Detroit Tigers

The Detroit Tigers are a professional baseball team based in Detroit, Michigan. The Tigers are a member of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. From 2000 to the present, the Tigers have played in Comerica Park.
The "Tigers" name originates from the 19th century military unit that was based in the city and held the same name. They are nicknamed "the Motor City Kitties", "the Bengals", "the Tigs", and "the Bless You Boys".
One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in 1894. The Tigers constructed Bennett Park at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull and began playing there in 1896. In 1912, the team moved into historic Tiger Stadium, which was built on the exact same spot.

Franchise history

The club is a charter member of the American League, one of four clubs (with the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians) still located in its founding city. Detroit is also the only member of the Western League, the AL's minor league predecessor, that remains in its original city. It was established as a charter member in 1894.

[edit] Early baseball in Detroit
Detroit's first major league entry was the Detroit Wolverines, a member of the National League from 1881 through 1888. The nickname, now associated with the University of Michigan, came from Michigan's nickname, "The Wolverine State".
The Wolverines' best year was 1887. They won the National League pennant and an exhibition World Series, defeating the American Association champion St. Louis Browns, 10 games to 5. All fifteen scheduled games of the series were played, as the clubs toured ten different cities.
The leading players were Hardy Richardson, Jack Rowe, Deacon White, pitcher Charlie Getzein and Hall of Famers "Big Sam" Thompson and Dan Brouthers. Thompson won the 1887 NL batting championship, making him the only NL batting titleist from the traditionally AL city.
Despite the championship, the team did not draw enough fans to stay solvent at the major league level, as Detroit was at the time one of the smallest cities in the National League and its rapid industry-fueled growth was still several years in the future. Hall of Fame manager Ned Hanlon played all eight seasons in center field but there was high turnover otherwise. After the 1888 season, the team disbanded and the city was relegated to minor league status. One new club formed and joined the International League in 1889, and promptly won the league championship. Their fans' joy came to an abrupt end when the league temporarily disbanded in mid-1890 and took the Detroits with it. An attempt was made to revive the old Northwestern League in 1891, but it also collapsed in mid-season, and Detroit professional baseball took a short hiatus.
Another Detroit club was a charter member when the Western League reorganized for the 1894 season. They originally played at Boulevard Park, sometimes called League Park, at the corner of East Lafayette and Helen near Belle Isle. In 1895, owner George Vanderbeck decided to build Bennett Park at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues, which would remain their base of operations for the next 104 seasons. The first game at the corner was an exhibition on April 13, 1896. The team, now occasionally called the "Tigers", beat a local semi-pro team, known as the Athletics, by a score of 30-3. They played their first Western League game at Bennett Park on April 28, 1896, defeating the Columbus Senators 17-2.
When the Western renamed itself the American League for 1900, it was still a minor league, but next year it broke with the National Agreement and declared itself major, openly competing with the National League for players, and for fans in three contested cities. For a few years there were rumors of abandoning Detroit to compete for Cincinnati or Pittsburgh but the two leagues made peace in 1903 after similar moves into St. Louis and New York.
The Tigers played their first game as a major league team at home against the Milwaukee Brewers on April 25, 1901, with 10,000 fans at Bennett Park. After entering the ninth inning behind 13-4, the team staged a dramatic comeback to win 14-13. That team finished third in the eight-team league.
Detroit's blue laws prevented baseball from being played at Bennett Park on Sundays. Owner James D. Burns built a ballpark on his own property named Burns Park where the Tigers played their Sunday home games for the 1901 and 1902 seasons.
Eleven years later, an elegant stadium was constructed on the site of Bennett Park and named Navin Field for owner Frank Navin. It was later named "Briggs Stadium" and renamed "Tiger Stadium" in 1961. Tiger Stadium was used by the Tigers until the end of the 1999 season; from 2000 they have played in Comerica Park.

[edit] "The Tigers"
There are various legends about how the Tigers got their nickname. One involves the orange stripes they wore on their black stockings. Tigers manager George Stallings took credit for the name; however, the name appeared in newspapers before Stallings was manager. Another legend concerns a sportswriter equating the 1901 team's opening day victory with the ferocity of his alma mater, the Princeton Tigers. The earliest known use of the name "Tigers" in the news was in the Detroit Free Press on April 16, 1895.
The truth is revealed in Richard Bak's 1998 book, A Place for Summer: A Narrative History of Tiger Stadium. In the 19th century, the city of Detroit had a military unit called the Detroit Light Guard, who were known as "The Tigers". They had played significant roles in certain Civil War battles and in the 1899 Spanish-American War. The baseball team was still informally called both "Wolverines" and "Tigers" in the news. Upon entry into the majors the ballclub sought and received formal permission from the Light Guard to use its trademark and from that day forth it is officially the Tigers.
In short, the Tigers most likely wore stripes because they were already Tigers, rather than the other way around which is the conventional story.

The Cobb era
In 1905, the team acquired Ty Cobb, a fearless player with a mean streak, who according to many baseball fans and writers is the greatest player of all time. The addition of Cobb to an already talented team that included Sam Crawford, Hughie Jennings, Bill Donovan and George Mullin quickly yielded results, as the Tigers won their first American League pennant in 1907.
Cobb and the Tigers disappointed in the 1907 Fall Classic against the Chicago Cubs. With the exception of Game 1, which ended in a rare tie, the Tigers failed to score more than one run in any game and lost four straight. The Cubs would deny Detroit the title again in '08, holding Detroit to a .209 batting average for the series, which the Cubs again won in five games. It was hoped that a new opponent in the 1909 Series, Pittsburgh, would yield different results, but the Tigers were blown out 8-0 in the decisive seventh game at Bennett Park.[1]
Main article: 1909 Detroit Tigers season
In 1915, the Tigers won a club record 100 games but narrowly lost the American League pennant to the Boston Red Sox who won 101 games. The 1915 Tigers were led by an outfield consisting of Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, and Bobby Veach that finished #1, #2, and #3 in RBIs and total bases. Cobb also set a stolen base record with 96 steals in 1915 that stood until 1962. Baseball historian Bill James has ranked the 1915 Tigers outfield as the greatest in the history of major league baseball. The only team in Tigers' history with a better winning percentage than the 1915 squad was the 1934 team that lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.
In the teens and twenties, Cobb remained the marquee player on many Tigers teams that would remain mired in the middle of the American League. Cobb himself took over managerial duties in 1921, but during six years at the helm, his Tigers never had a record better than 86-68.
In 1921, the Tigers amassed 1724 hits and a team batting average of .316 -- the highest team hit total and batting average in American League history. That year, outfielders Harry Heilmann and Ty Cobb finished #1 and #2 in the American League batting race with batting averages of .394 and .389, and all three Detroit outfielders (Heilmann, Cobb, and Bobby Veach) ranked among the league leaders in batting average and RBIs. As early proof of the baseball adage that "Good Pitching Beats Good Hitting," the downfall of the 1921 Tigers was the absence of good pitching. The team ERA was 4.40, and they allowed nine or more runs 28 times. Without pitching to support the offense, the 1921 Tigers finished in sixth place in the American League, 27 games behind the Yankees with a record of 71-82.

The Tigers break through
The Tiger teams of the 1930s were consistently among the league's best with "Black Mike" Mickey Cochrane behind the plate, Hank Greenberg, one of the greatest Jewish baseball players of all time, at first, and Charlie Gehringer, "The Mechanical Man" at second.
They would be denied again in the 1934 World Series in seven games by the Gashouse Gang St. Louis Cardinals. Again, when the chips were down in the deciding game, Detroit folded, giving up seven third-inning runs and losing Game Seven 11-0 at Navin Field (Tiger Stadium). The game was marred by an ugly incident. After spiking Tiger third baseman Marv Owen in the sixth inning, the Cardinals' Joe "Ducky" Medwick had to be removed from the game for his own safety by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis after being pelted with fruit and garbage from angry fans in the large temporary bleacher section in left field.
The Tigers finally reached the Promised Land the following year, defeating the Cubs 4 games to 2 to win the 1935 World Series, which concluded with Goose Goslin's dramatic game-ending single, scoring Cochrane to seal the victory. See 1935 Detroit Tigers season.
The Tigers returned to the middle of the American League in the late 30s except in 1940 when they again won the pennant but lost the world series to the Cincinnati Reds.

[edit] 1945 World Series Champions
With the end of World War II and the timely return of Hank Greenberg and others from the military, the Tigers took the 1945 American League pennant. With Virgil Trucks, Hal Newhouser and Dizzy Trout on the mound (dubbed "TNT" by Detroit News sportswriter H. G. Salsinger) and Greenberg leading the Tiger bats, Detroit responded in a Game 7 for the first time, staking Newhouser to a 5-0 lead before he threw a pitch en route to a 9-3 victory over the Cubs. Because many baseball stars had not yet returned from the military, some baseball scholars have deemed the '45 Series to be among the worst-played contests in Series history. Prior to the Series, Chicago sportswriter Warren Brown was asked who he liked, and he answered, "I don't think either one of them can win it!" But the Cubs had no answer to Greenberg, and the Series went Detroit's way.