The celebration was set into motion by A.J. Hinch, who came to Detroit four years ago not knowing "if I was going to manage again." The Tigers hired him after his year-long suspension from Major League Baseball for the Astros' sign-stealing scandal, "so it means a lot to be the leader of this team and for the organization to take a chance on me and see the good that I've done before." The Tigers spent the most of Hinch's first four seasons losing. For the last six weeks, they haven't stopped winning.
With the team gathered around him in the clubhouse and the lockers wrapped in plastic, Hinch held a bottle of champagne and reminded his players that he had asked them in the middle of the season, "What kind of team do you want to be?" He paused for effect, shook the bottle and said, "I guess you wanted to be a playoff team." And with that, the Tigers started soaking every inch of the clubhouse.
As owner Chris Ilitch spoke with a group of reporters over the thump of Kanye West and T-Pain -- now throw your hands up in the skyyyy -- president of baseball operations Scott Harris double-stacked Miller Lites with one hand and poured champagne down All-Star Riley Greene's throat with the other. When Harris' bottle was empty, Greene turned to a teammate and demanded more. He tilted his head back and received it.
Tarik Skubal was soaked, from head to toe. Way back in spring training, he spoke openly about the Tigers aiming for the playoffs. Then he all but carried them there. His blue 'OCTOBER READY' tee dripping with beer, Skubal took a moment in the mayhem to say, "I love this team. We're not done yet, but fu*k, this feels good."
How good?
"This -- is fu*king awesome!" Skubal said. "And we're just getting started. I mean, it's 9:42. I can't wait to see what we look like at midnight,"
Asked about facing either the Orioles or Astros in Game 1 of the wild card round, Skubal said, "I'll start going over scouting reports -- probably not tomorrow, my head might hurt, but I'll do it on Sunday," and giggled like a Little Leaguer.
Across the clubhouse, a group of players formed a flex-and-roar circle. Zach McKinstry went first, veins bursting out of his neck. Spencer Torkelson jumped in and matched him. Matt Vierling reprised his celebration when he slid into home with the go-ahead run in the Tigers' win on Thursday and screamed at the top of his lungs. There were calls for Papi! Papi! and a bashful Wenceel Perez tried his very best. The winner was Will Vest, who squat in the middle of the circle and screamed so loud his eyes nearly popped out of his sockets.
Within minutes, the carpet was drenched. There were puddles of beer and champagne and stray corks across the floor. Skubal kept shouting for rookie Jackson Jobe, who was usually digging into another case of beer. Whenever Skubal couldn't find him, he'd bellow, "JOBE, CLEAN THE LOCKER ROOM UP!!!" Smiling from ear to ear, Jobe said, "I'll have the place cleaned up by midnight."
And then what?
"I'ma hit the hay and be ready to go tomorrow," he said. "I want the ball."
(And Hinch plans to give it him: "He better clean up fast and get home and get to bed.")
The 22-year-old Jobe was summoned to Detroit on Tuesday by the hottest team in baseball, made his big-league debut on Wednesday with a raucous crowd chanting his name and on Friday watched the Tigers clinch their first playoff berth in 10 years in front of 44,000 delirious fans. He called it the "best-case scenario ever possible -- ever."
Jobe was 12 when he made his first trip to Comerica Park. He and his dad came up from Oklahoma to watch the Giants and Jobe's favorite pitcher Tim Lincecum beat the Tigers in the World Series. Now he's hunting a World Series with the Tigers. He was in Triple-A last week and, in all likelihood, will be pitching in the playoffs next week.
"That's what I've worked for, that's what I dreamed of growing up," said Jobe. "There's no place I'd rather be than out there in the postseason with the boys getting after it."
When they weren't singing or flexing and roaring or just screaming to scream, the boys were typically chanting, "MORE BEER, MORE BEER, MORE BEER!" At one point, Greene told a scrum of reporters, "I'm gonna need you guys to quote that on Twitter or wherever you write it: The boys want more beer." The 24-year-old Greene didn't go to college after signing with the Tigers out of high school as the fifth overall pick, but maybe it was something like this?
"This is not even close to college!" said Greene. "I mean, this team, man, is something else. I want to celebrate all night long -- but we got a game tomorrow, so we'll see what happens."
How's that beer taste, Justyn-Henry Malloy?
"It's tasting like fu*king water!"
On Aug. 10, the Tigers were eight games under .500, 10 games out of a wild card spot and had a 0.2 percent chance of making the playoffs. They took off on a 31-11 run, after selling at the trade deadline, to chase down the Twins and do the darn-near impossible. Asked when it dawned on him that they might actually pull this off, Greene said, "Honestly, I don't know," then looked over a reporter's shoulder and said, "Is that more beer?" It was. And with that, the interview was over.
"Man," said Vierling, "I don't know if there was one moment, but we just started rolling. We played the White Sox a month ago and won all four and I feel like that was (the start). We started getting closer to .500 and no one thought we'd be here, so were just playing with house money, and here we are."
And here was Ilitch, wearing goggles and being led by Greene into a horde of players. They encircled Ilitch and doused him in beer, hooting in joy and jumping as one. Later, Greene grinned and said, "I've always dreamed of doing that, and I told him that when I started bringing him over there. But it was awesome, because he's part of our team, too." Hinch called it his favorite part of the celebration: "It's not safe in there for anyone, even the owner."
On the field shortly after the game had ended, the stands still full, the players still sober, Harris was asked when the run became real for him. He said that it was "in early August, when we called up a bunch of these kids." Harris didn't know then that the Tigers were about to morph into the best team in the bigs, but "we started looking at our lineup and our pitching staff, like, man, it's a talented group. They still got a lot to prove, but we should just keep giving them opportunities."
"Then in September we started inching closer to the other teams and it became more real," Harris said.
"I think it's when media started talking about it," said Malloy. "But realistically, guys were just like, 'Yo, let's fu*king win. Let's just win.' So it's real now. It's so real. And I'm so glad I'm celebrating."
The celebration will end sometime Saturday morning. The season will continue. When 18 other teams pack it up on Sunday, the Tigers, for the first time in a decade, will keep playing. And with the way they've been playing, they are not to be taken lightly in the playoffs,
"This team's pretty dangerous," said Harris. "We got a chance to make some noise in October, and we're going to keep fighting for the opportunity."
The best pitcher in the game will take the ball for the Tigers on Tuesday, time, venue and opponent to be determined. It almost doesn't matter for this team, which has overcome every obstacle in its path for the better part of two months. Skubal, 27, burns to win, like the champagne searing his eyes. As a teammate poured beer down his back from behind, Skubal, after making sure it wasn't Jobe, said he'd been envisioning this moment "since I got to the big leagues."
"Since 2020, I've been thinking about this," he said. "Every year, this is what you want to do. And unfortunately we haven't been able to do it for the last four, but we're here now, so it doesn't matter -- fu*k it."
