This is an amazing time for sports in Detroit. Not just for fans.

But the players.

Late Monday night, after a Tigers victory over the San Diego Padres, the TVs in the Tigers clubhouse in Comerica Park were tuned to the NBA playoffs, as the Pistons played the New York Knicks in Game 2 in Madison Square Garden.

Justyn-Henry Malloy, the Tigers outfielder, sat on a leather couch, facing the TVs, nerves twisting in his gut, knowing what it feels like to play in the postseason, knowing what it feels like to have that kind of pressure.

Against the wall, Kerry Carpenter was at his locker, head turned, watching intently, and he screamed with excitement as Dennis Schröder hit a 3-pointer with 56.3 seconds left to give the Pistons the lead, 97-94. 

“Give him the ball!” Carpenter screamed, walking toward the TVs, looking like, well, just about any sports fan in the Motor City.

“Bang!” Malloy yelled.

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Malloy exhaled and started celebrating, as the Pistons hung on for the 100-94 victory, their first playoff win since 2008, snapping a 15-game playoff losing streak.

“I was pumped,” Malloy said Tuesday afternoon.

The good news for the Tigers?

They have an off day on Thursday and several players, as well as Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, plan to go to Game 3 in Little Caesars Arena.

“I love where Detroit sports is at and it’s a blast being a part of a number of teams who are bringing thrilling sports moments to the city,” Hinch said on Tuesday. “This city deserves it, these fan bases – the majority of them overlap, in different seasons and different times of year, all get to enjoy these thrilling moments.”

And yes, these pro athletes become fans.

“We quickly become Lions fans, Pistons fans and Wings fans when we joined the city, and I love that our players are all in on it,” Hinch said. “They’re all making plans to go on Thursday. We have an off day. We’ll have a strong contingency there. I’m going to be there because when you’re all in on the city, these moments matter. These moments are remembered by fans and by players and these experiences stand out, specifically here in Detroit, because of how cool of a sports town this is.”

Yes, Hinch saw it last fall when the Tigers played in the playoffs at the same time the Lions were having a fantastic season on the way to the playoffs.

Now, as the Tigers are playing some great baseball, the Pistons are playing in the postseason.

“I’ve seen it now firsthand because we played in playoff games,” Hinch said. “But I feel it in the winter, during the Lions season. I’m feeling it during the Wings season. I’m feeling it during this Pistons run and I’m pretty proud to be part of the fabric of this city.”

Part of the fabric of the city.

That’s what these players have become. That’s what these teams are.

It’s like one giant rebirth.

“It’s awesome,” Carpenter said. “I’m a huge die-hard sports fan in general. So, it’s pretty cool to be an adopted Detroit sports fan now.”

Malloy has been to about six Pistons games this season – some in Detroit, one in Atlanta.

“I’m a big NBA fan; I’m a big Pistons fan, and it’s just cool to watch,” Malloy said.

There is a part of him that watches as a fan.

But there is another side of him.

“You can kind of relate in certain ways with those guys,” Malloy said. “Obviously, it’s a different sport, but you relate to the work and you relate to the atmosphere. I played in a playoff atmosphere last year. I know the emotions, the anxiety, the excitement that goes with that type of game. So it’s almost like I’m riding right there with them, knowing how it feels, knowing all that stuff.”

But there is something more. It’s something that ties these teams together.

It’s the Lions grit. And it’s these gritty Tigers, who made an improbable run last season. And it’s this Pistons team that has climbed from the cellar, an improbable journey of its own.

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“What I love is the resilience of that group,” Malloy said about the Pistons. “It’s very similar to kind of what we went through, going through some struggles, but to see them turning a corner and struggling one year and then having real success the next year, I can relate to that from a personal level and on a team level.”

Yes, that’s the part that unites all of them.

Understanding what it takes to go from the struggle to the success.

“Being able to kind of see that their growth from last year to this year, and to see the city’s growth too, with all those sports, it’s kind of like a sports revival in the city,” Malloy said. “So it’s cool to be here.”

So, yes, the Tigers will be rooting for the Pistons on Thursday night.

Because they are all part of the same fabric.

Cut from the same cloth.

Gritty. Resilient. And wanting to win for the D.

Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on X @seideljeff

DETROIT (AP) — Arborists are turning vacant land on Detroit’s eastside into a small urban forest, not of elms, oaks and red maples indigenous to the city but giant sequoias, the world’s largest trees that can live for thousands of years.

The project on four lots will not only replace long-standing blight with majestic trees, but could also improve air quality and help preserve the trees that are native to California’s Sierra Nevada, where they are threatened by ever-hotter wildfires.

Detroit is the pilot city for the Giant Sequoia Filter Forest. The nonprofit Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is donating dozens of sequoia saplings that will be planted by staff and volunteers from Arboretum Detroit, another nonprofit, to mark Earth Day on April 22.

Co-founder David Milarch says Archangel also plans to plant sequoias in Los Angeles, Oakland, California, and London.

What are giant sequoias?

The massive conifers can grow to more than 300 feet (90 meters) tall with a more than 30-foot (9-meter) circumference at the base. They can live for more than 3,000 years.

“Here’s a tree that is bigger than your house when it’s mature, taller than your buildings, and lives longer than you can comprehend,” said Andrew “Birch” Kemp, Arboretum Detroit’s executive director.

The sequoias will eventually provide a full canopy that protects everything beneath, he said.

“It may be sad to call these .5- and 1-acre treescapes forests,” Kemp said. “We are expanding on this and shading our neighborhood in the only way possible, planting lots of trees.”

Giant sequoias are resilient against disease and insects, and are usually well-adapted to fire. Thick bark protects their trunks and their canopies tend to be too high for flames to reach. But climate change is making the big trees more vulnerable to wildfires out West, Kemp said.

“The fires are getting so hot that its even threatening them,” he said.

Descendants of Stagg and Waterfall

Archangel, based in Copemish, Michigan, preserves the genetics of old-growth trees for research and reforestation.

The sequoia saplings destined for Detroit are clones of two giants known as Stagg — the world’s fifth-largest tree — and Waterfall, of the Alder Creek grove, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.

In 2010, Archangel began gathering cones and climbers scaled high into the trees to gather new-growth clippings from which they were able to develop and grow saplings.

A decade later, a wildfire burned through the grove. Waterfall was destroyed but Stagg survived. They will both live on in the Motor City.

Why Detroit?

Sequoias need space, and metropolitan Detroit has plenty of it.

In the 1950s, 1.8 million people called Detroit home, but the city’s population has since shrunk to about one-third of that number. Tens of thousands of homes were left empty and neglected.

While the city has demolished at least 24,000 vacant structures since it emerged from bankruptcy in 2014, thousands of empty lots remain. Kemp estimates that only about 10-15% of the original houses remain in the neighborhood where the sequoias will grow.

“There’s not another urban area I know of that has the kind of potential that we do to reforest,” he said. “We could all live in shady, fresh air beauty. It’s like no reason we can’t be the greenest city in the world.”

Within the last decade, 11 sequoias were planted on vacant lots owned by Arboretum Detroit and nine others were planted on private properties around the neighborhood. Each now reaches 12 to 15 feet (3.6 to 4.5 meters) tall. Arboretum Detroit has another 200 in its nursery. Kemp believes the trees will thrive in Detroit.

“They’re safer here … we don’t have wildfires like (California). The soil stays pretty moist, even in the summer,” he said. “They like to have that winter irrigation, so when the snow melts they can get a good drink.”

How will the sequoias impact Detroit?

Caring for the sequoias will fall to future generations, so Milarch has instigated what he calls “tree school” to teach Detroit’s youth how and why to look after the new trees.

“We empower our kids to teach them how to do this and give them the materials and the way to do this themselves,” Milarch said. “They take ownership. They grow them in the classrooms and plant them around the schools. They know we’re in environmental trouble.”

Some of them may never have even walked in a forest, Kemp said.

“How can we expect children who have never seen a forest to care about deforestation on the other side of the world?” Kemp said. “It is our responsibility to offer them their birthright.”

City residents are exposed to extreme air pollution and have high rates of asthma. The Detroit sequoias will grow near a heavily industrial area, a former incinerator and two interstates, he said.

Kemp’s nonprofit has already planted about 650 trees — comprising around 80 species — in some 40 lots in the area. But he believes the sequoias will have the greatest impact.

“Because these trees grow so fast, so large and they’re evergreen they’ll do amazing work filtering the air here,” Kemp said. “We live in pretty much a pollution hot spot. We’re trying to combat that. We’re trying to breathe clean air. We’re trying to create shade. We’re trying to soak up the stormwater, and I think sequoias — among all the trees we plant — may be the strongest, best candidates for that.”

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DETROIT (FOX 2) – A man will spend the next 30-60 years behind bars for a 2022 Detroit shooting that left three dead.

Jony Saad Alatto, 33, learned his sentence Monday after several surviving victims and loved ones of those murdered gave victim impact statements. 

The backstory:

According to previous court testimony, Alatto walked into a suspected drug house on Saratoga Street near Gratiot Avenue in August 2022, stole crack, and started shooting.

Two women were wounded, while three people, ages 76, 55, and 41, were killed.

“The only thing I want to know is why? Because my life will never be the same after that day,” said Yolanda Stringer, who survived being shot, during her victim impact statement.

Alatto was arrested two years later. He was charged with nearly two dozen crimes, but most of those charges were dismissed after he pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder.

“I let the drugs control my life,” Alatto said while apologizing during his sentencing.