HAMTRAMCK, MI — The scene at Hamtramck Stadium was a mess. Only a few short years ago, the old playing surface was covered with tall grass and tangling weeds. There were worn-down patches in the outfield, where local children played soccer. There was a concrete strip where they played cricket. The front of the dilapidated grandstand was covered with trees and twisting roots. There were no dugouts, no dirted infield, no fence, no baselines.
There was almost no reminder of what this place once was, and of why it matters today, as one of a handful of Negro League ballparks still in existence.
It’s hard to believe how far it has come since that time. Hamtramck Stadium has now been revived. A couple of summers ago, they had the infield laser-graded, laid Kentucky Bluegrass sod and poured DuraEdge sand mix on the ground. They dedicated the field and named it after Negro Leagues legend Turkey Stearnes. The people who did much of this, who helped transform a forgotten ballpark into a gem restored, are all volunteers.
On a recent Monday morning, a mower hums in the outfield, shoes scrape across the gravel by the dugouts, and the Hamtramck Stadium Grounds Crew is at work once again.
“Without them, there is no Hamtramck Stadium,” said Mike Wilson, president of the stadium’s board.
The Grounds Crew has four main members — Tom Derry, brothers Roy and Kirk Jeffery and Dan Theriault. The men mow the field, tend to the dirt and do a wide range of other projects. They devote their springs and summers to this ballpark, a place that hosted 13 tournaments and a jumble of other events this past year.
“Just look at this,” Wilson says.
At home plate, there is a dark blue tarp with a logo representing Hamtramck Stadium printed in the middle. It is sleek and professional, but since the Friends of Historic Hamtramck Stadium purchased the tarp in 2020, cleats have torn a few small holes in the tarp. Members of the Hamtramck Stadium Grounds Crew went on their own to buy and install patches.
“So many little things these guys do over and above the call of duty, out of their own coffers or pockets,” Wilson said. “These guys are phenomenal, man.”
Hamtramck Stadium in 2019 (Allison Farrand / The Athletic)
The work at Hamtramck Stadium has helped patch a hole in Detroit’s baseball history. Hamtramck is an enclave of Detroit, located about five miles north of the city’s downtown. Thanks to a community effort spearheaded by baseball historian Gary Gillette, the place where Negro League icons such as Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Stearnes played escaped the threat of destruction and now hosts baseball again.
The sweat equity that goes into making it happen involves early mornings, 600-foot firehoses, broken-down lawnmowers and more man hours than you can count.
Why do these people do it?
Grounds crew members offered a few theories.
“I guess when you see it like this,” Roy Jeffery said one Monday morning, looking out at the field, “it makes it all worth it.”
“We get a lot of praise from the coaches and teams that are playing,” Kirk Jeffery said.
“There’s more to it than that, I think,” Theriault said. “We probably think of it as our responsibility.”
Working in the outfield. (Courtesy of Hamtramck Stadium Grounds Crew)
The origins of the Grounds Crew stem from a game of catch.
It was 2010, and legendary Detroit Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell had just died. Derry watched on the news as longtime fans drove to the old site of Tiger Stadium, right there off Michigan and Trumbull. People brought ballgloves and played catch on the hallowed grounds where Harwell called games for most of his career.
“I didn’t know there was access to it,” Derry said. “I thought it was all blocked off. The last part of the structure had been torn down the previous fall. When I saw people were playing catch there I thought, ‘Well, cool, I want to go play catch there.’”
Derry called a few friends, and they trekked to the empty lot. There they played catch and reminisced. But the only remnant of the old park was the flag pole that once stood in the outfield. The lot itself was in disrepair. There were weeds 6 feet tall or higher all over.
“I couldn’t believe how tall the grass was,” Derry said. “No one was taking care of it, garbage everywhere.”
An idea crept into his head.
“I got a riding mower,” Derry said. “I can cut the grass, and I know my friends will want to help. It just started like that. We didn’t know if we’d be there for a week, a month. We stayed for six years.”
The Navin Field Grounds Crew — so called in homage to Tiger Stadium’s original name — began tending to grounds at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. Derry rented a brush hog for 10 consecutive weekends to clear the initial undergrowth. Derry called friends including Roy Jeffery. Theriault, an old friend who lived in Washington but often spent summers back home, came out and helped, too. Many more Grounds Crew members came and went. The group became something like cult heroes in Detroit, locals working to preserve history.
Soon word spread, and the site of the old Tiger Stadium became a destination once more. People flocked to visit. They hosted vintage baseball games. Fathers and sons played catch. Couples got married. Some covered the ground with their loved ones’ ashes.
The Grounds Crew cared for the site as city politics played out in the backdrop. After stops and starts and disagreements, the Tiger Stadium site eventually became home to the Detroit Police Athletic League. Detroit PAL erected a ballpark for youth sports and — to the chagrin of some — covered it with artificial turf.
But that was hardly the end of the Grounds Crew.
Caring for the infield. (Courtesy of Hamtramck Stadium Grounds Crew)
While one piece of history was demolished and eventually replaced, another was being rediscovered and revitalized.
Back before the Grounds Crew started caring for the field at Hamtramck Stadium, its members had no idea the site existed.
“I didn’t even know it was here,” Kirk Jeffery said.
Beneath all the weeds, history was buried in a shallow grave. Hamtramck Stadium held its opening ceremony on May 11, 1930. Detroit Tigers star Ty Cobb came to throw out the first pitch, and 9,000 people attended the first ballgame. The Detroit News waxed poetically about the ballpark, writing it was “new, substantial and pretentious,” calling it superior to Bennett Park, the first home of the Detroit Tigers.
Back then, fans would arrive straight from church, still in their Sunday best, and watch the Detroit Stars play at the impressive structure. In that first season, the Stars lost the deciding game of the 1930 Negro National League Championship Series to the St. Louis Stars. The Detroit Wolves of the East-West League played there in 1932, and new incarnations of the Stars called the park home in 1933, 1937 and as late as 1954. Even in 1959, the Hamtramck team that won the Little League World Series played its home games at the park. In all, 18 Hall of Famers — including Stearnes, Gibson, Paige and Cool Papa Bell — are thought to have played or managed at Hamtramck Stadium.
The ballpark is one of precious few such sites left. Gillette, the historian, views a true Negro League Park as a venue that served as the home field for a major Negro League team between 1920 and 1950. And by that definition, there are only five of these cathedrals left —Hamtramck Stadium; Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala.; League Park in Cleveland, Hinchcliffe Stadium in New Jersey and Red Cap Field in Jacksonville, Fla.
“It’s cool to take care of the field where Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth played,” Derry said of the Grounds Crews’ days at Navin Field. “But to be able to take care of the field for the men who weren’t allowed to play over there is probably much more important.”
Theriault and the Jeffery brothers grew up in the same Detroit neighborhood and were high-school classmates. They remember playing football across the street at Keyworth Stadium. But for decades, the old rickety grandstand off in the distance received little attention. It was not until the grandstand was at risk of being torn down that Gillette and a group of other concerned citizens stepped in. They provided photos and newspaper articles and proved the overrun site was once home to the Detroit Stars. This, they said, was not something that should be torn down. Rather, it was an absolute gem.
Dave Mesrey, at the time an active Grounds Crew member, mentioned to Gillette that the group might be interested in helping. People had become familiar with the work at Michigan and Trumbull, so the Grounds Crew took on a new life.
At first, the work was simple. Derry would take his mower out to the field, start near the bump in the center and work outward, mowing the site as often as needed, depending on the time of year.
The Friends of Historic Hamtramck Stadium kept pushing. They raised awareness to save the site; the park was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012 and received a state historic marker in 2014. Then they raised money to help restore it. The efforts recently earned the group the Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation from the state of Michigan.
In 2020, when money came in to lay sod and create a high-level playing field, the work for the Grounds Crew increased.
“It was something to do,” Roy Jeffery said. “A day here, a day there, and it turned into a little more than we imagined.”
Kirk Jeffery was retired, and his wife had recently died. He was looking for a way to fill the time when his brother called and asked if he wanted to help with the project.
“I said, ‘Yeah, sounds good,’” Kirk said. “I’ve been here ever since.”
Theriault moved back to Michigan full-time and joined in on the effort.
“It was something that needed doing,” he said. “Nobody else was going to do it.”
In the years since, the transformation has been astonishing. Once an abandoned lot, the site now has a beautiful infield. Grounds Crew members have done this without any formal landscaping background. Roy worked as an electrical contractor and Kirk worked in HVAC. Theriault served in the Navy, and Derry was a mail carrier.
Armed with cell phones and guidance from a few local experts, the retired men have slowly taught themselves how to care for a baseball field.
“Thank God for Google,” Kirk Jeffery said. “And when we go to a ballgame, we’re there to watch the grounds crew.”
As the Hamtramck Stadium project roared to life, the work expanded beyond caring for grass and dirt. They cleared the trees in front of the grandstand. They erected the dugouts by hand.
Not long ago, they spent hours atop a six-foot ladder, setting up a yellow fence topper that adds color to the outfield. Back before fire hydrants were installed at the site, they had to snake a 600-foot firehose through the grandstand and onto the field to water the grass.
“We don’t just hit a switch and watch the sprinklers come on,” Derry said.
They’d often stay from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., just getting the grass watered. Sometimes when they watch professional groundscrews at work, they chuckle at all the people holding one water hose.
In the outfield, they use a solar-powered water reel. It takes about four hours to do the job.
“You have to stay and watch it,” Roy Jeffery said. “You can’t just leave. If something goes wrong with it, the whole place is flooded.”
The Friends of Historic Hamtramck Stadium board does provide the Grounds Crew with a $550 monthly stipend for gas money, equipment maintenance and other expenses. But the labor is all pro bono.
How much time have they invested, in all?
“I’d be a millionaire,” Theriault said.
These days, the stadium is home to Hamtramck High School’s baseball team. The site hosted numerous travel-ball tournaments this summer. It has also hosted youth clinics and a small concert and is set for local collegiate games in the fall. The men are virtually always tending to the field or otherwise on call.
Over the past two years, Gillette said he has had at least a dozen people approach him. They’ll name a nearby minor-league field and say Hamtramck Stadium looks better. They’ll name a college field and say the same thing.
“I used to look at them skeptically, like, ‘You’re just being nice,’” Gillette said. “They’d tell me, ‘No, it’s true.’ And that’s a real tribute to the Grounds Crew.”
Hamtramck at night. (Courtesy of Hamtramck Stadium Grounds Crew)
In 2024, the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants will play a game at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala. Rickwood was once home to the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues and has hosted one minor-league game every season since 1996.
MLB is in the midst of efforts to better commemorate the legacy of the Negro Leagues. The league is also hosting yearly “specialty” games, including the two previous Field of Dreams games in Dyersville, Iowa.
The game at Rickwood Field is scheduled for June 20, 2024, to coincide with Juneteenth and celebrate the history of the Negro Leagues.
The news has people involved with Hamtramck Stadium wondering: Could their ballpark be next?
There are logistical hurdles to climb through. Compared to Rickwood or even the newly renovated Hinchliffe Stadium in New Jersey, Hamtramck Stadium is not as well-equipped with the amenities needed to host a major-league game. At Hamtramck, they are still renovating the locker rooms and plan to add concessions. They hope to soon add lights to the field. They still need plumbing. That’s a lot of work and even more money, and parking is a whole other conversation.
Hosting a minor-league game or Division I college game is likely a more realistic goal for now. But the idea of one day hosting a major-league game lingers in the back of everyone’s mind.
“It could take five or six years,” Derry said. “But I do believe that one day MLB will be here, and it will be one of the biggest things that’s ever happened in Hamtramck. This field is just as worthy of having a major-league game as any other field anywhere.”
One recent weekend, Joyce-Stearnes Thompson — the daughter of Turkey Stearnes, who played at Hamtramck Stadium and hit more home runs than any player in Negro Leagues history — drove down to the stadium for an event. There was rain, hail and lightning that forced people to take cover under the grandstand. But once the storm passed and the sun returned, Stearnes-Thompson looked out at the field. To her, it seemed as though the storm had never hit.
She paused for a moment to appreciate how far the field has come.
“It’s amazing. It’s beautiful,” she said. “It’s such a thrill for us to see that. I just wish my father could be a part of it.”
(Top photo: Courtesy of Hamtramck Stadium Grounds Crew)
