Tigers Opening Day without a ticket

It was a cold opening day in downtown Detroit, but the fans and the win made it a little warmer inside my heart.  I was able to venture downtown to witness the craziness that surrounds the holiday of Tigers Opening Day.

I will admit that I did not get up and head down early like I planned.  In fact I was driving through downtown trying to find a (free) parking space around first pitch time.  I would usually have parked at the Greektown Casino but the line was long and only one of the structures was open.  Instead I went a little further out of the way to the Eastern Market parking (which is also free) and walked a little further towards Comerica.  While driving around I did get a lot a few pictures of just how crazy some of the sights were, and how expensive parking near Comerica was.  Do the prices change on opening day?  In front of the ballpark was almost like a state fair atmosphere with booths, vendors, food and activities.

After parking I walked about 10 minutes back into the Foxtown area and the ballpark down Brush St. to the Ellwood Bar.  It looked as though my chances of getting in to the park, not to mention a fine dining establishment while the game was going was very slim.  Other places I tried to get in were the Old Shillelagh and Cheli's Chili.  For a moment I thought about joining some fans trying to climb the fence for a peek, but decided against it.

Luckily during about the fourth inning I wondered into a place called Shotz at Greektown where I met my brother and some of his friends.  It was still extremely hard to get a beer if you did not have a seat at the bar but I could tell the staff was working as hard as they could given the circumstances.  The word around was that if you had a waitress it could take 1 hour to get food!  I will say they had ample standing room and plenty of TV's to catch the opening day action.

If I had to do it again I would definitely get downtown earlier to stake out a seat or seats before the game started.  I would also like to get actual tickets to the game but don't want to pay inflated food and beverage prices inside Comerica.