Detroit mourns the death of Mike Ilitch.
The former minor-league baseball player and Marine turned global pizza tycoon who came to own the Detroit Tigers and Red Wings, died Friday at the age of 87.
He turned modest beginnings into a business empire led by the Little Caesars pizza chain he co-founded with his wife Marian in Garden City back in 1959.
Today the chain boasts more than 4,000 locations and is the world’s largest carry-out pizza chain, .
Ilitch was born in Detroit on July 20, 1929,
He graduated from Detroit Cooley High School in 1947, and served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps. After the military, he worked for a cement company, sold dinnerware and in a foreshadowing of things to come, made pizzas. But his first love was baseball. he ended up acquiring the tigers, and eventually building Comerica Park.