A 43,000 Champagne Group Shower...

This is why they play the games. It was an obvious result: one of the greatest offences ever assembled against a talented but young pitching staff. Every single prognosticator, including this stubby, repentant boy, chose the Yankee’s hitters to slug Detroit’s pitchers like a piñata at a Boxing Party, but instead the Yankees slugged like my niece at a tea party. It was quaint the way they stood up at the plate and waved their little sticks, blinding swatting at whatever Kenny Rogers and Jeremy Bonderman decided to throw at them. Rogers, known as a four month pitcher, found a fifth month which agreed with him. He might not be able to throw well in August and September, but he looked pretty good in his October debut. And then there was Bonderman. With the Yankees season on the line, with Joe Torre, Gary Sheffield, and (especially) Alex Rodriguez’s Yankee lives hanging in the balance, Bonderman stepped up and no-hit the Yankees for five innings. During that time he threw 6 balls. The team that had scored 5.7 runs per game during the year, looked more tepid Devil Ray than dominant Yankee. And how in an elimination game were the Yankees starting Jarret Wright? And backing him up with Corey Lidle. Was it any surprise when Wright was chased after two and two-thirds of an inning? Or that Lidle only last another inning and a third? Next year the Yankees should have Phillip Hughes to start that fourth game, because if the Yankees really want to dominate baseball, then Wright should never again start a playoff game for them.

As the game finished, after Bonderman left with an 8-1 lead and two outs away from victory, the story was about the Yankees and how George Steinbrenner would react to this latest playoff defeat, but when Jamie Walker got Robinson Cano to weakly ground out to second base, and the Tigers players erupted with the elation borne in 2003’s 119 loss season, the story changed. The Tigers players went into their locker room, they broke out the Champagne, they drenched one another. It was a moving celebration for a Franchise that hadn’t won a playoff series since 1984. Normally teams celebrate victory in the Division Series the way I celebrate a successful prostate exam, yet the Tigers were genuinely ecstatic, bursting out of the locker rooms and back onto the field to share the celebration with their fans. People who supported the team even as it’s playoff-less streak stretched to 18 years. People who watched the team lose 96 games in 2001, 106 in ’02, a record 119 in ’03, 90 in ’04, and 91 games last year, a five year run of .379 ball. But those who remained through that long playoff draught and the especially dreadful past five years were rewarded as legend Jim Leyland returned to baseball at the helm of their team.

From 71-91 to 95-67 the Tigers and their fans were just happy to be in the playoffs. Compare that to the Yankees and their fans. Can you imagine if ARod had played for the Tigers this year? His 35 home runs and 121 RBI would make him a hero, but in NY where the expectations are a World Series victory and nothing less, he’s a goat. There were no goats this year for the Tigers, only heroes. And Saturday afternoon in Detroit those heroes were vindicated. They showed all those experts, all those idiots like yours truly, that the maxim, ‘great pitching always beats great hitting’ should never be forgotten. They shared their victory with themselves and then they flooded back onto the field to share it with the 43,000 faithful who remained, cheering their heroes, at a time when most stadiums would already be barren. The Tigers players brought their champagne bottles with them and they showered the fans in the victorious liquid. It was blissful pandemonium, players running the stadium, slapping every hand they could find; Rogers drenching a police officer, rubbing the liquid into the beleaguered, but blissful officer.

As a fan you always dream of being in the locker room with your heroes, being drenched with the champagne, sharing in the euphoria of victory. The Tigers’ players , who couldn’t bring the fans into the locker room, took the locker room to the fans. It was a meaningful and moving celebration, a truly spectacular display of emotion from both player and fan and it was totally and utterly deserved. Now while the Yankees must ask what went wrong, the Tigers look forward to the Oakland A’s and more postseason ecstasy.