[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 71 (Friday, June 9, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E943-E944]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   BUILD IT RIGHT, AND THEY WILL COME

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. DAVID E. BONIOR

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 8, 2000

  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, we have often heard the phrase ``if you 
build it, they will come'' from the movie Field of Dreams. We have 
learned, however, that when it comes to baseball parks, we need to get 
it right--that delicate balance between the old and new. The new 
ballpark in the City of Detroit was a vision of the Ilitch Family and 
John McHale, the owners and president of the Detroit Tigers 
respectively--and I am pleased to say they got it right. From the 
statues of Tiger greats in the outfield to the tiger gargoyles on the 
outside, the new Comerica Park is a gem. Mr. Speaker, I had the 
fortunate opportunity to attend the dedication of the new park and was 
deeply touched by President McHale's comments. I now submit his remarks 
for the Record.

        McHale Remarks for April 8, 2000 Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

       Reverend Clergy, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends of our City, 
     Friends of the Detroit Tigers, Good Morning.
       Today marks for me a little more than five years since I 
     first came to you, unknown, uncredentialed, clad only in the 
     good will of the Ilitch family and your own charity to ask 
     for your help for the Detroit Tigers.
       Who knows what you must have thought and how many promises 
     for how many projects that came to little had been put to you 
     before. I look back then on my own impudence with humility 
     and the improbability of our success with laughter. But it 
     seemed to me then that the success of this adventure was 
     possible only if built upon the rock which is the spirit of 
     the people of the City of Detroit. However naively or 
     imperfectly I tried to express this, you already knew if 
     better than I.
       (In my middle years, I came upon a wood. . . .) You 
     welcomed us. You guided us. From validating our agreement and 
     financial partnership with the City, to providing us with 
     public fora, to assisting us in reaching the voters of the 
     City and then Wayne County, this project was nurtured in the 
     temples, mosques and churches of our community. And, as would 
     a parent, you gently and firmly gave us to understand how we 
     should do justice to the people of our community who helped 
     us give life to this dream. I want to pause to remember my 
     friend Morris Hood and to speak his name here with gratitude 
     and affection. With me, Morris was not so gentle but was 
     extremely firm concerning his expectations for this project. 
     He loved the Tigers and I hope he is proud of his city today. 
     From planning and hosting outreach meetings to recruiting 
     skilled tradeswomen and tradesmen to commending to our 
     attention new and established businesses, your communities of 
     faith have helped us at every step.
       Because our achievement has been so great, both 
     symbolically and in terms of steel, bricks and concrete, it 
     is tempting to consider today's celebration a conclusion. 
     That would be a profound mistake. It is a point of passage, 
     appropriate for brief rest, reflection and an occasion for 
     celebration, but just a stop on the long journey for all of 
     us toward our greater goals. It is not normally fashionable 
     in the business of professional sports to concede, much less 
     insist as we do today, that the partnerships of public and 
     private support required to produce such beautiful buildings 
     as Comerica Park ought to serve greater goods than our 
     success in the standings and on the balance sheet. But of 
     course this is so and this proposition has been joyfully 
     embraced by the Ilitch family since the establishment of 
     their entrepreneurial headquarters in this city in 1987 and 
     at the Detroit Tigers since its acquisition by Mike Ilitch in 
     1992. And, as surely as we have been guided and inspired by a 
     determination to restore our city to the material greatness 
     known by our parents and grandparents, so must we work to 
     make it St. Matthew's ``city on a mountain'' as renowned for 
     its goodness, economic opportunity and economic justice as 
     for the beauty of its buildings and the glory of its sports 
     clubs. So do we work, with an eye and an ear toward the 
     judgment of history.
       What do we wish men and women to say of our efforts a 
     hundred years from today? I hope that they will say we can 
     know three things about the people who built this building.
       First, that they loved their children. All ballparks are, 
     by definition, places of communal recreation and celebration 
     (subject to the occasional vagaries of on-field performance). 
     Bart Giamatti told us:
       ``The gods are brought back when the people gather. . . . 
     The acts of physical toil--lifting, throwing, bending, 
     jumping, pushing, grasping, stretching, running, hoisting, 
     the constantly repeated acts that for millennia have meant 
     work and to bound them in time or by rules or boundaries in a 
     green enclosure surrounded by an amphitheater or at least a 
     gallery (thus combining garden and city, a place removed from 
     care but in the real world) is to replicate the arena of 
     humankinds' highest aspiration. . . . `Winning' for player or 
     spectator is not simply outscoring. It is a way of talking 
     about betterment, about making oneself, one's fellows, one's 
     city, one's adherents, more noble because of a temporary 
     engagement of a higher human plane of existence.''
       This may be what grips a city as this one was gripped in 
     1968 and 1984 and will be again. This engagement is what 
     stamps in our mind the characteristics of human spirit 
     revealed in the heat of competition by our athletic heroes 
     like Greenberg, Kaline and Horton. The certainty that in 
     these metaphors we can teach important lessons of life: the 
     need for patience, the need to struggle, the need to bear 
     defeat without conceding to it and the need to view victory 
     as a transitory gift, is what led our parents and 
     grandparents to bring us to Navin Field, Briggs Stadium and 
     Tiger Stadium and is what will lead us to bring our children 
     and grandchildren to Comerica Park. Never has there been a 
     sporting field built to echo the joy of children and adults 
     at play. The stories and lessons of our shared history 
     abound. In one sense, Comerica Park is literally the most 
     magnificent playground ever built. In another, it is the 
     illustrated story of one hundred years of a part of Detroit's 
     history. In a third, its steel, concrete and bricks and its 
     focus on the skyline will reinforce in young minds their 
     parents' lessons of economic opportunity, the appropriate 
     role of professional sports in a larger civic context and the 
     importance of our city to our region, state and country.
       Second, I hope that they will say that these builders loved 
     their city.
       All of us, together, began a quest to breath new life into 
     the City of Detroit by building a ballpark, that is in ways 
     subtle and obvious is of the City of Detroit. It is here, of 
     course, bounded by the old city streets of Montcalm, 
     Witherell, Adams and Brush, physically connected to Grand 
     Circus Park, Harmonie Park and Brush Park. It represents over 
     $300 million worth of affirmation in the future and vitality 
     of downtown Detroit. It is made of materials that are almost 
     sacramental to our City, brick, steel, glass and concrete. 
     Its forms are echoes of the most beautiful in Detroit design 
     from the last century. Its exterior is graced by bands and 
     plaques of tile from the Pewabic Pottery on East Jefferson 
     Avenue. Comerica Park has been planned to nurture the 
     surrounding neighborhoods and to stimulate

[[Page E944]]

     new growth. Already, complimentary projects have begun and 
     more announced. Buildings unused for decades are being 
     renovated and that most precious sign of urban vitality, new 
     residential construction, is rising just to the north of us 
     in Brush Park. Very soon we will be joined by our even larger 
     neighbor, Ford Field, which will bring many hundreds of 
     thousands more of our metropolitan citizens downtown. This, 
     in turn, will stimulate even more of the desirable 
     development activity which we now see. Is all of this 
     happening because of Comerica Park? Of course not, but much 
     of it is. The good that we hoped for our city is coming to 
     pass because of the commitments we made to each other and the 
     work we began in 1995.
       Third, I hope that 100 years from now the citizens of 
     Detroit will look back upon us and say, ``They kept their 
     word.'' We came to you in 1995 and 1996 and promised that if 
     you would help us, we would ensure that at least 30% of the 
     estimated $245 million price of this project would represent 
     goods and services provided by minority, women-owned, small 
     and local businesses. At last report, the total percentage of 
     work performed by these businesses represented, 56%, nearly 
     double our promise. This has meant over $133 million in work 
     for these businesses who have performed so well in helping us 
     complete this project on schedule and on budget. It is worth 
     mentioning today that the first contract excavation work on 
     this project performed on September 4, 1997 was done by 
     Ferguson Enterprises, a minority business enterprise and the 
     final Tiger statue swung into place was manufactured by 
     Showmotion, Inc., a woman-owned business enterprise, 
     appropriate bookends for the good work of the City the 
     County, the City Council New Stadia Development Monitoring 
     Task Force (chaired for 4 years by Reverend Wendell Anthony), 
     the MMBDC, A3BC, the Minority Business Initiative, our 
     project team IFG, the Smith Group, HOK and H-T-W and hundreds 
     of individuals, without the work of each, these exemplary 
     results could never have been possible. We are confident that 
     beyond being sound construction decisions, these contractual 
     relationships will provide a basis for future prosperity, 
     contract capacity and public and industry recognition of 
     these businesses and will help continue cycles of prosperity 
     for these firms for many, many years.
       They loved their children, they loved their city, they kept 
     their word. It is to this judgment by the men and women of 
     the year 2100 that we rededicate ourselves and our 
     organization today and that we pledge as the tests of our 
     judgments and actions for as long as we are given to continue 
     the work of God and man that we began together at the birth 
     of the dream which is today Comerica Park. Thank you.

     

                          ____________________