Tonight the Tigers will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. There’s a jersey giveaway and opportunities to get autographs from members of the ’68 team. Details are below:
On Tuesday, the first 10,000 fans in attendance will receive a commemorative 1968 Tigers 40th Anniversary replica road jersey, courtesy of FSN Detroit and the Detroit Medical Center.
Fans will have an opportunity to meet their favorite 1968 Tigers, as members of the team will be signing autographs on the main concourse behind sections 125, 140 and 151 as well as the 300 level concourse behind section 324 from 5:00-6:00 p.m. Players and coaches scheduled to attend include: Jim Price, Gates Brown, Willie Horton, Al Kaline, Wayne Comer, Bill Freehan, John Hiller, Mickey Lolich, Tom Matchick, Dick McAuliffe, Denny McLain, Daryl Patterson, Mickey Stanley, Dick Tracewski, Jon Warden, Don Wert, Hal Naragon and Bill Behm.
The tribute will continue with a special “Year of the Tiger 1968” video feature on the scoreboard. The video will be followed by an on-field, pre-game ceremony to recognize the members of the 1968 team. In addition to all of the pre-game festivities, one member of the 1968 team will throw the ceremonial first pitch.
In addition, a new book about the ’68 team was compiled by a number of SABR members and is titled Sock it to em Tigers
Wow, how cool is this. Lucky Detroit and near-Detroit people.
If you’re one of the lucky ones who get to attend, write something up about it. And send me the replica jersey. I’m sure you don’t need it, you already have so many.
Same here. If anyone doesn’t want that jersey….oh, Lord would I love one of those. Anyway, should be a fun night at the park tonight.
Had to listen to this series from afar with the day games beginning in the middle of the night. Thank God for Lolich.
I’ll be at this game, Sean and Kathy, but I seriously doubt I’ll be among the first 10,000 people to get there
Wish I had tickets for this one. I have poor luck with picking games with no/poor promotional givaways (XL “vote for polanco” t-shirt 2 weeks ago, woohoo).
Ryan, I’m sure someone will trade a ’68 jersey for the Polanco t-shirt. You just need to prey on someone naive and vulnerable who likes Mr. Burrito Head a lot. Dave BW, maybe.
So who do you think gets the nod for first pitch, Lolich or McLain?
Gotta be the Mick. Right?
Will the teams be wearing the throwbacks too? I kinda hope so.
Strangely, when I was driving to Texas from Detroit 2 weeks ago the Cardinals announcers (they have over 100 affiliate stations from Illinois to Oklahoma! Did you know that? 100!!!!!) kept saying they were going to be giving away 1968 World Series game one replica tickets. Which seems strange to me, seeing as how (a) the game was against the Cubs or something and (b) they lost the Series. Seemed strange to me…
We got to the game at 5:30 and the jerseys were already gone. A bunch of 14 year olds with no school are wearing them.
I was three years old when the ’68 series was played,so I don’t remember it, but a neighbor gave me a huge box of newspaper article from ’68 when I was about 10. I read all of those article from the ’68 season and series and loved them. Kaline, Freehan, Stanley were all at the end of their careers when I first started watching baseball in the mid 70’s. John Wockenfuss and Mark Fidrych where my first favorite Tigers.
Slashpyne, that is a neat story. I can see a youngster pouring over those articles and gingerly handling the 7 yr old newspaper. Did you have to return them to your neighbor?
Neat, Slashpyne.
I remember being at old Briggs Stadium for Game 7 of the 1945 World Series. The game was OK, but what made it such a special occasion was bringing my great-grandson to his first major league game. I mean, he’d seen minor league games – heck, he played his whole baseball career in the minors – but this was a big thrill for him, feeble with age as he was. I even ran into some of my Civil War buddies at the game. Hadn’t seen some of those fellas since the Lewis and Clark expedition. I still remember a young Kenny Rogers pitching for a trading post nine at the site of present day Omaha on the way out west. But that’s a story for another day.
mcb, these 14 yr olds are hustlers. They’ll be on EBay soon.
Sean: Do you remember the game when Sheffield made his debut? He went 3-for-4 off of Satchel Paige, but was thrown out at the home by Cool Papa Bell in the 9th inning after a collision at the plate with Josh Gibson. Gibson held onto the ball.
Sean C. I knew you had a T.V. The movie ‘Descent Into Madness’ was recently on the AMC channel with basically the same storyline as above. I do believe it was Roy and not Kenny as the pitcher.
Chris: It’s a common misunderstanding, but the “debut” you describe was only his Negro Leagues debut. He’d already had a long and illustrious career in the old Chipped Shoulder leagues before the Negro Leagues equivalent of Branch Rickey (can’t remember the name offhand) decided to take a chance on Sheffield being the one to break the attitude barrier.
Those early days were tough and left their mark on Sheff. Fans everywhere hurled kind remarks at him – there were even life threats. But Gary stayed cool under fire, keeping a sneer on his face even in the best of times. He opened the door for a lot of guys.
Ron, I though old Roy, may he rest in peace, was Kenny’s son.
Enough of this silliness. Someone make a prediction.
Prediction: Sheffield hits 2 HR tonight, but reinjures himself and is day to day before finally going back on the DL.
Enough with the Sheffield. Mike R is out chopping wood for the upcoming winter and is a healthy scratch for today. Chris, Sean win? lose?
Hal Naragon? I didn’t want to say anything, but enough is enough. Billfer is making up names again, just to see if we’re paying attention. And of course we’re not. I do skim over his articles to be polite, though, just like everyone else.
Win, by an indisputable margin. A thorough beatdown of the despicable, inferior, sad sack Cardinals.
the 68 Tigers World Series ..I flew home from Viet Nam the day of the first World Series game ..landed in in Alaska on a re-feul and watched Gibson strike out every person in the city of Detroit it seemed…after that it was Mickey time for the rest of the series…….remember it like it was last week………