My name is Alex Sloan. I am 80 years old and I live in Dearborn, Michigan. I was a pattern maker at the Rouge plant for 35 years, making the wooden patterns they cast parts from. I have been going to Tigers games at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull for 73 years.

My first game was in the summer of 1926. I was seven. My father took me on the streetcar, and we sat in the bleachers, and Ty Cobb was playing. It was his last year with Detroit. I don't remember who won. I remember the green of the grass coming out of the tunnel into the light, and my father's hand on my shoulder, and that is the truth of it. This summer my grandson Jeremy took me back eight times to say goodbye. He took the pictures and built this page. I wrote the words.

The last game at Tiger Stadium is Monday, September 27.

Memories, by Decade

The 1920s. Navin Field. Cobb. My father, who worked at Dodge Main, could talk about nothing else at supper.

The 1930s. In 1935 I was sixteen and the Tigers won the World Series for the first time, over the Cubs. The whole city went out into the street. I have never heard a noise like it. In 1938 they put up the upper decks all the way around and named it Briggs Stadium.

The 1940s. The war. I was in the Army in 1945 and heard the Tigers beat the Cubs in seven games over the radio in Germany, sitting on a crate with a fellow from Chicago who didn't speak to me for a week. I came home, went to the Rouge in 1946, and married Florence. In 1948 they finally put up lights, and we went to our first night game.

The 1950s. Bleacher seats, a bag of peanuts and a streetcar ride. A good Sunday.

The 1960s. It became Tiger Stadium in 1961. In 1968 I took my own kids, Conrad among them, and the Tigers came back from three games to one down to beat the Cardinals. Mickey Lolich won three games. Conrad was eighteen and cried. So did I. It was a hard time in Detroit, and that team gave the city something good.

The 1970s. They painted it all blue and put in the plastic seats in 1977. I missed the green, but I got used to it.

The 1980s. 1984. They won 35 of their first 40 and never looked back, and beat San Diego in five. Florence and I went to as many as we could. She kept the scorecards in a shoebox.

The 1990s. Florence passed in 1996. The shoebox is in my closet. I kept going.

The Old Place
For people who never went, a few things that made it what it was:

• The upper deck in right field hangs out over the field about ten feet. A fly ball that would be caught anyplace else can drop into the front row upstairs for a home run.
• The flagpole, 125 feet tall, stands in fair territory in deep left-center, near the 440 sign. It's in play. More than one outfielder has had to go around it.
• 440 feet to center. One of the deepest center fields in baseball. Plenty of long fly balls die out there.
• The posts. The upper deck is held up by steel posts in the lower deck, and sooner or later you will sit behind one. You learn to lean.
• Close. The seats are right on top of the field. You can hear the players talk. In the new parks you can't.

Jeremy's Pictures
He bought a throwaway camera at every game. Click on a picture to see it bigger.

Under the upper deck, May 30. That's the post.	The flagpole, June 20. In play.
Me, July 22. Scorecard and hot dog number one.	The lights at dusk, August 27.
From the parking lot, after the game.	Jeremy and me, Sept. 12. An usher took it.

Monday
The last game is Monday, against Kansas City. Tickets were impossible. Jeremy tried for weeks. So we will watch it on television at my son Conrad's house, the three of us, and I expect when it's over I will sit a while. Seventy-three years is a long time to go to one place. I took my father's arm going in there, and now my grandson takes mine.

The New Ballpark
Next year they move downtown, to the new park they're building near the Fox Theatre. Jeremy says it will be beautiful and I believe him. I will go. I'm sure the seats will be comfortable and there won't be any posts. But I won't love it the way I love the old place, and I don't think I'm supposed to. That one is his.