Is This A Glimpse Of A Bright Tigers Future?
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00:00This team can be fun to watch, now.
00:04That lineup that they had out there last night, Tigers PR put this out, and I find it really
00:11interesting.
00:12They tweeted out before the game, tonight's lineup features six players age 24 or younger.
00:17It's the first time since May 25th of 2015 that the Tigers had six starters under the
00:23age of 25.
00:24Because prior to that, it hadn't happened for the Tigers since September 30th of 1978.
00:30Okay?
00:31Yeah.
00:32So in 1978-
00:33That was an exciting team.
00:34That was an exciting time, man.
00:35That was Whitaker and Trammell.
00:36And the next year, they had Lance Parrish and-
00:39Jack Morris.
00:40And they were starting to lay the foundation for what was a World Series team.
00:47The 2015 team didn't lay the foundation for anything.
00:50No, which is interesting you say, because my first thought was, that was a team, that
00:54was a playoff team.
00:55It was a good team, but shouldn't that have worked well into the future when you're losing
01:01guys like Verlander and J.D. Martinez and Upton and Prince Field and all these guys
01:08you're losing?
01:09Well, shouldn't you be getting younger and even adding to that mix?
01:12And obviously it didn't work out that way.
01:13It didn't really become, it wasn't a thing.
01:15And so this, you know, you look at 78, it was the foundation laid for a World Series
01:21team.
01:222015, it really wasn't.
01:24But, you know, I could watch this group of kids scrap every night, and it's easy to say
01:32when you win, but I mean, they got a ninth inning, bottom of the ninth, two out base
01:36hit from Jay Shung to tie the game.
01:39And then they get a Parker Meadows single in the 10th to win the game.
01:45All while, you know, having Scooble do Scooble things.
01:50And it was funny because I watched the Little League game, the Canada-Mexico game yesterday
01:56morning because I knew the Tigers were arriving in Williamsport.
02:00And I knew what that meant.
02:01They would get on the buses, they would ride over the field, and the Tigers would get paraded
02:06out.
02:07And they, you know, mingle amongst the kids.
02:10They ended up showing shots of like Justin Henry Molloy in the dorms with kids.
02:15Did ESPN just show the sheer disappointment on the children's faces because they weren't
02:19the Yankees?
02:21It's funny you say that, but, you know, Will Vest was dancing in the stands.
02:29Jay Shung and Jake Rogers were playing ping pong in the dorms.
02:33Jason Foley tried the cardboard box down the hill thing.
02:35Like, so it was kind of fun to watch the Tigers.
02:38There were some Tigers in the dorms playing video games with the kids.
02:41Like they really did a nice job interacting with the Little Leaguers while there were
02:47games going on and the kids were in their uniforms and they were getting autographs
02:50and everybody was smiling and laughing and it was just kind of great.
02:54It's a great day.
02:55It was kind of cool to see the Tigers unplugged, you know, going back to what it was all about.
03:02And then the Yankees showed up like an hour and a half later.
03:06And it was like, they were like, here come the Beatles.
03:09Like that's how they treated it.
03:10That's exactly what they said.
03:12And yeah, okay, it's got that atmosphere around it because the best player in baseball right
03:16now is it might be Aaron Judge and here he is and he's larger than life because he's,
03:21you know, Frankenstein's creation there at six foot nine and three hundred pounds and
03:25all that.
03:26We know what it is, right?
03:27It's the biggest market in the game.
03:28They're a really good team.
03:30They got the best player.
03:31They got a bunch of stars.
03:32Got it.
03:33It's kind of what I expected.
03:35And I wasn't mad about it, but our scrappy group of kids went out and won the game.
03:41They won the game.
03:43And, you know, Chase Young and Parker Meadows and guys made plays.
03:48And Colt Keith and Parker Meadows combined for six hits last night.
03:52Yep.
03:53And there's kind of, you know, this might be one of those days like late in the game.
03:56Okay.
03:57Remember, the Tigers are playing the Beatles late in the game.
04:02The Tigers were up in the ninth and they showed one of the little league teams and the Tigers
04:06were down a run in the bottom of the ninth.
04:09And one of these little league teams, all the kids had their hats on like rally caps.
04:13They were rooting for the Tigers.
04:15When the Tigers tied it up, they had a shot down the third baseline, were behind, because
04:21the stands are so close in that park, that the tying run scores and it was, was it Colt
04:27Keith?
04:28I think it was Colt Keith scored the tying run, slides across the plate and the kids
04:32behind home plate are going crazy now.
04:35And I'm thinking to myself, okay, these are impressionable young kids and a bunch of young
04:39Tigers that they've not heard of, but maybe young stars.
04:43Are they getting on board with the Tigers?
04:45Or I have to admit part of that might be, or are they just happy because the game might
04:49go to extras.
04:50And when you're that young age, you want it to keep going and going and going.
04:54Sure.
04:55It's part of that.
04:56But the other thing is when you're in that proximity to, to major league players like
05:00that, and this whole event is just about the little leaguers and the two major league teams
05:06because outsiders aren't allowed there.
05:08That's it.
05:09The outsiders that are at the game are the little leaguers and their parents.
05:12So when they've had all day to kind of fraternize and mingle with these guys, it's pretty great.
05:18And if you can remember when you were a kid and the first time you met, uh, if you ever
05:22met a professional baseball player, how cool that was, didn't matter how low on the totem
05:28pole that player was, you met the guy.
05:30If you met Stan Pappy in 1986, it was cool as hell, even though nobody knows who the
05:35hell Stan Pappy was.
05:37If you met him, you do, you know, just, it's just, it's one of those things.
05:41So the fact that the Tigers have this young of a team and these guys are out there, so
05:4510 years from now, let's hope it's these guys hit, right.
05:47They ended up being great players.
05:49These kids have that memory.
05:50Like I remember when in 2024, Tyler Holt.
05:53Yeah, exactly.
05:54Right.
05:55Right.
05:56The great pitcher for the Tigers.
05:57Now I met Colt Keith.
05:59I met Wenzel Perez or whatever it is, you know, Perez probably not there, but you know
06:03what I'm saying?
06:04Yes.
06:05What I remember is on a night where we were the role player, we were the supporting actor.
06:10Our team was the supporting actor.
06:13Our team kind of ruined the party by coming through and winning.
06:17And what was neat is with the young kids, Parker Meadows and Jay Xiong and Colt Keith
06:21and these guys coming up with big hits and big moments.
06:25When they won the game, they flew out of the dugout, like pouring over the top with a youthful
06:31exuberance of, because I'm, because guess what these Tigers are.
06:36They're also kids.
06:37They're just like the little leaguers.
06:39The Tigers are like, there's a bunch of Tigers that probably were going, Hey, that's Aaron
06:43judge, right?
06:44Yeah.
06:45Doing the same thing.
06:46The little leaguers are doing, and we won the game and it's meaningless, but it felt
06:51really meaningful.
06:52Well, and I'm watching afterwards and I mean, they wrapped up their coverage pretty quick
06:56on that.
06:57Yeah.
06:58And it's not bad because I thought it was kind of cool one.
07:00Then they start going to a handshake line, which you never see during the regular season.
07:04And they're doing the handshake line because that's what you do in Little League.
07:07You shake hands with the other team and they're going through that.
07:10And you could see, yeah, I wanted to see the interactions with Aaron judge and the Detroit,
07:14the young Tiger players, you know, and it was, uh, and Tarek Scuba and the Yankee players
07:18and things like that.
07:19It was just, it was a really cool day, a cool event.
07:22I'm glad the Tigers are part of it.
07:24It's a, it's, it's so much sweeter.
07:26They're like initially like, oh, they're playing the Yankees.
07:28Oh crap.
07:29ESPN on Sunday night, Tigers and Yankees.
07:31They're all about the Yankees.
07:32It's going to be nauseating.
07:33And it was nauseating until the end when the Tigers won.
07:37And then it's sweet, sweet victory.
07:39And it was amazing.
07:41It was really a compelling moment for a Tiger team that are probably history will probably
07:45largely forget unless it truly is the beginning of the next group.
07:50And, and here's something that doesn't make any sense at all, but I want to have happen
07:53almost essentially for the rest of the season is, is use that lineup every night with that
08:00many players.
08:01I mean, they could have Dylan Dingler catching instead of Jake Rogers and torque could be
08:04playing first, but seriously, if the lineup looks something like this, the rest of the
08:11year, I'll probably watch more innings of a Tiger team that is out of it than I have
08:17in previous years, because this is the window to the future.
08:22And winning one game doesn't mean they're going to be good.
08:25It doesn't mean these guys are going to be good, but boy, you know, we always say play
08:31the young kids.
08:32People always say, play the young, right?
08:34This is what it looks like.
08:36And it looks even better when you trick around and win the game, right?
08:41It looks great.