8) Tiger Stadium (1912-1999)
Detroit, MI
Home to: Tigers
A: Tiger Stadium was instantly recognizable for its two-deck structure wrapping around the entirety of the nearly-rectangular building. Nowhere was this structure more iconic than in the right-field overhang, where the second deck protruded out over the outfield warning track due to the lack of space afforded by Trumbull Avenue immediately behind the right field stands. The already condensed distance down the right field line combined with the second deck being stacked directly on top of the first meant that the right field roof was reachable by most good left-handed power hitters, and on a good day fans arriving early could be treated to a number of batting practice shots bounding into the lumber yard across the street.
In the history of Tiger Stadium, nobody landed more home runs onto or over the roof than Norm Cash. And in the stadium’s final game before the Tigers moved to Comerica Park, Robert Fick, wearing Cash’s old number 25, launched an 8th-inning moonshot onto the roof one final time. Fick’s home run was, fittingly, the last hit ever recorded in Tiger Stadium.
J: Featuring a series of chasmic chords, the sounds from this movement are meant to evoke the fading memories that linger in a stadium that has been evacuated and exchanged for something newer and shinier. Tiger Stadium is an ideal fit for this sound world not only because of its gothic, canopied architecture, but also because the stadium’s fate is allegorical to the city’s tragic condition.