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The Tigers of '68: Baseball's Last Real Champions
They had two future Hall of Famers, the last pitcher to win thirty games, and a supporting cast of some of the most peculiar individuals ever to play in the majors. But more than that, the 1968 Detroit Tigers symbolize a lost era in baseball.
It was a time before runaway salaries and designated hitters. Before divisional playoffs and drug suspensions. Before teams measured their well-being by the number of corporate boxes in their ballpark and the cable contract in their pocket. It was the last season of baseball’s most colorful and nostalgic period.
It was surely not a more innocent time. The 1968 Tigers were a team of hell-raisers, the second coming of the Gas House Gang. They brawled on the field and partied hard afterward. They bickered with each other and ignored their manager. They won game after game with improbable rallies on their last at-bat and grabbed the World Championship by coming back from a three games to one deficit to beat the most dominant pitcher in the World Series history in the deciding seventh game.
Their ultimate hero, Mickey Lolich, was a man who threw left-handed, thought “upside down,” and rode motorcycles to the ballpark. Their thirty-game winner, Denny McLain, played the organ in various night spots, placed bets over the clubhouse phone, and incidentally, overpowered the American League. Their prize pinch-hitter, Gates Brown, had done hard time in the Ohio Penitentiary. Their top slugger, Willie Horton, would have rather been boxing. Their centerfielder, Mickey Stanley, a top defensive outfielder, would unselfishly volunteer to play the biggest games of his life at shortstop, so that their great outfielder, Al Kaline, could get into the World Series lineup.
The story of this team, their triumph, and what happened in their lives afterward, is one of the great dramas of baseball history.
The Tigers of ’68 is the uproarious, stirring tale of this team, the last to win a pure pennant (before each league was divided into two divisions and playoffs were added) and World Series. Award-winning journalist George Cantor, who covered the Tigers that year for the Detroit Free Press, revisits the main performers on the team and then weaves their memories and stories (warts and all) into an absorbing narrative that revives all of the delicious—and infamous—moments that made the season unforgettable. Tommy Matchick’s magical ninth-inning home run, Jim Northrup’s record-setting grand slams, Jon Warden’s torrid April, Dick McAuliffe’s charge to the mound, Denny McLain’s gift to Mickey Mantle, the nearly unprecedented comeback in the World Series, and dozens more.
The ’68 Tigers occupy a special place in the history of the city of Detroit. They’ve joined their predecessors of 1935 as an almost mythic unit—more than a baseball team. The belief has passed into Detroit folklore. Many people swear, as Willie Horton says, that they were “put here by God to save the city.” The Tigers of ’68 will help you understand why.
It was a time before runaway salaries and designated hitters. Before divisional playoffs and drug suspensions. Before teams measured their well-being by the number of corporate boxes in their ballpark and the cable contract in their pocket. It was the last season of baseball’s most colorful and nostalgic period.
It was surely not a more innocent time. The 1968 Tigers were a team of hell-raisers, the second coming of the Gas House Gang. They brawled on the field and partied hard afterward. They bickered with each other and ignored their manager. They won game after game with improbable rallies on their last at-bat and grabbed the World Championship by coming back from a three games to one deficit to beat the most dominant pitcher in the World Series history in the deciding seventh game.
Their ultimate hero, Mickey Lolich, was a man who threw left-handed, thought “upside down,” and rode motorcycles to the ballpark. Their thirty-game winner, Denny McLain, played the organ in various night spots, placed bets over the clubhouse phone, and incidentally, overpowered the American League. Their prize pinch-hitter, Gates Brown, had done hard time in the Ohio Penitentiary. Their top slugger, Willie Horton, would have rather been boxing. Their centerfielder, Mickey Stanley, a top defensive outfielder, would unselfishly volunteer to play the biggest games of his life at shortstop, so that their great outfielder, Al Kaline, could get into the World Series lineup.
The story of this team, their triumph, and what happened in their lives afterward, is one of the great dramas of baseball history.
The Tigers of ’68 is the uproarious, stirring tale of this team, the last to win a pure pennant (before each league was divided into two divisions and playoffs were added) and World Series. Award-winning journalist George Cantor, who covered the Tigers that year for the Detroit Free Press, revisits the main performers on the team and then weaves their memories and stories (warts and all) into an absorbing narrative that revives all of the delicious—and infamous—moments that made the season unforgettable. Tommy Matchick’s magical ninth-inning home run, Jim Northrup’s record-setting grand slams, Jon Warden’s torrid April, Dick McAuliffe’s charge to the mound, Denny McLain’s gift to Mickey Mantle, the nearly unprecedented comeback in the World Series, and dozens more.
The ’68 Tigers occupy a special place in the history of the city of Detroit. They’ve joined their predecessors of 1935 as an almost mythic unit—more than a baseball team. The belief has passed into Detroit folklore. Many people swear, as Willie Horton says, that they were “put here by God to save the city.” The Tigers of ’68 will help you understand why.
240 pages, Paperback
First published March 25, 1997
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April 21, 2022
The book is about the Detroit Tigers magical 1968 season in which they won a World Series. It was the last year that American League and National League champions were chosen based simply on their records. It was the last time a starting pitcher won 30 games and it was probably the last time a ballplayer refused to accept a raise from management when Al Kaline told GM, Jim Campbell, that he wasn't worth $100,000. Oh have things changed.
I was a boy 6 years of age, and my earliest memories were of the Detroit Tigers. It was a nice book to reminisce about my heroes and to try to determine what I actually remember about that season. It turns out that I remembered almost nothing but that's alright. I still get a chill when I think about Mickey Stanley, Bill Freehan, Stormin Norman Cash, Al Kaline, Willie Horten, Northrup, McAuliffe, Gates "the Gator" Brown, and Micky Lolich, etc.
The book is a series of interviews by George Cantor, a beat writer for the Free Press who wrote the book 25-30 years after that season. I think any baseball fan would find the interviews interesting. It was a different era, dominated by the pitcher. Denny McLain won 31 games and many of the players were making $18,000/year. Cantor's interview with pitcher Earl Wilson was my favorite. Earl was a black man who grew up in Louisiana, deep in the Jim Crow south. When he first visited Detroit as a member of the Boston Red Socks, he fell in love with the city. He couldn't believe that middle class black people owned these huge mansions. He was eventually traded to Detroit and after he retired, he made Detroit his home and he started a business there. I had to laugh when Earl Wilson questioned the sanity of modern-day baseball owners. He said that baseball would be the last business he would enter into in this world and said that after paying out the outlandish salaries of modern-day players, that owners have trouble making 1% ROI. Wilson also didn't like the DH rule stating that he hit 35 home runs as a starting pitcher, and he considered his bat as one of his weapons to outperform the opposing pitcher.
Not all the interviews went as well. Gates Brown was full of sour grapes. Gates claimed he was never happy about being relegated to a pinch-hitting role in 1968 even though he hit >.400 with 19 pinch hits. I empathize with Brown but even Al Kaline, a future Hall of Famer, had a hard time getting plate appearances with that loaded outfield. The Gator sported two World Series Tigers championship rings because he was a batting coach for the 1984 Tiger's team. He quit coaching because the Tigers only offered him a small $2,500 raise after that series. The Tigers signed Gates Brown out of the Ohio State penitentiary, and it was sad to hear how disgruntled he was. Did he not realize that every kid I knew that played baseball idolized him? That has to be worth something - especially to a guy who was signed on a prison baseball yard while serving hard time, incarcerated. Cantor makes no mention of the infamous hot dog story where Mayo Smith called Brown to pinch hit early in the game while the Gator was sneaking a hot dog break. Brown had a bit of a weight problem and management was always on his back about it. Anyway, the Gator tucked the two dogs in his jersey and went up to bat. He ended up hitting a double and slid face first into second base. Pureed hot dog with mustard and ketchup was all over the front of his uniform causing the shortstop and second basemen and Gates teammates back in the Tiger's dugout to roar with laughter. How can you write a book about the '68 Tigers and not include this story?
It was clear to me that the author, George Cantor despised Denny McLain and he seemed to use poison ink every time he referred to McLain in the book. Cantor mentions a time that he and another reporter, Joe Falls, paid McLain a visit to confront him about a comment that McLain had made that had offended Falls. It was just prior to McLain's last World Series start and it almost came to blows. Cantor writes that Falls asked him to go with him to confront McLain and warned that it may lead to a fight and Cantor wrote "Oh what fun." I thought that this was very unprofessional. This jogged one childhood memory: I never liked those two sports writers. Cantor writes, what if they did get in a fight McLain became injured just prior to his game 6 start? The Tigers would have lost the World Series because of these two media hacks? McLain was not a good guy, but this was very low-brow, unprofessional conduct by Falls and Cantor. They could have waited till after the series to confront McLain. Cantor gives another example of his buddy Falls writing a story based on an interview with an intoxicated Joe Sparma that caused problems in the clubhouse. I would have barred these two from the clubhouse for life.
The book starts in the end of the '67 season when the Tigers lost the pennant down the stretch to the Boston Red Sox. It picks up in Lakeland, Florida for the Tigers '68 spring training. Cantor provides sketchy coverage of the regular season and a disjointed coverage of the World Series. The 68' series was interesting. Mickey Stanley was the starting center fielder during the regular season, and was moved to shortstop because Ray Oyler, the starting shortstop during the regular season, was hitting 0.100. The Tigers' star and future hall of famer, Al Kaline, was put out of action earlier in the season when he was hit by a wild pitch and had accepted the role of a bench player upon his return to action. This was because manager, Mayo Smith, didn't want to upset a winning recipe. He had Horton in left, Stanley in CF, and Northrup in RF and it was the best outfield in the American League. To get the future hall of famer's bat back in the lineup, Smith made the unprecedented decision to move the team's best athlete, Mickey Stanly, from CF to SS and put Kaline in the outfield. Mickey had 6 regular season games to get used to shortstop after the Tigers clinched the pennant during the regular season. The move paid off. in the World Series, Kaline responded with a 1.055 OPS with 11 hits including two doubles and two homeruns. Mickey Stanley, on the other hand, made two errors at short but neither resulted in a run. Mickey did say that the move made him uncomfortable, and it ruined his World Series experience. There are a lot of stories like this in the book.
This book is a decent read about the '68 Tigers with several enjoyable interviews. Just don't expect a Danial James Brown, Boys in the Boat caliber read, and you will do fine. If you're a Tigers fan or at least a baseball fan and can put up with some slightly disjointed but interesting interviews, put together by a beat writer about our national pastime, then you should enjoy this book.
I was a boy 6 years of age, and my earliest memories were of the Detroit Tigers. It was a nice book to reminisce about my heroes and to try to determine what I actually remember about that season. It turns out that I remembered almost nothing but that's alright. I still get a chill when I think about Mickey Stanley, Bill Freehan, Stormin Norman Cash, Al Kaline, Willie Horten, Northrup, McAuliffe, Gates "the Gator" Brown, and Micky Lolich, etc.
The book is a series of interviews by George Cantor, a beat writer for the Free Press who wrote the book 25-30 years after that season. I think any baseball fan would find the interviews interesting. It was a different era, dominated by the pitcher. Denny McLain won 31 games and many of the players were making $18,000/year. Cantor's interview with pitcher Earl Wilson was my favorite. Earl was a black man who grew up in Louisiana, deep in the Jim Crow south. When he first visited Detroit as a member of the Boston Red Socks, he fell in love with the city. He couldn't believe that middle class black people owned these huge mansions. He was eventually traded to Detroit and after he retired, he made Detroit his home and he started a business there. I had to laugh when Earl Wilson questioned the sanity of modern-day baseball owners. He said that baseball would be the last business he would enter into in this world and said that after paying out the outlandish salaries of modern-day players, that owners have trouble making 1% ROI. Wilson also didn't like the DH rule stating that he hit 35 home runs as a starting pitcher, and he considered his bat as one of his weapons to outperform the opposing pitcher.
Not all the interviews went as well. Gates Brown was full of sour grapes. Gates claimed he was never happy about being relegated to a pinch-hitting role in 1968 even though he hit >.400 with 19 pinch hits. I empathize with Brown but even Al Kaline, a future Hall of Famer, had a hard time getting plate appearances with that loaded outfield. The Gator sported two World Series Tigers championship rings because he was a batting coach for the 1984 Tiger's team. He quit coaching because the Tigers only offered him a small $2,500 raise after that series. The Tigers signed Gates Brown out of the Ohio State penitentiary, and it was sad to hear how disgruntled he was. Did he not realize that every kid I knew that played baseball idolized him? That has to be worth something - especially to a guy who was signed on a prison baseball yard while serving hard time, incarcerated. Cantor makes no mention of the infamous hot dog story where Mayo Smith called Brown to pinch hit early in the game while the Gator was sneaking a hot dog break. Brown had a bit of a weight problem and management was always on his back about it. Anyway, the Gator tucked the two dogs in his jersey and went up to bat. He ended up hitting a double and slid face first into second base. Pureed hot dog with mustard and ketchup was all over the front of his uniform causing the shortstop and second basemen and Gates teammates back in the Tiger's dugout to roar with laughter. How can you write a book about the '68 Tigers and not include this story?
It was clear to me that the author, George Cantor despised Denny McLain and he seemed to use poison ink every time he referred to McLain in the book. Cantor mentions a time that he and another reporter, Joe Falls, paid McLain a visit to confront him about a comment that McLain had made that had offended Falls. It was just prior to McLain's last World Series start and it almost came to blows. Cantor writes that Falls asked him to go with him to confront McLain and warned that it may lead to a fight and Cantor wrote "Oh what fun." I thought that this was very unprofessional. This jogged one childhood memory: I never liked those two sports writers. Cantor writes, what if they did get in a fight McLain became injured just prior to his game 6 start? The Tigers would have lost the World Series because of these two media hacks? McLain was not a good guy, but this was very low-brow, unprofessional conduct by Falls and Cantor. They could have waited till after the series to confront McLain. Cantor gives another example of his buddy Falls writing a story based on an interview with an intoxicated Joe Sparma that caused problems in the clubhouse. I would have barred these two from the clubhouse for life.
The book starts in the end of the '67 season when the Tigers lost the pennant down the stretch to the Boston Red Sox. It picks up in Lakeland, Florida for the Tigers '68 spring training. Cantor provides sketchy coverage of the regular season and a disjointed coverage of the World Series. The 68' series was interesting. Mickey Stanley was the starting center fielder during the regular season, and was moved to shortstop because Ray Oyler, the starting shortstop during the regular season, was hitting 0.100. The Tigers' star and future hall of famer, Al Kaline, was put out of action earlier in the season when he was hit by a wild pitch and had accepted the role of a bench player upon his return to action. This was because manager, Mayo Smith, didn't want to upset a winning recipe. He had Horton in left, Stanley in CF, and Northrup in RF and it was the best outfield in the American League. To get the future hall of famer's bat back in the lineup, Smith made the unprecedented decision to move the team's best athlete, Mickey Stanly, from CF to SS and put Kaline in the outfield. Mickey had 6 regular season games to get used to shortstop after the Tigers clinched the pennant during the regular season. The move paid off. in the World Series, Kaline responded with a 1.055 OPS with 11 hits including two doubles and two homeruns. Mickey Stanley, on the other hand, made two errors at short but neither resulted in a run. Mickey did say that the move made him uncomfortable, and it ruined his World Series experience. There are a lot of stories like this in the book.
This book is a decent read about the '68 Tigers with several enjoyable interviews. Just don't expect a Danial James Brown, Boys in the Boat caliber read, and you will do fine. If you're a Tigers fan or at least a baseball fan and can put up with some slightly disjointed but interesting interviews, put together by a beat writer about our national pastime, then you should enjoy this book.
May 13, 2014
The year was 1968 and it had been 23 seasons since the Detroit Tigers had won a World Series championship. Just the year before, with their city permenantly scarred by riots and racial unrest, the team crumbled in the final days of the pennant race. Now, with a roster comprised of soon-to-be household names like McLain, Lolich, Freehan, Brown, Horton, and Stanley, the Tigers emerged from spring training primed to take what should have been theirs in 1967 - the American League Pennant. In a tumultuous year that found the nation reeling from assassinations, racial tension, political turmoil, and an unpopular foreign war, many Americans turned to the comforting constant of baseball. The Tigers, while perhaps not consciously aware of how much their fans depended upon them for distraction, performed incredible feats of gamesmanship and tenacity to earn their way to a 1968 World Series match-up with the defending champions - the St. Louis Cardinals.
The late George Cantor, a Detroit sportswriting legend in his own right, was a young reporter for the Detroit Free Press during that magical season and recounts his inside knowledge of the team and events in "The Tigers of '68: Baseball's Last Real Champions". Cantor augments the expected stats and on-field recaps with behind-the-scenes anecdotes and player interviews for an edge-of-the-seat journey from spring training to the final out of Game 7 in St. Louis. Clubhouse personalities, tense moments on and off the field, and the revered status fans have bestowed upon the Boys from Syracuse come to life through Cantor's words.
More than just a recap of a championship season, Cantor's work is an essential read for Tigers fans both old enough to remember the magic of '68 first-hand and young enough to know the all of the details from their father's and grandfather's stories. Originally published in 1997, the player interviews and Cantor's musing on the state of baseball are noticeably dated but fail to detract from an outstanding story of an improbable season.
The late George Cantor, a Detroit sportswriting legend in his own right, was a young reporter for the Detroit Free Press during that magical season and recounts his inside knowledge of the team and events in "The Tigers of '68: Baseball's Last Real Champions". Cantor augments the expected stats and on-field recaps with behind-the-scenes anecdotes and player interviews for an edge-of-the-seat journey from spring training to the final out of Game 7 in St. Louis. Clubhouse personalities, tense moments on and off the field, and the revered status fans have bestowed upon the Boys from Syracuse come to life through Cantor's words.
More than just a recap of a championship season, Cantor's work is an essential read for Tigers fans both old enough to remember the magic of '68 first-hand and young enough to know the all of the details from their father's and grandfather's stories. Originally published in 1997, the player interviews and Cantor's musing on the state of baseball are noticeably dated but fail to detract from an outstanding story of an improbable season.
January 14, 2015
I was there.
I born and raised in Detroit and was there for the '67 riots and the '68 World Series.
I watched the 7th game on a TV in an empty classroom at Wayne State University -located just about 2 1/2 miles north of Tiger Stadium. (The game was played in St Louis)
When Freehand caught the last out - a little pop-up in foul territory - Detroit erupted but I went to my night class.
I found this book filled in a lot of the small, missing pieces from that season. I now have a much clearer view of the Tigers and a time that is long gone.
Lots of memories - oh to go back for just a little while a just savor the moment again.
I born and raised in Detroit and was there for the '67 riots and the '68 World Series.
I watched the 7th game on a TV in an empty classroom at Wayne State University -located just about 2 1/2 miles north of Tiger Stadium. (The game was played in St Louis)
When Freehand caught the last out - a little pop-up in foul territory - Detroit erupted but I went to my night class.
I found this book filled in a lot of the small, missing pieces from that season. I now have a much clearer view of the Tigers and a time that is long gone.
Lots of memories - oh to go back for just a little while a just savor the moment again.
July 2, 2018
It has been 50 years since this improbable World Series victory by the Detroit Tigers (the Cards were 8-5 favorites). I was only a little kid during this series but I still remember watching a game with my classmates in the school gymnasium (all world series games back then were day games). I still have fond feelings for some of the players like Norm Cash, Willie Horton, Mickey Lolich, and Al Kaline. This book is a Tiger fans' dream as Cantor does a wonderful job in describing the '68 season (but also putting it in context with Detroit's Race Riots of '67) and describing the baseball and real lives of this unique group of players.
April 26, 2017
A great story, just not the greatest of writing. I get frustrated when people are introduced once, then not mentioned for several pages, then picked up mid paragraph by their first name and you are expected to connect the dots on who that is. This book is almost written like I was there and he is just retelling our shared experience...an unfortunate take given the events occurred ten years before my birth. Worth the price of admission, but certainly didn't overacheive.
February 11, 2015
George Cantor is a bit of a curmudgeon as you might gather from this book's title. But he is a great storyteller and often funny.
August 6, 2015
In the century-plus the Tigers have played in Detroit, the 1968 squad's the greatest Tiger team ever -- even surpassing the "Bless you, Boys" of 1984. It's so because the '68 rendition's one of redemption for events of the previous year -- atonement for the narrow, bitter loss of the American League pennant and for healing riot-scarred Detroit. The '68 Tigers of Mayo Smith, McLain, Cash and Lolich (among others) got the Motor City running again, rising from destruction to deliriousness. They did it with a combination of power pitching and power at the plate, all with a completeness and a team cohesion really not seen in baseball (and not again until the great Pittsburgh Pirate teams of the '70s). The late Cantor, probably the pre-eminent Tigers writer, well captures the rowdiness, resentments and rallies of this special group of athletes in his book. The accomplishments -- and antics -- of these Tigers serve as a fitting coda to the way baseball was once played. The 1968 season marked the last before division play and the multi-tiered playoff system began. To some, the "pureness" of the (seemingly) uncomplicated pre-'68 diamond game was lost amid the changes seen in baseball the following season -- and beyond. Within a flashback structure, Cantor recounts the Tigers' season, from spring training to Detroit's World Series celebration eight months later. "Tell the world Tigers the greatest," a fan implores. Cantor creatively shows the heroics and the hatreds and the Cardinal hurler Bob Gibson's graceful anger -- to say nothing of why the Tigers were "the greatest" of a long-ago baseball era.
November 30, 2012
Awesome story, takes me back to when I was a kid in Detroit. I remember the times in a lot of detail, and thought it was because the Tigers were in the World Series, but after all these years, still remembering... Cantor describes some of the dynamics of the times, including the riots downtown, which I remember vividly, the previous year. Mid-season, Martin Luther King assassinated, and Bobby Kennedy... I also remember the team to be more of a family that grew up together. Cantor explains how free agency and players strikes and so on followed, not to mention added hierarchy of playoffs and expansion teams. Cantor brings back some of the magic of that year. The quirks of the players, yet the camaraderie and dedication to the team. Denny Mcclain. Can you believe? 31 wins. Finished most of his games... Incredible differences to today's players. Truly, the last real champions.
December 25, 2016
My interest in this book is that I grew up a diehard Tiger fan in the 1980s. The 1984 champs are far and away my favorite sports team of all-time but I heard plenty about the 1968 Tigers and was always fascinated by the highlight videos and stories.
George Cantor has a great perspective as a native Michiganian who was then a young beat writer for the team he grew up rooting for. The book is well-written and historically researched with a strong narrative and excellent closure, tying into the present and with the ultimate destinies of all the players.
There were a few things he left out, intentional or not. Game five was an epic, I have seen the video and he really didn't capture the early bases-loaded jam and inning-after-inning futility of the Tigers in what was an un-Godly fateful elimination game. When Cantor wrote this, videos of the game were surely unavailable unlike now and that is understandable if his memory slipped on such details.
He also follows suit with other Detroit media members of that era in worshipping then-GM Jim Campbell for both his baseball acumen and integrity, the latter of which Campbell couldn't be less deserving. I wish he would have been more evenhanded on that but clearly he was under the same spell as the others who gave Campbell credit for things he had little to do with.
He makes mention of how Mike Ilitch bought the team under the condition he wouldn't keep Campbell around but concluded it simply as unfair treatment for a hero rather than anything else.
Anyway, a great read that I enjoyed and blitzed right through. It is one very literate and passionate man's take of an amazing summer for all of us Detroiters, even those who weren't born yet.
George Cantor has a great perspective as a native Michiganian who was then a young beat writer for the team he grew up rooting for. The book is well-written and historically researched with a strong narrative and excellent closure, tying into the present and with the ultimate destinies of all the players.
There were a few things he left out, intentional or not. Game five was an epic, I have seen the video and he really didn't capture the early bases-loaded jam and inning-after-inning futility of the Tigers in what was an un-Godly fateful elimination game. When Cantor wrote this, videos of the game were surely unavailable unlike now and that is understandable if his memory slipped on such details.
He also follows suit with other Detroit media members of that era in worshipping then-GM Jim Campbell for both his baseball acumen and integrity, the latter of which Campbell couldn't be less deserving. I wish he would have been more evenhanded on that but clearly he was under the same spell as the others who gave Campbell credit for things he had little to do with.
He makes mention of how Mike Ilitch bought the team under the condition he wouldn't keep Campbell around but concluded it simply as unfair treatment for a hero rather than anything else.
Anyway, a great read that I enjoyed and blitzed right through. It is one very literate and passionate man's take of an amazing summer for all of us Detroiters, even those who weren't born yet.
January 30, 2022
What Tigers fan wouldn't give this at least 4 stars. I enjoyed the interviews immensely. I was an infant when the Tigers won this World Series and a 17 year old college freshman when they won again in 84. I enjoyed Cantor's reporting on that later team as much as I enjoyed his book about the earlier. A must read for true baseball fans.
May 29, 2023
I had George Cantor as a journalism professor and this, shamefully, is the first time I really read his work. It's like his teaching-- workmanlike but interspersed with insightful anecdotes and just the right amount of quips.
If you liked the 68 Tigers, you'll like this book. It unwinds the backstories of most of the players and finishes up with a compelling telling of the World Series-- both on the field and how it played back home in Detroit. Cantor was a lifelong native and you feel it in the way he talks about the locations and the city at that time.
If you liked the 68 Tigers, you'll like this book. It unwinds the backstories of most of the players and finishes up with a compelling telling of the World Series-- both on the field and how it played back home in Detroit. Cantor was a lifelong native and you feel it in the way he talks about the locations and the city at that time.
June 29, 2018
Absolutely wonderful book. I remember the players and the time but not the season. This book does a great job of putting it altogether. Vignettes of players, games and the season woven into a seamless whole. A unique season in many ways, the last before the introduction of divisions and playoffs, challenges to the reserve clause and the introduction of free agency just a couple years away it was the end of an era.
July 26, 2021
Excellent Book
This was a thorough and interesting books about a great Tigers team of 1968. Lot of interesting player profiles; and concise recaps of the 1968 Tiger season with it’s highs and lows. Description of the 68 series was interning. The writing was straight forward and easy to read. Also it was not bogged down with useless details. A very enjoyable book.
This was a thorough and interesting books about a great Tigers team of 1968. Lot of interesting player profiles; and concise recaps of the 1968 Tiger season with it’s highs and lows. Description of the 68 series was interning. The writing was straight forward and easy to read. Also it was not bogged down with useless details. A very enjoyable book.
May 1, 2023
Enjoyable for fans of the Detroit Tigers. One nitpick was the description of Al Kaline’s pivotal at bat in game five. The author wrongly describes the process of the at bat and the number St. Louis’ relief pitchers.
Other than that, yes, fun read. I know if this mistake because I own the game video.
Other than that, yes, fun read. I know if this mistake because I own the game video.
June 21, 2025
Cantor follows a familiar path in telling the story of a championship team’s impact on its home city, using interviews with the team’s retired stars to give the reader an inside look at the team’s inner dynamics. The strength in this particular story is how Cantor contrasts the old school baseball world of the Tigers with turmoil that existed in Detroit and the country in 1968. A terrific read.
August 28, 2023
A thorough review of the 1968 Tigers’ team by one of the sportswriters who covered the team. One of the high points of the book are the chapter interviews with some of the players 25+ years after the championship season. Highly recommended for baseball fans.
June 20, 2024
It was interesting reading about how close the players were back in 1968. Unfortunately there will never be teams like that again. As a spectator you feel like you got to know them. But it was interesting to find out some of the rumors were true.
October 28, 2017
I'm not really the right audience for this book. Historical and relationship details were interesting, but the game details are hard for me to visualize, and that made the book slow work for me.
April 24, 2020
Really loved this book!
December 16, 2020
Probably the best account of the Detroit Tigers and their remarkable victory in the 1968 World Series. A good read!
August 11, 2022
This took me back in time and I would drift away from the book so it took awhile to read. I really enjoyed it.
January 17, 2013
A worthy read chronicling the '68 Detroit Tigers. The book begins with the doom and gloom of the '67 riots and the Tigers choking the season away and ends with redemption and their triumph over Bob Gibson and the St. Louis Cardinals in the '68 World Series. The win marked the end of an era in Detroit and baseball. It's great to read about that team. The same team my grandfather talked about and even the team my father talked about and he never cared much for sports. It meant that much to many people at that time. A must read for Tiger fans and worth a read for baseball fans in general.
April 7, 2016
Written in 1997, this is a fairly saccharine account of the 1968 Detroit Tigers World Series champions. This was the year McClain won 31 games and the team beat the favored Cardinals in the Series. But the book was pretty bland, nothing really revealed that wasn't already known. The subtitle; Baseball's Last Real Champions, is stated but not really defended by the author. The book had very little depth. As a baseball fan, I was expecting more detail and found the book disappointing.
December 25, 2014
Past romanticized
Although typo errors dotted the entire book this small distraction didn't sabotage the message. My life long love of sports had it's genesis in 1968. Al Kaline was my favorite ballplayer and the '68 series was my first foray into following baseball with some semblance of intelligence. Thanks for the trip to a better place and a better game.
Although typo errors dotted the entire book this small distraction didn't sabotage the message. My life long love of sports had it's genesis in 1968. Al Kaline was my favorite ballplayer and the '68 series was my first foray into following baseball with some semblance of intelligence. Thanks for the trip to a better place and a better game.
June 6, 2014
The tigers roar
brought back some nice memories of growing up in the sixties. Interesting to see what the individual guys did and are doing now. not my number one baseball book. could have used more.meat. happy I read it though. hopefully Detroit can rise from the ashes.
brought back some nice memories of growing up in the sixties. Interesting to see what the individual guys did and are doing now. not my number one baseball book. could have used more.meat. happy I read it though. hopefully Detroit can rise from the ashes.
July 13, 2014
Loved the content and enjoyed the history, but the interviews with former players barely scrape the surface of what could have been fascinating life stories and the game reviews were oddly detailed in places but mostly sparse throughout. A bit of a letdown, even for a rabid fan.
August 28, 2009
Excellent; a look at the 1968 World Champion Tigers, both on the field and off.
August 7, 2014
A nice look back at the '68 Tigers. Well-reported, well-written, worthwhile even for casual fans. A good look into an interesting team.
April 27, 2019
A good read for a baseball fan, especially a fan of the Tigers. Cantor intersperses the events of the 1968 season that ended in a World Series win for the Tigers with interviews with the players "now" (in 1997, when the book was written). Cantor also provides some context on baseball and society in 1968, what was going on in Detroit, to help make his case for the "specialness" of the Tigers win. The subtitle, "Baseball's Last Real Champions" is a hint to the fact that division play started the next year, permitting additional teams to the playoffs. That said, it also underscores that the book, and the players in it, remember their time in baseball in a nostalgic way. Such would not be problematic except that it often comes at the expense of the players and how baseball was played in the 1990s.
In any event, that quibble aside, enjoyable, quick read for a Tigers baseball fan.
In any event, that quibble aside, enjoyable, quick read for a Tigers baseball fan.
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January 11, 2018Not bad for a 20 year old book about a 40 year old team. It really puts you in the past about how the game was, and how it changed so much after that season. This was my dad's team, his heroes, so I enjoyed this piece of Tigers history for him as much as myself.
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