Bless You Boys

Hard to believe, but it's been twenty-five years since the glorious baseball season of 1984, when my team, the Detroit Tigers, went wire-to-wire and won the World Series. The team has only won two world championships in my lifetime, and the win in 1968 was a bit before my time. '84, though, lives well in my memory.

My late grandmother was also a big Tigers' fan, and a few weeks ago my aunt put out her belongings and let the grandkids go through and take anything they wanted. I took a few pictures and also a few books, including Ernie Harwell's autobiography (he was the long-time radio play-by-play man) and a book with the inelegant title of '84--The Last of the Great Tigers. It was written by Eli Zaret, who was host of the pre-game show in those days. It was fascinating to me, because it was a game-by-game recitation of that season, along with profiles of the key people involved. For those who don't care about the Tigers, it would be a crashing bore.

The season got off to a fantastic start--the best ever. The Tigers won nine to start the season, including Jack Morris' no-hitter against the White Sox in game 4. They then went on to be 19-2, 26-4, and and a mind-blowing 35-5. Yet the pesky Toronto Blue Jays dogged them all season. Finally they put them away, won the AL pennant with a sweep of the Royals, and defeated the Padres in five in the World Series.

Zaret goes into great detail on the season, starting with the moves in the off-season. The key move was picking up relief pitcher Willie Hernandez from the Phillies. They gave up a promising outfielder, Glenn Wilson, and long-time favorite John Wockenfuss. They got Hernandez and Dave Bergman. Some thought it was a terrible deal, and angry fans wrote into the newspapers that the manager, Sparky Anderson, was the worst ever. They really had to eat their words, for Hernandez went on to win both the Cy Young Award and the MVP, while Bergman had some big hits all season, including the game-winning three-home run in two different games against the Blue Jays (won of them was on a Monday Night Baseball telecast that I remember watching as if it were yesterday).

Zaret also writes insightfully about Anderson's managing style, which I had never really considered before. He's always been such a twinkly media figure, with his fractured grammar and his snowy white hair, that it can be easy to overlook that the man wasn't so successful by accident. Zaret also doesn't pull any punches, writing about the skinflint general manager, Jim Campbell, who wouldn't spend money on improving the stadium (the dugout ceiling was less than six feet high, so players constantly bumped their heads) and refused to institute marketing gimmicks, insisting that what was important was the product on the field.

As a TV reporter during those days, Zaret also delves into the media coverage, including the derivation of the catch-phrase of that season, "Bless You Boys," which was initially coined by sportscaster Al Ackerman. Initially it was a derogatory sneer, but when the team started winning it ended up a rally cry. We also learn about some of the activities of the bleacher denizens. They are responsible, for better or worse, for popularizing the "Wave," but I liked a bit they did in which, aping a popular beer commercial, one section would yell "Tastes great!" while another would answer with "Less filling!"

I watched all of this from my mother's house in New Jersey. I was just out of college and living at home, working a nothing job in town. We had a black and white TV, but I had a little bit of money so I bought a color TV with the specific intention of watching the post-season in living color. And it was glorious. I still remember a play Darrell Evans made on Willie Wilson in game three of the ALCS, when Evans field a grounder and had to beat the speedy Wilson to the first-base bag. Of course every Tiger remembers Allan Trammel knocking two home runs in game four of the World Series, and then Kirk Gibson's majestic shot off Goose Gossage late in game five to seal the deal. Elmore Leonard wrote a foreward to Zaret's book that speaks of that moment: "My all-time favorite highlight was Kirk Gibson taking that Goose Gossage fastball into the upper deck to clinch the '84 World Series. I saw it from the centerfield bleachers and screamed my head off along with 51,901 Tigers fans."