delayed the start of his sophomore season until May, but he pitched well through the early weeks of the summer of '77, and everything appeared to be headed in the right direction. I was seven years old that summer, obsessed with baseball, and the idea of going to my first baseball game with Fidrych on the mound was almost too much to bear. Sadly, that night was the beginning of the end for Fidrych. He faced only three batters before he was forced to leave with an injury, and I spent the rest of the night pouting as the Tigers held on to beat the Blue Jays 2-1. Fidrych would not pitch again that season, and he only appeared in sixteen more games over the next three years before retiring. He never again reached the heights he had enjoyed during his rookie season.

This is only one of the thousands of histories which played out in front of the Detroit faithful from 1912 to 1999. When Tiger Stadium was closed in the final year of baseball's first modern century, an era ended. By my count, no fewer than 142 of the 260 members of Baseball's Hall of Fame played in the ballpark at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull, a list that ranges from Cobb, Ruth, and Greenberg to Molitor, Eckersley, and Boggs. Of its contemporaries, only Fenway Park and Wrigley Field remain in service.

But a stadium is more than just a place to watch and play baseball games. For many of us, ballparks and arenas take on the aura of sacred ground, places whose value is measured in more than just the grass on the field or the girders supporting the grandstands. Author Tom Stanton explores this phenomenon in his award-winning book The Final Season.

In April of 1999, as the Tigers prepared to play their final season in Tiger Stadium, Stanton began a quest to attend and document all eighty-one of their home games. His book is a chronicle of that six-month journey, a touching farewell to an historic place.

Stanton's book received the 2001 Casey Award for the best baseball book of the year, but this is about much more than baseball. Both the culture of Detroit as well as the intracacies of Stanton's family tree are skillfully woven into sections detailing the recent and distant history of the stadium. His daily game logs barely mention what happens on the field; instead he relates the stories and memories of countless fans, players, broadcasters, and park employees as they face the closing of a major chapter in their lives.

But this book's greatest strength reveals itself through the central narrative as Stanton explains the critical role the park played in four generations of his family. Stanton grew up going to games at Tiger Stadium, just as his grandfather and father had before him, and his three sons accompanied him to many of these final games, albeit with the diminished enthusiasm typical of their generation.

In the book's preface he writes, "I could never go to Tiger Stadium without feeling the ghosts of history about me, without imagining my grandpa walking the same dank, dark concourse that ran beneath the stands." That sentence essentially sums up the entire book. There are certain places so ripe with memories, so thick with nostalgia, that to return to them is to immerse yourself in yesterday. For some these places are childhood homes or college campuses; for others they are ball fields.

If you have a place like that, a place which comes rushing forward in perfect detail as you close your eyes, a place which sends tingles down your spine or tears to your eyes, you'll surely find yourself in this book. I certainly did.

Comments

[Jerry Hines]

I look forward to reading "The Final Season" by Tom Stanton. I spent many days and many nights at Tiger Stadium in the 60's. I was much younger then and seldom did I miss a chance too see the Tigers play! The hot summer nights, the cold beverages and of course the great hot dogs. Willie Horton, Denny Mclain, Dick McCaulif, Norm Cash,Mickey Lolich, Mickey Stanley, Al Kaline and the other Tigers provided the action and the loyal Tiger fans added the support.

My favorite season was 1968 when McClain won 31 games and the Tigers won the World Series against Bob Gibson and a very strong St. Louis Cardinals team. Mickey Lolich was outstanding in that Series and saved the day for the Tigers with his outstanding pitching.

My Father-in-Law was a Tiger fan going back to the 1920's. When I quizzed him he quickly would make a point to tell me that Ty Cobb was the greatest player he ever saw play the game! Hank Greenberg was another of his favorites.

I'll close by saying a special thank you to Ernie Harwell, the Tigers legendary broadcaster. Thanks for those great memories of years gone by. The Tigers, Tiger Stadium and Ernie Harwell will always be a very important part of my life. Thanks in advance also go to Tom Stanton for "The Final Season" and I look forward to adding it to my Sports Library. "God Bless" Jerry Hines.