The AL East was a monster for most of the 1980s. This was the era before a baseball wild card, when the East and the West would play in the League Championship Series.
The decade started with the Yankees winning the East at 103-59 and Baltimore finishing second at 100-62.
Over the next six seasons, six of the seven teams in the AL East would win the division: 1981, New York (in the split strike season); 1982, Milwaukee; 1983, Baltimore; 1984, Detroit; 1985, Toronto; and 1986, Boston.
And the best of those teams when the East was at its mightiest was Detroit in 1984: 104-58, the most wins in a Tigers history dating to 1901, and the franchise's best record by winning percentage since 1934.
The Tigers had been in pursuit of the Yankees, the Orioles, the Brewers — potent veteran teams — for several years and finally figured out the formula for winning the East.
"We buried them," Jack Morris said. "We started that season saying, 'We can play with these guys,' and we then we just came out of the chute in unbelievable fashion. We had a lot of stars, but we also had guys like Barbaro Garbey, Rusty Kuntz and Marty Castillo rising up to win games for us.
"The '84 Tigers were a 'team.' "
This was a time when if you wanted to follow an out-of-market baseball team on a regular basis, the best bet was to find a station with a clear channel radio signal at night. WJR, 760 AM in Detroit, was one of those.