Party Hearty, Pistons Fans -- But '84 Tigers' Start Was More Impressive

Sorry, Sheed -- but '84 Tigers trump your 35-5 getaway


It's almost unbelievable, really, to consider that anyone over 25 in this town has seen two Detroit teams begin a season with a record of 35-5 after 40 games.

The Pistons joined the 1984 Tigers last night, working overtime to escape the Milwaukee Bucks, 106-102 at the Palace.

I promised myself I would write this piece if the Pistons successfully made the climb to professional sports' stratosphere, causing our '84 Tigers to make room in that penthouse. It may ruffle some feathers and maybe this isn't the best time to do it, but it's also the perfect time, because the comparisons are so tempting.

So which is more difficult, anyway -- going 35-5 in major league baseball, or in the NBA?

Sorry, Rasheed -- the (base)ball don't lie.

It might not be a popular viewpoint this morning, but it says here that there are simply more land mines through which to navigate during a baseball season than during an NBA campaign. And that's why the 1984 Tigers' 35-5 record is more impressive -- albeit slightly more impressive -- than this season's Pistons version.

If you think about all a major league schedule has to offer in any given 40-game stretch -- three-game series with the same team, hot pitchers, fluke plays, defensive miscues, the sudden death of a walk-off homer against, hitting slumps -- I think it's simply bewildering that a team, no matter how good, could win 35 of its first 40 games. Or 17 straight road games. Or 18 of its first 20 -- another record. But the Tigers did all of that in 1984, and I truly wonder if we'll ever see anything close to it again.

The following season, in 1985, some friends and I ventured to Cleveland to watch the Tigers play the Indians in the cavernous Municipal Stadium. We sat behind these obnoxious dudes who were razzing us about the Indians, who were actually winning the game. The Indians were miserable in '85. The talk turned to the '84 Tigers, because Obnoxious Dudes took great delight in the fact that the '85 Tigers weren't all that.

"The only reason they (the Tigers) won the division is because they started 35-5," one of them said through his wimpish beak.

"Do you realize how HARD it is to go 35-5?," I countered.

If it was legal, I'd still be beating him now, as you read this.

Look, what the Pistons have done this season is amazing -- no question. The fact that there is still serious talk -- at the halfway point -- of them reaching 70 victories is testament to that. They are chomping through the NBA schedule like PacMan. They seem, really, to be able to turn on their afterburners at will, leaving their opponents gasping in the dust. History may place them among the top five greatest teams of all-time, as far as single seasons go.

But their feat does not surpass that of the 1984 Detroit Tigers.

In those first 40 games, the Tigers lost consecutive games only once: games 22 and 23, to "fall" to 19-4. They had winning streaks of nine (twice), and seven (twice). That's 32 wins right there, just in streaks. They won those 17 straight on the road, including a west coast swing. They plowed through the league, avoiding all those pitfalls I outlined earlier -- those bugaboos that befall major league baseball teams on a weekly basis.

And they did it all to the tune of an .875 winning percentage through one quarter of a 162-game season.

The Pistons, bless their blue collar hearts, have an advantage that the '84 Tigers didn't possess: there are more cupcakes on an NBA schedule than there are in big league baseball. It's true. There are winning percentages in the NBA that look like MLB batting averages, sprinkled throughout the league. The Tigers didn't get to beat up on teams who were on pace to lose 100 games, over and over again. There are many have-nots in the NBA, and the Pistons have been able to pad their record with wins against such impostors.

This may be one of those great barroom discussions. It's always fun to compare apples to oranges in sports. We like to do that in this country. To compare the uncomparable provides shelter in the wake of heated arguing.

So you know we're going to do it, starting today in earnest, now that the Pistons have matched the Tigers, in record at least. But they have only done just that: match them in terms of records.

The 1984 Tigers can relax. Theirs is still the greatest achievement.