30. Rock Bottom
The rationale for shutting down Tiger Stadium was simple. The franchise could not compete financially unless new sources of revenue were found. That, inevitably, meant a new ballpark.
The argument made sense. Aside from a small core of traditionalists who called for renovation of the existing ballpark, there was overwhelming civic support for a new stadium. As it turned out, though, the traditionalists may have been right. Because what the Tigers ended up with was a magnificent stadium and a terrible ballpark.
There were also a few other flaws in the master plan.
Mike Ilitch became so highly leveraged in financing the park that player payroll had to be cut. An inexperienced general manager made a series of pointless and disastrous personnel moves, confusing fans and demoralizing players. The farm system stopped producing, and when it did send up the occasional promising ballplayer he was either traded, got himself injured, or was a head case.
But the stadium was the central problem.
Most fans in Detroit simply assumed it would incorporate many of the best-loved features of the old ballpark. That seemed to be logical because the successful new stadiums had a retro feel to them and were designed for hitters, just like Tiger Stadium.
But someone had a better idea with Comerica Park. It was to be open and spacious, a place where pitching and speed would be needed to win.
In other words, after watching baseball being played a certain way in Detroit for decade after decade, everything would change. Not only would it be a new ballpark, it would be an entirely new ballgame.
Joe Falls noted while the stadium was under construction that there would be no shelter from the sun and that fans in left field during day games would be looking into a constant glare. He was told that he was wrong and strongly discouraged from writing any more columns along those lines.
A week before the official opening, two heroes of 1968, Al Kaline and Willie Horton, stood at home plate and looked toward the outfield.
“It’s an awful long way out there, Will,” remarked Kaline. Horton agreed.
A reasonable observer could have concluded that if those two guys thought it was a long way, maybe it was advisable to reconfigure the dimensions.
But that wasn’t done for three years. When power hitter Juan Gonzalez was brought in for the 2000 season, he grew so frustrated at watching home runs turn into long fly balls that he cursed out the stadium in the media and left town as a free agent as soon as he could arrange it.
Interestingly enough, no one ever stepped up to take credit for the goofy distances.
Ilitch swore he never knew a thing about such details, and former team president John McHale Jr., whose primary job was getting the stadium built, left for a job with Tampa Bay.
To make matters worse, buyers of field-level boxes complained that the pitch of the stands wasn’t steep enough and they couldn’t see well. In a pricing policy that seemed to originate in Oz, lower deck seats farthest from the field were the most expensive—although they did have shade and were a bit wider. In order to unload these seats, the Tigers had to give away a buffet meal with the ticket.
There were some positives. The accommodations for players and media were incomparably superior to Tiger Stadium. After a few initial foul-ups, the refreshment stands operated with greater efficiency. Everyone liked the promenade that encircled the entire park. There were statues of the team’s greatest heroes in a center-field pavilion, and in right field was a fine, unencumbered view of the city skyline.
But after absorbing these novelties in the first season, the customers went back to their one unchanging demand—a winner. Instead, the team seemed to get worse.
They left Tiger Stadium in 1999 with all sorts of promise. Two dazzling young outfielders in Gabe Kapler and Juan Encarnacion. Two sluggers at each side of the infield, Tony Clark and Dean Palmer, and a serviceable middle infield of Damion Easley and Deivi Cruz.
Bobby Higginson was an established star, and catcher Brad Ausmus was regarded as one of the smartest defensive players at that position in the league.
A promising group of starting pitchers was led by Justin Thompson, Brian Moehler, and Jeff Weaver, while Matt Anderson threw bullets from the bullpen.
Surely this was a team that would compete for the playoffs in a year or two—especially when the promised free agents, obtained with the new ballpark’s enhanced revenues, arrived. By 2003, there could well be a World Series in Detroit again.
Instead, the whole enterprise collapsed. Clark developed problems in his back and Palmer in his neck. Thompson’s arm went dead and so did Moehler’s. Anderson hurt himself in an octopus-hurling contest to publicize Ilitch’s hockey team and lost several miles an hour from his fastball.
Kapler, Ausmus, Encarnacion, and Weaver were traded. Easley quickly declined and Cruz’ defense grew flimsy. Higginson never got his power stroke back in the new ballpark. Long-term, big-money contracts tied up resources that could have been used to sign other players.
Instead of steady improvement, the team regressed. Phil Garner lasted two uninspiring seasons as manager and was replaced by Luis Pujols in 2002. He turned out to be even worse. Pujols lost control of the team, which was simply going through the motions by the end of July.
At that bleak moment in franchise history, the Ilitch organization made a smart decision. Alan Trammell, one of the most popular players ever to appear in Detroit and a first-rate baseball mind, was brought back from exile in San Diego to manage the Tigers.
When Trammell quickly hired Kirk Gibson and Lance Parrish, the excitement was intense. This was the long-hoped-for restoration of the legitimate line of descent. Surely things would change now.
And they did. They got much, much worse. Because history doesn’t mean much when the cupboard is bare.
For much of 2003 the Tigers threatened to break the record for most losses in a season, set by the 1962 New York Mets. But the Mets had been an expansion team playing in a 10-team league. These Tigers were supposed to be budding contenders in a weak division. The decision to strip the roster of veterans and go entirely with untested kids in virtually every key position blew up in their faces.
As the team’s performance fell to new depths, so did attendance. The ballpark’s novelty was long gone and the customers didn’t come. When he bought the team in 1992, Ilitch promised to return the Tigers to the most talked-about team in the city. He accomplished that all right, but certainly not in the way he intended.
The wire-to-wire champions of 1984 had turned into the laughingstock of baseball. Only the great respect the city had for Trammell and his staff kept it from being a complete fiasco.
Twenty years after the greatest season in the history of the Tigers, the future of the franchise, playing in an unlovable ballpark with ciphers where heroes used to be, is a dark question.
No one who saw Gibson’s home run in the exultant October evening of 1984 could ever have believed it would come to this.
Without hope, however, being a Tigers fan would be a pretty dismal exercise. There is always that.
Workers put the finishing touches on Comerica Park before its opening for the 2000 season. Fans, players, and members of the media have openly commented on the new stadium’s flaws, all the more difficult to overlook because of the team’s lack of success during the past decade.
In 1990, the Detroit Tigers had won more games than any American League franchise except the New York Yankees. In 2004, after finishing a staggering 76 games below .500, the Tigers’ overall winning percentage has fallen to .507, placing them behind the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox, and, most lamentably, the Cleveland Indians.
If the Tigers, who were 209 games over .500 through the 2003 season, have another half decade like the one they just experienced, their overall franchise record could fall below .500, an unthink
able notion just 10 years ago.
31. ’68 or ’84?
The question results in endless debates among Detroit baseball fans: which was the better team, the ’68 Tigers or the ’84 Tigers?
I covered the ’68 team as a baseball writer and wrote a book about it. The ’84 team I knew as a general news columnist and fan, and a few years later I got to know several of its members as a sports columnist.
Which would I pick?
If you went position by position for me it would break down this way.
First base: Norm Cash versus Darrell Evans. They were remarkably similar players: left-handers with power who thrived in Tiger Stadium. Evans also provided the vital component of veteran leadership on the much younger ’84 team. It was the same role filled in ’68 by Cash’s understudy, Eddie Mathews, who had also come over from the National League.
But Cash, I think, was the more dangerous hitter and more essential to the overall makeup of the team on the field. I’d give him the nod here, but narrowly.
Second base: Dick McAuliffe versus Lou Whitaker. I admired McAuliffe tremendously for his inner fire and his blazing determination on the field. Many times it overcame a shortage of natural ability. He was also the perfect leadoff man, getting on base in every conceivable manner.
Whitaker was a man who bristled with talent but was the polar opposite of McAuliffe in temperament. There are many who insist that if he had brought McAuliffe’s will to beat you into his game, no accomplishment would have been beyond his grasp. But “Lou was Lou,” as his teammates say, and what he did accomplish was pretty exceptional. With the exception of Charlie Gehringer, he was the best at his position in the history of the Tigers. Advantage ’84.
Shortstop: Ray Oyler and others versus Alan Trammell. No contest here. Mayo Smith did a remarkable job shifting bodies in and out of this critical position before relying on Mickey Stanley in the World Series. But Trammell was unsurpassed, the best ever in Detroit by a wide margin and a ballplayer’s ballplayer. It’s ’84 here and not even close.
Third base: Don Wert versus Tom Brookens and others. This was Sparky’s problem spot and, like Mayo at shortstop, he kept moving people in and out of the lineup. Marty Castillo was his starter in the Series and played well, but Brookens was a versatile and steady team player.
Everybody on the ’68 Tigers loved Wert, the quiet guy with sad eyes who never seemed to make a mistake in the field. He had one of his worst years at the plate that year but got the hit that clinched the pennant. I think this one is a push.
Left field: Willie Horton versus Larry Herndon. Herndon was a steady, reliable hitter and a good outfielder. But Willie was a force, an inspirational player and one of the best clutch hitters in Detroit history. I’ve got to go with the man who has his statue in Comerica Park’s center-field pavilion. Advantage ’68.
Center field: Mickey Stanley versus Chet Lemon. This is an extremely close call. Lemon was certainly the better hitter, had more power, and in ’84 he may also have been the best defensive center fielder in the league.
But I never saw anyone get a better jump on a fly ball than Stanley. Although he wasn’t exceptionally fast his instincts always seemed to get him in position to make the play. He also could play a little shortstop. I’ve got to rate this one a toss-up, too.
Right field: Jim Northrup versus Kirk Gibson. Again the similarities are striking—they were both college football players who brought the same sort of intensity into this game. Both of them could be inspirational or simply annoying, as the mood took them.
Northrup was, of course, The Slammer, with his five bases-loaded homers in the ’68 season and Series. He was also a better defensive outfielder. Gibson, however, defied anyone to beat him and played with a fury that has seldom been matched. I have to give it to Gibson, but not by a big margin.
Fourth outfielder: Al Kaline versus Ruppert Jones. There was no designated hitter in ’68 so the roles they played were not quite comparable. Jones did a fine job as Anderson’s fourth man, hitting for power and playing a solid defense.
But Kaline was Six, and what he brought to the ’68 Tigers cannot be put down on a stat sheet. He also rose to the challenge in the Series after coming back from an injury, and got the hit that put the Tigers back in it. Besides, you don’t ever pick against Kaline. Sixty-eight gets it here.
Catcher: Bill Freehan versus Lance Parrish. The two best in franchise history—except, of course, for the brief stay of Mickey Cochrane. They were both strong, intelligent leaders. They also had to handle some rather colorful personalities on the pitching staff.
Freehan may have been a bit more vocal and was the best I ever saw at blocking the plate, a skill that served him well on one famous Series play. Parrish, however, had a much better arm and hit with a bit more power. I liked Freehan a lot but I’ve got to give it to the ’84 team.
Starters: Denny McLain, Mickey Lolich, and Earl Wilson versus Jack Morris, Dan Petry, and Milt Wilcox. Morris was a tough pitcher in ’84 and the other two had their moments. But Denny won 31 games and Lolich was simply brilliant under the greatest possible pressure. Everyone says that if they had one game to win, they’d give the ball to Morris. But McLain and Lolich were the best righty-lefty pitching combination of their era, and I have to go with the ’68 team.
Bullpen: Willie Hernandez, Aurelio Lopez, and Juan Berenguer versus Pat Dobson, John Hiller, and Fred Lasher. Later in his career Hiller was as good as they come out of the pen. But the ’68 bullpen just couldn’t compare to the one in ’84, which was an essential strength of the team. The bullpen had also become far more important in ’84 because of changes in philosophy about using starters. Eighty-four gets it by a good amount.
Pinch-hitters: Gates Brown versus Johnny Grubb. What can you say? Did any pinch-hitter ever have a year like Gates in ’68? It was a show in itself to watch him come to bat in the late innings of a tight game. He was a genuine ace in the hole and gives the ’68 team an edge.
Manager: Mayo Smith versus Sparky Anderson. No contest. Mayo was smart enough to give his veteran team its head and let ’em play ball. He also took one of the most audacious gambles in Series history in placing Stanley at shortstop.
But Sparky was a master of the game. Psychologist, con artist, headmaster. He knew how to put his players into a position to succeed. What more can a manager do? It goes to ’84.
So what do we have? I voted for the ’68 team at first base, left field, fourth outfielder, starters, and pinch-hitter. The ’84 team for second base, shortstop, right field, catcher, bullpen, and manager. Plus ties at third base and center field.
That’s 6–5 for the ’84 Tigers. So be it.
Based on position-by-position analysis, the 1984 Tigers hold a slight edge over the ’68 squad. Photo courtesy of Bettmann/Corbis.
—
Copyright © 2004 by George Cantor
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cantor, George, 1941–
Wire to wire : inside the 1984 Detroit Tigers championship season / George Cantor.
p. cm.
Includes index. ISBN 1-57243-504-6
1. Detroit Tigers (Baseball team)—History. I. Title.
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Wire to Wire Page 15
