Just like baseball fans in Michigan, Tom Brookens, from his home in south central Pennsylvania, is cheering for the Detroit Tigers to continue on in the MLB postseason.
Brookens’ allegiance runs a bit deeper than even the most loyal fans psyched up for Round 2 of the American League postseason, beginning tomorrow in Cleveland. After sweeping the Houston Astros in the two-game Wild Card Series on the road, Tigers’ skipper A.J. Hinch leads his club in the best-of-five series of the American League Divisional Series.
Postseason play isn’t unique to Brookens. The last time the Tigers collected an American League pennant in 2012, Brookens was on Hall of Fame manager Jim Leyland’s coaching staff. Being positioned at the first base coach’s box, Brookens experienced a team coming together well into the Fall Classic. Falling short of a World Series championship to the San Francisco Giants in 2012, Brookens has the ultimate Tigers’ memories of the 1984 season to revert to, when seeing Hinch’s crew take the field tomorrow at Cleveland’s Progressive Field.
“I’ve watched the last couple of games on TV,” Brookens, the Tigers first-round draft pick in 1975, told The Epoch Times during a phone conversation yesterday. “I think what’s going on with the Tigers is great. The club has been rebuilding, and rebuilding, to see all the efforts finally click, and the team coming together, this is an exciting time for their fans.”
While Brookens labels himself a Tiger at heart, his professional roots run deep within the organization. Ten of his dozen MLB seasons as a third baseman were played at Detroit’s previous home field—Tiger Stadium. Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson was the 1984 leader of Brookens and his teammates who won the Commissioner’s Trophy in five games at the expense of the San Diego Padres. Managing in the minor leagues for the Tigers, along with his years on Leyland’s staff, the Tigers have Brookens’s attention, front and center.
Having run a dugout, and having observed, up close, future hall-of-famers Anderson and Leyland shape a roster, Brookens offers high praise for the work Hinch is doing in developing this season’s Tigers. He feels the team is in good shape for the pending best-of-five series.
“I believe [Hinch] has been extremely important to the Tigers success. With our team winning it all in 1984 with Sparky, we players knew he was in charge, and our leader. When Jim was managing the Tigers to a couple of pennants, the team had the same feeling. Players feed off of that leadership. When you have the youngest team in baseball this season, which the Tigers are, stability at the top is so important,” Brookens said.
When the Tigers’ pitching ace Tarik Skubal kept the Astros scoreless through six innings in Game 1 in Houston, Hinch’s crew didn’t seem intimidated by the perennial American League powerhouse. As Game 2 entered the eighth inning, and Detroit scored four runs, en route to a 5–2 win, confidence was obvious as the Tigers took to the field in the ninth inning. If there was pressure on the Tigers to sweep the series and move on to the next round, that wasn’t obvious.
“When we [1984 Tigers] were in the postseason, I felt added pressure up until we reached the World Series,” says Brookens, who suited up in more than 1,200 games for the Tigers. “Once the World Series came, the pressure for me seemed to go away. The pressure was getting there. If you don’t go that far, the season is a failure.”
Throughout the 2024 regular season, Cleveland dominated the AL Central. Both the Tigers and Kansas City Royals trailed by 6.5 games behind the Guardians when the season ended. Also, the Royals and Tigers finished their seasons with identical 86–76 records. Kansas City opens up their ALDS tomorrow in the Bronx against the New York Yankees.
As Brookens assesses the Tigers’ chances of advancing beyond their series with the Guardians, victory starts with the pitching performance from Skubal. This season’s AL pitching Triple Crown winner (pacing the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA), Brookens views the left-handed starter as the Tigers’ rallying point. When Skubal, the 21st man to win the pitching Triple Crown, takes to the mound, Brookens—and likely all Detroit fans—believes the ace will position his team to win.
“Starting pitchers are out there every few days, but let’s not forget the role players on the Tigers,” Brookens cautions. “They all have to learn to take each series one game at a time. It’s natural to want to look ahead but the team can’t afford to do that. One at-bat. One inning at a time. Winning in the postseason is that simple.”
Brookens doesn’t hesitate to tag Detroit as a “great sports town.” The loud cheers for Tigers teams from Brookens past remain vivid, as the former third baseman is thinking of tomorrow’s Game 1. He believes that the good teams that were led by Leyland should have won a World Series championship during that stretch. Brookens is convinced that with the progress Hinch has made in creating a winning culture during his four seasons at the helm of Tigers baseball, Fall Classics should be experienced in the coming years.
