Illustration by Sam Manchester/The New York Times
The Tigers, in their 112 years, have featured, from left, Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg, Al Kaline and Miguel Cabrera. The Giants have featured, from right, Christy Mathewson, Willie Mays, Barry Bonds and Buster Posey.
SAN FRANCISCO — The last time the Detroit Tigers won the World Series, in 1984, the final out nestled in the glove of their left fielder, Larry Herndon, who caught a pop fly from San Diego's Tony Gwynn. Herndon gave the ball to the Tigers' closer, Willie Hernandez, but wears his championship ring every day.
"I work with young players, and I tell them that World Series was like your first day in the big leagues," Herndon said before a playoff game in Detroit this October. "You can't really feel your feet. That whole Series was like that for me. It was something special."
The modern Tigers will know the feeling Wednesday when they face the San Francisco Giants in the 108th World Series. The Tigers stirred to life in late September, edged the Oakland Athletics in the first round of the American League playoffs, and then swept the Yankees for just their second pennant since Herndon's 1984 team won it all.
The Giants have taken the stage more often lately — three times in the last 11 years — but nothing could have prepared them for the final inning of Game 7 of their National League Championship Series, when the sky opened on AT&T Park just before the final out. It was a wet and wild celebration, perfectly bizarre and exquisitely San Francisco.
"It kind of summed up the whole postseason for us," shortstop Brandon Crawford said. "It never rains in San Francisco during the season — we had maybe a little mist — and it downpours on us. It was kind of a storybook ending."
The Giants, of course, hope to write one more chapter in their latest October epic. They romped through the 2010 postseason on a self-styled theme of torture, with six one-run victories in the N.L. playoffs before a relatively easy World Series win over Texas.
This time, their victories have come by larger margins, but with less room to spare. They won three elimination games in a row in both the division series and the N.L.C.S., capped by the 9-0 finale over St. Louis on Monday.
"When you win, you're always able to overcome adversity," Ron Wotus, the Giants' longtime bench coach, said late Monday. "But I can't remember a year when we overcame adversity more than this one. After everything that's happened — down, 0-2, to Cincinnati, down in this series — these guys almost play better in the worst situation we have. They seemed to relax. They just wanted one more day with each other, and that was kind of their cry. They didn't want to go home."
Now they don't have to. The Giants host the first two World Series games, partly because of their fans, who sell out every game and stuffed the online ballot box for the All-Star Game. Three Giants — Buster Posey, Pablo Sandoval and Melky Cabrera — were voted into the lineup, while Matt Cain was the starting pitcher. The N.L. rocked the Tigers' Justin Verlander to secure home-field advantage in the World Series.
Cabrera is gone, suspended in August for a positive drug test, and the Giants did not activate him in the postseason. A different Cabrera — the Tigers' Miguel, no relation, the A.L. triple crown winner — will be a focus of this series. So will Verlander, the reigning A.L. Most Valuable Player award and Cy Young Award winner, who seeks his first title.
Verlander brings his firepower to Game 1 against the Giants' Barry Zito, a curveball artist whose soft fastballs, when located well, can be deceptively effective. Zito tossed seven and two-thirds shutout innings in St. Louis last Friday to save the Giants' season.
"You get wide-eyed when the ball's mid-80s and it's letter high," the Cardinals' David Freese said that night. "He understands that. I'm sure over the course of his career, he's getting swings on high heaters, and he changes eyesights and gets you moving one way or another — in or out, up or down. He finds a way to get you out."
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