Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • 50

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12 0 0 0 itzz wir.z7 DETROIT FREE PRESS 7D 1)1) QT1 TO HO' 3 ri I runup New field Players expect to see changes, adjustments By DAVID MARKIEWICZ FKLE PIUSS SPoKIS WRIUR Atleustthe hot dogs were hot lor awhile, anyway on a frigid Opening Day in Detroit. 1 .14 ,16 Mi .13 no .2 va JH .167 14 .217 .400 I ftlO .346 za 1 1 1 i 0), 1 13, iHen otm Ilet 2, Her, fed, DAVID P. JULIAN H. Kraa Press Tigers rightfielder Karim Garcia hauls in a fly ball. "You've got to get on your horse and go get it," teammate Bobby Higginson says of Comerica Park's more spacious outfield.

cr.rw snAiiP It's 110 stadium; it's a Do they have enough tigers around this place? They're everywhere. On the scoreboard. On the concourse. On the stadium facade. And, for a change, on base as well.

They might want to consider redesigning the ceramic busts of a snarling tiger's head that drapes the exterior of Comerica Park. It looks more like an angry gopher. There isn't much to dislike about the Tigers' new lair. If you're a native Detroiter, your first steps into the new park are like walking into a time machine, taking you back 25 years when everything at Tiger Stadium was green. They've captured the pastoral splendor that's uniquely baseball.

Sure, they've got all the gimmicks and gadgets along the periphery to entertain those who aren't moved by the product on the field. But when you get to the field, the image they've created is entirely baseball. They didn't build a stadium. They built a ballpark. One that was built for defense.

Too bad the team wasn't. JOKN LOWE The House Cobb Would Have Built Hey, Ty Cobb. We've got your ballpark. We've got a place where bunts and steals and triples things you adored could decide as many games as home runs. You must have loved watching this Comerica Park inaugural from your sliding perch out beyond the left-center wall.

After all, when Babe Ruth was bringing the home run into baseball big-time in the 1920s, you objected. You said, "Science is out the window." Luis Polonia and Gregg Jefi'er-ies love it. Mike Cameron isn't a big fan. Bobby Higginson thinks it's a matter of making adjustments. Randy Smith says wait till it warms up and then we'll see.

They're all talking about Co-merica Park. Not about the Ferris wheel or the parking or the ticket prices, but how it plays as a baseball stadium. Their first impressions, not surprisingly, seem to depend on how well the park treated them in the first game ever played in it. Polonia tripled into the left-centerfield power alley in the first inning his drive got over Cameron's head and beyond his outstretched glove then scored the game's first run. "I like it.

A lot of guys with power might complain, but I've got nothing to complain about," said Polonia, who took advantage of the vast outfield. "It is huge. When you're standing at home plate, centerfield looks like it's 600 feet away. You're not going to see as many home runs as in Tiger Stadium. But it's the perfect stadium for me.

I just slap the ball all over the ballpark." Cameron, a superior defensive outfielder, couldn't catch up with a Higginson drive in the second inning that got between him and Jay Buhner in right and went for an RBI triple. Cameron also appeared to break in late on a Jeffer-ies fly ball that went for a single in the sixth inning. "The outfield was like stuck in mud out there," Cameron said. Higginson had a successful and adventurous tour in leftfield. On defense, he went back swiftly to snag a deep fly ball by John Olerud in the seventh inning, saving the Tigers a run.

"You've got to get on your 1 horse and go get it," Higginson GILKEYDelroil free Press Tiger Stadium wasn't. It's wide-. open, not enclosed. It's got brand-new everything and classic nothing. It's made for triples and stolen bases, not home runs.

But in baseball, opposites can both be attractive, and this place is gorgeous. It's intimate and clearly made for baseball; the amenities are appreciated but not intrusive. If you don't look for the Ferris wheel, you probably won't find it. In short, there isn't anything worth complaining about and there is plenty to love. Only one thing keeps Comerica Park from the very top echelon of parks.

Baltimore's Camden Yards has its warehouse beyond rightfield and the Inner Harbor nearby. Wrigley Field is in a unique, wonderful neighborhood. Those kind of out-of-park traits, which add to a ballpark's character, are missing. For now. 1 But in time, they will come.

And unlike so many of the new parks, Comerica Park is designed for pitching and defense, not just home runs. That, combined with the open-air feel and view of the city's skyline, make it unique. And one of the best. 1 -9 Tigers general manager Randy Smith said, however, that Comerica Park's thick lawn might not be around once the weather turns. "The grass is probably the one thing that will change quickly," he said.

"The infield's slow and the outfield's a little slow right now. But that's more or less the time of the year it is." Smith and most players agreed that something else might change with the weather: how well the ball will carry. "It's too early to tell," Smith said after watching a game in which at least two balls that would have been long gone at Tiger Stadium stayed in play at Comerica Park. "The ball really doesn't start jumping in Detroit until it warms up." Contact DAVID A. MARKIEWICZ at 313-223-4759 or markiewiczafreepress.com.

JULIAN H. GONZALEZDetrait Free Press plete the unassisted double play. Mike Cameron harmlessly flied to Karim Garcia to end the inning. "That was a heck of a play," Piniella said. It was a particularly painful sight for his starter, Freddy Garcia (1-1), who brought a 3-0 career mark against Detroit in which he had given up only five earned runs in 23 innings.

The Tigers matched that total by the sixth inning. They tagged Garcia for a pair of runs in each of the first and second innings, when he yielded four hits, two walks and a run-scoring balk. Nonetheless, Garcia stiffened later and was pulled after six innings (five runs, six hits, five walks). The Mariners said he deserved better. Better than Moehler.

"I guess you've got to give (Moehler) a lot of credit. But he wasn't anything special," Cameron said. "He pitched his way out of a couple jams. We had a lot of people on base. "Freddy pitched a hell of a game and gave us a lot of opportunities to stay in the game.

We just didn't come through for him." Contact BPvIAN MURPHY at24H-586-2611 or murphynfrccimss.com. ft in ojo ri 300 030 S'9 OJO J-0. 1 4, 5 to it, irs, ed It was back in Tuesday. This game had many things including two Tigers triples but not a homer. I don't mind homers, Ty, and I loved that McGwire-Sosa stuff as much as anyone.

I just object when a homer becomes commonplace, as they have in so many yards. I enjoyed Tuesday's game in spacious Comerica Park about 100 times more than I did the gluttonous nine-homer game the Tigers played in cozy Camden Yards in Baltimore the other night. I'm looking forward to watching a lot of scientific ball at Comerica Park. In this park, a home run will be what it was meant to be: an inarguable feat of strength and hitting skill. If Yankee Stadium, with its short rightfield porch, is The House That Ruth Built, then Comerica Park is The House That Cobb Would Have.

Built. MICHAEL ROSENBERG Plenty to love about this place Comerica Park is everything much. The view is wonderful. It doesn't have that corporate feel Cleveland does. There, fans can go some places, but not others.

Here, it is a pretty open environment. Part of it is that there is a large amount of lower seats out in the open." Hickey again: "One thing tha really impressed me: They broke up frdst by pouring water on the field. What impressed me about that is there were no puddles. That says a lot about, the drainage system. And when you get those July and August thunderstorms where it will just pour for 10 minutes, it will still drain fast." Hickey yet again: "When you look at the two tigers on the scoreboard, they're so big that you can get away with it.

If they were smaller, they would have been offsetting. I dislike small parks. I dislike parks that make for cheap home runs. Freep through our i () I (Comerica Park) is not like a giveaway. You're going to have to hit an honest ball to get it out of this park, 19-and that's not a problem with me." I Rich Griffin, sports writer for the Toronto Stan "It reminds me a lot of Jacobs Field.

It's similar archltec- tQ ture of buildings in the background. It's an attempt to re-invigorate the t0 downtown. Of all the new retro-parks, I still like Camden Yards the best. I think they could have done without the carousel and Ferris wheel. If I bring my kids to the park, I want to teach them the game." Bob Elliott, sports writer for the Toronto jn Sun: "It's very easy on the eye.

I think it has a chance to be like Wrigley Field. I think you'll see people watching from (outside the park). It could have a neighborhood feel on game night." Compiled by Free Press special writers Rick Freeman and Charles Robinson. said. Tigers outfielders will have to learn to get better jumps to get to balls headed for the gaps, Higginson said, and get better at knowing the hitting patterns of opposing batters.

Players from both teams agreed on another aspect of Comerica Park, the field. Specifically, they said the grass was high, slowing down balls in both the infield and outfield. "It's a nice park," Seattle second baseman David Bell said, adding: "The grass is a little thick." Polonia didn't think that was all bad. "If you've got a big ballpark like this and the grass is alive, you're going to have to get some roller skates out there to play." Tigers shortstop Deivi Cruz found the infield grass to his liking, using it to lay down three perfect sacrifice bunts. the inning.

Olerud quickly doubled him to third. But Moehler got Edgar Martinez to fly to right. With the Mariners trailing, 2-0, in the second, Dan Wilson (3-for-4) followed Buhner's leadoff infield single (he spiked Moehler's right foot when the pitcher covered the bag) with a one-out base hit, putting runners at the corners. But Moehler recovered to fan the No. 9 hitter, Carlos Guillen, and get leadoff man Mark McLemore to fly out.

"We did a good job of getting guys in scoring position," Olerud said. "(Moehler) just made good pitches when he had to. Sometimes that's the way it goes." Guillen got his revenge with an RBI double in the fourth. Olerud scored an inning later after Juan Encarnacion butchered Buhner's single into a two-base error. The Mariners cooked up their best threat in the sixth only to be snake-bitten by a Detroit defense that had been poisoning itself.

With the score 4 2 Tigers, Wilson led off with a single and Guillen walked. McLemore ripped a low liner toward right that at best would have scored Wilson or at worst would have loaded the bases with nobody out. But first baseman Tony Clark, playing behind Guillen, speared the smash and tagged out Guillen to com- Mm! IkmmM UM NT How the visiting media viewed Comerica Park: Tom Haudrlcourt, sports writer for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "The thing I like about it is they somehow have managed to put a new ballpark into a downtown area and make it look like it has always been here. This place just has a nice feel. I like that all the seats look like they're good seats." ShuJI Ozakl, photographer from the Sankei Shimbum (a Japanese dally newspaper; he Is a fan of the Osaka Tigers): "It is a very nice stadium, but I worry about it being in Detroit.

With the weather, perhaps it might have been a domed stadium. It looks very good, an excellent park. The monuments of huge tigers are beautiful." John Hickey, sports writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "I like to be able to look out on the city very Catch up with the on Seattle first baseman John Olerud, the fourth batter of the game, was the lucky player who collected the first hit at Comerica Park a double to rightfield. Moeliler makes Maimers waste hits electronic archives Ml! vY Clutch pitching negates persistent Seattle attack By BRIAN MURPHY FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER The Seattle Mariners poked, prodded and pestered Tigers starter Brian Moehler for six in-, nings in Tuesday's Comerica Park inauguration. They scratched singles, belted extra-base hits, tangled Detroit fielders into blunders, and nearly stomped Moehler from the game before it was an hour old.

But as hard as he was pushed, Moehler shoved back harder, containing the Mariners enough to send them to a 5-2 loss. Seattle was poised to blow open the game all day, but it couldn't manage a clutch hit when Moehler was staring into the abyss. The Mariners stranded 13 runners; six at third base, including one with less than two out in the second and third innings. "That hurt the worst," manager Lou I'iniella said. Especially when three Mariners, including cleanup man John Olerud and No.

6 hitter Jay Buhner, had three hits each. With two out in the first, Alex Rodriguez reached on Dean Palmer's error the Tigers' second of Mike Thompson appears in black and hite on the editorial page, and in color on our Xreb site at Call 1-800-395-3300. Press www.freep.ccm.