Comerica Park

SORRY, sorry, sorry.  I know I went to Comerica Park on Monday, and I know I have failed to post on it.  I'm sure all of you are SO upset.

I needed to take a couple day break after that Monday.  I don't know how many of you knew my Monday schedule, but I woke up in Cincinnati pretty early and drove 90 miles south/southwest to Louisville, KY in order to see the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum.  That was awesome, and I will post all of the pictures in the post after this.  However, after my hour and a half long detour to Louisville, I retraced my tire tracks on I-71 and I-75 through Cincinnati up to Detroit so I could make the Tigers-Yankees game at 7 PM.  That was about 350 more miles.

Oh. You think it stops there?  NO WAY. I watch a good portion of the Tigers-Yankees game, and I was surprised to find that I was one of the few individuals actually rooting for the Yankees (notice I didn't say "Yankees fan," even though you could probably call me one at this point).  Well after the game, I hopped back in my lovely rental car that would get completely jerked in the Ohio wind and drove straight through to Cleveland in order to drop my rental car off at 6 AM the next day.  All in all, I drove 1,575 miles in my rental car over those 4 days.  My calf definitely hurt by the end of Monday, but without Sirius Radio, I probably would have gone insane.

I really enjoyed Comerica Park even though I was there for a short while.  "Lose Yourself" in this post about the park and the city.

Location: The park is right off one of the freeways, I'm still kind of delirious from all of that driving, I can't really tell you which one.  Comerica seemed to be right on the edge of downtown Detroit, but I wasn't about to park my car more than half a mile from the stadium in Detroit, the home of 8 Mile.  The area around the park seemed to be more than decent, and I went to a rooftop bar across the street to get a good view of the park.  I think you'll like those pictures.

Ballpark:  The ballpark is beautiful and has some expansive are within the gates.  From the outside there are these awesome tiger statues that remind me of the lions outside the SAE house, then there are these lion heads on the outside facade of the stadium with baseballs in their mouths.  They actually look pretty frightening, and I'm 23.  I can't imagine what four year-old me would think.

For how awesome the park looks on the outside, I think Comerica's scoreboards are really behind the times, especially for a park that opened in 2000.  The Juice Box's electronics completely blow Comerica out of the water.  Still, though, Comerica has a pretty classy look to it.  Some statues in the outfield of their greats, some ivy in center field (I think), both bullpens in left field, etc.  The concourses were pretty big, as well, and there are a ton of levels in right field and the 1st base line where I could walk up and enjoy the view.  A couple of these pictures are posted below.

Scary, right?

Behind home plate.

Another outside shot

Look at all of those tigers. There are a LOT of them.

View from rooftop deck in right

Food:  The food wasn't anything to rave about.  I had some sliders and garlic fries - the sliders were mediocre at best, and the garlic fries were pretty good because they threw some parmesan on there.  Safeco's fries still have theirs beat easily.  The SCPI was $12.25 - the frank was only $3.75 but the beer was $8.50! Is my math right? What a silly question. Of course it is.

They had your basic ballpark foods that I won't even mention anymore.  Nothing too special outside of the sliders and garlic fries.  I have yet to indulge myself in ballpark nachos, which I think is an achievement.  I'm not sure you could pay me to buy some nachos at this point.  Or a brat. I'm getting pretty sick of those, too.

Game: I didn't see too much of the game, but the Tigers ended up winning 5-4 over the Yankees.  Even though I was rooting for the Bronx Bombers to win, I'm glad they didn't because my record is now 10-4.  And I see the Diamondbacks in Atlanta on Friday so that's gonna be another easy win.

Johnny Damon hit a home run against his former club and played pretty well for the most part.  He's actually proving he's worth something, and I was definitely one to discount his stats last year because I thought Yankee Stadium inflated them. 

My seat was in the left field bleachers, literally right in front of the foul pole. Do I have a picture...yes I do have one.  It will be below.

The game I went to was actually the first home game after the long-time Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell died.  He had a really charismatic radio voice, and back in his heyday, was actually traded for a player.  A broadcaster for a player? YOU BET!  They had a nice ceremony for him and raised a flag with EH on it that will fly below the flag of the USA.  I also got a nice biography and picture card for entering the game.  Kind of a somber day, so it was good to see the Tigers pull it out for Ernie.

My crappy seat. But Mark Teixeira hit a home run right here when I was getting my sliders

New EH flag for Ernie Harwell

Jeter vs. Brad Thomas...wait who is Brad Thomas??

Great outfield view. You really see how much ground the CF has to cover

Summary:  The ballpark is probably the coolest I've seen from the outside - it might be tied with Great American in Cincinnati. The inside was spacious and had some great views, but I really have to dock them for the scoreboard.  One thing that frustrates me about AL games is the DH, and because of the DH, they show the hitting lineups on the scoreboard and I have no idea who's pitching.  That really irritated me.  The food was OK, but Comerica is more about looks than a good baseball experience. I'd rather watch them play at Yankee Stadium.

NOW THAT COMERICA IS DONE, I'M AT 15 STADIUMS. HALF WAY THERE!

Location: 7 (for Detroit, it MUST be a good location...)
Ballpark: 9.5
Food: 7
Game: 7
Overall: 7.5


Record: 10-4 (with one rainout).
Giveaways: 4 now - Snuggie, sticky calendar, Reds team picture, and Harwell memorial picture and bio.
Eminem song titles: 1