Here are some celebration miscellaney…
First, Joey C found this YouTube video of the celebration. It was somebody with a camcorder recording the TV broadcast so the quality isn’t the best, but you definitely get the gist of what’s going on.
You can download the whole game 4 for free from MLB.com. Or if you prefer, for $0.99 you can get 4:48 of bliss that includes the last out and celebration.
Buster Olney called it “perhaps the greatest team celebration you will ever see.” While Jerry Green said it brought back memories of the 1968 party that spilled from the clubhouse to the Lindell AC.
Some may have been put off by the celebration, but The Bleacher Guy explains that those who didn’t appreciate the celebration didn’t experience the depths of despair this team had encountered.
Finally, Peter Gammons weighs in. It’s premium content, but I’ll excerpt the sweetest stuff below:
Those were the Tigers of 1984, of Alan Trammell and Jack Morris, Sparky Anderson and Kirk Gibson, and they may or may not have meant more to the city’s psyche than the Tigers of 1968. Yankees or no Yankees, these 2006 Tigers are summed up by manager Jim Leyland’s simple phrase, “We showed we belong,” which may not sound like much in New York or Boston or Chicago, but to a franchise that hadn’t had a winning season since 1993 in a town where baseball not only mattered but was Cobb, Gehringer, Kaline, Lolich, et al — lords and masters — just to “belong” with the Yankees is a measure of the self-respect that somehow got lost.
So to hear the chants for Kenny Rogers, the 23rd winningest left-hander in history yet an abused postseason figure, was a wonderful thing. To watch the standing ovations for Craig Monroe, Todd Jones and Carlos Guillen made them all the stars that went on top, and, best of all, seeing Leyland carried off the field like Knute Rockne made the weekend.
What exactly did the Bronx Banter not like about the celebration? Everyone dumps champagne on each other when they clinch a division or win a playoff series. So I guess that sharing the celebration with the fans was the problem? That’s a strange complaint. Do the Yankees only play the game for themselves and The Boss?
I’ll admit I had to look up “gilding the lily.” It means “To adorn unnecessarily something that is already beautiful or perfect.” Hmmmm. Maybe a good example would be adding Bobby Abreu to a lineup that already had eight all-stars in it?
Why don’t we make a deal? When our payroll hits $200 million, we’ll stop celebrating division series victories.
Rant over.
Kyle – keep in mind that he was a Yankees fan who wrote that just after his team was eliminated, and he even admitted to being bitter in the post. Reverse allegiances and I think we’d feel the same way. I didn’t include it to slam Alex Belth who is a wonderful writer and near as I can tell from the bulk of his writing he actually kind of likes the Tig’s.
I’m not sure we’d feel the same way. We’d be disappointed, but why would we care if the other team and its fans enjoyed their success? To me, this smacks of the Yankees and their fans thinking everything is about them.
But I understand that when a sports fan’s team loses, that fan’s view of the world can be a bit skewed. I’ll take your word that he’s a good guy. Maybe he’ll be able to root for the Tigers if they advance to the World Series and play the Mets:)
I think it’s difficult for a Yankees fan to find true joy even in winning a World Series. It’s more of a relief, of having fulfilled overwhelming expectations. So celebrations, both for Yankees and their fans, could never been as loose or spontaneous as what we saw in Detroit on Saturday.
And that eats at that Bronx guy–not as much as losing does, but it still eats at him. That’s because his innocent joy at the Yankees great decade-plus run ended long long ago. Instead of excitement at winning, a post-season series win for the Yankees leads to relief that they did not fail.
So he lashes out at the Tigers and pouts that he’s going to root for the A’s because of the way the Tigers celebrated. That’s pathetic, but in a way we should feel sorry for the guy–he’ll never again be as happy about a baseball game as Tigers fans were on Saturday. And, again, I think he knows that and resents it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHVsFU4sSho
this makes me more emotional than usual. gotta love the tigers and ernie!
Setember was frustrating and pretty depressing much of the time. This weekend made sitting through the rain in games against Seattle, TX, and TO all worth while.
Anyone who doesn’t want to sit through the snowstorm on Friday, let me know.
I noticed online tickets can be had for the game tonight and Wednesday for $30 in Oakland. Lower demand when you’ve been there recently, I guess.
http://www.coasttocoasttickets.com/buy/tigers_tickets.htm?FILTER=ALLGAMES
Kyle J,
I love the post. The dig about Abreu gilding the Yankee’s all-star lineup lily is fantastic.
That being said, I can be an absolutely bitter fan–surprise surprise–and I could easily crank out a few hundred negative words about the team that just knocked my beloved squad out of the playoffs. In fact, I’ve done as much numerous emails to friends and family. I think Billfer’s estimation of this guy is probably correct and we should just let him off the hook for being a passionate dude who just watched his team get spanked for three straight games and booted out of the post-season.
And Jeff, I think your post about fans of dynastic franchises having a hard time finding true joy in competition is dead on.
The Redwings are a great example…
Think about how nuts it was in 1997 when they finally beat the Avs and went on to win their first cup in nearly 50 years. Think about how unbelievable it felt to watch them finally get over the hump and get it done. Think about watching STEVIE Y lift that giant trophy for the first time…and now compare that to watching the celebration after the Wings won the cup with that All-Star roster that included Hasek and Hull. It was a lot of fun when they won that Stanley Cup in 2002, but it wasn’t anything like 1997. And every year they HAVEN’T won it since then, has been a catostrophic disappointment. Each failed post-season since then has been a slap in the face.
But I know that when Calgary and Edmonton beat us, I should have been rooting for the small-market, Canadian squads to win the whole deal. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand watching all those insanely exuberant Canadian’s celebrate their wonderfully underdog teams knock off the evil empire that has dominated their national past-time for so many years.
And if I had been writing a blog devoted to the Redwings during those disappointing playoff losses, I most certainly would have hammered out a negative post about the celebration that ensued upon Detroit’s exit.
Let Bronx Banter express whatever disappointment it feels. Once the immediate sting of the Yankee loss dissipates, Bronx Banter will be rooting for our guys. After all, we have the 2nd best home uniforms in baseball…
*** And if I had been writing a blog devoted to the Redwings during those disappointing playoff losses, I most certainly would have hammered out a negative post about the celebration that ensued upon Detroit’s exit. ***
I actually enjoyed the celebrations in Calgary and Edmonton after they beat the Red Wings. They were genuine and it was clear that they had overcome some great odds. The scenes on the streets in both cities when they were in the Cup finals were great fun to watch. No resentment from my end–they weren’t taunting the Red Wings, they were celebrating their own success. That’s great.
As the Tigers (hopefully) compete for a long time with this young pitching staff, let us not become jaded — let us celebrate each time with at least a good chunk of the joy we had on Saturday!