Detroit Tigers score one for the proletariat

Lucas Mann Assistant Sports Editor

When the home run ball that won the Detroit Tigers the American League Championship on Oct. 14 flew off Maglio Ordonez’s bat, he took a few seconds, stood by home plate and watched. He looked stunned, having achieved the kind of feat that every kid who picks up a bat hopes will happen to him but doesn’t believe it will. The pause was equally appropriate because, surely, time froze for everybody watching the game. It was hard to believe that this was possible. The Tigers? The Detroit Tigers? The team that hasn’t been associated with anything remarkable since Hank Greenberg set the American League record for most Runs-Batted-In in a season and allowed a generation of boys to dream beyond merely being a doctor or a lawyer? The team that, just one year ago, finished with a 71-91 overall record? Ordonez, in one vicious hack, continued one of the most improbable seasons in baseball history.

Even more amazing, however, was what the Tigers managed to achieve in the previous series: They beat the New York Yankees. It’s not just that the Yankees are good, they’re also filthy rich. This season, their payroll was a staggering $198,662,180, easily the highest in profesional baseball. The Tigers, on the other hand, are a solid working-class team of young players, with an average payroll of $82,302,069. Teams like the Tigers are supposed to have heart. They’re supposed to be fun to root for, but they’re not actually supposed to win. By defeating the Yankees, Detroit made an emphatic point about how money doesn’t necessarily equal success in baseball. Armed with youth and exuberance, they toppled baseball’s ultimate bourgeoisie.

The David and Goliath anecdotes are ample in this Division Series. Take Curtis Granderson, the small, lightening-fast centerfielder for the Tigers who is little-known and, by baseball standards, little paid, with a rookie contract of $335,000. He was drafted by the Tigers and has played all his professional games for their organization, and in the Division Series he came through for them. He hit two home runs against the Yankees in four games, smiling and pumping his fist after each one. For a contrast, look at the formidable core of the Yankees’ line-up: Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, and Gary Sheffield ($25 million, $20 million, and $10 million, respectively). Between the three of them, they’ve had one home run in the entire series. Giambi and Rodriguez also made key errors in the field. These are the priciest hired guns in baseball. The biggest, strongest, most talented mercenaries that the Yankees could find. Yet they still couldn’t beat the Tigers.

Perhaps we can finally say the George Steinbrenner school of baseball ownership is flat-out wrong. He bought up everything that could hit a home run and everything that threw hard and was overpriced, yet somehow there was enough wiggle room left for the Tigers to win. All the Tigers did was play baseball the way it used to be played. They set up a minor league system and kept their best prospects in their organization instead of trading them away for high-priced free agents. They let young, hungry players get a shot to play, and while you can’t say the Tigers had a superstar, with the possible exception of Ivan Rodriguez, they had a lineup of guys who would could hit 20 home runs, steal bases, and play the field solidly. And for almost every Tiger out on the field, from the clutch hitters to their stable of young, hard-throwing pitchers, this was their first crack at the post-season. They worked hard together, not just all season, but throughout their entire minor league careers, in many cases, for that post-season opportunity, and they played with an according sense of urgency.

Sure, it is convenient to romanticize the good old days of sports, but in an era where there are 30 major league teams that range from the bought-and-paid-for Yankees to the poor and practically minor league Tampa Bay Devil Rays, it is easy to become nostalgic for an age when an owner couldn’t look through the free agent list and buy himself a likely pennant.

When the Tiger’s manager, Jim Leyland, was asked about the salary difference between his team and the Yankees before heading into the playoffs, he summed up his disadvantage by saying: “You go to the clothing store with $500 and I go with $100, you should come out with better stuff. You get cashmere—and I get one of those itchy tweed things.” He’s right, the big market teams do come out of the store looking pretty flashy. However, the Tigers are taking it into their own hands to remind everybody that baseball has never been about cashmere.