feel good baseball book about connecting generations through baseball. Tiger Stadium is one of the main characters in this memoir. For baseball fans in winter who pine for connection to the game.

Journalist/fan’s chronology of the Detroit Tigers’ last season in venerable Tiger Stadium in 1999. The season, a terrible one for the Tigers, is not the centerpiece here. Remembering games attended with family members and friends, remembering family members who remembered games, and remembering family in general — in the midst of baseball — are what the author concentrates on. Detroit baseball fans will best relate to the book, but any family in which Major League Baseball helps connect the strands may find common ground.

Good baseball book.

I picked this book up on a lam at a used bookstore. A book about the last season of Tiger Stadium could be very interesting, no?

And it was. Stanton does a good job intertwining his family, Tiger legends, and the ups/downs (mostly downs) of recent Detroit history.

I often say that nostalgia is the 'other' N word... in that it typically represents unfulfilled potential. The career that didn't work out, the adventure that didn't pan out, the relationship that went awry... you get the idea. But it could also apply to the decline of cultural institutions. In the case of Tiger Stadium, the case for it remaining was over-abundantly stated - it provided a lifeline for those who didn't have many options, it served as a reminder of its fans' childhoods, it had quirky characteristics not replicated in more 'modern' efforts, etc.

However, there is a reason why nostalgia is swept aside for such considerations as modernism - mostly because tastes/people's sizes have been known to change, often drastically, over time. What worked in 1912 very well might not apply in the 21st century. In the best of circumstances, severe renovations could take place to make the existing structure more habitable (hint Oakland...), but unless there's enough firepower behind this idea, it'll lose to the big money interests (in this case Comerica), inevitably leading to community whiners waxing poetic about what they once had.

A trip down memory lane. A good book about baseball and life. Worth the read.

Loved the journey of Gabe Kapler’s rookie season