As a life-long Tiger fan who attended the next to last game at Tiger Stadium, it filled me with great sadness to see it come down. I always felt that a renovation could have been done if the will was there.

But any chance of that happening ended the day Ilitch bought the team. Why renovate when he could build up his properties around Hockeytown and the Fox Theatre. I don't fault Ilitch for building and he did pony-up a lot of his own cash but it sure would have been nice to keep Tiger Stadium. It had its problems but it was a great place to watch a game and you always felt like you were right on top of the action while watching it.

I've always debated the argument that building a stadium provides jobs. It provides temporary jobs during the season but very few full-time jobs. I use the example when arguing this point that if GM or Ford wanted to build a new plant to provide jobs they had to spend their own money to build the plant.

The city may provide a break on infrastructure such as roads, sewer, or electric but the investment is fairly minimal compared to what GM or Ford would be providing....lots of good paying jobs to support a family, not temp jobs selling hot dogs.