Neal Rubin

Detroit ignores calls to save ballpark

Neal Rubin

H arry Glanz had this great idea for Tiger Stadium, so he picked up the phone and called the mayor's office. Twice.

In a shocking development, no one called back.

Lots of stadium-hugging, Comerica Park-hating, cash-impaired preservationists have dialed the city of Detroit since the Tigers relocated six seasons ago. What makes Glanz unique in that group is that he's not part of it.

He recognizes that the Tigers needed luxury suites and wider concourses. He likes Comerica Park. And if his name sounds familiar, maybe you've heard the ads for his thriving business.

Glanz, 47, co-founded Capital Mortgage Funding in Southfield. That's mortgage funding as in lending money, and capital as in, "Let's return his call! What a capital idea!"

He's the kind of guy you get back to if you ever had any intention of doing something with Tiger Stadium besides blowing it up.

His idea was not thunderously original, which of course the city didn't know. He'd like to see the old ballpark scaled back to its Navin Field configuration, with 12,000 to 15,000 seats, and outfitted with conference rooms, convention space, catering service, shops and a museum.

What's unique is his perspective. First, he coaches travel baseball for kids. Second, he makes a living dispensing money, and he knows lots of people who have heaps of it.

"I'd like to see what it would take," says Glanz, who lives in West Bloomfield. "Maybe pull some people together, see what could be done. A lot of people would like baseball to be played here, so let's see how much it would cost to bring it back."

The city's stance on Tiger Stadium has been somewhat different. Let's let it crumble, the unofficial policy has said, until the money for maintenance runs out at the end of this month and it's easier to justify getting rid of the place.

Given Detroit's less-than-urgent need for vacant land, Glanz doesn't understand the hurry. He does understand the lure of Tiger Stadium, something he feels is lost on all the people in charge of ignoring phone messages.

Youth teams, he says, "would drive in from all over the country to play here." He's done plenty of driving himself, taking his sons' teams to places like Owensboro, Ky., and Kansas City, and as far as he knows, the dugouts there were never occupied by Babe Ruth or Willie Horton.

"Adults remember the history and they pass it along to kids. That's the way baseball is," Glanz says. "With the money these parents are putting into athletics these days, give them a chance to come to Tiger Stadium and you'd better believe they'd do it."

Darn right, says Jeff Daniels. Not that Jeff Daniels; this one is treasurer of Elk Grove Village, Ill., Travel Baseball.

Kids in the western Chicago suburb can start playing 50- to 60-game travel schedules as early as age 10. "I've actually been to Tiger Stadium," says Daniels, 42, a lumberyard manager with relatives in Roseville. "The kids would love it."

He was also attracted by the "proximity to the Chicagoland area." Dozens of travel teams dot his metroplex, and all are considerably closer to Michigan and Trumbull than to, say, the Kansas Cityland area.

Kirsten Borgstrom of Travel Michigan and Nicole Chambers of Lorio-Ross Sterling Entertainment in Royal Oak likewise vote yes on Glanz' general concept. Boosters always talk about Tiger Stadium as a magnet for tourists and corporate outings, and come to find out, they're not just making it up.

"I can guarantee my entire family would be there," says Borgstrom, 33, whose parents in Ludington made an annual pilgrimage to Corktown with the kids. She points out that minor league baseball, also proposed for a resurrected Tiger Stadium, has been a huge hit in places like Lansing and Grand Rapids.

Traverse City's new team, the Beach Bums, start play this summer. "We're seeing these minor league ballparks as a big boost to tourism," she says -- bigger, even, than a vast empty lot or a discount department store.

Chambers, an event planner, has put clients into the Silverdome, Comerica Park and Ford Field, with companies sometimes spending upwards of $100,000. Tiger Stadium "would be a great option," she says, not only because of the general awe factor, but because no one else on that side of downtown could offer as much banquet and meeting space.

Long term, bringing tourist and corporate dollars to Detroit seems like a better plan than reducing the stadium to rubble and selling the seats on eBay.

You also have to wonder why the city is so eager to level the stadium and yet wants to refurbish the Michigan Central Depot, which is so stripped and battered it's like the setting for a Warner Brothers cartoon: One more brick plucked out of the wall and the whole thing will collapse on Sylvester's head.

The public servant with the answers, theoretically, is acting director of planning George Jackson.

Unfortunately, he never called back.

Neal Rubin appears Sunday on Page 2A and Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday on the cover of The News' Features section. Reach him at (313) 222-1874 or nrubin@detnews.com.