Strolling down Trumbull Avenue to the 
high iron gates of Tiger Stadium
hand in hand between Dad and Grandpa,
I began to recognize joy.
Joy was scarce in 1968 
until the World Series began,
camouflaging tension everywhere.

Life seemed safe when we entered the gates 
to the oasis of green in the middle 
of chaos.  The Tigers belonged to 
everyone, young and old, black and white, 
and especially to me.  Al Kaline's 
smile rode safely on the card tucked deep 
inside my little girl pocket, ready 
for an autograph on the fly.

"You have to keep score or it's not baseball," 
my father said sternly, always in 
control of everything except the times.
"It's just not safe down here anymore," 
said the men who joined white flight to the 
suburbs in the early sixties, yet wondered 
why things had changed.

My young heart understood their words, knew that
scared white men felt safer listening to 
Ernie Harwell over tinny radios 
across chain link fences in pretty
suburban backyards. But Grandpa lived 
six blocks from the stadium and Dad 
grew up watching games over fences climbed 
by little boys with hope.

Grandpa said he would never move, no matter
what they did.  "Those coloreds are going to
burn down the neighborhood just like Watts,
you wait and see," Grandpa drawled, grasping
nothing beyond his fear for his grand old 
home on Sycamore Street crumbling into 
the ghetto.  "This house won't sell for anything
more than what I paid for it in 1932," 
he said bitterly, which eventually 
turned out to be true.

Fifty thousand came together to cheer 
for our team.  Freehan and Cash,
McLain and Lolich, Stanley and Brown ---
those names mattered more than the angry words
shouted on the nightly news. 
Everything seemed possible that day: 
hot dogs, mustard only; scorecards kept
perfectly enough for a father 
obsessed with ritual; a win to pull
the Tigers ahead; a joy that might stay.

But I heard the worry in the voices
at the stadium, felt the disgust at
boarded-up stores on the drive down old 
Grand River Boulevard, closed my eyes and 
sensed the smell in the air -- the beginning 
of fear in Detroit.

Grandpa put extra bolts on doors, the only 
thing he could think to do; I watched him store 
his rifle not far from his favorite 
chair, as though he could defend himself 
against the winds of change shifting across 
the country.

The Tigers were playing without fear
against the defending World Champions
and held a lead in the seventh that 
autumn afternoon. 
                   "We have to go," 

my father said grimly, checking the light, 
his watch, the crowd, checking everything but
little girl joy turning to held-back tears. 

The city would burn all around the 
stadium the following summer, but in 
October 1968 
there was still time to celebrate when 
the Cardinals and the invincible
Bob Gibson were sent packing.

I left the oasis of green in the 
middle of the chaos of my life
and knew it would be the last time we strolled 
down Trumbull Avenue hand in hand to 
the high iron gates of Tiger Stadium 
as the fear in Detroit 
also won.


###







  Additional erotic poetry is published at Erotic Vox and at Be Still