What they said

Michael Rosenberg, Detroit Free Press: With Detroit waiting for a hero, Magglio Ordonez turned to Tigers clubhouse assistant Tyson Steele in the dugout. "You got the champagne on ice?" he asked Steele, before stepping onto the field in the bottom of the ninth inning. "It's over."

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Dan Dickerson, WXYT-AM radio: "Swing and a fly ball, leftield, it's deep, it's way back ... the Tigers are going to the World Series. Three-run, walkoff home run! Ohhh man! Ordonez around third, he's into a mob scene at home! The Tigers have beaten the A's, 6-3, completing a four-game sweep in one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history! The Tigers, three years after losing 119 games, are going to the World Series! Magglio Ordonez with his second home run of the game. What a sight at home plate!"

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Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press: And sure enough, after a shaky start and a three-run deficit and a bases-loaded blown opportunity and a bases-loaded narrow escape, sure enough, after almost every chance imaginable and the score still tied, 3-3, here came the bottom of the ninth, two outs, two on -- I mean, come on, is this perfect or what? -- and here came your something big, folks, here came Magglio Ordonez, one of those free agents who a few years back might never have signed with the Tigers, and he smoked an 1-0 pitch so high and so far into Comerica Park's leftfield seats that he had time to watch, walk, raise a fist, then raise another fist, then run the bases pointing a new direction for this new era of Detroit baseball.

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Bob Wojnowski, Detroit News: It was a shot in the bottom of the ninth, from the bottom of the heart, a three-run homer by Ordonez with two out that gave the Tigers a 6-3 victory over Oakland on Saturday night and a 4-0 sweep of the American League Championship Series. What ensued on the field and in the stands should be branded unreal, except that we’d seen it just a week earlier, when the Tigers vanquished the Yankees.

What a remarkable sight, again.

What a remarkable team, again.

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Jerry Green, Detroit News: Of course the Tigers would win the American League pennant with a walk-off home run with two out in the bottom of the ninth.

That was the way it was scripted. It could happen no other way in this storybook baseball season.

This little team that couldn’t — that shouldn’t — is going to the World Series. Next Saturday night vs. a team to be determined. At home. At Comerica Park.

Believe it or not.

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A's outfielder Milton Bradley, quoted in the L.A. Times on Kenny Rogers' performance Friday: "I don't know if it would be disrespectful or something, but I almost felt like going over there and giving him a high-five. He was that good."

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Blast from the past, February 2004: Scott Boras, [Ivan] Rodriguez's agent who negotiated the deal with the Tigers, said his client was excited about playing in the AL Central. "Pudge said to me, 'I know that division. That division could be mine,'" Boras said.

And from then-manager Alan Trammell, on the signing of Pudge: "This is how it starts. This is how we get better."