Trying to drive home from a baseball game can cause ulcers and migraines to thousands of fans. The headache is exponentially compounded if the game was a sellout.
But when that capacity crowd watches an underdog team dominate the nation's most hated team? Why, you'll have yourself a mighty agreeable traffic jam.
That's what I experienced as I drove 60 inches per hour out of Detroit Saturday night after the Detroit Tigers beat the New York Yankees 8-3. The win eliminated the critically-acclaimed Yankees from the playoffs and vaulted the once-hapless Tigers to the American League Championship Series.
Never before had gridlocked downtown streets rife with honking horns and screaming passengers been so happy. In friggin' Detroit, no less.
Can you blame them? They saw Jeremy Bonderman pitch 8 1/3 innings, allowing just two runs and retiring the first 15 batters. They saw Magglio Ordonez's second-inning solo home run, followed by Craig Monroe's 2-run homer in the same inning.
They saw Yankee starting pitcher Jaret Wright leave the game in the third inning after allowing his fourth run. And they saw that lead continue to grow to 8-0 by the sixth inning.
No wonder the crowd didn't want the traffic jam to end.
Michigan Driver No. 1: "Go ahead in front of me."
Michigan Driver No. 2: "No, you go ahead. I insist."
Michigan Driver No. 1: "Well, thank you!"
Michigan Driver No. 2: "You're welcome. GO TIGERS!"
Michigan Driver No. 1: "WOOOO!"
Rest of Traffic: "WOOOOO!" [Honk honk]
Few well-paid analysts picked the Tigers to win this series after losing the final five games of the season to the Toronto Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals. Wait, did I say few? I meant nobody. Nobody important, that is. But I seem to recall one person actually saying the Tigers in 4, which broke a streak of eight straight series he incorrectly predicted.
Article comments
1 - Donnie Marler
Congrats to the Tigers!! It tickled me to see Leyland carried off the field on their shoulders. What a magnificent manager!
Hey, Matt!! You're the only one who put it down on paper, buddy. Tigers Win!!! Attaboy!
2 - Matthew T. Sussman
And I absolutely must know where Jason Grilli got those motorized goggles.
3 - tink
Damn those Tigers!! I'm still crying in my milk over this game.
But maybe this will be the push that the Yanks-powers-that-be need to finally dump...eeerrrr, bump Darryl Strawberry Jr...eeeerrrrr, I mean A-Rod, off the team.
4 - RJ Elliott
A-Rod is likely finished with the Yanks. Same with Torre.
And I couldn't be happier! :-)
5 - Donnie Marler
Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the house in a gaming establishment.
As a midwestern boy, I'm hoping for Detroit-St. Louis in the Series. Baseball like it oughtta' be.
6 - Scott
Tough to call. I say it will be a Mets-Tigers world series. Tigers win in 5. Or 6. Maybe.
7 - MCH
"A-Rod is likely finished with the Yanks. Same with Torre.
And I couldn't be happier! :-)"
- RJ Elliott
It takes a pretty small-minded person to celebrate the termination of Joe Torre, one of the classiest men in baseball...and I've been a Red Sox fan and Yankee-hater for almost 40 years!
8 - RJ Elliott
I don't dislike Joe Torre, but they guy has been managing a team with more than a billion dollars in payroll over the last six years, and he can't get it done. He deserves to go.
And A-Rod is just a dick.