Amy Sancetta, Associated Press Detroit manager Jim Leyland points to the fans while taking a victory lap around the outfield after the Tigers defeated the Oakland Athletics, 6-3, Saturday night in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series in Detroit. Click photo for larger image. (Tigers win, 4-0) Next: Tigers vs. NL winner in World Series Game 1, 8 p.m. Saturday.

Two former Pirates paid a lot of attention to Magglio Ordonez Saturday afternoon.

"I told him before the game, 'This is your day. It's going to be a special day,' " Lloyd McClendon told the Detroit right fielder.

"I told him before [the bottom of the ninth] inning that if he didn't swing the bat, I was going to punch him in the face," Andy Van Slyke said.

Ordonez, who had been punchless in the first three games of the American League Championship Series against Oakland, moments later KO'd the Athletics with a walk-off, three-run home run that completed an impressive sweep and finished another head-shaking chapter to the Tigers' storybook season.

"We did all right, didn't we?" Tiger manager Jim Leyland asked yesterday on his way to attend the Detroit Lions game.

All right, indeed.

The team that lost 91 games last season -- and 119 games in 2003 -- is in the World Series for the first time since 1984.

And former Pirates personnel will be just about everywhere when the World Series begins Saturday night in Detroit.

"I think the All-Star game deciding home field for the World Series is a bunch of [not good stuff]," Gene Lamont said, "but I'm glad [the American League] won this year."

The Tigers will have home field advantage because the AL won the All-Star game at PNC Park in July.

The Tigers are 4-0 in Detroit in this postseason following that epic home run by Ordonez, who was just 2 for 13 in the first three games against Oakland but who hit two home runs and drove in four runs Saturday.

Ordonez's series-ending home run carried over the Tigers bullpen, where McClendon, fired as the Pirate manager Sept. 6, 2005, now works.

"We left everything in the bullpen and sprinted [toward home plate]," McClendon said. "The excitement was unmatched -- unbelievable. It was a joy I hadn't felt since 1991, 1992 [when McClendon played for Pirate teams that reached the postseason].

"It was really quite special. The feeling I had when I got fired -- the disappointment -- and then to come full-circle in just a year's time? It's just amazing."

This will be McClendon's second World Series. He starred in the 1971 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.

"No comparison," McClendon said. "Back then, I was 12 years old. I really didn't really appreciate the magnitude of what we accomplished. Now, at 47, I realize how difficult this really is. It's a grind. I'm very appreciative."

Lamont, who managed the Pirates from 1997-2000, has never been part of a World Series.

Jonathan Daniel, Getty Images Former Pirates outfielder Andy Van Slyke, right, the Tigers' first base coach, celebrates with Magglio Ordonez after Ordonez hit a walk-off homer Saturday night to put Detroit in the World Series. Click photo for larger image.

"The older you get, you wonder, 'Am I ever going to get there?' " Lamont said. "It's a great feeling to be part of one."

Before this season, Van Slyke's most recent postseason experience was a bit of a downer. He sat in center field in Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta just after Sid Bream scored the winning run for the Braves in the seventh game of the 1992 National League Championship Series.

Did Saturday's result ease some of the pain of that night?

"No," said Van Slyke, the Tigers' first base coach. "That was the most devastating thing that happened to me as a player. This is a different chapter of my life."

Leyland, Lamont's predecessor as Pirates manager, was a World Series winner in 1997 in his first season managing the Florida Marlins.

He's trying to duplicate that feat in his first season as the manager of the Tigers, who absolutely nobody thought would be in the postseason this year.

"Anybody who says they thought we'd be in it, they're lying," Leyland said. "In spring training, we thought we'd be better this year. We knew we had something to work with. But if we'd have finished two or three games over, I'd have been happy."

Leyland, who was extremely emotional when he managed the Pirates, was very low-key Saturday night. "He cried a little bit," Lamont said, "but he was pretty cool really. In fact, he was really good."

Leyland, who gave his players yesterday and today off, was remarkably calm when Ordonez's second home run landed in the left field seats. "I said to myself, 'Well, we won it,' " Leyland said. "I didn't over-react."

He immediately turned toward his son Patrick, who was in the seats near the Tiger dugout, pointed to him and then turned his attention to the on-field celebration.

The Tigers could wind up playing the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. That would match Leyland against his close friend Tony La Russa, who manages the Cardinals.

The media will make much of that.

Or try to.

"I'm really going to be downplaying that," Leyland said. "That's the main thing I'm going to address at the first press conference, and then I'm not going to talk about it. This is not the Jim and Tony show. It will be the Cardinals against the Tigers. We'll just play the games."

"He'll downplay it," Van Slyke said. "But inside? He wants to beat [La Russa's] brains out."