Remembering Comerica Park: Magglio Ordonez’s home run, 20 years later

Twenty years later, the swing needs very little introduction. Mention Magglio Ordonez to a Tigers fan who watched the 2006 postseason, and the conversation will probably get around to that Saturday night at Comerica Park before anything else.

Oct. 14 marks the 20th anniversary of his pennant-clinching home run against Oakland. The anniversary is an opportunity to remember the game around that swing, too, because Detroit had to work its way back before Ordonez could finish it.

The Tigers had gone from 43 wins in 2003 to 95 in 2006. That improvement helps explain why the memory carries so much weight: Fans had barely moved beyond watching a team struggle to remain competitive before they were watching one play for an American League championship.

For younger fans, 2006 offered their first real opportunity to experience a Tigers postseason. For those who remembered 1984, it connected another generation to something they had been describing for years. The significance of that October was as much about the people watching together as the players on the field.

Detroit reached Game 4 with a 3-0 series lead, but Oakland made the Tigers earn the final win. The Athletics built a three-run advantage before RBI doubles from Curtis Granderson and Craig Monroe in the fifth brought Detroit within one.

Ordonez then supplied the home run that tends to receive less attention. His solo shot off Dan Haren in the sixth tied the game at 3, setting up the possibility of ending the series that night.

That first homer deserves a place in the anniversary discussion. The ninth-inning highlight is so familiar that it can make the result feel inevitable, but Detroit had spent the opening innings chasing Oakland. Ordonez helped change the situation well before his final at-bat.

There were still chances for the game to turn. Carlos Guillen grounded into a bases-loaded double play in the seventh, and Wil Ledezma later entered with the bases loaded in the eighth and retired Marco Scutaro. Ledezma also handled the ninth, keeping the score tied.

Those outs belong in the story alongside the home runs. An anniversary usually centers on the player who delivered the final hit, but getting him that opportunity required contributions that rarely make the short version of the highlight.

Huston Street retired Detroit’s first two batters in the bottom of the ninth. Monroe and Placido Polanco followed with singles, bringing Ordonez to the plate with two runners aboard. On a 1-0 pitch, he homered to left for a 6-3 victory and a four-game sweep.

The finish also landed on a familiar date. Detroit had clinched the 1984 World Series exactly 22 years earlier, giving Oct. 14 another permanent place in the franchise’s history.

The Tigers would lose the World Series to St. Louis in five games. That disappointment remains part of the season, but it does not erase what reaching that point meant after such a long absence.

Twenty years later, Ordonez’s home run remains an easy place for Tigers fans to begin sharing their own memories. Where they watched, who was beside them and how they reacted are all part of why the replay still matters. The result has been settled for two decades, but remembering it gives people a reason to talk about that team, and the people they shared it with, again.