Comerica Park is an baseball stadium located in downtown Detroit, Michigan. It was constructed as a replacement for the popular, but aging, Tiger Stadium for the Detroit Tigers. It is located next door to Ford Field, the new home of the Detroit Lions and near the Joe Louis Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings. The park is also featured briefly in the movie Driven .

History

Groundbreaking for a new ballpark to replace Tiger Stadium for the Detroit Tigers was held on October 29, 1997 and the new stadium was opened to the public in 2000. The new stadium is part of a downtown revitalization plan for the city of Detroit.

In December 1998, Comerica Bank agreed to pay $66 million over 30 years for the naming rights for the new ballpark.

Comerica Park will host the 2005 MLB All Star Game.

Criticism

While many feel that Comerica Park is a fine place to watch a baseball game, many other Detroit Tigers fans have been critical of the new stadium. It is worth noting that most of the criticism comes from being the successor to Tiger Stadium, one of the most hallowed grounds in the history of Major League Baseball. While Comerica Park has no obstructed views of the field, the tradeoff for this is that upper-deck seats are considerably further from the action than they were at Tiger Stadium. Comerica Park has also been criticized for facing south (which can cause the setting sun to blind spectators during evening games) and for having a shallow incline to its standards (which can make it difficult for shorter spectators to see over the person seated in front of them). Some also dislike other aspects of the stadium, including having a ferris wheel and carousel within the ballpark, feeling that it detracts from the sporting atmosphere.

Finally, many in the baseball community have complained that the park's playing dimensions are too large and make it overly difficult to hit home runs in. To remedy this, the park's left-center fence was moved in from an original distance of 395 feet to 370 feet. Even after this, Comerica's dimensions remain some of the largest in all of Major League Baseball, and some argue that further reductions in fence distance are needed.

On the plus side, the positioning of the stands allowed a clear view of Wyland's Whales mural on the side of the downtown building called Broderick Tower. This was probably the first time Whales had been seen near a major league ballpark since the days of the Federal League.

External links

• Detroit Tigers: Comerica Park
• USGS aerial photo