Tigers turnaround is complete with World Series berth

	MAILBAG Comments, questions or obviously unfounded criticism? To e-mail Donovan, use the form below. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:
	RELATED • CHEN: Ordonez, Thomas end up as hero, goat • Tigers storm into World Series with sweep • A's-Tigers Game 4 Box Score • Polanco earns ALCS MVP honors

DETROIT -- In the middle of all the whooping and hugging and cigar smoke on a memorable Saturday night in Motown, one of the franchise's all-time greats, Willie Horton, wandered around the infield at Comerica Park, soaking in the cheers of a title-starved baseball town.

He raised both fists in the air and stared into the stands, filled with towel-waving Detroiters. A small rivulet of sweat snaked its way down his forehead. Players embraced him. The crowd roared. It was, in a lot of ways, like old times again.

The Tigers, chokers at the end of this season, losers of 119 games just three years ago and a postseason player for the first time since 1987, are making their first trip to the World Series since 1984, courtesy of a somewhat surprising yet undeniably convincing sweep of the A's in the American League Championship Series.

The rest of the country may not know much about the latest edition of this storied baseball franchise. In fact, the rest of the country might have a hard time believing that the Tigers -- the Tigers? -- are AL champs at all.

But, in Detroit, you know what they think of all of that?

"We believe -- we know -- what we can do," Horton said after Magglio Ordonez's three-run walkoff home run finished the A's on Saturday. "We had a lot of guys this year who were finding out what they can do. And now they know."

He paused.

"Now," he added, "everybody knows."

Whatever anyone thinks of these Tigers -- a collection of legitimate stars, castoffs, washed-ups and haven't-yet-beens who won 95 games even as they squandered an AL Central title in the season's final weeks -- no one can deny what they've done this postseason. After losing Game 1 of their AL Division Series to the Yankees, the Tigers have now ripped off seven straight wins. They've hit when they needed to, pitched well throughout (a 2.91 ERA in eight games) and now have a week to rest before Game 1 of the World Series here next Saturday.

They don't have the star power of the Yankees, or the East Coast appeal of the Mets. They're not recent postseason players like the Cardinals, the A's, the Twins, the Padres or the Dodgers. Yet here they are, for the first time in 22 years, in the World Series.

And if you don't believe that the Tigers actually have a chance to win the thing, you haven't seen much of them this season.

"We never quit. We never give up," left fielder Craig Monroe, a waiver wire pickup in 2002, said in a plastic-sealed clubhouse. "And this is what we get. This is our reward."

The Tigers showed Saturday, in a tidy snapshot, what will make this team a handful in the Series. Down 3-0 to the A's, they bounced back with a couple of runs in the fifth, then tied the score on Ordonez's solo shot in the sixth. They escaped a bases-loaded, two-out cliffhanger in the seventh inning.