| 1976 Detroit Tigers | ||
|---|---|---|
| League | American League | |
| Division | East | |
| Ballpark | Tiger Stadium | |
| City | Detroit, Michigan | |
| Owners | John Fetzer | |
| General managers | Jim Campbell | |
| Managers | Ralph Houk | |
| Television | WWJ-TV (George Kell, Larry Osterman, Don Kremer, Al Kaline) | |
| Radio | WJR (Ernie Harwell, Paul Carey) | |
| ||
The 1976 Detroit Tigers season was the 76th season for the Detroit Tigers competing in Major League Baseball as a member of the American League. In their third season under manager Ralph Houk, the Tigers compiled a 74–87 record and finished in fifth place in the American League East, 24 games behind the New York Yankees. The team improved by 17 wins over its 1975 performance for the largest improvement by any team in the American League. The team played its home games at Tiger Stadium and attracted 1,467,020 fans, ranking fourth of the 12 teams in the American League.
Rookie pitcher Mark Fidrych, known as "The Bird", became a sensation throughout baseball, both for his pitching prowess and for his unusual practices in talking to the ball and grooming the pitcher's mound. Fidrych finished the 1976 season with a 19-9 win–loss record and led the American League with a 2.34 earned run average (ERA). Fidrych won the American League Rookie of the Year and "Tiger of the Year" awards and finished second in the voting for the Cy Young Award.
The team's batting leaders included center fielder Ron LeFlore with a .316 batting average and 58 stolen bases, Jason Thompson with 17 home runs, and Rusty Staub with 96 RBIs and a .386 on-base percentage. Third baseman Aurelio Rodriguez also won the American League Gold Glove Award, breaking Brooks Robinson's streak of winning the award for 17 consecutive years.