They had two future Hall of Famers, the last pitcher to win thirty
games, and a supporting cast of some of the most peculiar
individuals ever to play in the majors. But more than that, the
1968 Detroit Tigers symbolize a lost era in baseball. It was a time
before runaway salaries and designated hitters. Before divisional
playoffs and drug suspensions. Before teams measured their
well-being by the number of corporate boxes in their ballpark and
the cable contract in their pocket. It was the last season of
baseball's most colorful and nostalgic period. It was surely not a
more innocent time. The 1968 Tigers were a team of hell-raisers,
the second coming of the Gas House Gang. They brawled on the field
and partied hard afterward. They bickered with each other and
ignored their manager. They won game after game with improbable
rallies on their last at-bat and grabbed the World Championship by
coming back from a three games to one deficit to beat the most
dominant pitcher in the World Series history in the deciding
seventh game. Their ultimate hero, Mickey Lolich, was a man who
threw left-handed, thought "upside down," and rode motorcycles to
the ballpark. Their thirty-game winner, Denny McLain, played the
organ in various night spots, placed bets over the clubhouse phone,
and incidentally, overpowered the American League. Their prize
pinch-hitter, Gates Brown, had done hard time in the Ohio
Penitentiary. Their top slugger, Willie Horton, would have rather
been boxing. Their centerfielder, Mickey Stanley, a top defensive
outfielder, would unselfishly volunteer to play the biggest games
of his life at shortstop, so that their great outfielder, Al
Kaline, could get into the World Series lineup. The story of this
team, their triumph, and what happened in their lives afterward, is
one of the great dramas of baseball history. The Tigers of '68 is
the uproarious, stirring tale of this team, the last to win a pure
pennant (before each league was divided into two divisions and
playoffs were added) and World Series. Award-winning journalist
George Cantor, who covered the Tigers that year for the Detroit
Free Press, revisits the main performers on the team and then
weaves their memories and stories (warts and all) into an absorbing
narrative that revives all of the delicious-and infamous-moments
that made the season unforgettable. Tommy Matchick's magical
ninth-inning home run, Jim Northrup's record-setting grand slams,
Jon Warden's torrid April, Dick McAuliffe's charge to the mound,
Denny McLain's gift to Mickey Mantle, the nearly unprecedented
comeback in the World Series, and dozens more. The '68 Tigers
occupy a special place in the history of the city of Detroit.
They've joined their predecessors of 1935 as an almost mythic
unit-more than a baseball team. The belief has passed into Detroit
folklore. Many people swear, as Willie Horton says, that they were
"put here by God to save the city." The Tigers of '68 will help you
understand why.
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