Detroit is buzzing with Tiger pride. (Nati Harnik/Associated Press)
Feature | World Series
Baseball is back in 'Hockeytown'
Last Updated Tues., Oct. 24 2006
Dan Tavares, CBC Sports
Debbie Fluker has been growling at customers all week.
Her "mood" started about a month ago. Still, every day, Fluker gets up, looks in the mirror, puts on her "game face" and heads to work at Hockeytown, a four-storey mega-sports bar in the heart of Detroit.
It's navy blue for her lips. A pink triangle covers the tip of her nose. Black whiskers radiate out from her Cheshire Cat grin.
Perched on her head is a long-horned Viking helmet and pinned to her posterior is a tiny tiger tail.
After more than a decade of futility, Fluker's Tigers are back in the World Series and she and thousands of like-minded fans are feeling like the cat's meow.
"I love the Tigers," said Fluker, who wouldn't volunteer her age, but will say she has been a Tigers fan since age 12.
"We got to win!"
The sentiment is the same on the pedestrian-packed cobblestone street dividing Hockeytown from Comerica Park, the Tigers' new, retro-styled ballpark.
The Old-English "D," like a cattleman's brand, marks a sea of hats, toques, T-shirts and jackets.
Tiger pride is everywhere.
Tigertown wired
"You cannot believe the electricity down at the ballpark," said Pat Springstead, who co-owns Nemo's, a Tiger fan haunt for more than 40 years.
"Detroit's a great sports town. All you got to do is bring fans a winner. We struggled through all these years, now we're just totally embracing them."
The Tigers have won the World Series four times in their illustrious history, but the last came in 1984. There have been few flirtations with the post-season since, and Detroit has spent the majority of the last two decades as baseball cellar dwellers.
The electronic board outside St. John's Episcopalian Church – a decidedly atypical Comerica Park neighbour – implores fans to "pray for the Tigers." In the steeple's shadow, an old, homeless man paces, singing the refrain, "Eat 'em up Tigers! Eat 'em up!" as he rattles a single coin around the bottom of his tin donation cup.
"There hadn't been a whole lot to cheer about lately," said Rev. Steven Kelly, who held a mass for the Tigers at St. John's before the regular season and the playoffs.
"I pray in hard times and I pray in easy times, too."
Debbie Fluker has her "game face" on. (Andre Jacques Messier/AJ Messier Photography)
Wins heaven sent
It appears the prayers are paying off. After 12 consecutive losing seasons, the Tigers turned things around in 2006, winning 96 games before knocking off the heavily favoured New York Yankees, and then the Oakland Athletics to capture the American League pennant.
"This has just been a total shock," said Springstead, when asked about the Tigers' run to the World Series. "It literally came out of nowhere.
"To me, this is the most exiting World Series (of the three he has witnessed – the others were in 1968 and 1984) because never in our wildest dreams was it expected."
Much of the credit for the surprise season has fallen at the feet of the Tigers' old-school manager, Jim Leyland, who was hired before the start of this season.
T-shirts endorsing Leyland for Governor and signs trumpeting Leyland for President have popped up around Comerica Park.
Leyland's winning style infectious
Tigers pitcher Mike Maroth says the most important thing Leyland brought to the Tigers was a winning attitude.
"Jim is very passionate," Maroth wrote in an article he penned for MLB.com.
"He's all about winning, and his focus is on doing whatever it takes to win. He has that mindset, and that filtered down to us as players."
The winning has also given a boost to the Motor City's economy, devastated by the slowdown in the auto industry.
The Tigers drew more than two million fans to downtown Detroit this year. The playoff drive has kept jobs that would have been lost at the end of baseball's regular season in late September for four extra weeks.
Bars like Hockeytown, Nemo's and Cheli's – owned by Detroit Red Wings defenceman Chris Chelios – are overflowing with fans, and they're there for baseball, not hockey.
More importantly, says Springstead, the Tigers' success has been a psychological boon for the city.
"It's over and above economics," he explains. "Something like this makes the mental attitude of the people of the Detroit area that much more positive."
While the World Series will soon end, "if you win it, the good feelings go on until next the baseball season starts," says Springstead.
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