“There’s a lot of disposable cash around, but it’s not intended for the right things or right people,” said Amzie Griffin, a vendor at Comerica Park, the downtown baseball stadium. “We need jobs for the city people, for the black folk.”

Mr. Griffin, still working at 79, is one of many people here worried about household bills and dismayed at publicly financed stadiums and inflated player contracts.

With gray hair peeking beneath his Tigers cap and bifocals balanced on his nose, Mr. Griffin occupies a rare perch in Detroit’s sports world. For more than a half-century, he has sold everything from popcorn to pennants. He worked at old Tiger Stadium and is now at Comerica, a sparkling $300 million stadium that opened in 2000. The public shouldered more than a third of its costs.

Last week, as the Tigers played the Oakland Athletics in the American League playoffs, Mr. Griffin arrived at work three and half hours before the first pitch to put on his uniform, as he has done for decades. He sold Tigers jerseys and tiny bats to fans, a predominantly white crowd of 44,000, many of whom drove in from the suburbs and drove out again after the ninth inning.

Mr. Griffin went to work last week ringing up merchandise, chatting with customers and sneaking peeks at the ballgame, but part of Detroit’s municipal work force stayed home because of an enforced furlough. The mayor’s office, the City Council, the Board of Ethics and the Finance Department’s purchasing division were all shuttered for the first of two furlough days scheduled in October. Much of the rest of the city was just as quiet. Buses ran late or not at all. Whole acres of downtown streets were vacant. Young men stood idle on street corners.