The Detroit Tigers are now 70 – 33.
That’s 70 wins. 33 losses.
That is an amazing number, folks.
In the last 50 years, only 6 MLB teams have won at least 70 games in their first 103, and the 2006 Tigers are one of them.
This season has an air of magic around it that is absolutely thrilling – it’s like the Baseball Gods looked down and said “Oh, boy – they’ve really sucked the last 15 years. Let’s help ’em out.”
Of course, it’s a long season. With 103 games down, that means there’s still 59 to go – over a third of the season. But even if something horrible happens, and they start losing every other game and go 30-29 from now until the end of the season, they’ll still finish with 100 wins!
The game on Friday was so good – The top team in Baseball playing one of two teams closest to catching them. The Tigers -vs- the Twins, who have been On Fire lately, winning 32 of their last 40 games to come from under .500 to pull themselves into the pennant race. The way they’ve been playing, many people said “They’re so hot – Detroit will be lucky to get 1 of 3 from them.” Talk about exciting baseball! Well, the Friday night game was so well played by both teams, that it prompted Tiger Manager Jim Leyland to say “This was tremendous, tremendous baseball. Anyone who thinks baseball isn’t alive and well wasn’t in Minnesota tonight, I can tell you that.” And, the Tigers won it. In fact, they’ve won 2 of the 3 so far, and the 3rd will be played today at 2pm.
In the last 10 years, I’ve been to games in the middle of the Summer, in perfect weather days, where I had an entire section of seating to myself. Games in the middle of seasons that were SO BAD that you literally bought a ticket and wandered around and sat wherever you wanted, because out of 40,000 seats about 6,000 were sold and the ushers didn’t care where anyone went. I went, with my friend Mike to an afternoon game in mid-April that was so cold we wore our heaviest winter clothes and changed our seats every inning so we could stay in the sunshine, and the stadium was so empty you could hear the players yelling to each other.
I sat thru the dismal ’96 season, and even had a mini-season-ticket plan in the 2003 season, when the team went 43-119. Yes, 43-119; Baseball fans left, literally sold their homes and moved from the state and took up residence anywhere else, the season was so bad.
And now…they’re 70-33. 37 games over .500, and the closest team to them is 8 and 1/2 games back.
Nobody wants to get too excited and jinx it, but…this team is headed for their first playoff berth since the year I graduated HIGH SCHOOL! (Knock on wood, throw salt over my left shoulder, do three Hail Mary’s and wake me in the morning.)
This is an exciting time to be a baseball fan, and an even better time to be a Detroit Tigers Baseball Fan!
Tony Caselli 
I remember that cold game, Tony. I remember it for a couple of reasons:
1. There were so few people that we were able to talk to Bubba Trammel during his first game in the majors. You asked him a question and he nodded his head. The funny thing was we were in upper deck of right field and he could hear us. There was NOBODY there.
2. The Tigers mascot came over to us hugged us and whispered an expletive laced sentence about the cold weather. Of course, he had fur on, so what was he complaining about?!
3. Despite the Tigers being horrible even that early in the season, you remained their fan. Living in SoCal now I have sort of lost interest in the T-cats (except rooting for them to get the record for most losses three years ago) and there performance didn’t help. But you’ve always been a believer, T, and that is the definition of a true fan. The rest of us are jumping on the bandwagon, but you’ve always been the one at the reins. So enjoy this season, it’s yours more than most.
Good old Bubba Trammell!! I don’t think he’s even in the majors anymore. Of course, from that years version of the Tigers, only about 3 of the guys are still in the majors!
I forgot ALL ABOUT Paws coming over to us! Yep, you’ve never heard profanity until you’ve heard it from a 7 foot Tiger wearing a ballcap!
Hilarious! And look at us now!