Comerica Park

Detroit Tigers, American League

8/10

The outdoor facade is the usual redbrick, but it does have these unique stone tiger statues all around the ballpark.

The park showcases the Detroit skyline, making a somewhat gritty city look cosmopolitan

Neighbouring Ford Field is literally right across the street. The Red Wings play nearby as well, now in a new arena they share with the Pistons.

We stopped in Detroit for a September Sunday-nighter featuring a Tiger team that would win the division and the San Francisco Giants, who would go on to take the World Series later that fall. It was originally scheduled to be an afternoon game, but was chosen for the Sunday night feature about a week before. We had an lazy drive in from suburban Cleveland after going to the game there the night before.

The park is in the middle of downtown Detroit, which to say the least, is bare of much else. There are a lot of renovations/construction going on. It is a bit of a rough area, illustrated by the fact that the NHL teams are now explicitly forbidden from walking from their hotel to the Joe Louis Arena, nearby. There's not much to do in the area before the game, besides a nearby casino, there is a large store selling Detroit team merch, and "Cheli's Chili" a pub specializing in chili owned by former Red Wings defenceman Chris Chelios(try the Mozza Sticks!).

Comerica is a stereotypical retro-modern park with not too much to distinguish it from others. The notable traits are the gap in the upper deck on the first base side, statues of Tiger legends in center field and the "Tiger Den" seating at the back of the lower level, which features small tables next to the seats. We headed up to the top deck, which has an amazing view of downtown Detroit, which one would be forgiven thinking isn't a real thing.

Concessions are relatively straightforward, being owned by the same family that owns the Red Wings and Little Caesar's Pizza, it wasn't too surprising to see that particular brand of pizza featured.

The atmosphere was not all that bad as well, there was a lot of alcohol consumed by others and a good discussion with our neighbours regarding the tendency for drunks to bump into the railing, spilling a few drops on their way back up. A young couple sitting a few rows in front took no less than 20 selfies and after showing after the game had been going for awhile, left after less than 4 innings. Still, most people were very into the game, which saw amongst other things, a homerun by Miguel Cabrera.

Overall, while I never saw a game at Tiger Stadium, this is a pretty serviceable ballpark, which has a few quirks of it's own. I wouldn't be against going back, but wouldn't go out of my way either.

Update 2017: Not much has changed here to my knowledge. The Red Wings open a new arena this year, with the Pistons moving downtown as well, which may be a bit more of a shot in the arm for the city, particularly downtown. I bumped the rating down to an 8, giving half points for Facility, Atmosphere and Food. It's a nice place to take in a game, I'd put it somewhere in the middle third of MLB.

Linescore
2014-09-07
                           123   456   789  RHE
San Francisco      000    010   000  1 6 0
Detroit                 003   000   30x  6 12 0
Time:  3:43  Temp: 73F   Att: 27,523