PLAYBALL

I believe the first Detroit Tiger baseball game I attended was in the early 1950's. We lived in a flat on Webb in Detroit. I think my father and the neighbor upstairs took me to a Sunday afternoon game at Briggs Stadium. { Briggs Stadium's name was changed to Tiger Stadium in 1960}.I remember it was a very hot day. I was uncomfortable and did not have a clue what was going on.

A couple of years later we moved to a new home at the far corner of northwest Detroit. I was becoming a Tiger fan. Some of the men on our new street bought tickets for a night game at the ballpark. My father took me to what would be my first night game. This time I had a lot more fun. I remember the Tigers won that game and we bought a Detroit Tiger pennant which I hung on a wall in my room. I wish I still had the pennant.

My uncle owned a drug store in Detroit and the people who he bought some merchandise from would give him tickets to opening day. He would take me and a few other people. to opening day. { Yes, I skipped school but opening day has always been kind of a semi holiday in Detroit.} Going to opening day became kind of a tradition.

I became a safety boy at the Vandenberg Elementary School. Once a year the safety boys were taken to a Tiger game by chartered bus. One year we went to the second home game of the season. This means I was at the first and second home game that year. The safety boys sat in the left field seats. The Tigers were playing the Boston Red Sox. Ted Williams one of the greatest hitters of all time played left field for the Red Sox. I was just a few feet away from the great Ted Williams.

The Tigers were basically an average team in the 1950's. The New York Yankees dominated the American League during the 50's, The Yankees played in seven world series in the 1950's and won six of them. They lost to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1955 four games to three.

I went to a couple of Yankee Games in the 1950's and on more than one occasion I was just a few feet away from the one and only number 7 Mickey Mantle.

Baseball began to expand in the 1960's. In the late 1960's they introduced the playoff system. In the 50's there was the American and National League. Each league had eight teams. The team that finished in first place in each league went to the world series. The Tigers had won the world series in 1945. They went to the 1968 world series and beat the St. Louis Cardinals. The Tigers never went to the world series in the 1950's

In the 1950's Al Kaline became a Tiger. He won the American League batting title hitting 340 in 1955. He was the youngest player to ever win a batting title. A guy named Charlie Maxwell played left field for Detroit for part of the 1950's. He could hit some home runs. One season maybe 1958 he hit a lot of his home runs on Sunday. He became known as the man with the Sunday punch. Frank Lary was a good pitcher. He used to win a lot of games he pitched against the Yankees. He became known as the Yankee Killer. Harvey Kuenn, Ray Boone and Jim Bunning were also popular Tiger's of the era.

I was about Twelve when a friend and I started taking a bus to the stadium for weekday afternoon games in the summer. It took two buses each way and a few blocks of walking to get to the ballpark from where we lived. One day I got up and looked at my Tiger schedule and said there is a game today. I called my friend and made plans to go. Took the two buses and walked the few blocks to the stadium. When we approached the ballpark something did not seem right. I did not see any other people around. I walked up to the stadium and leaned against the wall. I dug out my schedule and took another look. I had not noticed it was a night game beginning at 8:00P.M. It was now about noon. We turned around and made the trip home. I learned an important lesson that day. If you are going to a ball game taking two buses on a hot summer day always double check the schedule.

Play ball!

WRITTEN BY

RON TURETT