A Look at the 1968 Detroit Tigers

Before relocation and expansion became a big boom in the late 1950s and the 1960s, the American League had eight franchises. For the most part, it was the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees dominating the original American League, but some of the other franchises did their share of winning as well. And then there's the Detroit Tigers, who are quite hard luck. Entering this point, they had only won the World Series twice, but one of those two championships was the famous 1945 Series against the Chicago Cubs, who won their last pennant until 2016. The Tigers, sadly, were not used to success, but 23 years after adding to the Cubs' woes, they got it together.

This was a slightly larger American League than before, 10 teams. However, that did not deter the Tigers one bit. The 1968 team was loaded with hitting talent, led Willie Horton, who hit .285 and had 36 home runs, leading the team in both categories. The RBI leader for the Tigers that year was Jim Northrup, who drove in 90 runs in 1968, and also led the team in hits with 153. The hitting was good, but as is the case with a lot of teams in 1968, the Tigers had a hell of a pitching staff.

1968 was dubbed "The Year of the Pitcher," because pitching was absolutely dominant during that year. Regarding the Tigers, their rotation was led by Dennis Dale McLain, who went 31-6 that season, becoming the last pitcher to win 30+ games in a season. McLain also had an ERA of 1.96, and had 280 strikeouts; he was absolutely dealing that year. Second behind McLain in strikeouts was Mickey Lolich with 197, while sporting a 17-9 record. The Tigers clinched the American League pennant on September 17, 1968, and ended up finishing with a 103-59 record, 12 games ahead of the second place Baltimore Orioles.

The Tigers faced the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, meaning that they had to deal with Bob Gibson and his atom-sized 1.12 ERA that year. The Cards had home field advantage in the Fall Classic, and Game One was Gibson vs McLain, and the former dominated--a 5-0 St. Louis win behind seventeen strikeouts from Gibson. The Tigers took Game Two, 8-1, behind a dominant complete game performance from Mickey Lolich, who also homered in the game--the only HR he would hit in his career. The Series shifted to Detroit, but Game Three went to the Cardinals by a score of 7-3, with Tim McCarver and Orlando Cepeda each hitting three-run shots. Game Four was a laugher; a 10-1 victory in favor of the Cards, with Gibson adding not only 10 more strikeouts to his Series total, but also homering in the 4th inning.

The Tigers salvaged Game Five behind another complete game from Lolich, but they needed to take both games in St. Louis. Game Six was easy, a 13-1 win that saw the Tigers score ten runs in the third, but then there's Game Seven. The Tigers had to face Gibson for the third time, and the last two times did not go well. Gibson entered Game Seven with 27 strikeouts, a home run, and an ERA of 0.50 in this Series. His already small ERA shrunk even more, as he and Lolich were in a pitcher's duel--zeroes for six straight innings. The scoreless tie was broken due to Curt Flood's infamous fielding flub, misjudging Jim Northrup's fly ball, which ended up on the warning track and scoring two runs. That was part of a three-run seventh, Detroit added one more in the ninth, and while Mike Shannon homered in the bottom half of the ninth, it would be all that Lolich would surrender.

The Tigers clinched their third World Championship on October 10, 1968, and unsurprisingly, Mickey Lolich was named World Series MVP. Lolich won three of Detroit's four games in the Series, including outdueling the great Bob Gibson on the road in Game Seven. All three wins were complete games, with Lolich becoming the most recent pitcher to accomplish this feat in a World Series. The 1968 Tigers are part of two elite clubs--they're one of the few teams to win Game Seven of the World Series on the road, and they're one of only seven teams to win a World Series after trailing 3-1.

This was the second Series between the clubs; the Cards won the first meeting in 1934, and they would defeat the Tigers again in 2006. The Tigers wouldn't win the World Series again until 1984, which remains their last championship to date. The Cardinals' Game Seven loss was the last game in the storied career of Roger Maris, who is forever remembered for his 61 home runs in 1961 with the New York Yankees, which stood as the overall MLB record until 1998, and stood as the American League (as well as the Yankees franchise) record until 2022.

That wasn't all that ended with this World Series. This was the final World Series under this classic format, which sent the first place teams in the American and National Leagues to the Fall Classic. Divisional Play would debut on the following year. It's been 55 years and we have still not seen a season like this--with pitching being this dominant. We never will see it again. As for the Tigers, this team truly showed out, dominating the American League in grand fashion, and pulling off a big comeback and what had to be an upset against a hallowed team with an untouchable ace. Truly the stuff of legends.