Second Place by a Single Game
The 1967 Detroit Tigers did not win the pennant, and they did not play in that year’s World Series. They finished second in the American League, one game behind the Boston Red Sox, after losing the second game of a doubleheader on the last day of the season. They won the World Series the following year, in 1968. This article covers the near miss, the summer in Detroit, and how the story turned out.
The Last Day
The Tigers finished 91-71. The Red Sox finished 92-70, and the Minnesota Twins also ended at 91-71, so the race was among three teams on the last day, with a fourth, the Chicago White Sox, having fallen just short in the closing week.
On Sunday, 1 October 1967, the Tigers hosted the California Angels in a doubleheader at Tiger Stadium. They needed to win both games, and also needed the Twins to beat Boston at Fenway Park. The Tigers won the first game but lost the second, and when Boston beat Minnesota later in the afternoon, the pennant went to the Red Sox. Detroit’s chance had required a sweep, and the sweep was not completed.
The doubleheader was in part a product of the schedule, since postponed games earlier in the year had to be made up, leaving Detroit with two games on the final day.
The Team
The Tigers of this era were a strong, veteran club. Al Kaline, the right fielder, had been a star since the 1950s and was one of the most respected players in the league. Norm Cash played first base, Bill Freehan caught, and the pitching staff included Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich, both of whom would be central to the next season. The manager was Mayo Smith, who had taken over in 1967. The club had enough offence and pitching to win more than 90 games, and the narrow miss was often seen as a measure of how close the team was.
Detroit’s lineup also included Willie Horton, a left fielder from the city’s west side who hit for power and was a local hero. His story that summer went well beyond baseball.
A Summer Under Curfew
In the early hours of Sunday, 23 July 1967, a police raid on an after-hours club on the city’s west side set off what became one of the most destructive urban disturbances of the decade. The Detroit riot of 1967 lasted several days, brought in the Michigan National Guard and then federal troops, and left dozens dead and large areas burned. The causes and details are covered in their own articles on this site, so only the baseball connection is described here.
Games were postponed or moved in the days that followed, and the team was reportedly sent to play a series in Baltimore in place of home dates. Horton, one of the club’s most popular players, is widely reported to have gone to the streets near the neighbourhood where he grew up, still in his uniform, and urged people to go home. Accounts differ on exactly what he did and how much effect it had, and he later spoke of the moment in modest terms. Even so, the episode has become part of how the summer is remembered, a reminder that the people on the field lived in the same city as the people in the streets.
The Tigers carried on playing through August and September, with a city still reeling around them. It is difficult to measure what effect the riot had on the club’s performance. Some players and writers later suggested it created a sense of shared purpose; others pointed out that baseball and the city’s problems were very separate matters. Both views appear in later accounts, and neither can be proved.
From 1967 to 1968
The Tigers returned in 1968 and won the American League pennant, finishing well ahead of the field. McLain won 31 games that season, a figure not matched in the major leagues since, and was named Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner. Detroit then faced the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series and trailed three games to one before winning the final three, with Lolich pitching three complete-game victories. The Series ended with Detroit winning Game 7 in St. Louis, so the Cardinals who had beaten Boston the year before were defeated by the team that missed out in 1967.
The 1968 title was widely felt in Detroit as a moment of civic relief after the troubled summer of the year before, though it is worth being careful about drawing too neat a conclusion. A baseball championship did not repair the damage in the city, and the issues behind the riot, such as Detroit housing discrimination and strained relations with the police, remained.
How the 1967 Season Is Remembered
The Tigers’ 1967 season is often called one of the sharpest near misses in American League history. It also stands as a case in which sport and national events overlapped. The year’s pennant race, which could scarcely have been closer, was played in a year of racial tension in American cities, and Detroit stood at the centre of both stories.
For Tigers fans, the 1967 finish is a bittersweet part of the franchise story: a team that lost the pennant by one game, then returned the next year to win it all.