The Tigers' best defensive team was on the field Sunday night -- including, of course, Kenny Rogers, the four-time Gold Glove pitcher.
Ramon Santiago was once again the starting shortstop -- a great benefit to the pitching staff. He covers more ground there than any other shortstop on the roster and had another errorless night in Game 2.
Santiago's emergence as a reliable defender was the one positive consequence of Sean Casey's calf injury, suffered in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series.
CASE NO. 1 — 1934 WORLD SERIES
The scene: Several incidents have tarnished the reputation of Detroit's sports fans, starting in 1934. Here, Joe "Ducky" Medwick of the Cardinals stands in left field amid debris thrown by Tigers fans upset by his hard slide in Game 7 of the World Series.
Jim Price removed the envelope from his coat pocket. In it was a rare glimpse into baseball history.
"I've never shown this to anybody in the media before," said Price, the backup catcher when the Tigers won the 1968 World Series and now Don Dickerson's sidekick as analyst for the team's radio network.
Folded neatly inside the envelope were two sheets of paper with facts and figures now nearly 40 years old but never more relevant.
On one was the championship shares awarded the Tigers -- 32 full shares of $10,936.66, after taxes; two half-shares and six shares of $200.
At the bottom of the seventh at 10:45 p.m. Sunday, Matt and Stephanie Powell bailed out of Comerica Park because of the miserably cold weather.
"It's freezing," Stephanie Powell said. "That wind goes right through you." Stephanie, 28, stood outside Comerica Park wrapped in a blue and orange fuzzy Tigers blanket. She and her husband spent $1,000 for their tickets in section 345 of Comerica Park, but the wind was so brisk they opted to leave before the game ended. "I have five layers on under this. I don't know what you can wear to stay warm completely," she said.
He's tall, he's furry and he's got a huge grin on his face -- even when the Tigers, gulp, lose a World Series game at Comerica Park.
Paws, the Tigers mascot since 1995, also greets fans, poses for countless photos and shakes his tiger tail to ballpark classics like "Shake Your Booty" by KC and the Sunshine Band and Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It."
Detroit Tigers fans and especially children seek out Paws and pose for pictures with him at the park, but who is Paws in real life? Could he be your neighbor, your co-worker, your brother-in law? Is he a "he" at all?
Tigers fans never had a doubt. They had known all along that their team would win the second game of the World Series on Sunday night.
Sure they did.
After a loss to the Cardinals a day earlier had left fans tentative, they were once again true believers by the end of Game 2.
The Tigers won 3-1. Naturally.
"It made me nervous at the end, but I knew we were going to win it," said Jocelyn Benson, 29, of Detroit, who thrust her arms in the air after the final out.
Detroit responds with its best, thumbing a ride from pitcher
It was a bitter, blustery night, the type of night that requires sacrifice and concentration, the type of night reserved for the heartiest and the hungriest.
It was Detroit's kind of weather. And yet again, it was Kenny Rogers' kind of night, fraught with urgency and tinged with tension, packed with emotion and rich with intrigue.
The Tigers knotted the World Series, 1-1, by beating the Cardinals, 3-1, on Sunday night at frigid Comerica Park, rebounding as they almost always do. Detroit is right back in it, heading to St. Louis for Game 3 on Tuesday, and it's back in it because Rogers simply wouldn't allow anything else.
Kenny Rogers found himself in a sticky situation Sunday night. But he got out of it clean -- as he has gotten out of everything this postseason -- and turned in another masterful performance as the Tigers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-1, and tied the World Series, 1-1.
Rogers had what he called "a big clump of dirt" on his left pitching hand in the first inning, drawing the attention of the Cardinals, the umpires, the Fox broadcasters and a national television audience.
But he wiped it off before the second inning and kept mowing down the Cardinals. He allowed two hits and no runs in eight innings before handing off the game to closer Todd Jones.
Kenny Rogers once lived under the shadow of a pitcher who did his best work early in the season before wilting late and ultimately folding in October.
That pitcher was nowhere to be found Sunday night at Comerica Park.
The Detroit Tigers' lefthander invited some first-inning intrigue, then followed with seven innings of dominance as Rogers pushed the American League champions to a 3-1 win over the Cardinals in Game 2 of an even World Series.
The zeroes keep coming at a blinding pace, numbing the senses as well as logic. And after the ageless one painted another masterpiece on Sunday in Game 2 of the World Series, Kenny Rogers vaulted himself beyond the surreal and into the sublime.
Nobody's witnessed mastery at this level in this city.
That's sacrilege when the memories of Mickey Lolich, who won three games in the 1968 World Series, remain vividly clear 38 years later.
Detroit Tigers news 10/23
Detroit Tigers news 10/23
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