Pregame.

In Donald Hall’s wonderful book, Fathers Playing Catch With Sons, the nationally renowned writer and poet offered this description of watching pregame practice at Tiger Stadium when he was a professor at the University of Michigan over thirty five years ago:

It’s the old world, Tiger Stadium, as baseball is. It’s Hygrade Ball-Park Franks, the smell of fat and mustard, popcorn and spilled beer…….Balls arch softly from the fungoes, and the fly-shaggers arch them back toward home plate. Batting practice. Infield practice. Pepper. The pitchers loosening up between the dugout and the bullpen. We always get there early….

For me, it was a thrill to watch batting practice at Tiger Stadium and to hear the constant crack of the bat from the batting cage echoing behind home plate since many of those seats were empty two hours before game time. (At Comerica that wonderful sound can barely be heard because it is drowned out by extremely loud music.)

Read the rest at The Detroit Athletic Co.