Tigers 6

A’s 3

DETROIT – If the Mets manage to beat the Cardinals they will have to travel the same path as the Yankees.

The road to a World Series victory goes right through Motown. It will not be easy.

As the Tigers celebrated their pulsating, 6-3 sweeping victory over the A’s last night in the ALCS on the strength of Magglio Ordonez’ two-out, three-run, walkoff home run in the ninth inning – this was his Aaron Boone moment -Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street” blared from the loudspeakers of Comerica Park.

Callin’ out around the world / Are you ready for a brand new beat?

The Tigers are a brand new beat. When Boone was hitting that home run in 2003, the Tigers had just completed a season in which they lost 119 games. They were the laughingstock of major-league baseball. Now they are a shining example of how to run a franchise.

Under manager Jim Leyland and GM Dave Dombrowski, they are a baseball beast with a pitching staff that is in the best in the game.

The Tigers are baseball’s greatest story of 2006, and the 42,962 fans here at the park and an entire city celebrated with them.

Ordonez’ blast came off reliever Huston Street and left the park in front of the big clock on the leftfield scoreboard at exactly 7:50. Twenty-two years to the day that the Tigers last won a World Series they were now going back to a World Series.

“Thanks for being so patient Detroit,” said Leyland, who knows about patience. He spent 18 years in the Tigers’ minor leagues as a catcher, hoping for his big-league shot.

“This is awesome,” said first baseman Sean Casey. “We have a great bunch of guys and Leyland keeps everyone together, 100 percent.”

The Tigers easily beat the Yankees in four games in the division series and now they’ve swept away the inept A’s in four straight. Placido Polanco earned MVP honors for the series.

The A’s hitters were absolutely pathetic in that inning against reliever Jason Grilli, who at one point threw 12 straight balls to load the bases. Prior to that, Grilli surrendered a leadoff single to Milton Bradley and then fell behind Frank Thomas, 3-0, before getting Thomas to hit into a double play. Since his next 12 pitches were balls that meant Grilli threw 15 balls in a span of 16 pitches. But the Tigers survived.

Leyland, who has pushed every right button this postseason, went to lefty Wilfredo Ledezma, whose first pitch to Marco Scutaro was – you guessed it – a ball. But then Scutaro fouled out to catcher Pudge Rodriguez to end the threat and the Tigers had new life.

Ordonez had been struggling this series and came into the cool night batting .154.

“It looked like he was swinging his bat underwater,” said third baseman Brandon Inge.

Ordonez broke out in the sixth inning with a leadoff home run that tied the game at 3-3. He was one of the high priced free agents that Dombrowski got to come to this franchise. Rodriguez was the other. “That showed everyone we were serious,” Dombrowski said of the Pudge acquisition.

This was the same team that was swept by the Royals at the end of the season. “We were able to shrug it off those games against the Royals,” said center fielder Curtis Granderson. “We accepted that we struggled, but we had made it to the playoffs. And that was our goal.

“Once everyone accepted that, we got back to playing baseball.”

The wild-card team went wild.

And they haven’t stopped. The Mets could be next on their list.