By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
July 15, 2016
Not long after I started this website in 2003, I began receiving emails from Tiger Stadium preservationists requesting that I join their fight to stop the inevitable demolition of the dilapidated edifice at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull.
Maybe because I was an independent journalist raging against the machine, they delusionally thought they had a brother-in-arms who would help them in their mission of saving the collapsing baseball stadium from destruction.
At first I was polite with these yokels while explaining that I really didn’t give two flying fucks about what became of the old home of the Tigers. But when their pestering became beyond annoying, I would just tell them to leave me the hell alone, get a damn life and obsess over something more important.
I figured that these emails and their efforts to hound anyone associated with tearing down the monstrosity would cease and desist when the building was demolished in 2008 and 2009, but I was sadly mistaken.
Because as we sit here nearly 17 years after the last pitch was thrown at the Corner, these tools continue to harass anyone vaguely associated with the demolition of old Navin Field.
As we have chronicled here before, the Detroit Police Athletic League (PAL) is in the process of developing the property for their new headquarters which will feature a baseball field where Al Kaline and Lou Whitaker used to play — plus other recreational facilities including basketball courts.
But the losers — who have been fighting any development that doesn’t meet their specific requirements — continue to throw tantrums whenever anything they don’t like transpires.
And this shit has been going on for two decades now. This group of nostalgic terrorists have attempted to obstruct progress at every turn. From harassing the companies in charge of the demolition — even the people who put the fence up around the perimeter for demolition to take place — to attempting to enlist the family of the late Tigers legend Hank Greenberg to TODAY when this article was posted by a douche bag named Michael Betzold.
(I was told the harassment of the chain link fence company was so vile and awful that the company had to take their name off the fence so the nasty phone calls would stop. And thankfully, the children and grandchildren of Greenberg told the Tiger Stadium nuts to drop dead.)
The latest gripe from these loons is that PAL will be installing artificial turf instead of natural grass. Can you imagine how PERFECT the rest of your existence must be if THAT is the issue you dedicate your life to?
Like, do these morons actually think the grass that would otherwise be in place would be the same patch that Ty Cobb or Jim Walewander played on?!??!!?!
Look, I have great memories of Tiger Stadium as well — from my first game in the park watching Mark “The Bird” Fidrych to the ’84 World Series — but I could not care less what happens to that old site. Just like I didn’t give a shit that the Olympia got turned into a church or that the Silverdome is currently ruin porn.
These people like Betzold and Peter Comstock Riley should be on an A & E series dedicated to object sexuality not unlike that grotesque woman who rubs her clit against the Eiffel Tower.
(Update: While Riley used to drive me crazy in the days before Tiger Stadium was torn down, I am told by a source that he has been very supportive of PAL’s endeavor. My apologies to Peter.)
The other major complaint from these imbeciles currently — other than the type of “grass” being used — is that PAL is going to use the facilities for other functions as well. Oh, really? WHO THE FUCK CARES?!??!
If the non-profit PAL organization has to have corporate events or charge suburban kids to play at the facilities in order to pay the bills so that underprivileged inner-city children have a place to congregate in the city of Detroit and also receive mentoring and other assistance then SO BE IT.
Hell, if African-American children can get introduced to the game of baseball at the new facility at a young age when they wouldn’t have otherwise, PAL can have Klan rallies, Bar Mitzvahs and pagan sacrifices at Old Tiger Stadium for all I fucking care.
Only 8% of baseball players in MLB this season are black, which is down from 19% twenty years ago. If the “Willie Horton Field of Dreams” can help develop more African-American kids interested in playing baseball than the barbaric sport of football, WONDERFUL.
While thousands of African-American children are going to have the opportunity to participate in character-building pursuits, these protestors are still wreaking havoc even as of this late hour.
They continue to show up at press conferences in an effort to disrupt and hijack the positive story of what is actually happening down there. Predominantly due to the hard work of volunteers, mind you.
VOLUNTEERS!!!!
And if these “preservationist” asshats weren’t satisfied with making the people at PAL’s lives as miserable as possible, they are now attempting to impugn the legacy of a great U.S. Senator like Carl Levin by pressuring him into making bad decisions.
That letter dipshit Betzold sent to Levin was an absolute embarrassment. And because of these garbage guilt trips from psychopaths like Betzold, Levin basically forced PAL to turn down THREE MILLION DOLLARS from Re/Max for the naming rights to the Old Tiger Stadium site.
I hope Betzold is ecstatic that his group’s mission of bombarding Levin has worked so successfully that millions of dollars earmarked for youth services are now gone.
These people need to be embarrassed and humiliated once and for all. These pariahs who have terrorized ANYONE associated with tearing down the old mess of a park and who have continued to harass anyone associated with the current project need to be called on the carpet.
Yes, carpet. Like artificial turf. Because while the world is currently on fire (from a coup in Turkey to weekly ISIS attacks on France to black men getting the death penalty for minor traffic infractions), these inanimate-object-obsessed bastards continue to focus on the huge issue of the day …
NATURAL GRASS versus ASTRO-TURF!!!!!
I mean, Lindsey Lohan has a better handle on priorities in life.
And if the Michael Betzold’s of the world don’t quit their whining and complaining — like they had PROMISED to do on the day of the ribbon-cutting ceremony — then maybe it’s time to start harassing them in the same way that THEY have done to contractors, volunteers and politicians.
GET A LIFE, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES.
Just like the fans of the New York Yankees when they didn’t shed a tear when old Yankee Stadium got flattened for a parking lot or when Bruins and Celtics fans went about their damn business when the Garden became a McDonald’s.
(You can follow the writer of this piece on Twitter @JeffMossDSR. Also, you can join in on the discussion of this article on Facebook by clicking here.)