Tiger Stadium and Navin Field: A Corner in Detroit for a Century

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 10 min read

The story of the ballpark at Michigan and Trumbull in Detroit, from Bennett Park and Navin Field to Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium, with its odd right-field overhang, its big games and its end in 1999.

For most of a century the Detroit Tigers played in one place: the corner of Michigan Avenue and Trumbull Avenue, just west of downtown. The ballpark on that corner changed its shape and its name four times, but the site was constant. Tigers fans who sat there in 1905 and in 1995 were looking at the same patch of Detroit, even if the stands around them had been rebuilt, doubled in height and wrapped around the outfield.

That continuity is the first reason the place matters. The second is its shape. Tiger Stadium had an upper deck that hung out over the right-field grass, a flagpole that stood in fair territory in deep center, and steel columns that held up the decks and blocked the view of anyone sitting behind them. It was built for a city that wanted baseball close, and for a team that wanted every seat it could squeeze in. This article follows the corner from the wooden days to the empty lot, with the historical numbers for the club that played there and a plain line between what is documented and what is local legend.

One corner, four names

The historical record lists the club's home parks by season, and for the corner at Michigan and Trumbull it gives four names.

Read the third column from top to bottom and you see a ballpark growing with the city and the game. The best attendance at Bennett Park was under half a million for a season. The best at Tiger Stadium was more than five times that. The club's highest season attendance in its history, 3,202,645 in 2008, came at its newer home, which tells you how much of the old park's capacity was fixed by a footprint that could not expand.

Navin Field was named for Frank Navin, who ran the club. Briggs Stadium was named for Walter Briggs, who owned it, and carried his name from 1938 until the club changed the name to Tiger Stadium for the 1961 season. The name changes track ownership more than rebuilding, though the big rebuild of the late 1930s is what made the stadium the stadium we picture.

Bennett Park: wood, three pennants and Ty Cobb

The first ballpark on the corner was a wooden one called Bennett Park, and the Tigers called it home from their first American League season, 1901, through 1911. It was a small park, and its best season attendance was 490,490.

The club made its first mark there. Under manager Hughie Jennings, the Tigers won American League pennants in 1907, 1908 and 1909. They lost the World Series each time, 4-0 to the Cubs in 1907, 4-1 to the Cubs in 1908 and 4-3 to Pittsburgh in 1909. The 1909 team, 98-54, is the most successful of the three by record. These were also the years when Ty Cobb, who joined the club in 1905, became its dominant player. His 3,900 hits as a Tiger are the club record by a wide margin, and his 869 stolen bases and .368 average (among Tigers with 3,000 at-bats) over 22 seasons with the club are the franchise's best too.

Navin Field opens in 1912

Navin Field opened in 1912, a steel-and-concrete replacement for the wooden park, on the same ground. It belonged to the generation of new ballparks built in the years around 1910, a group that includes Shibe Park in Philadelphia, the original Comiskey Park in Chicago and Fenway Park in Boston. Navin Field and Fenway Park both began play in 1912; for another park of that vintage, read the original Comiskey Park and Shibe Park and Connie Mack Stadium.

The Navin Field years, 1912 to 1937, held two kinds of baseball. The first was the long Cobb era, when Detroit competed but did not win pennants: the 1915 team won 100 games and finished second. Cobb became player-manager from 1921 to 1926, and the historical manager table gives him a record of 479 wins and 444 losses in 933 games. The second kind was the early-1930s revival. The 1934 Tigers won 101 games and the pennant, losing the World Series in seven games to St. Louis. In 1935 they won the pennant again and beat the Chicago Cubs in six games, the first World Series championship in club history, played in a ballpark that still carried Frank Navin's name.

Hall of Famers of the period are named in the historical table of those who played at least four seasons for Detroit: Charlie Gehringer, who played 19 seasons and collected 2,839 hits; Harry Heilmann, with 2,499 hits in 15 seasons; Sam Crawford, with 2,466 hits and 317 stolen bases; Hank Greenberg, who hit 306 home runs in 12 seasons; and Mickey Cochrane, the catcher who won the 1934 Most Valuable Player award. Gehringer won the award in 1937, and Greenberg won it in 1935 and 1940.

The 1938 rebuild and the right-field overhang

The ballpark changed character in the late 1930s, when the stands were extended and double-decked around the outfield. By the time the work was complete, the lower and upper decks ran around nearly the entire field, and the name changed to Briggs Stadium in 1938. This is the form most fans remember: a bowl closed in on all sides by double-decked stands, and, in right field, an upper deck that stuck out beyond the lower one so that it hung over the field of play.

That overhang is what made the park unusual. A fly ball that would have been caught on the warning track in another park could strike the underside of the deck or clear the front of it and land in the seats, which meant that the distance to the fence understated how the park played in right field. The relationship between short distance and a hanging deck is a feature that appears in other old parks, but the Tiger Stadium version was an unusual one, giving left-handed pull hitters a short target. The historical record does not carry park factors, so there is no figure here for how much it increased home runs.

Those dimensions, commonly given for the park in its last decades, were roughly 340 feet to left, about 440 feet to the deepest part of center, and about 325 feet down the right-field line. The flagpole in center field stood on the field of play, inside the fence, which meant a ball could hit it and a fielder had to watch for it. As elsewhere in this article, treat these figures as the commonly cited ones and check the club's current records before quoting them.

The columns that held up the decks were the other defining feature. Seats behind a post had a partial view, and many seats in the park did. The trade-off was that a double-decked design put the upper rows closer to the action than a wide bowl would have.

Light, football and the All-Star Games

Detroit did not play night baseball until 1948, long after Crosley Field in Cincinnati introduced it to the major leagues in 1935. The club installed lights at Briggs Stadium in time for the 1948 season, and the park spent its remaining decades under a mix of day and night games.

The stadium also served a second sport. The Detroit Lions of the National Football League played in the same park, under its Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium names, until they moved to a new home in the mid-1970s. The same stands hosted both sports.

The park also hosted All-Star Games, and two of them are remembered. In 1941, at Briggs Stadium, Ted Williams hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the American League a 7-5 victory. In 1971, at Tiger Stadium, Reggie Jackson hit a home run in the American League's win that struck a transformer on a light tower above the right-field roof, a blow still retold in Detroit. Both games are part of why the park is remembered beyond the Tigers' own seasons.

The players who made the corner

Because the club stayed in one place so long, the Tigers' career leaders are also the corner's career leaders. The table lists the leaders in the historical franchise sheet, with their years with the club.

Al Kaline played 22 seasons for Detroit and collected 3,007 hits, the second-highest total in club history, and he was a Hall of Famer with 399 home runs. Norm Cash matched Miguel Cabrera at 373 home runs with the club. Hal Newhouser, a Hall of Fame pitcher, won 200 games and was the American League Most Valuable Player in both 1944 and 1945. Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker, the double-play partners of the 1980s, collected 2,365 and 2,369 hits for the club, and Trammell is a Hall of Famer.

October at Michigan and Trumbull

The Tigers' four World Series titles came with this corner as their home: 1935, 1945, 1968 and 1984. They came under three different names, because the 1935 team played at Navin Field, the 1945 team at Briggs Stadium and the 1968 and 1984 teams at Tiger Stadium.

The 1968 team won 103 games and then beat the Cardinals in seven games after being down three games to one, with Mickey Lolich winning three games in the Series. The 1984 team won 104 games, the most of any season in the historical list of the club's best, and beat San Diego in the Series, with Sparky Anderson as manager. In Game 5 at Tiger Stadium, Kirk Gibson hit a three-run home run off Goose Gossage to put the game out of reach, and the Tigers finished the Series at home. The 1961 club, in the first year under the Tiger Stadium name, won 101 games and finished second.

The lean years and the last game

Not every year was a party. The 1952 team went 50-104 at Briggs Stadium, and in 1996, in the park's last decade, the Tigers lost 109 games with a record of 53-109. The park was by then a very old one, and the club chose to build a new ballpark. Preservation groups argued for renovating the old one, and the argument is part of the park's story, but the club moved ahead. The last game at Michigan and Trumbull was played on September 27, 1999, a victory over Kansas City by 8 to 2. In 2000 the Tigers moved into Comerica Park, which has hosted the club since.

The old stadium stood empty for years. It was demolished between 2008 and 2009. After that the site itself remained a ballfield: the playing field has been kept in use by local groups, according to local reporting, which is a rare outcome for an old major-league site. Check current local sources before visiting, because the arrangements there have changed over time.

Other corners, other eras

Detroit's old park belongs to a group that has largely disappeared. The original Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923, lasted until 2008, and Candlestick Park lasted into the 2010s. What made the Tiger Stadium site special was the combination of continuity and shape: the club played on one spot from 1901 until 1999, and rebuilt on it rather than moving. The way a team's October history is tied to a particular place is a theme of the stories of other clubs too, such as the best Chicago White Sox seasons.

Common questions

Where was Tiger Stadium? At the corner of Michigan Avenue and Trumbull Avenue in Detroit, on the site of the earlier Bennett Park and Navin Field. The buildings changed; the ground did not.

Why was it called Navin Field and Briggs Stadium? The first name honored Frank Navin, the club's longtime owner and president. The second honored Walter Briggs, who owned the club in the late 1930s. The name Tiger Stadium came in 1961.

What was the right-field overhang? The upper deck in right field extended beyond the lower deck so that it hung over the playing surface. Balls that might have been caught in another park could hit the overhang or land in the seats.

When did the Tigers leave the corner? After the 1999 season. The last game there was played on September 27, 1999, and the club has played at Comerica Park since 2000.

Is any of the old park left? The stadium was demolished in 2008 and 2009. The site has continued to be used as a ballfield, according to local reports, but check a current local source for details.

Where to go next

For more on how the Tigers did in October, read how the MLB postseason works, which explains the structure the club played in. Other stories of the same era appear in the original Comiskey Park and Crosley Field and the birth of night baseball. You can follow the current club on the Detroit Tigers team page and see its present ballpark at the Comerica Park page.