Remembering the Magglio Ordoñez Walkoff Homer That Sent the Tigers to the 2006 World Series

Dan Dickerson's call has been echoing in my head for 14 long, excruciating years. The greatest sports moment of my -- and surely many Detroit baseball fans' -- young adult life was watching Magglio Ordoñez round the bases that October night.

It was poetic. It was sweet justice. It was the beginning of something new -- a run that would assuredly end in not one, but multiple World Series over the course of the next decade.

Oh, how wrong we were. Yet, what makes that '06 run so special is that innocent hope. Just three years earlier, the Tigers put together arguably the worst team in baseball history. 119 losses while wearing the ol' English D. It was an embarrassment for a city already struggling enough. Thankfully, the Tigers were buoyed by the accomplishments of the Pistons and Red Wings, two teams outperforming their parts and delivering an all-important distraction for a city that desperately needed one.

As the Pistons and Wings faded, however, the Tigers hit their stride. It was this '06 team, led by acquisitions like Kenny Rogers, Ordoñez and Pudge Rodriguez that opened a new era of spending in Detroit that the city couldn't possibly match. MoTown was dirt poor, but the Illitch family was willing to spend to give their fans a winner on the diamond.

Those Tigers teams never delivered like they should have. Maggs retired in 2011. Even homegrown stars like Justin Verlander are long gone from our ranks. But one memory, albeit brief, reigns supreme.

That night, we were winners.