I got a sneak peak of the Tigers World Series DVD today and I have to say I’m impressed.  In short, it provides highlights of each of the three previous World Series wins for the Tigers (yes, it goes all the way back to 1945) and while that’s interesting by itself, there’s a certain “coolness” factor that goes along with seeing Hank Greenberg go yard, Willie Horton gun down Lou Brock at the plate and Kirk Gibson hit his big homerun against Goose Gossage.

The first video is of the 1945 World Series and this was the one I was most interested in watching.  Of all of four Tigers’ World Series wins, the 1945 season is the one I know the least about.  You get to see Hal Newhouser get pummelled in game one but you also get to see him bounce back in a big game five win.  Eddie Mayo gets some fielding highlights and they show him making a nice over the shoulder catch behind first base and you also get to see Hank Greenberg’s sweet swing.  He hit two homeruns in the series and he was the only Tiger to go deep in the World Series.

The 1968 Tiger season to me is what 1984 is to a lot of people born in the mid to late 1980s.  For thirteen years of my life, it was the last time the Tigers had won the World Series and I remember being up north at my uncle’s cottage in the early 1980s and I met a guy who was a big baseball fan.  It was the first time I found out about Strat-o-Matic baseball and he also had an old school video projector (remember these in school, it was before VCRs existed) and one of the “movies” he had was the highlights of the 1968 World Series.  I’m pretty sure the one on this DVD is the same thing and I remember Lou Brock getting a lot of hits and Bob Gibson striking out a lot of guys.  More importantly, you also get to see the Tigers come back from a 3-1 series deficit.  Some of the big parts include the game five gundown of Lou Brock at the plate by Willie Horton and the 13 run beatdown in game six.  You also get to see Bob Gibson make history by striking out seventeen batters.

The 1984 part of the video was also cool but rather anticlimactic.  The biggest part is the Goose Gossage/Kirk Gibson showdown where Gossage says he’ll strike out Gibson instead of giving him a free pass.  Of course Gibson makes him pay and the rest is history.  This is only a five game series while the other two were seven game series but there’s some neat extras here as well.  The neatest thing about the 1984 portion is that these were the guys I grew up watching and getting a chance to see them one more time was very neat.

So in short, I highly recommend this video if you’re a Tiger fan.  It’s about two hours, and it’s all good.

Permalink | Posted in Tigers History