The Detroit Tigers have been a baseball team that has improved a lot from years gone by. Prior to the 1968 team that went on to beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, the Tigers were a very bad team. Attendance was terrible. I remember going to some of those games with my brothers, and you were lucky to get five thousand fans in the stadium.

Than came the 1984 season. The Tigers had made some changes. They had groomed and brought up some players from their farm system, and brought in a strong manager in Sparky Anderson. Anderson had some glory years in Cincinnati with the Reds, and there were high hopes for him in Detroit. We had Kirk Gibson, Jack Morris, Alan Trammel, Lou Whittaker, Lance Parrish, Willie Hernandez, and senior smoke, Aurelio Lopez. This was an all-star team. They showed it right from the gate, winning thirty-five out of their first forty games. They went on to win the world series from the San Diego Padres in five games.

We move up to 2006, when the Tigers surprised everyone with another world series appearance against the St. Louis Cardinals again. This pitted to head coaches that were best of friends, Jim Leyland for Detroit and Tony La Russa for the Cardinals. Unfortunately, the Tigers would commit eight errors by their pitchers, and lose the series to the cardinals, four games to one.

This brings us to the 2009 season. The Tigers have had some good pitching, a position that everybody thought they would be weak at, but have struggled with their hitting, a position that everyone though they would be strong at. They are still holding onto first place in their division, but the Chicago White Sox are only a couple of games behind.

Because of their struggles at the plate, the Tigers went out and picked up first baseman, Aubrey Huff from the Baltimore Orioles. I think this is a good move. Huff can help the Tigers not only with his bat, but also at first base and third base relief for Brandon Inge.

Huff is hitting .253 and thirteen homers, but he is hitting .324 with runners in scoring position. That has been a major problem for the Tigers this year. They have left a ton of runners on the base paths. Runs that could have brought home some much needed wins, much like United First Financial would do in paying off debt.