Down at 'The Corner'

The seemingly endless "efforts" to save Tiger Stadium have seemingly ended.

Barring a multi-million-dollar miracle before the end of July, Detroit will be a lesser city with the total destruction of the old ball park.

With that in mind, a handful of friends and I went down to The Corner July 14 to soak in the nostalgia.

I snapped some pictures and marvelled at how well-kept the field seemed to be from behind the security fencing. But the best part was being there with my high school friends Doug Belles, Mike Weathers and Dave Luedtke.

They are just a few of the friends who shuffled down to Tiger Stadium in the lean years, when we were in high school and college.

From when we got our driver's licenses in 1995 to the parks closing in 1999, we went to what at the time seemed like too many games and now feels like not enough.

Those years, while we complained about the team, were amazing. It sounds sappy, but I fell in love with baseball in those four years.

I had played Little League, but growing up the Lions and Pistons were my teams. I cared little for the Dead Wings of my youth, and beyond 1987 never really paid much attention to the Tigers.

From seeing the Tigers take on the NL East in the first years of inter-league play with (hot dog) vendors selling fresh, hot "Bobby Bonilla's" as the Tigers played the would-be World Series champion Florida Marlins, I found an experience at the ball park rivaled by few things in the world and grew to appreciate seeing a home-team win.

Those years of 'Fan Stand' tickets and 'Dollar Day' smorgasbords made experiences like seeing Magglio Ordonez's pennant-winning home run all the more exciting. Knowing I was one of the fans who had truly been there when it was the worst made the best times amazing.

Even beyond that, though, the memories I have with friends — like Andy Melitz, who I will forever be grateful to for getting me a ticket to the final game at the Corner — are of the most value.

Whether it was sitting in the bleachers as Mark McGwire shelled the left-field roof in batting practice, or sitting in the right- field overhang to see the eternally-expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays, those memories are where Tiger Stadium will always stand, and there's nothing the Detroit City Council can do about it.

Don't miss the boat

Every summer I hang up my prep sports pass and head to the lakes and rivers. After the baseball and softball state champs are crowned, writing stories on the Bayview Mackinac and the Gold Cup races are a nice summer home away from home in regards to my high school sports beats.

This year, I got to write a feature on the Simon family and their connection to the Gold Cup races on the Detroit River. It all started with George Simon Sr. racing his boat, the Miss U.S. in 1953. As President and founder of U.S. Equipment, Simon was a quintessential American industrialist.

Fresh out of service in WWII, Simon started a business buying and selling machinery. He started buying the equipment from his mother's home and storing it under the bleachers at the old De La Salle High in Detroit. He and his brother made a name for their company throwing live turkey's into purchasers homes for Thanksgiving and buzzing an office full of buyers with a plane at Willow Run.

After all that established his business, Simon took up racing boats — powered by airplane engines situated mere inches from the driver's seat — at speeds approaching 200 mph.

Needless to say, George Simon was an interesting person. For his full story, check out the history of U.S. Equipment on its Web site at:

http://www.usequipment.com/story.htm

That's what makes these stories about boats, whether powered by sail or airplane engine, so interesting - the people. The nautical types are always willing to talk with you and always have interesting stories to tell. Go down and check out Gold Cup races on the Detroit River July 11-13 and the Bayview Mackinac Race when the yachts leave Port Huron July 12. Get there early and you might even hear a boat story of your own.