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Detroit Tigers
Baseball History |
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The Detroit Tigers baseball
franchise played their first game for the newly established American
League on April 25, 1901 at Bennett Park in front of 10,000 fans.
A legend holds that the Detroit Tigers got their nickname, which they
have held for over a century, after a sportswriter (a graduate of
Princeton University, whose sports teams were called the "Tigers")
wrote that the team "fought back like tigers". In 1905,
the team acquired Ty Cobb, a player who would be considered one of
the greatest of all-time. Ty Cobb posted a .367 career batting average
to set an all-time major league record, won a record 12 batting titles,
and hit over .300 in every year but his rookie season. In 1911, Cobb
put together one of the most remarkable seasons in baseball history.
He topped the AL in batting, RBIs, runs, hits, doubles, triples, and
stolen bases. The addition of Cobb to an already talented team that
included Sam Crawford, Hughie Jennings, Bill Donovan, and George Mullin
quickly yielded results, as the Tigers won three consecutive American
League Championships from 1907-09. However, the team came up short
in the World Series each time, and would not win its first World Series
until 1935. The team won additional World Series crowns in 1945, 1968
and 1984. In sixty two of their first 100 seasons the team finished
with a winning record. The Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball
team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are one of five teams that play
in the Central Division of the American League. The "Tiger"
nickname came from the orange striped socks the team wore in the early
1900s. The Tigers were the first team in baseball, to wear a symbol
of their nickname on their uniform (other than a colored sock). In
the early 1900s, Detroit players wore caps with a tiger patch sown
on. Fans of the team call the Tigers the "Tigs" or the "Bengals,"
and even, in times of losing, the "Pussycats." The Detroit
Tigers were founded in 1893 in the minor Western League. The Tigers
Hall of Famers include Sparky Anderson, Earl Averill, Jim Bunning,
Mickey Cochrane, Sam Crawford, Larry Doby, Charlie Gehringer, and
Goose Goslin. The Tigers uniform color consists of Navy blue, White,
and Orange; logo design is an Old English font "D" and a
tiger embeds in it. The Detroit Tigers have won four World Series
Championships (1935, 1945, 1968, 1984), nine American League pennants
(1907, 1908, 1909, 1934, 1935, 1940, 1945, 1968, 1984), and three
American League East Divisional titles (1972, 1984, 1987). The Detroit
Tigers home ballpark is Comerica Park (2000-present), which has a
capacity of 40,000. The Detroit Tigers Have retired the following
numbers, #2 belonging to Charlie Gehringer, #5 worn by Hank Greenberg,
#6 belonging to Al Kaline, #16 worn by Hal Newhouser, #23 belonging
to Willie Horton, #42 worn by Jackie Robinson. Ty Cobb and Ernie harwell
have retirement honors as they played in the era prior to Uniform
numbers. In 2004, the team signed or traded for several talented but
high-risk veterans, such as Ivan Rodriguez, Ugueth Urbina, Rondell
White, and Carlos Guillen, and the gamble paid off. The '04 Tigers
had a 29 game improvement over the previous season, one of the greatest
improvements in baseball history.
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