UPDATE: The Detroit Pistons are moving back to downtown Detroit in 2017 but read all about my memories of them in the 60’s and 70’s.
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The crowd at the Palace of Auburn Hills really gets into it when the announcer starts chanting “Dee-troit Basketball! Dee-troit Basketball!” While it is true that the cheer is in support of the Dee-troit Pistons, the Palace is in Auburn Hills in northern Oakland County about thirty miles north of downtown Detroit.
After leaving Ft. Wayne, Indiana more than sixty years ago, the Pistons landed at Cobo Arena in downtown Detroit along the riverfront. All of us, blacks and whites, have deep seeded memories of Cobo. Cookie mentioned that as a high school standout he played two games there in front of 8,000 fans each game.
Who can forget Dancin’ Gus Sinaris, one of the vendors, whose route was in the “yellows,” the highest and cheapest seats in the arena? Gus would get the crowd going by gyrating to a song that would come over the speaker system. The crowd would go crazy, many standing up to be like Gus. (There’s a whole section on Gus in this book that covers four decades of Detroit Pistons history.)
Dancing Gus Sinaris, a legendary vendor at Cobo, Olympia and Tiger Stadium, was a former boxer with a flat nose and would often perform silly dances for onlookers.
Cookie remembers walking up to get on the Hamilton bus that would drop him off nearly at the doorstep of the arena. Even though the Pistons were, for the most part, lackluster back then, it didn’t matter that much. We had an NBA team in the city that we could cheer on, dream about playing with, and afford to go to.
Spider, Mark Kronk, Joe Nowaske and I would try to attend every home opener as well as selected other games during the season. After being introduced to alcohol in college, we would bring in a variety of wine including Boone’s Farm Apple, Manichevitz, Mogen David, Spanada, and any other type that was cheap to buy. What headaches I had the next day after guzzling down that concoction!
I came to find out years later that one of our fellow Geezers was the organist at the games. That’s right, organist. Tyrone Hemphill was somewhere in the arena trying to incite the crowd with organ music. My favorite was when he began the opening notes of Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets.” He was well remembered – see this article where he’s named in #8.
But what happened? In the 1970s the Pistons moved out of the city to be temporarily housed at the Pontiac Silverdome where the Detroit Lions had moved. This 80,000 seat stadium was not conducive to basketball. You would need binoculars to see if the player was white or black. Subsequently, the Lions moved back to Ford Field in downtown Detroit, but the Pistons moved into their new arena the Auburn Hills Palace.
What did this do to the residents, particularly the black community, in the city of Detroit? Well, you were not going to be able to take the bus out to Auburn Hills; that’s for sure. Even if you could take a bus, bus riders in general could not afford a ticket to this luxurious arena. Basically what happened was that our Pistons no longer belonged to Detroiters. Cookie’s father was incensed and stated what most blacks thought. “The players are being forced to the plantation in Auburn Hills.” Why? Economics.
Basketball is primarily a black sport. They are good at it, and the black community follows it avidly. Yet their beloved sport is nowhere near them. Not many blacks live in Auburn Hills. Makes no sense especially when the Detroit Lions, the Detroit Tigers, and even the lily white Detroit Red Wings are in downtown Detroit.
Perhaps some day the Pistons will move back to the city. Until then we should chant, ”Auburn Hills Pistons! Auburn Hills Pistons!”
Cover photo credit: Hoops Manifesto
