Old-school team at head of class
DETROIT -- It is a town without pretension, a once-great American city that back in the day manufactured everything on four wheels.
But everyone knows these have been rough years in the Motor City. Jobs went away and never came back. The unions got fat, people stopped buying American automobiles, crime spiked, and Detroit rusted into a ghost town. Hudson's department store closed, the Pistons moved to the suburbs, the Lions migrated to Pontiac for a while, and the Tigers said goodbye to estimable Ernie Harwell and ancient Tiger Stadium.
But downtown Detroit is electric again -- at least it was last night when Magglio Ordonez won the American League pennant with a walkoff three-run homer off Oakland closer Huston Street in the ninth. Ordonez's second homer of the game gave the Tigers a 6-3 win, sent 42,967 into hardball heaven, and vaulted Motown back into the Fall Classic for the first time since 1984.
It's been too long. The Tigers are a charter member of the American League. They've been around long enough to have played the Cubs in four World Series. They are the franchise of Cobb, Greenberg, Kaline, and Lolich. They wear the best home uniforms in all of sport -- tuxedo whites with the old English D -- and they have been very bad for a very long time. They lost 119 games just three years ago, endured 12 consecutive losing seasons, and broke spring training with a 61-year-old manager who'd been out of baseball since the 20th century ended.
And now Jim Leyland has the Tigers back in the World Series. After losing 31 of their final 50 games and coughing up the AL Central Division title on the final day of the season, the Tigers gathered themselves and slew the $200 million fat cats from New York. Then they swept the Moneyballers from the Bay. They have won seven consecutive postseason games and Saturday night they will play host to the World Series for the 10th time in franchise history, the first since Kirk Gibson and friends roared to victory over the Padres during the Reagan administration.
Fox has no choice now: MLB and the network are going to have to televise the Tigers in prime time. They are the junior varsity no more.
``To the fans that have been so patient for years -- this is yours," said Leyland when the American League championship trophy was presented in an on-field ceremony after the thrilling finish.
The Tigers will face either the Cardinals or Mets in the World Series. Detroiters fondly recall a city-saving Series win against the Cardinals in 1968 and older fans no doubt will be rooting for a rematch.
It'll be tough to top the final game of the ALCS against Oakland. The Tigers trailed, 3-0, in the fifth and both teams squandered opportunities in the later innings after Detroit tied it on Ordonez's first homer in the sixth.
Street (son of former University of Texas quarterback Jim Street) was in his third inning of relief when Craig Monroe started the winning rally with a two-out single to center. Series MVP Placido Polanco (9 for 17, .529) followed with a long single to right, moving Monroe to second. Then Ordonez struck. And there was no doubt. It goes down as one of the most dramatic moments in a city with a lot of baseball history. A David Ortiz moment for the Venezuelan slugger with the great hair.
``We know the kind of hitter Magglio is," said Polanco. ``It was just a matter of time before he hit one hard, and he hit two today. The last one was just to win the game. He couldn't have hit it at a better moment."
It goes down as a baseball freeze-frame -- alongside other walkoff series winners such as Bill Mazeroski in 1960, Joe Carter in 1993, Aaron Boone in (gulp) 2003, and Ortiz against the Angels in 2004.
Tiger fans did not want to leave the stands. Some were still hanging around the dugout almost an hour after Ordonez circled the bases.
Leyland said, ``I think early on in spring training we had a lot of good players. We didn't have a good team. And today I can make the statement that we've got a good team and that's the thing that I'm proudest of."
Street, as gracious as they come, took on all questions and said, ``I just wish I hadn't taken my uniform off so quickly because I like the feeling of having it on."
That's the way it works with postseason walkoffs. It ends quickly. And now there's no more baseball for the Oakland A's. No more for the Yankees, either. And none for the Red Sox, White Sox, or Angels -- the last three teams to win the World Series.
Detroit will be representing the American League in the World Series. A town that knows a little something about classics. Still baseball-crazy after all these years.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is dshaughnessy@globe.com. 
