MAY 13 • 2021 | 43
T
hey weren’t born in 1999, when the
Detroit Tigers played their final
game at Tiger Stadium after calling
the iconic ballpark home since 1912.
But the 14 players on the Frankel Jewish
Academy baseball team experienced the
aura of the magical place at Michigan and
Trumbull on a warm spring afternoon and
evening April 27 when they faced Detroit
Cristo Rey at The Corner Ballpark, where
Tiger Stadium once stood.
The Jaguars were swept in the Catholic
League doubleheader at the Willie Horton
Field of Dreams.
They fell 11-9 in the first game despite
coming from behind several times. Cristo
Rey won the nightcap 22-5 as FJA ran out
of pitching.
The scores really didn’t matter.
“
After the second game, under the lights
there, we gathered as a team and I told the
guys to take it all in, take a breath,
” said FJA
coach Joe Bernstein.
“I think their parents were more excited
about being where Tiger Stadium once was
than they were.
“So I told the guys they just played where
Ty Cobb and Hank Greenberg played.
Where the Tigers won the final game of the
1984 World Series. Who else can say that?
“For me, it was great seeing people who
live in the apartments down the right field
line watch us play from their patios. There
they were. Spending their afternoon watch-
ing Frankel Jewish Academy play Cristo
Rey in a high school baseball game.
”
Junior Benji Schmeltz pitched and played
shortstop for the Jaguars during the double-
header. Junior Daniel Bernstein, the coach’s
son. played first base for FJA.
Not surprisingly, the teens were more
impressed with the ambiance of The Corner
Ballpark — the turf, below-field-level dug-
outs and views of the city — than the histo-
ry of the site.
“It was so different than any high school
field I’ve played on,
” Schmeltz said.
“It was cool seeing Downtown Detroit
all around us. I also liked the dugouts. You
only see those kind of dugouts at a major
league or collegiate stadium.
”
Daniel Bernstein’s biggest memory from
the day was when the FJA team first took
the field after arriving The Corner Ballpark
quite a while before game time.
“It was great soaking it all in,
” he said.
Joe Bernstein isn’t a native Detroiter. He’s
from St. Louis. He made just one trip to
Tiger Stadium before it was shut down in
1999 and demolished in 2009.
That was in 1995, when he and his wife
were visiting his wife’s family.
He doesn’t remember the game, but
he does remember, like many Detroiters,
“walking across the bridge over the freeway
to get to the stadium, and my feet sticking
to the ground at our seats.
”
FJA was supposed to play Cristo Rey
last spring at The Corner Ballpark, which
opened in 2018, is home to Detroit Police
Athletic League teams, and next to the PAL
headquarters.
But spring high school sports were
canceled by the Michigan Department
of Health and Human Services and the
MHSAA because of the COVID-19 pan-
demic, wiping out the Jaguars’ first game at
The Corner Ballpark and Bernstein’s first
season as FJA
’s coach.
“Getting to play there [last month] was
Cristo Rey’s doing. We’re very thankful to
them,
” Joe Bernstein said.
“We hope we can play there again, maybe
as the home team. We don’t have a home
field. We’re always searching for a place to
play our home games.
”
While there are 14 players on the FJA
roster, only 12 played in the doubleheader
vs. Cristo Rey because two players were
injured.
This is a young Jaguars team, with only
two seniors and two juniors, and the rest
sophomores and freshmen.
Ari Partrich, one of the seniors, had two
hits in the first game against Cristo Rey.
So did Schmeltz. Freshman Ryan Schmeltz
pitched four strong innings.
The Jaguars won their first game in two
years May 3, beating Royal Oak Shrine
17-11 to improve their season record to 1-3.
“We’re building our program the right
way. We’re not taking shortcuts,
” Joe
Bernstein said. “I’m seeing leadership start-
ing to emerge, which is important.
”
A Doubleheader at
Michigan and Trumbull
Frankel Jewish Academy baseball team plays at
historic site of Tiger Stadium.
STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
FJA third
baseman Ethan
Baker snares a
ground ball hit
by a Cristo Rey
batter with his
bare hand.
FJA’s Ari Michaels
fouls off a Cristo
Rey pitch.
IMAGES BY BRIAN SEVALD
SPORTS