When Dale Petroskey makes his annual trip to the World Series this year, he won't be attending just as president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He'll be going as a fan watching his favorite team compete for the ultimate sports championship.

"I'm shocked, I'm thrilled and it's hard to believe that when the season started in April that the Tigers would be playing for the world championship in October," Petroskey said during an interview Tuesday afternoon. "Who would have ever believed?"

Certainly not most baseball fans. The Tigers began the season in the midst of a remarkable period of futility, having gone without a winning season since 1993.

They also began the 2006 season under new manager Jim Leyland, who hadn't led a team since a losing season with the Colorado Rockies in 1999, and were without a World Series appearance since they won it all in 1984.

Although they had been improving since an awful 2003 season in which they lost 119 games, few expected the Tigers would even make the postseason this year, let alone win seven straight games to knock out a powerhouse New York Yankees team and sweep the Oakland Athletics. Most diehard fans like Petroskey didn't even hope for much more than a .500 season.

Petroskey was born and raised in the Detroit area and has been a Tigers fan since he was five-years-old. Right from the start, he said he couldn't get enough of them, so much so that at the age of 13, he became an usher at Tiger Stadium where he washed seats just for the chance to be in the ballpark every night.

In 1983, along with his brother Dennis and friend Bill Mackay, Petroskey took that fandom to the next level and founded the Mayo Smith Society, a Detroit Tigers fan club named after the manager who led the 1968 World Series champion team.

"I've had a passion for the Tigers my whole life," he said.

Despite that passion and even after a great first half _ in which the Tigers reached the midseason break with a record of 59-29 _ Petroskey said he didn't think they would be able to hold off the strong contenders in their division, including the Minnesota Twins and defending World Series champion Chicago White Sox.

"You kept waiting for the bottom to drop out because you don't go from where they were a couple years ago to having the best record in baseball for most of the season," he said.

And although the Tigers did falter late in the season, losing their last five games _ including a three-game sweep at home by the lowly Kansas City Royals _ and entering the postseason as the wild card, not division champion, they didn't give up.

"What stands out about this team, is that they just keep coming after you," Petroskey said. "They fight you to the final out."

He credited Leyland for _ as Leyland himself said _ turning a group of good players into a good team.

"I think Jim Leyland is the key. He's obviously a great manager." Petroskey said. "He never let them get too high or too low."

While Leyland helped the team turn the corner, Petroskey said the building blocks of this team's success were set when Dave Dombrowski was hired at the end of the 2001 season.

Dombrowski _ who won a world series as GM of the Florida Marlins in 1997 _ came into Detroit with a game plan and convinced the owner to spend the money needed to put together a winning team, Petroskey said.

He said Dombrowski's key acquisition came in 2004 with the signing of "future Hall of Fame catcher" Ivan Rodriguez.

"The day they signed Pudge Rodriguez was the day their fortunes turned," Petroskey said. That told other players it was ok to play in Detroit again and anchored a key position for the foreseeable future, he said.

As for the immediate future, which begins Saturday with the Tigers facing either the St. Louis Cardinals or New York Mets (St. Louis leads the series 3-2 as of press time), Petroskey declined to speculate.

"I think everybody feels like the Tigers are predestined to win this thing," he said. "I don't. Everything you think is going to happen, one week later it's totally different, whipped upside down."

Petroskey won't be in attendance for game one of the World Series, as he'll be in Cooperstown for the Hall of Fame's annual Game One Gala. He said he will be there for the rest of the series however, to watch the Tigers win or lose.

"I can't say with certainty they'll win," he said. "Am I hopeful that the Tigers are going to win the World Series? More than you know."

If the Tigers do win, Petroskey won't be the only one in the Hall of Fame offices celebrating. Senior vice-president Bill Haase is also a lifelong Tigers fan and spent 18 years with the Tigers organization.

"I think it's one of the greatest things to happen to the city of Detroit in quite some time," Haase said.

Haase spent the last 10 of his years with the organization (1983-92) as its executive vice president and chief operating officer. He won a World Series Champion ring in 1984 with the team and still wears it regularly.

He said he wears the ring in order to share it with people, most of whom will never get the chance to see such an item up close.

"I've had a few really neat experiences" because of the ring, he said.

Win or lose, the Tigers' run and dramatic American League Championship Series will be commemorated in the Hall's annual Autumn Glory exhibit, which celebrates the Major League Baseball postseason.

Hall spokesman Brad Horn said the bat Magglio Ordonez used to hit a walk-off three-run homer in the Tigers' clincher against the Athletics will be at the hall after this weekend, as will a bat used by ALCS most-valuable player Placido Polanco.

As for what the rest of the exhibit will hold, Horn said they won't know until the series concludes later this month.

"The story has yet to be written," he said.