Mid-Michigan Dining

• 2100 Woodward Ave.
• Detroit, MI 48201
• (313) 962-4000
• Website

The view from our seats at Comerica Park in downtown Detroit.

I don’t even know what to say.  WOW!  I cannot tell you how impressed I was with Comerica Park.  I don’t have a lot of experience when it comes to Major League ballparks.  Comiskey Park, US Cellular Field, Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium, and Busch Stadium are the only ballparks I’ve been to.  Comerica makes The Cell look like that sh*thole where the Cubs play. 

When my girlfriend and I first moved to Lansing, one of the first thing we did was check the Tigers schedule to see when our White Sox were in town.  Luck has it, they were here the first weekend we were.  Since we were still working out moving expenses, going to Detroit our first weekend here probably wouldn’t have been a good idea.  A few weeks ago, I noticed the Sox were in town again.  I got on StubHub to see what I could get for tickets and picked up two right field bleacher seats.  Since I bought the tickets two weeks ago, we’ve both been jacked about going to the game.

We parked near Greektown and walked to the park.  We ended up between Comerica and Ford Field which was a good spot since our seats were in the outfield.  We handed over our tickets and walked in and immediately both of us were in awe.  What a beautiful park.  I snapped a few pictures from left field then we went to make a lap around and see what else CoPa had to offer.

Leftfield scoreboard and one of the statues in left field

First stop was the monuments in left center field.  Not as cool as monument park at Yankee Stadium, but still a cool feature to the park.  Nice way to honor those players who have their numbers retired.  We stoppe for a few pictures then walked under the liquid fireworks fountain to go check out our seats in right field.  The liquid fireworks feature is another cool, unique feature that looks much better after the sun goes down and even better after they shut off the lights to the stadium.

The entrance to the Big Cat Food Court at Comerica Park

After seeing where our seats were, we kept walking to check out the main concourse.  Having grown up at New Comiskey (now US Cellular Field or The Cell), I’ve never seen one of the new retro parks.  I love the way Comerica was built.  Even the concourse areas have a good look to them whereas The Cell has the feeling of a sterile operating room.  Food vendors lined the area behind the seats and the more traditional built in stands were scattered throughout the park.  Our next stop took us to one of the coolest features…the Big Cat food court.  Who would have thought to put a food court in a baseball park?  It’s really a food court too with more variety of food than just the standard hot dogs and pizza.  In the middle of the food court is a merry-go-round that replaces the horses with Tigers.  Again, unlike the two Chicago parks, very kid friendly.  I mean, at The Cell, you have a shower in centerfield from the old park.

Brushfire Grill picnic area at Comerica Park

We kept walking and the next thing that stood out to me was the suite level.  Most parks, you end up going up an elevator then head down a long sterile hallway to your suite.  At Comerica, the door opens to an open walkway overlooking the concourse, so you don’t lose the baseball atmosphere when you sit in the suites.  Down a little further was ANOTHER food court.  This one had a restaurant, a beer hall, a BBQ stand and a ferris wheel…at the ballpark…a ferris wheel?!

My family used to go to about a dozen Sox games a year and the way we were able to afford it was by sitting in the bleachers.  Those used to be $6 tickets at Comiskey.  They’re a little more now, but still affordable.  Those are the same seats we had for this game.  The view was great and the game was exciting.  You can’t ask for much more than that.

As far as food goes, we bought a couple Pepsi’s, some nachos, and a frozen daquiri in a souvenier cup.  They don’t have Italian Beef like US Cellular does, but they have a lot of interesting options.  There’s a Big Boy Restaurant and Leo’s Coney Island inside the park.  Little Ceasar’s Pizza has a stand.  There’s a cart that makes fresh sushi (at a ballpark in Michigan?  I expect that in LA, but not Detroit).   And, of course, there’s all the standard ballpark fare.  Lots of options and lots of concession stands.  There was a single game record crowd of 45,000 plus the night we were there and the longest line we waited in was for the daquiri’s.

I cannot wait to go back to another Tigers game.  I love that the park is in downtown.  As much as I hate and despise Wrigley Field, I love the fact that it’s in a neighborhood and you can grab a beer or a bite to eat.  US Cellular is in an industrial part of town very close to the projects.  You don’t want to get lost at night.  Comerica is really close to a lot of bars and restaurants and unlike Wrigley, there’s a lot of parking.  We only paid $10 to park in a surface lot near Greektown.  At Wrigley, we would have paid $100 (that’s not a typo) to park in an alley and get blocked in.  Driving to and from the park was a little scary.  It was hard not to notice how dirty the city is.  Chicago has a lot of problems, but one thing they do is try to keep the city clean.  I’m pretty sure Mayor Daley puts city workers in gangs so they can paint over graffiti as soon as someone tags a building.  The routes we took to and from the highway looked like one big grafitti canvass.  Woodward looked rundown and again, a little scary.  Chicago would be planting flowers and helping business clean up their storefronts since it’s a throughway that a lot of people would be taking to the ballpark.  I guess that’s the advantage to having an egotistical, vain Mayor.  Detroit definately has baseball park to be proud of….but Go Sox!