DETROIT -- Let the words sink in. Say it once, say it twice, say it as many times as you want.

Take the whole week if you want, because the World Series doesn't start for six more days. And the Detroit Tigers are going to be in it.

The Tigers clinched their spot on another Celebration Saturday at Comerica Park, clinched it with a three-run Magglio Ordonez home run that ended the American League Championship Series and set off the Tigers' biggest party yet. They beat the Oakland A's 6-3, turned the ALCS into a four-game romp and left their $75 million cleanup hitter with a feeling he'll never forget.

"This is one of the best moments of my life,'' Ordonez said, his hair dripping with champagne and his eyes glowing with joy. "The people in this organization, and in this city, deserve this.''

The Tigers had been waiting for 22 years to make it back to baseball's biggest stage. They've been through so much since then, from the 119-loss season of 2003 to 90-loss seasons the next two years and the final-week collapse that cost them this year's American League Central division championship.

Let the Minnesota Twins have that title, because now the Tigers have a bigger one, that of American League champions.

They've earned it with what's now a seven-game postseason winning streak, a run that pushed them past the New York Yankees and then shot them past the A's. Oakland finally put up a fight in Saturday's Game 4, but the Tigers erased an early three-run deficit and ended up with their 36th comeback win this year.

They tied it in the sixth, when Ordonez led off with his first home run of the day. They could have won it in the seventh, could have won it in the eighth and finally did put it away in the ninth against Oakland closer Huston Street.

Craig Monroe reached on a two-out single. Placido Polanco, named the ALCS most valuable player, followed with his ninth hit of the series. Then came Ordonez, who began Saturday with a .154 batting average in the series.

"I just wanted him to get a base hit,'' Polanco said. "And he hit a home run.''

It was a no-doubter, the only question being how fast the Tigers could race out of the dugout to join the madness at home plate.

"I thought, `Gone,' instantly,'' third baseman Brandon Inge said. "I didn't even look. I just jumped over the (dugout) stairs and the fence, all in one motion.''

Inge was one of nine Tigers who also played on the 2003 team. They had special reason to celebrate Saturday, but so did everyone else wearing a Tiger uniform.

Sean Casey, who missed the last three games with a bad left calf (but who vowed to be ready for Saturday night), had never been in a playoff game in nine previous big-league seasons. Third-base coach Gene Lamont has been in professional baseball since 1965, but will be in a World Series for the first time.

Then there's Ordonez, who left the Chicago White Sox two years ago, only to watch his former team win it all last year. Or actually not watch, because Ordonez said later he had tears in his eyes and had to keep changing the channel.

Now they're home, and he's going to the World Series.

"And it's even sweeter, because I hit the home run that put us there,'' Ordonez said.

Ordonez hit the home run that put them there. But it was Inge who had the three hits in Game 1, Alexis Gomez who hit the home run that clinched Game 2, Kenny Rogers who dominated Game 3 on the mound.

"We've played this way the whole year,'' Rogers said. "It's always a different guy.''

At the end it was Ordonez, but also Jeremy Bonderman and Curtis Granderson and Monroe and Polanco. Always Polanco, who batted .529 in this series and has at least one hit in each of the Tigers' eight postseason games.

Bonderman allowed the A's two first-inning runs, but when he left two outs into the seventh inning, Oakland had added just one more run. Granderson drove in the first Tiger run with his fifth-inning double. Monroe also doubled home a run in the fifth, and his single started the winning rally in the ninth.

"Even when they jumped ahead 2-0, guys in the dugout were saying, `That's not enough,' '' Monroe said. "We play hard nine innings every day. This is the reward.''

It's quite a reward, although in the midst of the celebration the Tigers were already thinking of the task ahead. They have a week to enjoy this one, but even Ordonez was talking about how quickly the Tigers need to get back to work.

There's time for that, time for everything now, because the World Series doesn't start until Saturday night. The Tigers don't even know who they'll play yet, because the National League Championship Series isn't close to being over.

The ALCS is over, over with an Ordonez home run no one who saw it will ever forget.

"There's no words to describe it,'' Bonderman said. "C'mon, guys. It's the World Series.''

Yes it is. It begins Saturday night at Comerica Park, and the Tigers are in it.