Reprieve

There's reason for joy when the governor calls just before they put the needle in your arm, but how are you supposed to feel if the plunger on the syringe is halfway down when that phone rings? That's kind of what's happening with Tiger Stadium right now. A month after bulldozers starting carving out the old ballpark's heart, a tentative deal is in place giving the preservationists more time to to try and figure out how to save at least a portion of it:

After about two hours of haggling between preservationists and the Detroit Economic Growth Corp, Council President Kenneth Cockrel Jr. sent both groups into a private room and asked them to work something out. The result was a new agreement in which preservationists must create escrow accounts of $300,000 and $69,000 by Aug. 8, when the issue will be brought back to council.

The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy, a preservation group, also must get complete funding for a museum in place by March 1, 2009, under the agreement. The amount needed is about $15.6 million. The plan includes preserving the baseball diamond and 3,000 seats, and building a museum.

I suppose that's better than nothing, but of the fact remains that the Conservancy had all kinds of time to get that money together in the first place, but never did. Will they pull it off this time? Maybe. The images of a half-gutted Stadium may spur new donations that the mere fears of bulldozers could not for the past couple of years, but there are obviously no guarantees.

And if they don't? The longest disembowelment in recorded history will continue next spring.