In a Tigers playoff celebration that has been going on for 10 years

DETROIT – The carts stacked with clear plastic sheeting, ladders and painter’s tape sat in the referee tunnel at Comerica Park, waiting for the right moment to be deployed.

A few feet away, the hottest team in baseball was playing the worst team in baseball, needing just one more win to cap an improbable trip to the playoffs late in the season. A crowd of fans hungry for a winner spurred them on to keep going.

The supplies had to be in place for a celebration when the Tigers took on the White Sox on Friday night. But climbing the ladders and taping off the plastic in the clubhouse prematurely could be akin to a curse. So these supplies remained parked right outside the clubhouse door until the right moment.

That moment came as the Tigers took a 4-1 lead entering the ninth inning and fans began to sense the impending berth in the postseason, the club’s first berth in a decade.

After the Carts reached the clubhouse, the Tigers opened the inning with a walk and then two groundouts to bring the team within one of the playoffs – something prognosticators gave them less than a chance just six weeks ago one percent believed.

A pitching change with one to go only added to the drama. But the wait didn’t last long after that: Shortly before 9 p.m., Jason Foley’s second pitch was lifted to Andrew Vaughn in right field. Parker Meadows and Wenceel Perez both ran and collided, but Perez held on until the final play and secured the Tigers’ postseason berth.

“It’s kind of picture-perfect how we can punch our ticket to October with an imperfect game where the guys are literally doing everything they can to get it,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said.

Hinch tried to see the referee’s off signal to make sure his team had really won, but was thrown into the dugout before he was, where he celebrated the hugs.

This celebration quickly spread to the field, where the players hugged, danced and cheered in front of the home crowd, embracing the long-awaited moment together.

The Tigers’ family members soon exited the tunnel and onto the field to join in the celebration. And for one of baseball’s youngest teams, with an average age of 26, that meant lots of small children milling around the diamond alongside players, staff and reporters.

Tarik Skubal held his almost one-year-old son Kasen while conducting television interviews. Will Vest helped his young son set foot on the pitching rubber mound. Several toddlers attended the celebration, strapped to their mothers’ chests with earmuffs.

After 15 minutes of hugs and photos, Hinch told the players to go to the clubhouse. They left the field to the cheers of the thousands of Tigers fans still in the stands.

In the clubhouse, where there were no fans or small children in sight, the celebration took a different form.

With plastic covering the walls and ceiling, Hinch gave a short speech and then dropped the first bottle of champagne. Players wearing ski goggles shouted and banged dozens more, spraying each other with a sea of ​​foam. As the floor was littered with corks and foil, they moved on to 24-ounce cans of Coors Lite and Miller Lite as the celebration gained momentum.

The players each poured two cans on themselves and each other, spraying and crushing and jumping around in a whoop of joy.

“It’s a madhouse in there,” warned Hinch on the sidelines of the celebration. “Be careful.”

Shortly afterwards, Hinch jumped into this madhouse and threw a beer on the host Jason Benetti while he was doing an interview. Seconds later, Foley did the same to his manager as players, coaches and reporters alike were drenched.

For much of the celebration, the only team member who remained dry was Chris Illitch, who stood to the side taking it all in. But eventually outfielder Riley Greene put goggles on his team’s owner and dragged him into the middle of the clubhouse, which also had to be soaked by the players. Hinch later described this moment as his favorite part of the celebration.

Illitch, Hinch and team president Scott Harris — the management triumvirate that took the Tigers from a playoff berth in nine games a year ago to an unlikely berth this year in nine games — spent the latter part of the festivities in quiet aside conversation. with Harris’ brown leather shoes soaked in a pool of beer and champagne.

For half an hour, the team’s 28 players drank and drank and shook and poured until the carpeted floor was trashed. The clubhouse staff brought four more beers each but couldn’t keep up. Finally the beer barrels were empty.

“More beer, more beer,” the players shouted.

“The boys want more beer,” Greene remarked to a group of reporters.

A few moments later, someone appeared with an armful of crates of beer and was surrounded by a group of players.

Greene turned up the music, the clubhouse was closed to outsiders, and the party continued.