For the Detroit Tigers and Guardians, this could be the start of a beautiful hatred

CLEVELAND – As the drone flies, Cleveland and Detroit are 90 miles apart, 30 miles less than the distance between Detroit and Battle Creek. Ninety minutes in the car if you plan. However, if you were to plan the shortest route from The D to The Land, you would get wet.

Perhaps it is the Great Lake (Erie) between these cities that has kept their sports teams – and fans – from a true rivalry over the years. Because let’s be serious: These two sports cities with similar histories and atmospheres, not to mention proximity, should despise each other.

Or maybe it’s because you have to drive around the lake to get from here to there or from there to here, making the cities seem further apart than they are. Which is strange considering how similar each place is in temperament, appearance and roots.

Detroit is bigger, more populous and older – we can thank the French in 1701 for that. But Cleveland is hardly Las Vegas; Moses Cleaveland (yes, that’s right) founded the city in 1796.

HISTORY OF THE TAPE: Detroit Tigers vs. Cleveland Guardians in the 2024 MLB Playoffs: Who comes out on top in the long rivalry?

Cleveland built railroads and produced steel and iron. Detroit built ovens and eventually automobiles, no doubt relying on steel and iron from across the lake.

Each is home to famous musicians and experienced a decline in production in the 1970s. Each of them became the nation’s punchline. The cities are brothers, sisters, or at least cousins, and if it weren’t for the random decision-making of team owners, they could be the kind of sports rivals their shared history suggests.

That brings us to the ALDS, which begins Saturday at Progressive Field. For the first time in their shared history, the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Guardians will meet in the postseason.

This is amazing. This is even more true because the Tigers have played the Guardians more than any other team, and the Guardians have played the Tigers more than any other team.

A total of around 2,326 matches – that’s a lot of games in my opinion.

Could this series – finally – be the start of a wonderfully antagonistic relationship?

Who could give a better answer than Tigers manager AJ Hinch, who said the following when asked on Friday:

“For us, this will be the best commute in my playoff history…it’s a 15-20 minute flight across the lake. So this will be unique. I also think that you have two organizations that are built from within. Detroit is a city built on sand. We say it all the time because we live it. Cleveland is obviously a very good city, very proud of its sports teams, including the Guardians, who have been really good at getting to and being in the playoffs and not too far from the World Series.”

Note that the first thing he mentioned was distance. Or rather, commuting time. For anyone who has ever flown from city to city, the shortness of the journey is always surprising.

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Of course that shouldn’t be the case, we know how close the cities are – theoretically. But this physical closeness remains hidden in the subconscious because sport hasn’t really connected our teams for decades.

Things might have been different if the Browns had not been admitted to the AFC following the NFL-AFL merger in 1970. Before the change, the Lions and Browns met regularly and played for the NFL championship four times in the 1950s.

The Lions won three of those games, giving The Land every reason to hate its neighbor to the (slight) north. Imagine if the teams played each other twice here and there every fall, like the Lions play the Bears, Packers and Vikings?

Instead, the Browns get two dates with the Steelers, and Pittsburgh, 134 miles southeast of Cleveland, has become that city’s modern — and most heated — rival, although it admittedly has a similar tradition in its blue-collar history.

There were other expressions of contempt between the Detroit and Cleveland sports teams. Rick Mahorn, the Bad Boys’ famed enforcer, once elbowed Cavaliers point guard Mark Price, giving him a concussion. The All-Star guard missed two games in March 1989 and wasn’t quite the same when he returned.

The Cavaliers were the class of the Eastern Conference that regular season, but fell behind the Pistons after the incident and lost to the Chicago Bulls in the first round of the playoffs when Michael Jordan hit “The Shot.”

The Cavaliers quickly faded over the next few seasons and the Pistons won two titles. A generation later, LeBron James upset a struggling Detroit team when he scored 25 straight goals in the fourth quarter of Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals.

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The teams met twice more in later years, one win each time against Cleveland, each time when the Cavaliers were clear favorites and the Pistons were hardly title contenders. In other words, there wasn’t enough at stake.

When it comes to rivalries, timing ruins everything. The Goin’ to Work crew was getting older, James was young and up-and-coming, and at the height of both teams’ dominance, their paths never crossed.

Equal stakes are essential for developing rivalries. When one side dominates the other, where’s the fun – and the chance to hate?

And that makes the start of this series particularly tantalizing for the Tigers and the Guardians, and shows what a tight, strict ALDS could offer for a pair of near-twin cities that deserve the chance to loathe each other.

As Hinch said on Friday, these are “two proud cities in a large part of the country, more in summer than winter.” I enjoy this natural rivalry between young teams. You will see crowded stadiums on both sides. It’s good for baseball.”

It’s also good for Detroit and Cleveland. It took a long time.

Contact Shawn Windsor: [email protected]. Follow him @shawnwindsor.

For the Detroit Tigers and Guardians, this could be the start of a beautiful hatred

ByJasper

By Jasper

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