Field day

It's been a hard week to be a sports fan in Detroit. In a stunning 24-hour period the town lost two great stars, the leading lights of their respective franchises.

The Red Wings' Steve Yzerman has hung up his skates for good. The Pistons' Big Ben Wallace has packed up his 'fro and bounced down I-94 to the Windy City. It's enough to make sports nuts choke on their ballpark brats, a double-sided slap in the face, almost as depressing a spectacle as a Lions game. But lo, there comes a savior. Down at the corner of Witherell and Montcalm, it seems the Tigers have gotten their claws back. At the time of this writing, the Motor City Kitties are devouring the competition, with a record of 59-29, they have a two-game lead in the American League Central, three players heading to the All-Star Game and the best record in all of Major League Baseball. It's freaking July and the freaking Tigers are in first place. Let's pause a moment and let that sink in.

After a decade and a half of mostly wretched failure, the nadir being a 2003 season that came perilously close to the worst record in league history, the boys are fierce again, and threatening to make a run for the pennant. It's time to celebrate. The good folks at Olympia Entertainment, i.e. the Ilitch family, owners of the Red Wings, the Tigers, the Fox Theatre and a majority interest in the city's soul, have come up with a new incentive to draw even more folks to Comerica Park.

For $15 on Saturday, July 15, fans can enjoy a 4 p.m. screening of the immortal 1989 baseball flick Field of Dreams at the historic Fox and then head on across the street to the game against the Kansas City Royals at 7:05 p.m.

If this takes off, might we see other great baseball movies like The Natural, Major League or the 1983 Roy Scheider vehicle Tiger Town? Heck, if the team keeps winning Ilitch could show Trey Parker and Matt Stone's BASEketball and we'd come.