Detroit Tigers in Detroit tickets

The Detroit Tigers are one of the American League's eight charter franchises, and no team has stayed closer to its roots. Founded in Detroit in 1894 as a member of the minor league Western League and on the field when the AL became a major league in 1901, Detroit is the only Western League club still playing in its original city, and the oldest American League team still using its original name. Big-league baseball in Detroit unfolded at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull for more than a century, first at Bennett Park and later at Tiger Stadium, until the move to Comerica Park in Downtown Detroit in 2000. Tigers tickets today come with the same navy and orange and the same Old English D that has anchored the home uniform since 1934, a look the franchise has essentially never changed.

Winning has come in waves, and every era has produced a team the city still talks about. The Ty Cobb-era Tigers won three straight pennants from 1907 through 1909, the 1935 club delivered the franchise's first World Series title with four future Hall of Famers in the lineup, and championships followed in 1945 and in 1968, when Denny McLain won 31 games and Mickey Lolich earned World Series MVP in a seven-game win over the St. Louis Cardinals. The 1984 team set the standard: a 35-5 start, a franchise-record 104 wins, and a five-game World Series victory over the San Diego Padres sealed by Kirk Gibson's three-run homer off Goose Gossage. The modern era brought a pennant in 2006 under manager Jim Leyland, four straight AL Central titles from 2011 through 2014, and another pennant in 2012. That stretch featured Justin Verlander winning the 2011 AL MVP and Cy Young Award in the same season, plus Miguel Cabrera's 2012 Triple Crown, the first in the majors since 1967. The Tigers returned to the postseason in 2024.

The all-time roll call explains why the bar stays high in Detroit. More than a dozen Tigers legends are enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and the outfield walls at Comerica Park carry retired numbers from nearly every era of the franchise:

• Ty Cobb: arrived in 1905 as an 18-year-old and won the batting Triple Crown in 1909, leaving Detroit regarded as one of the greatest players in baseball history.
• Hank Greenberg: won AL MVP in 1935 and again in 1940, the first major leaguer to take the award at two different positions.
• Al Kaline: went straight to the majors in 1953 without a day in the minors, became the youngest batting champion in major league history at age 20, and piled up 15 All-Star selections and 10 Gold Gloves.
• Hal Newhouser: the only pitcher in American League history to win MVP in back-to-back seasons, taking the award in 1944 and 1945.
• Willie Horton: the left fielder whose throw to the plate in Game 5 of the 1968 World Series turned the Series against the Cardinals.
• Alan Trammell: the shortstop and 1984 World Series MVP whose No. 3 hangs in left field next to Lou Whitaker's No. 1.
• Jack Morris: threw a nationally televised no-hitter in the fourth game of the 1984 championship season.

Tigers fandom runs generations deep and covers more ground than most fanbases. Support stretches across Michigan, into northwestern Ohio, and across the border into southwestern Ontario, where Windsor and Sarnia have built large, loyal Tigers followings and most baseball fans in the region back Detroit over the Toronto Blue Jays. The culture has its own language, too. "Go Get 'Em, Tigers" became the city's rally cry during the 1968 championship season, "Bless You Boys" took over the 1984 run, and "Who's Your Tiger?" has served as a franchise slogan since 2005. Around town the club answers to the Bengals and the Motor City Kitties, playful nicknames backed by a fanbase that knows its baseball history as well as anyone. Tickets for a game at Comerica Park put you in the middle of it.