detroit rock city

up until this past june, i had been in detroit just once in my life. it was early fall in 2000, and i never left the airport as i was only connecting through. this time, dtw was the destination for a work related event, so i found myself in the motor city smack dab in the middle of baseball season. 

i can't win at everything, as the astros were the team visiting the tigers when i arrived, but i still made sure to get out to comerica park to take in a game. since this was my first time seeing the tigers as a home team, i am now able to add this card

to my "stadiums i've seen games in" collection. it's from the wildly disappointing 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee set. for the record, the tigers are the 26th franchise that i've seen as the home team, and comerica park is the 27th big league stadium i've seen a game in.

i'll get right to it - i loved this stadium. it's hard to believe that it opened in 2000 as it feels on par (at least) with some of the newer stadiums i've been to. the concourse is easy to traverse and encircles the entire stadium. i entered in left field and walked all around, taking in views from several different vantage points prior to the start of the game. brace yourself for a lot of photos!

this is the first photo i took

and i quickly realized that my seat along the first base side was going to be in the full sun all day.

it's not the motor city without a corvette on display!

i am guessing that these are fully insured for home run damage.

i appreciated the detail on the end of the row seat rail

it's a nice vintage touch.

one thing i do in every stadium i visit is look for the retired numbers. in detroit, the numbers are easy to find in left-center and right-center field on either side of the batter's eye. here's the left-center side

and here's the other side

jim leyland's number 10 is the newest addition.

i'd alway wondered why the numbers were staggered the way they were at comerica, and it finally made sense to me why the numbers are stacked like that - the upper row of numbers and names correspond to the statues right above them on the left side. it was tough to get all six of the statues in one image, but i tried

here's a photo i took from the other side later in the game

and here's a closeup of ty cobb's statue

i would have expected the spikes to be higher in the air

i appreciated the old english d in center field

nice photo op prop, but i prefer a cursive capital d.

i headed into the concourse between the foul poles. here are some more photos.

i looked - there were no cards at the meijer market

note the 1910 banner in the upper left. more about those in a bit.

there were a number of murals throughout the concourse, which i enjoyed seeing. here's one featuring ty cobb

and here's one that serves as an advertisement

and here's one that is largely used as a backdrop for photos from what i saw

lots of logos plus the spirit of detroit statue represented!

little caesars is present within the stadium which makes sense

but detroit style pizza is something different

i always go for a hot dog at stadiums - at least the first time i visit - and this was no exception

yes, i put ketchup on my hot dogs along with yellow mustard. i thought this was a pretty good dog.

one of my favorite things about stadiums is the history, and the tigers have done a great job in making their franchise's history accessible, with kiosks throughout the concourse. here's the 1900 kiosk

with that familiar image of hughie jennings affixed

the banners are also hung throughout the concourse, with multiples for each decade. here's a look at 1930 back to 1920

and here's the 1930 kiosk

which celebrates the 1935 world champs

1940 banners

and 1950 kiosk

the 1960 kiosk

uses dick mcauliffe's 1965 topps card as an adornment, which is nice.

here are the 1970 banners and kiosk (in the background) with a 1980 banner up close

the 1980 kiosk

celebrates the 1984 world series champions

chet lemon is featured on one of the 1980 banners

while kirk gibson shows up on the 1990 kiosk

gibson did return to the tigers during the 1990's but that image of him is from 1984. it turned out that this kiosk was a 1980/1990 combo.

finally, here's a 1990 banner

featuring dave bergman?

all of that tiger history took place while they played at tiger stadium, located at the corner of trumbull and michigan - known simply as "the corner". i went into a bar inside the stadium that had this display of significant events at the old tiger stadium

cobb, babe ruth, lou gehrig, joe louis, ted williams, hank greenberg, reggie jackson, nelson mandela, and kiss make for a lot of history to be sure.

one more pregame photo from the concourse

before i found my seat along the right field line. it was indeed in full sun, and i was in no rush since it was still early. i asked the usher a couple of questions, and before long, she asked if i was by myself. saying yes, she told me that there was an open seat (a padded chair!) in the shade and in the same section and that i could sit there unless it was purchased by someone. i took her up on the offer and we wound up talking off and on for about half an hour. she's been to all 30 stadiums and had a lot of stories. she was working on the first base side of the stadium for armando galarraga's (should have been) perfect game, as well as one of justin verlander's no-hitters. she later asked me if i wanted a "first game" certificate (i declined) and offered me some temporary tattoos and a postcard (she said the usher swag was in need of replenishment!). i declined the tattoos, but took the postcard.

always be nice to your ushers!

i walked around a bit more, and went into one of the team stores. they had some cards on display - all 2026 topps series 1 with a few mixed release tiger focused packages. 

i decided to buy a pack 

and do my first ever stadium pack rip, as long as you don't consider those mother's card giveaways as packs to be ripped. nothing exciting in my pack, although i did get these two cards back-to-back.

my usher had told me that she had just met jose altuve earlier that morning. we agreed that he was not a tall man, but she had a better idea of just how tall he is. she also noted that tim kurkjian is not a tall man.

the tigers looped video on their scoreboard for current players. the starting pitcher for this game was dodger world champion jack flaherty

and i also took note of former dodger kenley jansen

spoler alert - jansen would wind up taking the loss in extra innings.

here's the game's first pitch from flaherty to jeremy pena

in the second inning, old friend zach mckinstry hit a home run

to give the tigers a 2-0 lead. they went up 3-0 before the astros came back to tie and force extras.

like many other teams, the tigers have a race between innings. their race, at least on the day i was there, featured characters from the toy story movies

i think bullseye "ran like the wind" and won the race. the claw machine toy fell on its face shortly after i took the photo.

later in the game i did some more walking and took some photos from other vantage points

this photo from centerfield shows james outman at bat

he soon thereafter defied the odds and hit a single.

i was still walkling around when the astros tied the game with a lead off home run in the 8th. after a scoreless 9th from jansen and josh hader (although there was a lot of excitement in the bottom of the 9th as hader walked the bases loaded but then riley greene struck out to end the inning and strand all of the runners), the game went off the rails in the 10th. the top of the 10th had jansen coming out for a second inning of work which i knew to be a bad idea, and he wound up giving up four runs. the tigers were able to rally and bring the winning run to the plate in the bottom of the 10th, but wound up falling short. final score was 7-5 astros.

after leaving the stadium, i made sure to make my way to what i would think is the main gate

we've seen it on cards in the past, anyway. i appreciate the detail around the different applications of tigers, including the "gargoyles" affixed to the exterior walls

the ball in the mouth is a nice kitty-kat touch.

walking back to my hotel, i passed a card shop in downtown

it was closing as i passed, so i didn't bother to check it out.

in other baseball card news, topps deemed one moment from the game worthy of a topps now card. 

that's former dodger taylor trammell with raynel delgado who hit his first big league homer in the game to get the astros on the board and cut the tigers' lead to 1. here's the back:

even though it's an astros card, i am always happy to add a card to my "games i've seen in person" mini-collection.

i'll leave you with a photo of the stevie wonder mural a few blocks south of the stadium

i am looking forward to my next trip to motown someday - maybe the 2027 national?

shining that blue light special on the 1982 kmart box set, part 2

continuing with the second half of the set that, in my opinion, kicked off the retail box set craze of the 1980's, here's the checklist

which was printed on the back of the box, and here's the first half of the cards. 

i should note that the set i bought recently did not have the stick of gum in it. 

we are now firmly entrenched in the part of the set that features images of cards for which i now own the actual cards. back in 1982, this set was the first time i owned any version of many of these players' cards.

1972 - rich allen and johnny bench

with allen just missing out on being included in the 1978 topps set, i wasn't too familiar with him. i was just moving towards becoming a team collector around 1982, so i knew he had a dodger card in 1971 and was confused as to why the club would not have kept a guy who turned out to be an mvp right after leaving the dodgers. as for bench, i was well aware of his excellence thanks to his all-star shield on his 1978 topps card as well as the reds being a nl west rival to the dodgers.

1973 - reggie jackson and pete rose

these two players may well have been the first non-dodgers that i was acutely aware of. they were big deals in 1978, 5 years after they were the mvp's of their respective leagues. i bought a 1973 topps reggie jackson card as part of my a's team set building that coincided with billy ball, and i still have that card in my collection today.

1974 - jeff burroughs and steve garvey

whoop whoop! having garvey as part of this set made me extremely happy. his card is the only one in the set that is in landscape format which isn't the best for the set's design, but i am glad that topps stayed true to the design and didn't rotate it, like they did with miguel cabrera's card in 2024 topps heritage. gross. i will also note that i held burroughs in high esteem thanks to his appearance in this set. he was the mvp for sure, but now i know that a bunch of more deserving players from the a's like joe rudi, sal bando, reggie, and catfish hunter split the vote.

1975 - fred lynn and joe morgan

by the time this card was issued, i was a big fan of lynn. he was with the angels now, and big things were expected thanks to his exploits in boston. this card also marks the second instance of a card that didn't really exist, joining the 1962 maury will card. lynn was featured on a 4-in-1 rookie card in the 1975 topps set, so kudos to topps for expanding the image used for lynn's rookie card and creating an individual card for this set. i wish they would have remembered that they did this when they were working on 2024 heritage.

morgan was also a favorite of mine, thanks to his being a second baseman and having had that all-star shield on his 1978 topps card. by the end of the 1982 season, however, i was less enthralled with little joe as his three-run homer in the last game of the season knocked the dodgers out of playoff contention.

1976 - thurman munson and joe morgan

for the second year in a row, the mvp's represent the respective pennant winners, and for the second year in a row, joe morgan is featured. munson is certainly a tragic figure and seeing the "home" text replaced with the date of his death was a stark reminder of the plane crash that took his life. 

1977 - rod carew and george foster

a .388 average and 52 home runs were certainly mvp-worthy stats in 1977, and i was more than familiar with these achievements from carew and foster, respectively, thanks to the 1978 topps set. three straight years of reds' players winning the mvp, and five out of six, shows how strong the big red machine was back then.

1978 - jim rice and dave parker

now we're talkin'! 1978 was the first full season that i followed, and i followed both of these players in the box scores daily. i've added both of these cards to my 1978 topps "master" set, and i was reminded in doing so that topps basically used this card design for the turn back the clock cards that were in the flagship sets from 1986 through 1990. i think i may have just decided on another subset series to complete (even though i have all of these cards in my complete set run). 

1979 - don baylor and keith hernandez and willie stargell

kudos to topps for not combining hernandez and stargell on one card. they did add the "co-winner" text to the card fronts so that folks wouldn't be confused. stargell had more first place votes than hernandez, and stargell's teammate parker arguably had a stronger season, but voters gonna vote. the guy who probably should have won the award was dave winfield, who had as many first place votes as hernandez. as for baylor, 1979 was a magical season for him and the angels, and i was drawn in for sure.

1980 - george brett and mike schmidt

two of the greatest third basemen in history, playing at the same time, winning the mvp awards in the same year, and facing off in the world series to boot seems like a story that is too cheesy to be true. it happened in 1980 with brett and schmidt. i was a fan of both players, but with my first baseball glove having been a mike schmidt rawlings model, i was happy that the phillies prevailed in the fall classic.

1981 - rollie fingers and mike schmidt

thank goodness for the traded set in 1981, although i have confidence that topps would have come up with a brewers card for fingers for this set even had that update set not been issued. if this were to happen today, however, i would not have that same level of confidence. i remember much hand wringing about a relief pitcher winning the award (over strong seasons from rickey henderson and dwight evans), but fingers clearly was a big part of the brewers' success in 1981 - success that they would not have had without him. as for schmidt, he was a no-doubter in terms of mvp, although i remember hoping that fernando valenzuela would win (he got 1 first place vote).

so that's the mvp rundown, which wound up being 41 cards. i am guessing that card sheets held 44 cards, so topps added three "highlight" cards to round out the set.

1968 highlight - don drysdale

drysdale is the only player in the set to not have won the mvp award. he had two top-5 finishes in 1962 and 1965 but didn't place at all in 1968. someone at topps must have been a dodger fan to include this card as opposed to, say, bob gibson and his era to represent the "year of the pitcher". i am not complaining, mind you, as i was thrilled to find another dodger card in the set. and let me take this time to note that the card correctly identifies drysdale's scoreless streak as 58-2/3 innings, not 58 innings. i think it was in the late 1980's when elias sports bureau did away with partial innings for scoreless streaks, and drysdale objected. i saw a stat box earlier this season showing that cristopher sanchez's streak hit 50-2/3 innings according to elias, and so i was confused. it turns out that they don't give partial credit for an inning in which a run is scored, and sanchez was removed with two outs in what turned out to be a scoreless inning so he got the credit. i suppose that makes sense.

1974 highlight - hank aaron

715 was clearly one of the biggest, if not the biggest, baseball highlight of the 20 years covered in this set. i was glad to see al downing name-checked on the back but was disappointed that no dodgers were found on the front of the card.

1981 highlight - pete rose

rose was my favorite non-dodger when this set was released, so i was happy to find this card. today, league based records or milestones have less meaning thanks to player movement and interleague play. musial is still fourth all-time in career hits, so it's very unlikely that anyone passes him as a national leaguer, let alone catch rose at 4,256.

that's the set! i would be lying if i said i wasn't hoping to see another like it released in 2002. kmart was still around but the box set heyday of the 1980's and 1990's was over. i thought about making my own custom set but never took the time. maybe someday.