Detroit's Ghost Town Delray and O-So Memories

O-So pop was a local Detroit soft drink sensation bottled in Delray at 8559-61 W. Jefferson Ave. Not as famous as Vernor's Ginger Ale but just as beloved. John Kar's bottling works opened in 1922, located north of the Peerless Cement factory and just south of the old Delray Bridge onto Zug Island, also known as the "one way bridge" no longer in use.

Adults from the Baby Boomer generation remember that O-So was the bargain pop of our day. The clear-glass bottled soft drinks were colorful and the flavors were fabulous. Linda J. Kulczyk remembers watching the mechanized bottle filler in action. "The place smelled like bleach and sugar water. Rock and Rye was my favorite flavor," she wrote on the Old Delray facebook site.

Other popular flavors were creme soda, lemon-lime, cherry, grape, strawberry, root beer, and orange. I don't believe they had a cola drink, though I could be wrong about that.

John A. Stavola, Jr. remembers "as a kid, they bottled the soda right there and the dude (perhaps Ed Kar, son of the founder) used to fish right out of the back window of the place." Diana Bors McPeck used to work there when she was young. Her grandparents were friends with the owners. Diana recalls, "I was paid in pop!"

One of the old timers working the same shift as me at the Zug Island coke ovens was nicknamed 'Pop'. He would buy several cases of assorted flavors of O-So pop every day in the spring and summer and roll them in from the parking lot on a hand truck (dolly) with a cooler full of ice. Pop sold the stuff for a dollar a bottle, a 400% markup. He also sold salted peanuts in the summer and fresh roasted chestnuts in the winter. On a hot day, everyone was glad to hear him call out "COLD POP." He was a door machine operator on the receiving end of the ramming machine. For the life of me, I can't remember his real name. Everybody just called him Pop.

When I worked as a laborer at Zug Island in 1967, the Delray downtown area already showed signs of two decades of neglect. Many of the shops and second story residences became little more than tenements for transient workers. After the Detroit Riots in July, the writing was on the wall for Delray. Like many other Detroit neighborhoods, White flight went into hyper-drive.

It is always sad to see an established community fall into ruin and abandonment. But almost one hundred years of history and heavy industry had taken its toll on the Delray neighborhood and turned it into what it is today, a virtual ghost town within the Detroit city limits. 

Delray lost its ethnic heart and soul in the sixties and seventies. What was once a vibrant European mixture of Hungarian, Slovakian, and Polish immigrants dispersed among the Detroit suburbs, notably the Downriver areas of Allen Park, Lincoln Park, and Wyandotte.

Now, all that's left of the Delray neighborhood are mostly memories and photographs fading in family albums. Remember any of these places? First Slovak Church (Holy Redeemer), St. John's Catholic Church, The Hungarian Village Bakery, Hevesi Cafe (with dining and dancing), Joey's Stables, Fox Hardware, Szabo's Meat Market, Delray Baking Company, Al's Bar, Kovac's Bar, and King's Chinese Restaurant. They are gone but not forgotten.

Realistically, Delray is zoned for heavy industry and will never recover as a viable residential area. But I could be wrong. What impact the new Gordie Howe International Bridge will have on Delray is yet to be known or felt, but it marks a new age for Delray. One thing is for certain, the area is ripe for redevelopment.

For more detailed information on the community of Delray, check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delray,_Detroit

Rita Bell's Prize Movie

One ot the most beloved ladies in Detroit television history was Rita Bell Connolly, a graduate of Marygrove College with a business degree in public relations. Rita landed a job with the Detroit chapter of the United Way in the mid-1950s and sat on the boards of many non-profit service organizations around town. She was a member of the Women's Advertising Club and a much sought-after speaker.

While singing at a Wrigley's corporate event, a WXYZ-TV executive was struck by Rita's presence and personality--not to mention her wholesome beauty. He asked Rita if she might be interested in working on local television. Once she determined that the offer was legitimate and not a come-on from a corporate Lothario, she recognized what an opportunity it was and agreed to give it a try.

On Monday, April 29, 1957, Rita made her television debut on Lou Gordon's Midnight News Hour with a short segment at 12:15 am called Forecasts and Fashions where she gave the next day's weather report and some fashion news. Rita made history by becoming Detroit's first woman weather forecaster. It wasn't prime time, but Rita proved she had screen presence and was confident appearing on camera.

On the advice of the station manager, Rita dropped her maiden name and became known as Rita Bell, which had a distinct ring to it. The following year, Rita landed a better time slot and did local, state, and national weather at 7:10 pm.

WXYZ programmers noted from their market research and Rita's fan mail that she drew in viewers. Then on December 12, 1960, Rita landed a program that would become her life's work called Prize Playhouse from 8:30 am to 10:00 am. As her morning audience grew, the program was rebranded Rita Bell's Prize Movie.

Rita showed classic movies and during commercial breaks, she took calls from viewers. Everyday she would play a mystery tune, and if callers correctly guessed its name, they would get a cash prize of seven dollars. If the tune wasn't guessed, seven dollars was added to the prize total. WXYZ broadcast over Channel 7--hence seven dollars.

Rita Bell became the darling of Detroit daytime television, known for her sunny disposition, bright-eyed smile, and pleasant voice. She was genuine and charming. Her studio set was simply a huge, telephone dial prop hanging on the wall behind her and a table with a working telephone on it. Rita's hairstyle changed with the season as often as the telephones she used. The Prize Movie theme song was Al Hirt's catchy Cotton Candy.

In the spring of 1971, Rita and her husband Jerome F. Hansen took a well-earned, three-day vacation. Detroit Free Press feature columnist Shirley Eder filled in for her. The mystery tune had run for four months, but nobody knew the tune's name and viewers were grumbling. The cash prize reached $4,529. On April 23, 1971, Eder's first caller, Mrs. Shirley Gurich answered, "Pioneer of the Stars." After that, the show's producers started giving away products donated by local sponsors for on-air plugs.

In 1977, Rita lost her Prize Movie program with scheduling pressure from above and below. The ABC network began producing Good Morning America to compete with NBC's Today Show from 7:00 am to 10:00 am, and when WXYZ introduced Kelly & Company with popular newscaster John Kelly and his wife Marilyn Turner at 10:00 am, their show became the talk of the town and the most popular daytime talk show in Detroit television history. Rita was relegated to doing movie reviews and interviewing celebrities when they came to town to perform at the Fisher Theater or some other Detroit venue. Her career was clearly going backwards.

On June 1, 1978, WXYZ declined to renew Rita Bell 's contract after twenty-one years of dedicated service. A spokesperson for the station said, "Letting Rita go was a hard decision. There simply wasn't enough for her to do." Rita told a colleague that she expected to be released, "But it was still a gut-wrenching feeling."

Many a Detroit area kid has fond memories of staying home from school on snow days, sick days, and vacation days snuggling on the couch watching Rita Bell's Prize Movie in the sixties and seventies, but America's entertainment and viewing habits had changed and much of Rita's core audience outgrew her program. If you can measure a person's value by the esteem others hold for them, Rita remains one of the most admired women in Detroit television history.

After the morning talk show craze hit, Rita retired to Poway, California with her husband, a Detroit Free Press reporter. She succumbed to colon cancer on December 9, 2003 at the age of seventy-eight. Rita's ashes are inurned at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in Point Loma, California next to her husband, overlooking San Diego Bay and the mountains beyond.

Al Hirt's Cotton Candy 

Bill Kennedy at the Movies 

Detroit's Nineteenth-Century Moonlight Towers

Newport, Rhode Island introduced the first gas street-lighting in America in 1803. Throughout the nineteenth-century, it was the preferred method of outdoor street illumination, but the system was expensive to install and each lamp had limited range. In the 1880s, electric carbon-arc lighting offered a relatively inexpensive alternative to coal-generated gas lighting.

Large municipalities who could afford them invested in moonlight towers to illuminate large expanses like parks and public squares. Each tower was crowned with six carbon-arc lights giving off 200 times more illumination than the most powerful incandescent light bulbs.

Because the "moonlight" was harsh, the arc-lights were mounted 175 feet high and lit up a circle with a radius of 1,500 feet.  Downtown nightlife became a new reality for many Americans who believed that general illumination drove criminals deeper into the shadows.

The lights buzzed loudly and dropped shreds of burning ash as the carbon electrodes burned quickly and had to be replaced nightly. The height of the moonlight towers made them difficult to maintain, so a counter-balanced "dumbwaiter" elevator system was soon developed to change out electrodes more efficiently.

Detroit winter street lit up by a moonlight tower.

Detroit had one of the most extensive moonlight tower systems in the country inaugurated in 1882. One-hundred and twenty-two towers were placed 1,000 to 1,200 feet apart. The entire system illuminated twenty-one square miles. By the turn of the century, most of the towers were replaced by incandescent lighting once the AC electrical grid was laid out. Detroit sold its towers to several small municipalities such as Grand Rapids, Michigan and Austin, Texas.

Austin moonlight tower.

In 1885, Austin, Texas was terrorized by a serial killer known as the Servant Girl Annihilator, who killed eight servant girls all attacked at night. The only night light Austin had in those days was moonlight, but when the evening skies were cloudy, Austin had no light at all.

Detroit agreed to sell thirty-one of their used moonlight towers to Austin. Over the years, the lamps have been refitted with modern mercury-vapor light bulbs which require much less maintainence than the crude carbon-arc technology. Seventeen of their original thirty-one towers--the last of the moonlight towers--are still in operation.

Austin city officials were ready to remove the towers by 1976, but they were too late. The moonlight towers were inducted into the National Registry of Historical Places. In 1993, the city dismantled and rebuilt each existing tower for a citywide Moonlight Tower Festival which began in 1995. Next time you are in Austin, Texas, behold some Michigan history.

Alex Karras' NFL Gambling Suspension--Part Three of Three

Late one December night in 1963 just before closing, Johnny Butsicaris was tending bar while Alex Karras was sitting in a booth counting money and doing some bookkeeping. Celebrated Detroit defense lawyer Joseph Louisell came in and ordered a triple shot of bourbon, took off his overcoat and scarf, and sat across from Karras.

Defense lawyer Joseph Louisell

Louisell was a popular customer at the Lindell AC. He was a heavy set, jovial man who was well-read and an avid sports fan. Louisell was known for winning some of Detroit's most notorious cases. He earned respect for bringing acquittals or reduced sentences for many local crime figures. He lived in the same Grosse Pointe Park neighborhood with many of Detroit's top-ranking mob figures. Their kids even went to school together.

"I want to talk with you about your suspension, Alex. The NFL meets in Miami next month. Have you made any plans regarding your reinstatement?"

"No, Rozelle wants me to drop my interest in the bar and I can't afford to do that."

"I've thoroughly checked out your bar activities.... You're as clean as snow."

"Tell that to Rozelle!"

"Give me the okay and I'll represent you."

"I can't afford you, Joe."

Over 65% of Joseph Louisell's law practice was devoted to civil and corporate law. That's how he and partner Ivan Baris made their money, but that bored Louisell. Joe would take some cases pro bono (free) if they interested him. Winning several high-profile defense cases helped build his reputation. Louisell was a diehard Lions fan, as were other interested parties who wanted to see Karras back in a Lions uniform, but they preferred to remain anonymous not wanting to prejudice the case against him.

"I'll take your case pro bono. I want to see you back on the gridiron, Alex. Here's my argument."

Louisell cited a provision in Michigan liquor licensing that states if your name appears on a Michigan liquor license, you can't sell your business for one year--by law. That includes taverns and liquor stores.

"What does that mean for me?"

"Were you to sell your interest in the bar business, you can 't get another liquor license for three years. We can sue them for lost wages if they force you to sell your stake in the Lindell, and they don't reinstate you."

Louisell told Alex to quit working at the bar, return to his family in Clinton, Iowa, maintain a low profile, and most of all, do not speak with the press. "Wait for my phone call," Louisell emphasized. In late January, Louisell made sure Karras' formal reinstatement appeal was on Commissioner Pete Rozelle's desk.

NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle

In early March, Louisell and Karras went to meet with Commissioner Rozelle at his New York offices. After waiting for almost an hour in a reception room, the two men were led into the commissioner's office where Rozelle on the phone ignored them for some minutes. With Karras about to storm out of the office in frustration, Louisell calmed him down and told Rozelle to get off the phone, "This man's life is important."

Cutting short his phone call, Rozelle said, "Okay, Mr. Louisell, I'm listening."

Louisell explained that gambling is as intrinsic to professional football as the two-pointed pigskin, and Rozelle knew it. NFL football gambling existed on every level of American society and occurred weekly in office and factory pools, in Las Vegas sports betting parlors, and with private wagers made by John Q. Public--most of it innocent enough.

"You've unjustly punished Alex Karras for a year. My advice to you is make a decision within a week. If it's negative, I will tear the NFL apart." Louisell and Karras rose promptly from their seats and left the commissioner to think it over.

Rozelle knew any bad publicity with a headline-hungry press was not good for the league. He also knew that Louisell was not some ambulance-chasing shyster. His client list included many of Detroit's most notorious power-players including Jimmy Hoffa and the Giacoloni brothers. The last thing the NFL wanted was a media circus broadcast nationwide.

On March 16, 1964, both Green Bay Packer Paul Horning and Detroit Lion Alex Karras were reinstated. The NFL issued a statement saying both men bet on football games but never against their own teams, and there was no evidence either man performed less than his best in any football game.

"After personal discussions with each man, the commissioner is satisified that they have a clear understanding of the seriousness of their offenses," said an NFL spokesman. Nothing was mentioned about Karras' co-ownership of the Lindell AC sports bar.

***

In a 1969 interview with Sport magazine writer Lou Proto, Karras was led into the subject of his 1963 suspension. "It is my understanding," said Proto, "that you had to sell your interest in the Lindell AC when ordered by Pete Rozelle."

"I kept it for five more years."

"How did you manage that?"

"It was a verbal thing. If Rozelle would have claimed something illegal was going on at the Lindell, he would have been slapped with a lawsuit."

"Then, you were lying when you told Rozelle in 1964 that you sold your interests in the bar?"

"Lying to whom? The guy who was trying to screw me?"

Karras was outspoken but not altogether candid in the interview. He didn't care; he knew the end of his football career was near, and he had already shifted his career trajectory into show business by signing a contract with Hannah-Barbera Productions--already appearing in the TV series Daniel Boone with Fess Parker and a western named The Hard Case with Clint Walker.

William Clay Ford

Recently, Mel Butsicaris revealed to me what really happened. His father Johnny went to see Lions owner William (Bill) Clay Ford. He told Bill Ford if he ever wanted to see Karras in a Lions' uniform again, he needed to lend him and his brother Jimmy the money to buy out Karras' share of the Lindell. They put up their sports bar as security, cut a deal, and Ford had his lawyers write up the promissory note. It took the Butsicaris brothers five years to pay off the loan.

"My dad paid the last installment to Bill Ford personally and took the promisory note, twisted it up, and set one end on fire to light his cigar."

Although I can appreciate the symbolic gesture, the researcher in me regrets that this piece of documentation when up in smoke.

More background on Joseph Louisell

Karras NFL Suspension--Part One 

Karras NFL Suspension--Part Two

Alex Karras' NFL Gambling Suspension--Part Two of Three

Anthony Giacalone - Vito Giacalone - Odus Tincher

On August 18, 1962, Detroit crime figures Tony and Vito Giacalone and a few of their friends--including Jimmy and Johnny Butsicaris--went to Cleveland in their private bus to see the Lions play the Browns in an exhibition game. Jimmy and Johnny shared the driving chores. After the game, Jimmy invited Alex Karras and his teammate John Gordy to return to Detroit on the luxury bus instead of uncomfortable team-provided transportation. As team protocol required, they asked Lion's head coach George Wilson for approval, which he gave.

Karras and Gordy entered Vito Giacalone's renovated Detroit Street Railways (DRS) bus. The exterior was painted in the Detroit Lion's team colors of silver and Honolulu blue. The inside of the former municipal bus was gutted and refurbished with two comfortable couches set across from each other between the bus's doors. A rectangular table could be lowered between the couches from the ceiling for eating or playing cards. A compact bar and a curtained platform with a double bed was situated in the back of the bus. Giacalone was permitted to park the bus behind the Lindell AC when not in use. In return, Jimmy and Johnny occasionally borrowed the bus for family vacations. It was a simple handshake agreement among friends.

Bus layout sketch by Mel Butsicaris.

 

The football players were welcomed aboard with a chilled beer before settling in to play cards for the return trip to the Lindell AC, with an FBI cruiser tailing them all the way back to Detroit. The next morning, Lions' general manager Andy Anderson summoned Karras into his office.

"The FBI reported to Police Commissioner Edwards that you and John Gordy rode back from yesterday's game in a 'party bus' with undesirable elements who do not belong in a professional football player's life. Your bar partners--known gamblers--were also on the bus."

"So what?"

"We've had this conversation before, Karras. Drop your interest in the Lindell AC. That's final!"

"Mr. Anderson, do me a favor."

"What?"

"Trade me!"

Alex Karras--Just a pawn in a world he didn't understand?

 

On January 9, 1963, The Detroit News broke the story of the "hoodlum-operated party bus." The next day, NBC News wanted to interview Karras about the bus ride and the gambling charges that they discovered the NFL was investigating.

The Butsicaris brothers counseled Alex against granting the interview, but he was characteristically headstrong. Karras was guileless and expected everyone else to be that way. With the conviction of the righteous, Karras agreed to the NBC interview which was taped on January 13th. Towards the end of the thirty-minute interview, Karras was asked if he ever bet on sporting events. He glibly answered, "Yes, I do, with my brothers for a cigar or a pack of cigarettes."

When the interview was edited for broadcast, all that anybody heard was the sound bite of Karras answering "Yes, I do" coming from his own mouth. From there, the quote went to the wire services and was distributed nationwide to newspaper, radio, and television outlets. Alex was blindsided by NBC News.

With the end of the regular season, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, a league attorney, and a stenographer held a meeting with Karras. Alex believed gambling was a part of Greek ethnic character. From the age of fifteeen, he hung out with his older brothers in the Fifth Avenue Pool Room in Gary, Indiana. He bet on pool and played cards for entertainment. Everyone he knew did. "I never thought it was sinful and never attempted to hide it or felt the need to do so," he explained to Rozelle.

"Did you ever gamble on NFL games?"

"Never more than $50 a game and never against the Lions. I haven't thrown any football games, and I don't have ties with gangsters. This whole incident is being blown out of proportion."

Even after offering to take a lie-detector test, Karras was suspended for the 1963 football season and fined $2,000 for betting on the Green Bay Packers/New York Giants championship game. The Detroit Lions were fined $4,000 for minimizing information concerning "undesirable associations" and allowing questionable people to sit on the Lions' bench during games.

The Lions' fine was aimed directly at Jimmy Butsicaris, who was often seen on the bench. In addition to being a tavern owner, Jimmy had a weekly radio sports show in Detroit called Sportstalk on WXYZ-AM radio. He had a press pass authorizing him to have team and field access.

Karras told a Detroit Free Press reporter on January 18, 1963, "I must be the most naive guy in the world. How could I get myself in a mess like this when I know I didn't do anything wrong?" In the meantime, Karras settled into his suspension and learned the bar business from the ground up.

End of Part Two

Karras Gambling Suspension Part One 

Karras Gambling Suspension Part Three

Alex Karras' NFL Gambling Suspension--Part One of Three

Detroit Lion tackle Alex Karras

The trouble started in 1961 when reports of Detroit Lion Alex Karras' gambling on professional sports and associating with underworld figures reached the desks of Lions owner William (Bill) Clay Ford and NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle. Detroit police commissioner George Edwards and the local FBI had Karras under surveillance for a year because of his association with Jimmy and Johnny Butsicaris and his co-ownership of the popular Lindell AC (Atheletic Club) sports bar.

Alex Karras met the Butsicaris brothers soon after he arrived in Detroit to play for the Lions. The bar was known for its legendary hamburgers and walls festooned with sports memorabilia. It became a hangout for sports writers, sports fans of every stripe, and shady characters who enjoyed rubbing elbows with local team players like everyone else did.

Some of these characters happened to be professional gamblers. Karras liked the place because the owners were Greek and their place reminded him of his hometown Gary, Indiana. The Lindell AC was his refuge where he could relax and relate to people.

Johnny and Jimmy Butsicaris

 
Karras became a regular customer and was befriended by the brothers. When their bar opened in 1949, Meleti Butsicaris and his sons each owned one-third of the business. After their father died, the brothers asked Karras if he would like to buy their father's share, so they could move the bar to a better location down Michigan Avenue and renovate an available property. For a $45,000 buy-in, Karras became a partner.

To compound gambling suspicions against Karras, his favorite restaurant in Detroit was The Grecian Gardens in Greektown. Gus Colacasides was the owner and basically the patriarch of all local Greeks in Detroit. Karras liked the authentic Greek food and the atmosphere and went there weekly. I can personally vouch for the quality of their food.

The restaurant's late night clientele included gamblers, bookies, and ranking underworld figures. Some pretty tough customers would see Karras and come up and shake his hand and strike up a sports conversation. At the heart of it, they were sports fans and Karras was a Lion celebrity. Soon, he felt like one of the boys.

All the while, Karras was under police surveillance everywhere he went. In 1962, the general manager of the Lions Andy Anderson summoned Karras into his office and cautioned him about being in the bar business with the Butsicaris brothers. "They're gangsters and hoodlums--stay away from them."

"The Hell I will!"

"If you stay in the bar business with them, the Lions will take steps."

"Tell Bill Ford that I need the work because I can't raise my family on the lousy $12,000 a season he pays me."

For the first few years of his NFL career, Karras wrestled "professionally" in the off-season as part of a masked tag team attraction to make financial ends meet. Now that he had a growing family, he was tired of travelling every weekend throughout the Midwest.

Karras had known Jimmy and Johnny Butsicaris for two years and knew they were not connected to organized crime. They were hard-working saloon owners, and these alleged "gangsters" were their customers. It was free enterprise and that wasn't a crime.

But then there was the issue of Karras and a fellow teammate John Gordy riding home after an exhibition game against the Cleveland Browns on a "party bus" owned by Vito Giacalone, but it was registered to Odus Tincher--a retired DSR bus driver, known gambler, and former convict. The Giacalone brothers were also known gamblers and underworld crime figures connected with the Detroit Partnership (Mafia). The Detroit Police and the FBI wondered why the party bus was often parked in back of the Lindell AC when not in service.

End of Part One

Karras Gambling Suspension Part Two 

Norman "Turkey" Stearnes, Mack Park, and the Detroit Stars

Norman "Turkey" Stearnes

The Negro National League (NNL), America's first successful Black baseball league, was the brainchild of Andrew "Rube" Foster, who was born in Calvert, Texas in 1879. He grew up playing sandlot baseball in the Deep South. A gifted pitcher, Foster was a much sought after player for neighborhood and regional teams. He became a vagabond ballplayer and barnstormed throughout the South, scratching out a living on the mound rather than the land. Like many Black Americans, Foster was drawn to the North by the Great Migration for jobs and a better life.

In 1910, Foster had the foresight to realize that the Chicago area, and other Midwestern cities had sizeable Black populations which could support their own city teams. He organized, owned, and managed the Chicago American Giants. The American Giants were a barnstorming team that picked up games whenever and wherever they could, or they hosted exhibitions which allowed local teams and factory teams to compete against a professional team and split the gate profits after expenses were paid out.

Rube, as he became known professionally, also pitched for the American Giants until 1916. At the age of thirty-seven, his weight became a problem, and he lost his snap. Foster decided to hire younger men to take over the hurling chores, so he could devote his full attention to managing and scheduling the team.

When World War I ended in 1919, Foster acted on his dream to create a professional Negro league modeled after the White major leagues. He installed a new team in Detroit and hired known numbers [illegal lottery] operator John T. "Tenny" Blount to manage the team which Foster dubbed The Detroit Stars. Foster also owned the Dayton Marcos from Dayton, Ohio; he hired someone to manage that team for him also. From these three charter teams, the fledgling NNL was born. Soon four other teams rounded out the league though teams came and went over the life of the league.

For the next decade, the Detroit Stars played at Mack Park on Fairview and Mack Avenues in the middle of a White, working-class, German neighborhood on Detroit's near Eastside. It was a short four-mile trolley ride from Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood to the ball park. The Stars performed before mixed crowds and had fans on both sides of the color line.

Mack Park was constructed in 1914 by Joe Roesink, an avid sports fan from Grand Rapids, who ran a chain of successful haberdasheries [men's clothing stores]. He leased his field to the NNL Detroit Stars, so Detroit could have its own Black team. Roesink also got 25% of the gate.

On most weekends, as many as 8,000 people could be squeezed into the bleachers with another 2,000 in the grandstand. The ball park was a single-decked structure made of fir lumber planking and tin sheeting over the grandstand. The expensive seats were padded stadium seats under the grandstand. The cheap seats were in the bleachers where spectators had to contend with the elements and teeming crowds. Surprisingly, crowds tended to get along well for the most part. 

Mack Park was a left-handed hitters' ball park. Right center field was 279' from home plate, the right field power alley was only 265'. The left field fence was 358', left center field was 390', and center field was 405'. Statistics indicate that NNL batters hit 128% more home runs in Mack Park than in any other Negro league park. Soon, the Stars were to have their first superstar who would take full advantage of that.

***

In an aside, on Sunday, July 7, 1929, the Detroit Stars were to play a double-header against the Kansas City Monarchs. Two days of heavy rain had soaked Mack Park. Owner and operator John Roesink wanted to get these two games in before he had to issue rain checks and lose money. The skies cleared and 2,000 fans were inside the ball park anxious to see some good baseball. 

Standing water surrounded first and second base. A common practice in those days was to use blazing gasoline to evaporate standing water. [Wouldn't spreading sand be safer and more effective?]

Roesink telephoned a nearby gas station ordering 40 gallons of gas, but the ball park did not have an approved storage tank for that amount, so they filled eight, five-gallon gas cans and stored them under the grandstand along the first base line where the team club houses and the ground keeper's lodging were.

Two gas cans were taken to the infield and emptied on the standing water around first and second base. Before the field was set ablaze, an explosion was heard under the grandstand and someone shouted "FIRE!" Smoke and fire began to rise from the stands and a full-blown panic broke out. 

Only three days after the 4th of July, it seems likely someone threw a powerful firework like an M-80 or Cherry Bomb under the stands, but the fire marshal surmised someone dropped a hot cigarette butt under the stands starting the blaze. That theory did not explain the many reports of an explosion and a cloud of black smoke rising before the conflagration. Nobody was ever charged with arson.

Fans were trapped in the stands by a chicken wire barrier to protect them from stray foul balls. Quick-thinking ball players pulled down the wire barrier with some difficulty, allowing fans to pour onto the field, but they were now stuck on the gasoline soaked field. Players from both teams bravely battered down a section of wooden wall enclosing the ball park so fans could escape the flames.

Sixty-one people went to the hospital with thirty cases of broken arms, legs, and other injuries. Miraculously, nobody lost their life. Damage to the park was estimated to be $12,000. Five cars were also lost in the fire. The Stars played out the rest of their season at Dequindre Field at Dequindre and Modern streets on Detroit's far Eastside.

For the 1930 season, Roesink built a new $30,000 ball park for the Stars in Hamtramck, Michigan, located at 3201 Dan Street. Originally named Roesink Stadium, this ball park had a 315' left field fence and a 407' right field fence. Now, right-handed batters had the homerun advantage. Soon, the ball park became known as Hamtramck Stadium.

2022

***

Over the lifetime of The Detroit Stars, many great ballplayers donned the uniform, but one player stood above the rest as the Stars' greatest player. His name was Norman "Turkey" Stearnes from Nashville, Tennessee. The agile and quick Stearnes played first base and pitched for the semipro Southern Negro League in 1920 for the Montgomery Grey Soxs and in 1921 for the Memphis Red Soxs. Scouts from Detroit liked what they saw in the left-handed thrower and batter.

Detroit Stars management offered Stearnes a contract for the 1922 season, but he turned it down so he could finish high school at the age of twenty-one. When his father died, Norman Stearnes had to quit school and get a job to help his mother support their family. But Stearnes returned when he could and graduated late. In 1922, he earned his diploma, much to the joy of his mother. She was determined that Norman get an education. 

The achievement is all the more remarkable because in the 1920s, most males and females of both races quit school in the eighth grade when they were fourteen so they could get working papers. Times were always hard and money was to be made.

Stearnes signed with the Detroit Stars for the 1923 season at $200 a month. He soon earned the nickname "Turkey" because of the peculiar way he ran with his arms flapping. But in a foot race, at 5'11" and 175#s, Stearnes was one of the fastest men in the league.

He sported broad shoulders and had a powerful, whiplike swing that could connect with the ball and hit home runs to any field in any park he played in. Remember that in the 1920s and 1930s, baseballs were not as wound tightly and less lively than they are in today's game. When Turkey Stearnes hit a long ball, the leather sphere cried out in pain.

Satchel Paige is considered one of the greatest pitchers of all time in any league.

Turkey Stearnes' upper body strength, quick reflexes, and good batting eye made him a threat at the plate. Legendary hurler for the Kansas City Monarchs Satchel Paige called Turkey Stearnes "one of the greatest hitters in the Negro leagues, as good as anybody who ever played baseball. I feared him more than any other hitter."

The Stars shifted Stearnes to center field where his speed and wide-ranging fielding ability could cover a lot of ground. Most of the real estate in Mack Park was in center field and he owned it.

Turkey Stearnes' career statistics boast a .349 lifetime batting average, 186 league homeruns, 129 stolen bases, 997 runs batted in, and a .617 slugging percentage. Stearnes is the only professional baseball player to lead his league in triples for six years. Five times he was chosen for the Black All-Star Game, twice he was the NNL batting champion. On November 7, 1987, Stearnes was inducted into the Michigan African American Sports Hall of Fame along with boxer Sugar Ray Robinson.

As a player, Turkey Stearnes was detached, colorless, and cooly efficient. Unlike other players, he did not enjoy the spotlight and rarely spoke more than a phrase or a brief sentence. Off the field, he did not smoke, drink, chase women, or keep irregular hours. Stearnes donned the Detroit Stars uniform for eleven seasons. Longer than any other player, and unlike most of the Detroit Star players, he lived in Detroit in the off season with his wife.

In the off season, rather than barnstorm like other players to earn extra money, Stearnes worked in Walter Briggs' automobile body factory at Harper Avenue and Russell Street as a spray painter and a wet sander. He could make steady money that way and spend more time with his wife Nettie Mae.

After working from late autumn through early April, Stearnes left for spring training in 1927, only days before a fire burned down the block-long Briggs factory. From then on, Stearnes worked the off-season in the foundry at Henry Ford's Rouge Plant until he retired from baseball and worked there full time. 

After Stearnes passed away, his wife Nettie Mae worked tirelessly to get her husband into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, where some of Turkey Stearnes' contemporaries like Rube Foster, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Ray Dandridge and Satchel Paige were already installed. She told the Detroit Free Press, "It's not for me or my daughters' sake, it is for Norman. He deserves it."

Baseball Hall of Fame Plaque

When the Detroit Tigers moved to Comerica Park in 2000, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes was finally honored with a bronze plaque mounted outside the stadium at the center field gate. Although meant as a tribute to Stearnes by the Tiger management, many Detroit African Americans wondered aloud what it was going to take to get Turkey Stearnes inside the ballpark. There is also a display honoring Stearnes along the third base concourse at The Corner Ballpark, the site of the old Tiger Stadium at Michigan Avenue and Trumbull.

Joyce Stearnes Thompson at a preservation ceremony for Hamtramck Stadium proudly displaying a photo of her father.

Norman "Turkey" Stearnes was finally elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame in 2000, sixty years after his career ended and twenty-one years after his death on September 4, 1979, Norman "Turkey" Stearnes was elected along with former Tiger manager Sparky Anderson. 

In Comerica Park's center field, a NNL flag flies commemorating the Negro league, and during every Negro League Weekend at Comerica Park, Stearnes' daughters Roslyn Stearnes Brown and Joyce Stearnes Thompson sing the National Anthem.

Early Detroit Tiger History