Vitale, Kampe, fans of all stripes mourn Ilitch
detroitnews.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2017/02/10/vitale-kampe-fans-stripes-mourn-ilitch/97775356/
Tony Paul 2/10/2017
Long-time Oakland basketball coach and Detroit sports fan Greg Kampe remembered Mike Ilitch following his team's game against Detroit Mercy at Calihan Hall on Friday night. Tony Paul, The Detroit News
(Photo: Brandy Baker / Detroit News)
Detroit — A Detroit legend in his own right, Dick Vitale sat courtside Friday night at the place he once coached, Calihan Hall, scrolling through his phone and reading all the tributes to Mike Ilitch.
Ilitch, the longtime owner of the Tigers and Red Wings, died Friday at the age of 87. Vitale had met Ilitch decades ago, when Vitale was getting his start in coaching, and Ilitch was an up-and-coming pizza man.
“Just a guy who brought so much excitement to this area, a guy that had such a love for the Detroit area and the sports world,” said Vitale, who eventually left the city and prospered, as a star at ESPN — while Ilitch stayed and prospered in his hometown.
“May he rest in peace. I just learned about it.”
Vitale is a longtime baseball fan, and has season tickets to Tampa Bay Rays games near his home in Florida.
The Rays have long been one of the game’s most frugal teams. From afar, Vitale always envied how Ilitch would spend whatever it took to get the biggest stars.
“He gave you every opportunity to win, he gave his team all the resources and the necessary dollars,” Vitale said of a Tigers team that last season and this coming season carried a payroll of $200 million.
“That’s all you can ask for out of your owner. He stepped to the plate.”
The loss of Ilitch will be felt by so many, including some other longtime Detroit sports figures. 1/3 Greg Kampe, Oakland University’s basketball coach and an avid Detroit sports fan, got news of Ilitch’s death just before tip-off at Calihan Hall on Friday night.
“It’s a legend’s status that man has,” Kampe said.
Ilitch bought the Red Wings in 1982, and the Tigers a decade later.
He won four Stanley Cups with the Red Wings, but never got his Holy Grail, a World Series championship. The Tigers came close, reach two World Series, in 2006 and 2012, but lost badly both times.
Still, he oversaw one of the best runs in Tigers history, from 2006-14, when they made the playoffs five times.
“It would be difficult to properly state the amount of enjoyment that I have derived while Mike Ilitch owned the Tigers,” said fan Steve Butts, 44, of Lansing.
Butts cited the biggest move Ilitch made as Tigers owner, signing star — and future Hall-of-Fame — catcher Pudge Rodriguez to a fat contract in the winter of 2003-04, after the Tigers had just lost 119 games.
Rodriguez was coming off a World Series with the then-Florida Marlins. The move shook the baseball landscape, a superstar going from a champion to a chump. At that time, Detroit hadn’t had a winning season in a decade.
“To root on my Tigers, knowing Mr. I was doing everything in his power to ensure we fans were proud of our team, and the City of Detroit, was all I could ever ask for out of an owner,” said Ryan McDonald, 38, from Findlay, Ohio.
After the Rodriguez signing came the Magglio Ordonez signing, and then, prior to the 2006 season, the Kenny Rogers and Todd Jones signings.
Detroit had a storybook season in 2006, making the playoffs for the first time since 1987 and the World Series for the first time since 1984.
“Mr. I has allowed me to create lasting memories, which seemed impossible at times,” said fan Scott Drouillard, 40, of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. “I will never forget, and in fact have pictures hanging in my house to this day of my Dad and I going to both the Stanley Cup Finals and the World Series in Detroit. It’s impossible to imagine the reach and impact this man has had, but it’s not hard to imagine and respect the drive, determination and dreams he possessed.”
Not all fans were in love with Ilitch. Many didn’t appreciate that he moved the team from Tiger Stadium for a publicly financed Comerica Park.
A billionaire several times over, he also accepted public money for new Little Caesars Arena, which will house the Red Wings and Pistons starting this fall.
“But their success has been built upon the backs of residents who would have been better served by a billionaire who paid all the taxes he should have been assessed.”
But diehard fans of Detroit sports — the ones that cared only about championships, or championship runs — will remember him fondly.
“Mike Ilitch was passion for Detroit to me,” said University of Michigan student Zane Harding, 19, of Waterford. “Mike Ilitch made me feel always a bit more comfortable as a sports fan, knowing there will always be a strong team in Detroit as long as he is around. Mike Ilitch was a great uncle figure for Detroit.”
To others, he was a savior. Literally.
2/3 “If it wasn’t for his passion for Detroit, for the Tigers and Wings, I wouldn’t have a job,” said Colin Battershell, 32, a Detroit native now living in Center Line. “I’d still be homeless. A seasonal usher position may not seem like much, but when I moved back to Detroit, it was all I could find.”
He’s going on his sixth season with the Tigers, for whom he’s also an occasional tour guide.
“He’s made so much possible for people like me,” Battershell said.
Ilitch employed thousands over the years, bettering the lives of so many — Dan Dickerson among them.
Dickerson has been lead radio play-by-play man since 2003. It was a rough first year, but so many better ones have followed.
“I always remember after the 2003 season, at the end of the season ... picture day, and I think he’s genuinely embarrassed by having a 119-loss team at the end,” Dickerson said at halftime at Calihan Hall, where he was calling the Oakland-Detroit Mercy game on television. “He said, ‘This will never happen again.’ He was very emphatic, and you could just see it in his eyes: This will change.
“I remember exactly where I was when he bought the Tigers in the ’90s, and you’re excited because, ‘Hey, he did this with the Red Wings, he can bring the Tigers back.’ It took a while, probably longer than he wanted.
“But you saw the passion that he had for the Tigers and the commitment that he had, which was incredible.”
Dickerson’s lasting image of Ilitch always will be in the locker room, in Kansas City late in 2006, after the Tigers finally had clinched a playoff spot.
Ilitch then was in his late 70s, but he might as well have been 7.
“He was an owner and he was just like a kid in that moment, and he just let his hair down,” Dickerson said. “It was so much fun to see.” [email protected]
Twitter.com: @tonypaul1984
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