Detroit Tigers bring rebirth as a baseball city

The leaves are falling, the air is cooling, and yet summer has magically extended. A tarp was torn from our city and green grass and brown dirt now cover our streets.

We’re a baseball town again.

The Detroit Tigers are moving into the playoffs. Phones will stream games. The radios are tuned. Morning cafes will be alive with conversations about relief pitchers and stolen bases.

And something old is new again.

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These are not your father’s tigers, children. But the feeling is. Believe it or not, we once expected something like this. The Tigers won the World Series in 1968, did it again in 1984, and made the playoffs every year from 2011 to 2014.

But that was a decade ago. And in sports, a decade is a century. Not only has it been so long since the postseason was over, it’s also been almost that long since Detroit’s baseball team won more than it lost.

Five years ago, the Tigers lost an impressive 114 games. Four years ago, they limped through a losing season shortened by the coronavirus pandemic. Three years ago AJ Hinch arrived and took them to 77 wins and 85 losses. The next year they took a step backwards. Last year they still lost six more than they won.

And this year? So. This year. There is almost no explanation. It was like watching a baby roll around in its crib from April to August, then suddenly jump up, pull itself over the bars, and sprint out the door.

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“They learned how to win, that’s the reality,” Hinch told reporters Friday night after the red-hot Tigers clinched the postseason with their 10th win in 11 games. “I know it was a big deal when we passed the 81-win mark because we were a winning team for the first time in a long time. But we’re not done yet. We can play more.”

Summer, longer.

An incredibly young squad

If you’re rubbing your eyes at this suddenly sun-kissed baseball team right now, know that they’re young and energetic and young and opportunistic and young and good on defense and great at one-run decisions and coming from behind and , also, oh yeah, young.

“They play like they don’t even know they’re in a race,” former Tigers manager Jim Leyland said last week. “They just go out there to win ballgames, and that’s what they do. … A lot of people thought, maybe not yet, not this year. But you know, after the collapse of some teams and the way we played, this is where we are.”

Leyland led the Tigers to the postseason 11, 12 and 13 years ago. These teams were expected to do well. These included experienced superstars such as Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Miguel Cabrera.

These tigers are not those tigers. These tigers would use these tigers to get them into R-rated films.

Riley Greene, Detroit’s current offensive lineman, is just 24 years old and his beard is so dark that it screams youth. 23-year-old second baseman Colt Keith is in his first season in the big leagues and is playing beyond his years. Parker Meadows, a huge boost in the outfield, broke into the big leagues just last year. And Detroit star Tarik Skubal, who went 18-4 this year and is a contender for the American League Cy Young Award, has a whopping 27. Get him a rocking chair.

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“I think we surprised a lot of people, but we didn’t really surprise ourselves,” Meadows told me last week. “We knew we were capable of making a push like this. We just look forward to getting on the field every day. The boys play cards, play table tennis and just have a good time. And we carry it straight into the game.”

Cards, table tennis, baseball.

Summer, longer.

Detroit is becoming a baseball city again

The truth in sports cities is that enthusiasm comes in waves. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Detroit was a basketball town where our Pistons won back-to-back titles. Later that decade and into the 2000s, we were a hockey town where the Red Wings won four Stanley Cups and were always in the hunt. Lately we’ve been – dare we say it? – a football town where the Lions are just a touch (or perhaps a field goal attempt) away from reaching the Super Bowl.

But now baseball appears again – unexpected and delightful, like a brightly painted carousel horse that we climb on in a familiar mount.

Yes, we remember what that feels like. We’ll watch every Tiger pitch and cringe every time an umpire calls a ball. We’ll stick with the sticks of Greene or Meadows or Spencer Torkelson or Kerry Carpenter and hope for a long shot over a wall. We will discuss each pitch change because Hinch makes A LOT of pitch changes. That winning streak, 34-17 since Aug. 1, is the best in the major leagues and features box scores that read like a Little League team trying to get everyone’s kid to pitch at least one inning throw.

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“The way AJ manipulated the pitching staff and used the bullpen when he had no starters,” Leyland marveled, “that was one of the most incredible managerial jobs I’ve ever seen.”

From Tuesday we will see if the magic lasts. The Tigers must play three straight road games against Houston or Baltimore on three consecutive days. If they win two of those three games, they will play two more away games in the ALDS next Saturday and Sunday before returning to Comerica for the third game in a best-of-five series.

That would be a hell of a week. Five possible away playoff games? A daunting challenge for any team, but perhaps less so for one that has defied the odds, flown under the radar and may be too young to even think about what it is doing.

But no matter what happens, something undeniable has already happened. Enthusiasm for the national pastime has returned to the Motor City. The Old English “D” precedes endless capital letters. And while the calendar says fall, the Tigers say, “Not so fast.”

“This will be a team that you will have to fight with for a while,” predicted Leyland. “And you know, it could start now. Who knows when you’ll get in? Nobody knows what will happen. … I know what they’ve been doing for a month and a half now. … They didn’t just beat the basement dwellers. They beat the good teams.”

You can try it now in October. It’s the month of Halloween and leafless trees and unpacking winter coats. But here comes a most unexpected baseball team that just might change everything. Keep an eye on summer. It’s not over yet.

Contact Mitch Albom: [email protected]. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchhalbom.

Detroit Tigers bring rebirth as a baseball city

ByJasper

An incredibly young squad

Detroit is becoming a baseball city again

By Jasper

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