A very good 1961 Detroit Tigers team was on the verge of 100 victories on September 30. The franchise hadn’t had a 100-game winning team since the 1934 American League champions won 101. Prior to that, the 1915 Tigers won exactly 100. With two games left in the season, the ’61 Tigers had a shot at becoming the third Detroit squad to reach that milestone.
The ’61 Tigers, like 1915’s, would finish no higher than second place even with a 100th victory. The Yankees clinched the AL championship 10 days earlier. New York had already thwarted Detroit’s chances of winning the pennant by sweeping a crucial three-game series between the teams at Yankee Stadium to begin the month.