TIGER STADIUM: END OF AN ERA

This time, the visit to the stadium was a little different.

Earlier this season, gazing across Tiger Stadium, where the Angels played for a final time on Sunday, I began to realize how important it had been to me since my first visit almost 40 years ago. Looking over at my older brother Marc, the memories came quickly of going to Tiger and Lion games with dad.

Kaline, Colovito, Cash, Horton, Lolich . . . Who could forget those ’68 Tigers and those 31 victories by Denny McLain?

Karras, Schmidt, Farr, Sanders (Charlie, not Barry). . . . Who could forget those bitter cold Sundays, watching the Lions manage to lose yet another game? The ritual of struggling to keep warm every Thanksgiving, right down to mom’s hot chocolate from the thermos.

The 1984 World Series between the Padres and the Tigers. I thought how lucky I was to be photographing my hometown team in my hometown stadium, and knowing my father and nephew were in the stands, sharing in these moments that happen only a few times in one’s lifetime. For me, Kirk Gibson’s (second-biggest) home run was big, but knowing the family was there was even bigger.

A lifetime of memories and experiences. Hard to imagine that this is the final year of the American League’s oldest stadium, where the ghost of Ty Cobb can’t be far away.

Who can forget Reggie Jackson’s towering home run that disappeared in a light tower above the right-field roof in the 1971 All-Star game? I never did see it disappear from our center-field seats.

Who can forget when O.J. Simpson was in the limelight for a different reason, playing his first professional football game in Tiger Stadium in the fall of ‘68? Or the fall of ‘70, when a football was kicked during practice in the first year of “Monday Night Football,” one I caught? Those were the years before nets stopped footballs from going into the stands.

Or the last time I attended a Tiger game with dad in 1985. The streaking foul ball was hit very hard near us, and the ball was deflected a number of times, scores of outstrectched hands unable to grasp it. Instinctively, I reached out my left hand, and somehow the ball stuck. The best catch I ever made.

I was among the 54,000 fans who will never forget the collapse (and death) of Chuck Hughes of the Lions in 1974, who never made it back to the huddle after a play. Years later the haunting image would return with the collapse of Loyola Marymount basketball player Hank Gathers at a game I covered.

The Lions have long since moved indoors to Pontiac, Mich. And now the Tigers will be moving into a new stadium next year.

Is there anything I would love to have from Tiger Stadium before it’s torn down?

Probably not. I have it all.