Published Aug. 31, 2020
The 1968 Tigers will forever hold a tender place in the hearts of the team’s fans, for good reason. While not the most recent Tigers team to win a World Series, the ’68 champs were far more romantic.
Countless come-from-behind victories. A ring for Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline. Denny McLain’s 31 wins. Mickey Lolich’s three complete game victories in the World Series—and on two days’ rest in Game 7. And, of course, the Tigers being instrumental in helping to heal a city broken by the riots of 1967.
Yet the ’68 Tigers also hold the distinction of being the last “true” league pennant winner—before the 1969 expansion and the introduction of the league championship series. In 1968, when you clinched the pennant, you clinched it. You advanced to the World Series—no extra hurdles needed to clear.
To the old time baseball fan, the pre-LCS days were those of a real pennant race—when you either finished first, or tied for last with every other team in the league.
In a strange twist of fate, 13 years after the 1968 season of dreams, another Tigers team got caught up in about as non-traditional of a “pennant race” as you could possibly concoct.
The 1981 season will go down in infamy.
A players strike midway through the season canceled just enough games to compel owners and players to agree on a wacky resolution to see which teams would advance to the World Series.
It was decided that the four divisional leaders at the time of the work stoppage in mid-June (about 52-58 games per team) would be crowned “first half champions.” The slate would then be wiped clean and when play resumed on Aug. 10, a second, mini-season would be launched. That meant a frenetic schedule of 51-53 games per team would be played to determine each division’s “second half champions.” The two half-division winners would meet in what would become the precursor to today’s divisional series, to see who would advance to the LCS.
It was, in essence, a chopping up of each league’s pennant into quarters. Not much tradition in that.
The 1981 Tigers’ 31-26 first half was only good for fourth in the AL East, so only a first place finish in Half II would be good enough for a playoff appearance—which would be the Tigers’ first taste of the post-season since the 1972 ALCS.
The Tigers got out of the gate fast in the second half, winning 10 out of their first 13 games. Suddenly it was September, and on Labor Day (Sept. 7), the Tigers were 19-9. But then a slump sank them into a frantic race to the finish with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Any baseball follower with their head on straight knew that this was a bastardized, tainted “pennant race.” It was exciting for the fans, but it was hardly the real McCoy.
The Tigers had played just 49 games in the second half, but nonetheless they were in Milwaukee for a season-closing three-game showdown that would decide their second half fortunes. The first-place Brewers held a half-game lead, so whichever team took two out of three games would be the “champs.”
The Tigers got blasted on Friday night, 8-2, but led Saturday’s game, 1-0, in the eighth inning behind Jack Morris, whose propensity for clutch pitching was born on this day. But the Brewers tied the game without hitting the ball out of the infield, and went ahead on a sacrifice fly.
Hall of Fame closer Rollie Fingers set the Tigers down 1-2-3 in the ninth, striking out Lou Whitaker to clinch Half II of the AL East for the Brewers.
Manager Sparky Anderson later commented that while the 1981 pennant races were kind of a joke in nature, his young players at least got a taste of what pressure-packed baseball in September was all about.
I’m getting much of that same 1981 vibe now, in this COVID-marred baseball season.
The Tigers—those recently awful, picked-to-go-nowhere Tigers—are 16-16. In normal circumstances, this would hardly be the cause for excitement. But in 2020’s 60-game season with its revised playoff structure, such a record after 32 games puts a team in the hunt for some post-season baseball.
So now it’s a 28-game sprint to the finish line. Just four weeks or so of “pennant race” baseball.
Now, we all know that this is rather ridiculous. I don’t care how zealous of a Tigers fan you are. You can’t possibly look at this so-called playoff push as anything other than a gimmick. But for the fans who’ve been suffering through the Tigers’ rebuild, they’ll take any bit of excitement they can get. I understand that.
The 2020 Tigers, at the very least, are about to play some meaningful September games, no matter how phony this whole thing is. But there they are, 16-16 and in the hunt for a spot in the league tournament, fair and square. A three-game weekend sweep over their longtime tormentors, the Minnesota Twins, has put the Tigers in this position on the eve of the year’s ninth month.
It’s phony. It’s gimmicky. It’s a joke, really. But the Tigers will take it, and so will their fans. You can’t blame them. If nothing else, with the appearance this year of tomorrow’s Tigers such as third baseman Isaac Paredes and pitchers Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal, there’s just enough of a glimpse into the future to add to the artificially-inseminated pennant fever.
In this turbulent year, you take what you can get, eh?
Out of Bounds 