Chances are you’ve heard his name, read his commentaries, listened to him on the radio, and seen him on television. He was a dynamic figure and a voice of reason throughout the Tiger Stadium debate. His charm and intelligence lent a tremendous amount of credibility to the cause of saving our beloved ballpark here in Detroit. His name was Lou Beer.
Sadly, Beer, 64, died unexpectedly on Saturday after attending a DSO concert at Orchestra Hall — a place he helped to save from the wrecking ball decades ago.
Beer, a Harvard graduate with a law degree from the University of Michigan, was a man of deep rooted convictions who was not afraid to speak his mind. In his early years of practicing law, Beer was involved in landmark Supreme Court cases that included public school integration. He was truly a master of persuasion.
When Lou talked, people listened. While engaged in debate, Beer didn’t use fear or intimidation methods; he simply overwhelmed people with his knowledge of the facts and the speed at which his mind worked. He was an idea machine — and he could crank them out faster than just about anyone else I have ever known.
I have been in meetings with Lou Beer where the entire room was against him out of the gate — and entirely on his side after he was done speaking. It was a unique talent and a truly impressive thing to see.
Our heartfelt sympathies go out to his wonderful family. Thank you, Lou, for all you did in your lifetime to try to make Detroit a better place for all of us. You will be greatly missed and never forgotten.
Bill Dow
Thank you Steve for the wonderful tribute to Lou Beer. He was truly a great guy and a wonderful person. He brought so much credibility, insight and direction to the effort to Save Tiger Stadium. People have no idea of the amount of time and effort he put in behind the scenes to save this important and historic site. It would be a great tribute to Lou to one day see a recognizable, renovated Navin Field and to once again hear the echoing sounds of a wooden bat hitting a ball at Michigan and Trumbull.–Bill Dow
Mike Beer
Two months have passed since my dad has left us and it seems as though the justice he sought with such fervor and passions has left too. Tiger Stadium was demolished out of the things my father despised the most: fear, greed and(most likely) corruption -there is a demolition boom in detroit and one company is getting rich at the behest of a certain someone. I and my family appreciate so much your kind words about dad. He will always be tied in my mind to the giant tube balloons and that ride up the creaky elevator up to the blue steel floors covered with peanut shells and then into the dark enclosed catwalk to get to the club section seats. The charm with the stadium was that it never changed, or at least it seemed to me. It was as though one was initiated in some ancient fraternity with hallowed traditions at a pantheon of old (antiquity in the perspective of a 9 year old). I always remember that the sounds would get louder as you emerged in the full light of the stadium and all the spectacle it contained. The usher was always there making haste to sweep off the seats and lead us to baseball bliss up front and personal, like a kids game. But the cathedral has been blitzed and sadly my children will sit behind plexiglass and hundreds of yards away from the players in a shallow bowl of development greed. There’s always Wrigley eh, dad?