well, as far back as my memory can take me, i still recall the names i would hear ernie say as i sat in the backyard with my uncle, he having a stohs, or maybe a goebel or altes, me some vernors and ice cream. and dont forget the better mades. Or maybe we would be on our porch , on detroits east side. at night of course. this is when listening to our tigers was almost vespers. it took on a comforting feeling. the day was done. dinner over, and the tigers were the entertainment. neighbors were out. someone cutting their lawn, dusk in the motor city. at night, listening to the games, on warm summer evenings, or rain delayed saturday afternooons, with my mom, or dad or uncles, or brothers. heck, it seemed most of the neighborhood had ernie on. i especially noticed as i went door to door on a friday night collecting for my free press route. the homes had the game on. always on the radio. you could follow the game from house to house i recall. ahh yes, back to the names. names that seemed to conjure strength, creating my own vision of mcauliffe, in that strange stance facing a 3-1 pitch with two on in the 7th. and that stadium. visions of that beutiful park on michigan and trumbull, too young to go there alone, so having ernie or george kell take me there was just fine. names like mcauliffe, cash, oyler, stanley, the gater, kaline colovito, bruton, wood, maxwell, boros, northrup, horton, wilson, mclain, demeter, triandos, lolich, rodriguez,(chico), freehan, gladding, sparma, trammell, whitaker, morris, parrish, gibson, dressen, smith, houk, martin, lary, bunning, mossi, before this, my parents would talk of the times they went to the corner to see the likes of greenberg, heillman, gehringer, schoolboy rowe: and my parents parents, recalling the viscious one, cobb. i still recall the strong pitcher earl wilson used as a pinch batter and driving in so many. or the tall drink of water jake wood, at 2nd. dropping virtually every other ball hit to him. but man could he steel. the predecesor to leflore in that sense.
todays heros unfortunaltey for me, are not as memorable since moving to chicago over 30 years ago.
were these all time tigers for their feats playing this game? not close. some maybe, but the majority just guys playing the game we loved as kids. in my mind, they still are the all time tigers cause they represented a time and a city i grew up loving. hard to believe this in todays world, but, it was for so many of us, a great place to grow up. and the tigers were summer in detroit. and ernie was the voice. and the wins were sometimes few, but the mystique of the team, the park, the description on radio since only saturday afternoons brought us a game from the corner on wwj channel 4, (brought to you by strohs), was the only time we could see this wonder on grass. as green as irelands shores. so yes, i will say these are my all time tigers. of course the ones with the legendary records are the ones most will recall, the kalines, mickeys 3 wins in 68, morris, cobb, but for those of us who do recall the not so popular names listed above, how about it. they were baseball in our home town. we lived and died with each win i guess. for what its worth, this comprises my favorite tigers. for the memories of nothing else.
