"@$%# You, Boys."
Well, deep down, most of us Tiger fans, whether current or once-and-former, knew it had to happen.
The Detroit Tigers lost the World Series.
After recovering from a laughable late season, beating the Yankees (which, once their team tanked, was about all that most Red Sox fans cared about), and sweeping the A's, they made it to the World Series, where they choked -- against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Yes, the Tiges lost, in five games, to a team with an even shakier record than theirs: the St. Louis "Wild" Cards beat the Tigers in Game 5 on Saturday, 28 October, 4-2. The Tigers won only one game of the Series: Game 2 (Sunday, 22 October; 3-1).
Cards' manager Tony La Russa "joined Sparky Anderson as the only managers in history to win World Series titles in both leagues." (Uh, Sparky guided the Tigers to the World Series championship in 1984 -- the year that spawned the incredibly annoying "Bless You, Boys" slogan -- after he did it for the Cincinnati Reds in '75 and '76. Pretty funny to think that I saw the Tigers spank the Reds in an exhibition game in '74 or '75; Johnny Bench acted like the brattiest 2nd grader you ever wanted to sell to let some nice Romanian couple adopt...)
Some might say that it's just as well that the Tigers didn't go all the way: after all, the last time they did, the victory celebrations in Detroit were commemorated by what has become known locally as the "Bubba" photo: a photograph of a baseball cap-wearing white man with a bottle of beer in his hand and a vacant grin on his kisser, standing in front of an overturned Detroit Police car. It's stuff like that, as well as the proud Detroit tradition of setting as many buildings afire as possible on Devil's Night (30 October), that keeps the city's reputation at its normally "high" level in years when Detroit isn't actually the murder capitol of the U.S. Gawd only knows what the suburbanites would do to DAY-twah if the Tigers actually won the pennant after a 22-year dry spell; last I checked, Boston was still standing even though their team won the Series last year, thereby breaking an 86-year-old "Curse of the Bambino." One would hope that only the most jerkweedish of Detroiters (metro or otherwise) would say that this notable lack of rioting and urban mayhem in the wake of a professional sports team's taking the national title is due to the fact that Beantown is full of a bunch of wet-ends, feebs and pussies.
But I am soooo glad I'm not living with my parents; 'cause, I gotta tell ya, "Bless You, Boys" is about the last thing that my dad's saying about the Tigers now. Whoa, Nellie....
The Detroit Tigers lost the World Series.
After recovering from a laughable late season, beating the Yankees (which, once their team tanked, was about all that most Red Sox fans cared about), and sweeping the A's, they made it to the World Series, where they choked -- against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Yes, the Tiges lost, in five games, to a team with an even shakier record than theirs: the St. Louis "Wild" Cards beat the Tigers in Game 5 on Saturday, 28 October, 4-2. The Tigers won only one game of the Series: Game 2 (Sunday, 22 October; 3-1).
Cards' manager Tony La Russa "joined Sparky Anderson as the only managers in history to win World Series titles in both leagues." (Uh, Sparky guided the Tigers to the World Series championship in 1984 -- the year that spawned the incredibly annoying "Bless You, Boys" slogan -- after he did it for the Cincinnati Reds in '75 and '76. Pretty funny to think that I saw the Tigers spank the Reds in an exhibition game in '74 or '75; Johnny Bench acted like the brattiest 2nd grader you ever wanted to sell to let some nice Romanian couple adopt...)
Some might say that it's just as well that the Tigers didn't go all the way: after all, the last time they did, the victory celebrations in Detroit were commemorated by what has become known locally as the "Bubba" photo: a photograph of a baseball cap-wearing white man with a bottle of beer in his hand and a vacant grin on his kisser, standing in front of an overturned Detroit Police car. It's stuff like that, as well as the proud Detroit tradition of setting as many buildings afire as possible on Devil's Night (30 October), that keeps the city's reputation at its normally "high" level in years when Detroit isn't actually the murder capitol of the U.S. Gawd only knows what the suburbanites would do to DAY-twah if the Tigers actually won the pennant after a 22-year dry spell; last I checked, Boston was still standing even though their team won the Series last year, thereby breaking an 86-year-old "Curse of the Bambino." One would hope that only the most jerkweedish of Detroiters (metro or otherwise) would say that this notable lack of rioting and urban mayhem in the wake of a professional sports team's taking the national title is due to the fact that Beantown is full of a bunch of wet-ends, feebs and pussies.
But I am soooo glad I'm not living with my parents; 'cause, I gotta tell ya, "Bless You, Boys" is about the last thing that my dad's saying about the Tigers now. Whoa, Nellie....