The Enchanted Season

The inside story of the Detroit Tigers' unforgettable 1984 season

In 1984, fantasy became reality in the Motor City. Led by ace Jack Morris, a historic season from lefty Willie Hernandez, and a thumping lineup powered by Kirk Gibson, Chet Lemon, and Lance Parrish, the Detroit Tigers turned a sportscaster’s sarcastic “Bless you boys” remark into a rallying cry. The Tigers led the American League East from start to finish – starting the season 35-5 and finishing with 104 wins to take the division by 15 games. They topped Kansas City in the ALCS and the San Diego Padres in the World Series to capture Detroit’s first World Series Crown since 1968.

A key cog to this unforgettable season was Parrish, the all-star catcher who slugged a team-leading 33 home runs. Told from the perspective of Parrish himself and the expertise of award-winning Tigers scribe Tom Gage – who covered the 1984 Tigers for the Detroit News -- The Enchanted Season takes readers onto the field and inside the locker room, from the spring training trade for Hernandez to Morris’s April no-hitter to Gibson’s October home run to seal the Tigers’ clinching Game 5. Sharing insight on manager Sparky Anderson’s leadership, the magical keystone combination of Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker, the power and speed of Lemon and Gibson, and much more, this essential read provides fans a new look back at the year the Tigers roared.

Nicknamed the “Big Wheel,” Lance Parrish was a six-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove winner for the Detroit Tigers. Including other teams, he was an eight-time All-Star. In his 19-year major-league career (1977–1995), which included four seasons of playing for the California Angels and two for the Philadelphia Phillies, Parrish hit 324 home runs and drove in 1,070 runs, topped by the 114 runs he drove in for the Tigers in 1983. In 1982, he set a home run record for American League catchers with 32 and topped that with 33 in 1984. He and his wife, Arlyne, are the parents of three grown children, including a son, David, who was a first-round draft choice of the New York Yankees in 2000.

Starting in 1976, Tom Gage covered more than 5,000 Detroit Tigers games in 36-plus years as a baseball beat writer. He was honored with the Baseball Writers Association’s J.G. Taylor Spink Award, now the Career Excellence Award, in 2015 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The following year he was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame and, in 2020, into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. He’s been the recipient of multiple career achievement awards and twice was named Michigan Sportswriter of the Year. This is his fourth book. Gage and his wife, Lisa, have a grown son and two grandchildren.

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