For six years after Tiger Stadium was torn down, a band of Detroit fans trespassed onto its empty field with their own mowers and tools. They turned an eight-foot jungle of weeds back into a place where kids could play ball.

A Ballfield Gone Wild

The city finished demolishing Tiger Stadium in 2009, but the playing field at Michigan and Trumbull stayed behind. It had hosted baseball since 1912, and Ty Cobb played there for the Tigers. Babe Ruth hit his 700th home run on the site in 1934.

By 2010 it looked like nothing of the sort. "When we took over that field the weeds were 6 and 8 feet tall and there was trash everywhere," Tom Derry told Ballpark Digest.

One Mail Carrier and a Mower

Derry, a mail carrier from Redford Township, started cutting the field in 2010 against the city's wishes. He called the weeds "redwoods." Other fans joined him, and the group, the self-named Navin Field Grounds Crew, grew to a core of about 30.

The work was not glamorous. "We had four mowers down there one day, and three broke," Derry told Grantland.

The land belonged to the city, so the volunteers were trespassing. At first, police kept kicking them off the field. The crew kept coming back with their own money and tools.

A Field of Dreams, Free of Charge

Over the next six years the crew shredded the weeds, cleared the trash and kept the grass cut across 9 1/2 acres. Little League teams, adult soft-pitch leagues, vintage baseball clubs and pickup games all played there. Former Tiger Mickey Lolich watched his grandson play Little League on the field.

Navin Field Grounds Crew volunteers kneeling to chalk a giant Old English D into the mowed center-field grass of the old Tiger Stadium field, Detroit, 2013 — Volunteers chalk the Old English D in center field in 2013. Photo: Navin Field Grounds Crew.

"We turned a trash dump into a field of dreams," Derry said. The crew held one last round of festivities on the field in April 2016.

What Stands There Now

The city gave Detroit PAL, the Police Athletic League, the right to develop the site, and the grass the volunteers had tended was dug up for artificial turf. PAL built The Corner Ballpark on the same ground, with a youth field, programs from t-ball to softball and a facility that can be rented.

The only piece of Tiger Stadium left intact after the demolition was the 125-foot center field flagpole, and it is pictured at the Corner today.

The volunteers called themselves the "temporary caretakers" of the field. Detroit kids play ball on that same spot today.

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