Tigers Triggering Memories of When Detroit Ruled Over Pro Sports

For the first time since 2014, the Detroit Tigers are in the playoffs. Many NFL pundits are showing the Detroit Lions as an elite contender to win the Super Bowl.

The Red Wings are priming for the NHL regular season. There’s plenty of belief that this could be the season that the Detroit Red Wings are making the Stanley Cup playoffs. They haven’t done so since the 2015-16 season.

A recent note was pointing out that the only year in which both the Tigers and Lions were both qualifying for postseason play was in 1935. However, that little tidbit only was the tip of the iceberg. It doesn’t go nearly deep enough in explaining what a successful season that was on the Detroit sporting landscape.

As radio icon Paul Harvey liked to say, here’s the rest of the story.

Tigers, Red Wings. Lions All Champions

In the spring of 1935, the Tigers would beat the Chicago Cubs 4-2 in the 1935 World Series. It was a delightful rebound. One year earlier, the club was suffering a heartbreaking seven-game setback against the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1934 World Series. Detroit was losing all-star first baseman Hank Greenberg to a broken wrist in Game 2 of the series. In his absence, right fielder Pete Fox stepped to be the hitting hero. He batted .385 for the series, reaching safely in all six games.

That fall, the Lions were playing just their second season in the Motor City. They would be toppling the New York Giants 26-7 in the 1935 NFL Championship Game. Ace Gutowsky, Dutch Clark, Ernie Caddel and Buddy Clark would score touchdowns as the Lions beat the two-time defending champion Giants.

Competing the trifecta, in the spring of 1936, the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. They were downing the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1 in a best-of-five series. The victory was enabling the franchise to lay claim to the Stanley Cup for the first time. Pete Kelly was the scorer of the first Stanley Cup-winning goal in Red Wings franchise history.

In each case, the championship was the first in franchise history for these Detroit teams.

Detroit remains the only city to be simultaneously the reigning champions of the NHL, NFL and MLB.

Could history be repeating itself? Taking into account the recent drought of sporting success, Detroit fans would be delighted just to see all three clubs in the playoffs during the same season.