Detroit, MI
Heck yes, Detroit Tigers rooting for Pistons: ‘Proud to be part of the fabric of city’
This is an amazing time for sports in Detroit. Not just for fans.
But the players.
Late Monday night, after a Tigers victory over the San Diego Padres, the TVs in the Tigers clubhouse in Comerica Park were tuned to the NBA playoffs, as the Pistons played the New York Knicks in Game 2 in Madison Square Garden.
Justyn-Henry Malloy, the Tigers outfielder, sat on a leather couch, facing the TVs, nerves twisting in his gut, knowing what it feels like to play in the postseason, knowing what it feels like to have that kind of pressure.
Against the wall, Kerry Carpenter was at his locker, head turned, watching intently, and he screamed with excitement as Dennis Schröder hit a 3-pointer with 56.3 seconds left to give the Pistons the lead, 97-94.
“Give him the ball!” Carpenter screamed, walking toward the TVs, looking like, well, just about any sports fan in the Motor City.
“Bang!” Malloy yelled.
Malloy exhaled and started celebrating, as the Pistons hung on for the 100-94 victory, their first playoff win since 2008, snapping a 15-game playoff losing streak.
“I was pumped,” Malloy said Tuesday afternoon.
The good news for the Tigers?
They have an off day on Thursday and several players, as well as Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, plan to go to Game 3 in Little Caesars Arena.
“I love where Detroit sports is at and it’s a blast being a part of a number of teams who are bringing thrilling sports moments to the city,” Hinch said on Tuesday. “This city deserves it, these fan bases – the majority of them overlap, in different seasons and different times of year, all get to enjoy these thrilling moments.”
And yes, these pro athletes become fans.
“We quickly become Lions fans, Pistons fans and Wings fans when we joined the city, and I love that our players are all in on it,” Hinch said. “They’re all making plans to go on Thursday. We have an off day. We’ll have a strong contingency there. I’m going to be there because when you’re all in on the city, these moments matter. These moments are remembered by fans and by players and these experiences stand out, specifically here in Detroit, because of how cool of a sports town this is.”
Yes, Hinch saw it last fall when the Tigers played in the playoffs at the same time the Lions were having a fantastic season on the way to the playoffs.
Now, as the Tigers are playing some great baseball, the Pistons are playing in the postseason.
“I’ve seen it now firsthand because we played in playoff games,” Hinch said. “But I feel it in the winter, during the Lions season. I’m feeling it during the Wings season. I’m feeling it during this Pistons run and I’m pretty proud to be part of the fabric of this city.”
Part of the fabric of the city.
That’s what these players have become. That’s what these teams are.
It’s like one giant rebirth.
“It’s awesome,” Carpenter said. “I’m a huge die-hard sports fan in general. So, it’s pretty cool to be an adopted Detroit sports fan now.”
Malloy has been to about six Pistons games this season – some in Detroit, one in Atlanta.
“I’m a big NBA fan; I’m a big Pistons fan, and it’s just cool to watch,” Malloy said.
There is a part of him that watches as a fan.
But there is another side of him.
“You can kind of relate in certain ways with those guys,” Malloy said. “Obviously, it’s a different sport, but you relate to the work and you relate to the atmosphere. I played in a playoff atmosphere last year. I know the emotions, the anxiety, the excitement that goes with that type of game. So it’s almost like I’m riding right there with them, knowing how it feels, knowing all that stuff.”
But there is something more. It’s something that ties these teams together.
It’s the Lions grit. And it’s these gritty Tigers, who made an improbable run last season. And it’s this Pistons team that has climbed from the cellar, an improbable journey of its own.
“What I love is the resilience of that group,” Malloy said about the Pistons. “It’s very similar to kind of what we went through, going through some struggles, but to see them turning a corner and struggling one year and then having real success the next year, I can relate to that from a personal level and on a team level.”
Yes, that’s the part that unites all of them.
Understanding what it takes to go from the struggle to the success.
“Being able to kind of see that their growth from last year to this year, and to see the city’s growth too, with all those sports, it’s kind of like a sports revival in the city,” Malloy said. “So it’s cool to be here.”
So, yes, the Tigers will be rooting for the Pistons on Thursday night.
Because they are all part of the same fabric.
Cut from the same cloth.
Gritty. Resilient. And wanting to win for the D.
Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on X @seideljeff
The Detroit Tigers were beaten 5-3 by the St. Louis Cardinals at Comerica Park on Sunday night. Iván Herrera’s two-run single capped a four-run fifth inning for the Cards in the finale of a three-game series.
Iván Herrera’s two-run single capped a four-run fifth inning and the St. Louis Cardinals salvaged the finale of a three-game series with a 5-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Sunday night.
Nolan Gorman, Victor Scott II and Pedro Pagés each scored a run and knocked in another for the Cardinals.
St. Louis starter Kyle Leahy (1-1) gave up two runs and five hits in five innings. Riley O’Brien pitched the ninth for his second save.
Kerry Carpenter led the Detroit offense with his second homer in two days. Tigers starter Keider Montero (0-1) gave up three runs — two earned — and three hits in 4 1/3 innings.
Montero was recalled from Triple-A Toledo on Saturday after Justin Verlander was placed on the 15-day injured list due to left hip inflammation. Verlander had been scheduled Sunday to make his first start at Detroit’s ballpark in a Tigers uniform since the 2017 season.
Colt Keith led off the Detroit third with a single. Leahy retired the next two batters before Carpenter launched a 425-foot drive to straightaway center field to give the Tigers a 2-0 lead.
The Cardinals scored their first two runs in the fifth on Pages’ RBI single and Scott’s squeeze bunt. Herrera smacked his two-out, two-run single off Enmanuel De Jesus.
Javier Báez’s sacrifice fly in the sixth cut the Cardinals’ lead to 4-3. Gorman’s sacrifice fly in the eighth made it 5-3.
Up next
Cardinals: RHP Andre Pallante (1-0, 0.00 ERA) is scheduled to start the opener of a three-game series Monday night at Washington.
Tigers: RHP Casey Mize (0-1, 1.50) pitches the opener of a four-game series Monday night at Minnesota.
MONROE COUNTY, Mich. – Strong storms swept through parts of Metro Detroit Saturday evening, downing trees, toppling power lines and damaging property across Monroe and Wayne counties.
Matt Rose, owner of Rose Tree Service in Monroe County, and his crew hit the ground running to help with the recovery effort.
“Probably about 5:30 in the afternoon the wind started picking up and all you heard was tornado sirens,” Rose said.
The storms didn’t last long — but the damage they left behind tells a different story.
“Within 20 minutes I’d say. It did a lot of damage in 20 minutes,” Rose said.
The storms left behind splintered trees, downed wires and ripped at least one barn to shreds.
Rob Salenbien of Van Buren Township watched the storm destroy what he described as his family’s entertainment space — right before a major family milestone.
“It’s our entertainment place,” Salenbien said. “We were just hosting my family, my mom and dad is inside – their 60th wedding anniversary is coming up on April 30th, we were going to have a party here on May 3rd.”
Salenbien and his family say they are thankful no one was hurt.
As for the cleanup, Rose says crews are still working to finish up damage left by a previous storm — and now they have even more on their hands. He estimates the cleanup from this latest round of storms could take weeks.
“We were still finishing up the last storm of trees broken on houses and stuff like that,” Rose said.
Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.
Detroit Tigers fans get pictures with tiger statue at Comerica Park
Detroit Tigers fans get their picture taken with the tiger statue outside Comerica Park on April 3, 2026 for Opening Day.
To many people, it makes no sense. Here was the seventh game of a 162-game baseball season, the Detroit Tigers had lost four of the six already played, yet seemingly the entire city converged on downtown Friday, April 3, to get into the stadium, or sit outside the stadium, or just hang around the stadium.
They stuffed bars and restaurants. They drank beer despite the early hour. They wore orange or blue clothing and caps with an Old English “D.” There is no way to count how many total people swarmed the streets, or how many of them had called in sick to their jobs to be here.
We call it Opening Day, and in Detroit it is virtually a holiday. Not elsewhere. Other cities don’t make this fuss. To many of them, going wild for the seventh game of the season makes no sense.
And that’s OK.
In fact, it’s perfect.
Far from the only nonstandard tradition
Opening Day made me think about how many things we do around these parts that are uniquely ours, traditions that we cherish but which don’t necessarily travel.
The Dream Cruise. It began as a charity event, and is now is a fixture on the August calendar. But if you tell someone in Boston or San Diego that thousands of people sit in lawn chairs along a busy boulevard to watch old cars drive past, you’ll get laughed out of the room.
The Independence Day Fireworks. Yes, other cities have them. No, they don’t have them in late June. We do. Supposedly we do this because of our proximity to Canada, which celebrates on a different schedule. Of course, Canada Day is July 1, and America’s holiday is July 4, so someone should explain how June got in there.
But, hey, maybe they shouldn’t. It’s our tradition. And that’s what’s important.
Sweetest Day. Hate to break this to area lovers, but that’s not really a thing in the most of the country.
Paczki Day – yes, it’s a way to celebrate Fat Tuesday, but it’s much bigger here in the Midwest than in other regions.
The Charity Preview at the Detroit Auto Show. That’s like the Motor City’s Met Gala, but it doesn’t exist elsewhere. And auto shows in general are not the must-see events they are in our town.
Traditions like throwing octopi at hockey games, singing “born and raised in South Detroit!” chanting “Onward Down the Field” when the Lions score or yelling “DEEE-TROIT BAS-KET-BALLLLLL!” are things you will not witness anywhere else.
And it may be a hot dog everywhere else, but it’s a coney here.
If all of this makes us quirky, well, quirky we should be. Because in a world of increasing homogenization, local traditions are in peril.
A taste for tradition
Consider what the internet and multinational corporations desire. Everyone on the same page at the same time.
Apple wants the whole world to line up at a given hour for the new iPhone. Taylor Swift wants the whole world hanging on her latest release. Local coffee shops get swallowed by chains. Local eateries surrender to fast food.
As someone who travels for work, I can tell you, decades ago when you went to the South, you heard different music on the radio. You went out West, you saw different retail outlets. You felt like an outsider. You felt like you were someplace new and wondrous.
Today, Nashville looks like Austin looks like Raleigh looks like Phoenix. There’s your P.F. Chang’s next to your Cheesecake Factory. There’s your Best Buy alongside your Costco. The goal of global economies is scale, big numbers, national – even international – audiences. Everyone wants to be the Super Bowl.
But what of the joy of regional customs? Local traditions? The food you can only get here, the music you can only hear there. As the internet shrinks our distance, it also fades our individuality.
When I was a kid in Philadelphia, they had a parade every New Year’s Day, where string bands marched and people wore these crazy costumes, painted their faces, and competed in different categories. It was called the Mummers Parade, and in my youthful naivete, I thought every city did this. Later I realized it was unique to Philly, and in fact, many outsiders found it silly.
Well, as Paul McCartney sang, it isn’t silly at all. Local color shades who we are. Local activities give us a sense of identity. Local traditions bind us to our hometowns, and our shared memories with neighbors.
So we can ask “Did you go to Opening Day?” around here and people know what we mean. There’s something precious about that. In an age of everyone buying from Amazon and eating at McDonald’s, we should fiercely protect what makes us unique.
So yeah, wearing a “Trammell” jersey or telling your friends, “I’ll meet you at Mario’s before the game for the lobster buffet” may make no sense to outsiders. Good. It’s not supposed to.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.
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