What are your favorite Tigers playoff memories?

My favorite Tiger post season moments:
1. Jim Northrup’s triple off Bob Gibson in the seventh inning of the seventh game in 1968.
2. Bill Freehan catching the pop fly and Mickey Lolich jumping into his arms.
3. Gibby’s blast off Goose Gossage in 1984 in game 5.
4. Magglio’s shot heard ‘round Detroit in 2006 in the ALCS.
5. Bonderman shutting down the Yanks in 2006- I was there.
6. Kenny Rogers shutting down the Yanks in 2006- I was there for that too, two rows behind Brian Cashman and Reggie Jackson.
7. Probably higher on the list, Willie Horton gunning down Lou Brock at the plate in 1968.
The moments that reach the top of the list are those that are clinching moments. When we’ve won the game or the series at hand.

Why don’t the yankees play the Rays… doesn’t the 1 seed play the 4 seed??

In 1984, I was the quitessential 15 year old, skinny dork.
 
On the day of Game 5, a Sunday, my first high school girlfriend and her parents were kind enough to ask me along for to a Lions game, which I’d never seen live, at the Silverdome.
 
As I recall, the woeful Lions defeated the still-dressed-in-orange Buccaneers in overtime that day, but I was actually eager to get somewhere with a television to catch the Tigers in the World Series.
 
As we were all from the Grand Rapids area, we progressed back on M-59 westward, missing the first two innings before we finally stopped – bless that girl’s father – at a BAR to watch the game.
 
Now, I’d been in restaurants, nice pubs, clubs, of course, but never one of those "hole-in-the-wall" bars that you’d see on television. Now, I’d lost my innocence twice in one day, as this was the first time I’d ever been in a bar as this little slice of heaven – and a crowd of hundreds – would serve as our host for the final 7 innings.
 
Much of the game was a blur, but I can remember the electric atmosphere of anticipation, through the silky grey smoke and chatter that floated in front of the television screen, which ultimately and literally exploded as Gibson’s upper deck blast off of Gossage sealed the World Championship for the Tigers. It was the first time I’d seen grown men hug, cry and throw their hands in the air like my Little League teammates.
 
I was hooked.
 
Although the girl faded to a puppy-love memory and I remained a cynical Lions’ fan, my love for baseball was confirmed as I would be a lifelong fan of the Tigers…and not coincidentally, smoky old barrooms.

Singing “The Gambler” with about 30 of my closest friends in a Comerica Park bathroom.

My parents went to the clinching game. They came home, picked me (13) and my sister (9) up and drove us back downtown so that we could be a part of the celebration. We ended up in the same bar as Bob Seger.

We got to see the replay a lot this year because of Sparky’s role, telling Gibby, “He don’t wanna pitch to you…”

I was 9 years old at the time, but I remember watching the game with my dad and how fired up we got when Gibby took him yard.

Glad your brother is doing better. I also have a serious auto-immune disease I’m dealing with, though not as serious. A lifelong battle. But I digress……

Rather than just reiterating tigerdog’s memories, I’ll go back to 2006 as well My sister, a UM grad, and I, a devoted Spartan, have met in Las Vegas for over 20 years on the weekend when our 2 schools meet on the football field. That year, the game coincided with the first weekend of the playoffs. We parked ourselves in the Mirage sports book and it had to be the best place on earth to be watching those games outside of Comerica. Since the Yankees are universally hated, a huge majority of people were rooting for the Tigers. Vegas sports books are always electric venues to watch big-time sports events, and with the Bengals stomping on the Evil Empire, it was magical. Us, being decked out in Tiger gear, loud and obnoxious from multiple cocktails, were receivng high fives throughout the games from everybody. Thanks to the Tigers, it made the Spartan beat-down on saturday tolerable.

I was lucky enough to make it to a home game in each round that year… ALDS game 3, ALCS game 3 and WS game 2. Got to see us win every time! Sat in the bleachers for the Series game right in front of where Curt made that awesome sliding catch. Also had no idea about the pinetar incident with Kenny until we got home later that night.

But like most of us, the Mags homer to send us to the Series will be forever burned in my memory.

In 2006 I was in high school about an hour east of St. Louis (It’s IL but everyone’s cardinal fans). I had just made it back to a TV and got to see one at bat of the Game 4 of the ALCS. It was the right one :)
Than yes the WS was horrible. However, in my situation my little brother (also a tigers fan) has his friends over for game 5. They are hooting and hollering and I just want to club those 4th graders!!!!!!!!
Also now I’m in St. Paul studying to be high school teacher.

I was only 8 but I can remember my dad keeping score in his scorebook. He stil has it. Great to look at.

The win over the Yankees is easily one of the best memories of my entire life.

By an enormous stroke of good fortune, I’m gonna be at Yankee Stadium tonight. This one’s for you guys.

http://ology.com/sports/go-get-em-tigers-wont-you-beat-yankees-me-justin-verlander

I’m a Minnesota Twins fan by birth, but I was living in Michigan that year and once the Twins got swept out of the ALDS (where have we heard that before) I became a Tigers fan for the remainder of the year.

After watching the first three games of the ALDS at home, I had made plans with a group of friends to go to a corn maze during game 4. When we first scheduled the trip, I figured that the series wouldn’t be a sweep and I could miss one game with no worries. But as the week went on and the Tigers went up 3-0, I realized that I didn’t want to miss the game even though it was too late to reschedule the outing. So instead, I went to Sears and bought a little portable transistor radio for $9.99 and took it into the corn with me.

It was a night time maze, so we caught the first part of the game in the car on the drive down. Once we got there, I turned my little transistor to the AM dial and found the game, and off we went into the corn.

After awhile, I was beginning to feel like the Pied Piper of Michigan as Tigers fans literally came out from the corn to follow my group around because I had the radio. It actually made the maze a little less fun as far as mazes go, but way more fun as far as listening to baseball goes. When the Tigers tied it up in the 6th, we went nuts. I’m sure the people running the maze heard our cheers from their booth at the end of the maze and thought we were insane.

We finished the maze around the 8th inning, but everyone was still listening to the game, so we hung around at a picnic table drinking apple cider and eating apple cider donuts. The farm that ran the maze had a boombox with much better acoustics than my $9.99 radio from Sears, so we switched to listening to the game on that.

And so it was that I listened to Maggs’s epic homerun in a corn field with a bunch of random strangers (and three friends). It’s still my favorite not-at-a-stadium baseball memory and the Tigers aren’t even my favorite team.

The day I became a Tigers fan.

I think I remember Kaline sliding into home plate and pounding on the plate like he was playing the bongos. I think I can remember the talk of Lolich vs. Gibson. I do remember my Dad fooling with the rabbit ears so the picture would come in on the T.V. What I remember like it happened yesterday is my mom reading The Detroit News to me the day after game 7, 1968. I was 5 years old.

My mom read the baseball stories to me. She showed me full page newspaper ads that local companies had purchased congratulating the Tigers. Most of the ads showed a characterization of a Tiger with red feathers dropping from its mouth. At that time, I thought the J.L Hudsons ad was the coolest. It was then I realized winning the World Series was a big deal and the Tigers had just won it. I was hooked for life.

A few years later I went to the same school as Mickey Stanley’s son and we also played little league together, that gave me the opportunity to be around Mickey on several occasions. "Knowing Mickey" made losing the 1972 playoffs to the A’s a very painful experience for a 9 year old.

I have great memories from 1984 and 2006. I was in the crowd around Tiger Stadium when the Tigers won it all in 1984 and was watching from about 200’ feet from when the Detroit Police car was flipped over and set on fire. You know the picture, it was front page in about 83% of the nations newspapers the very next day.

2006 I’ll never forget, lets just say that is the last year my Mom and I got to watch a Tigers playoff game together. She passed away 2 months later.

Like the song says

We’re all behind our baseball team….GO GET ‘EM, TIGERS!
World series bound and picking up steam, GO GET ’EM,TIGERS!
There’ll be joy in Tigertown, we’ll sing this song,
When you bring the pennant home, where it belongs
we’re all behind our baseball team, GO GET EM,
Detroit Tigers,
go get ’em, TIGERS!
So every playoff series in my life has had special memories for me and I do not expect this year to be any different!

He was (still is) a huge Yankees fan, and so I wanted to rub it in. His father picked up the phone, put it on speaker and said “County morgue- nothing but dead Yankees here”. I rubbed it in for the next four years. Really hoping we beat em again- so I can make him pay for longer.

I was at games 3 and 4 of the LDS. Game 3 was euphoric, but game 5 was better, even though I saw it on TV. Beating the Yankees is always a special moment. If I had to pick one moment from that game, to me it’s still that magical moment when you win the game. The home runs in the first inning were awesome, but when Valverde K’d A Roid to end the game, I was into a frenzy. Those two moments, along with Delmon’s homer in game 3 are on the list, and the list is growing by the day.