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Meet Jed Oliver, the Detroit Tigers fan from London traveling 3,500 miles to Comerica Park
- Story by
- Meet Jed Oliver, the Detroit Tigers fan from London traveling 3,500 miles to Comerica Park
A 15-year-old kid — home sick from school for a few days — flipped through the TV channels around 2 a.m. in Essex, England, located just northeast of London. And in doing so, he stumbled upon things he had never seen before: a catcher crouched behind a batter, a brick wall enclosing a non-symmetrical field and two teams competing in a match labeled "Game 3."
It was Oct. 24, 2006.
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That's where the story of Jed Oliver 's baseball fandom begins — the 2006 World Series. He didn't know it then, but his late-night discovery shaped the rest of his life.
He had found the Detroit Tigers .
Detroit Tigers fans Jed Oliver (right) and Charlotte Oliver (left) traveled from London to Detroit to visit Comerica Park — and watch their favorite team play baseball.
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More than 18 years later, Jed is traveling more than 3,500 miles to Detroit to watch the Tigers at Comerica Park, joined by his wife, Charlotte. The 33-year-old has watched the Tigers for more than 2,500 games, but never in person. The moment he has been waiting for since his teenage years is finally happening.
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It's a six-game trip: He will be at the ballpark from May 23-25 for the final three games of the series against the Cleveland Guardians , then from May 26-28 for the entirety of the series against the San Francisco Giants .
For his first game, you can find Jed in Section 136 at Comerica Park.
"It doesn't feel real, to be honest," Jed said, just hours before leaving his home in the United Kingdom. "It's kind of turned into a TV show for me, so it doesn't seem real that I get to see it. I've watched like 3,000 episodes, so it's going to be really interesting just to see the park. It's like a TV set that comes to life for us."
Remembering Pudge Rodríguez
What started as a moment of curiosity became a hobby.
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Back in 2006, Jed watched Games 3, 4 and 5 of the World Series between the Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals , with the Cardinals winning the best-of-seven series in five games — including all three games he watched.
He cheered for the Tigers, rather than the eventual champs, because he didn't want the World Series to end.
"There was one game a week on normal TV over here, but they showed all the World Series games," said Jed, recounting his first taste of baseball. "I was rooting for the Tigers to come back so I could watch more games. If the Tigers had swept, I probably would have been a Cardinals fan because I would've been rooting for them to come back so I could get more games."
The World Series ended, and Jed forgot everything.
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Except one name — Pudge Rodríguez .
Detroit Tigers' Ivan Rodriguez celebrates after hitting a walk-off two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning against the Cleveland Indians at Comerica Park in downtown Detroit on Friday, Aug. 4, 2006. The Tigers won, 4-3.
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In the 2006-07 offseason, Jed and his friends were riding bikes when they noticed an advertisement in a shop window recruiting kids to play in a youth baseball league at the local park. That sparked his recollection of watching the 2006 World Series.
"I didn't remember the names of the teams that I watched or anything," said Jed, who joined the youth league with his friends and later transitioned to an adult league. "All I could remember was Pudge Rodríguez's name. I Googled him, searched things, found it, and then I was checking the scores every day."
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He quickly became a fan of Joel Zumaya .
"I didn't really know if relief pitchers would pitch in the game," Jed said of Zumaya, whose fastball topped out at 104.8 mph. "I didn't understand rest days or the rotation or anything. He was throwing fast, and no one seemed to be doing that, so he was super interesting to me."
By 2008, Jed got MLB.TV so he could watch the Tigers.
"I've watched pretty much every game since then," Jed said.
How many games?
"Probably about 95%," he said.
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The Victor Reyes tattoo
Watching the Tigers eventually became more than a hobby.
It became part of his routine.
His work life as a warehouse manager catered to his love for the game, as he worked the late shift for most of his career — until this year. Night games in Detroit typically started around midnight in the United Kingdom, so Jed would get home at 11 p.m. from working the late shift, take a shower, eat and turn on the TV, just in time for first pitch.
"It lined up perfectly for years and years to watch the games," said Jed, who stays up until 3 a.m. for night games. "But this year, I've changed to a different shift. It's been a bit of a struggle, but you don't mind staying up when they're winning every night."
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Jed never stopped watching the Tigers, not even in the worst seasons — such as 2019, when the Tigers lost 114 games. He interacts with fellow fans on social media — he's @TigersJUK on X (formerly Twitter) — during every game.
On Aug. 19, 2019, Jed posted a joke on social media during the summer of misery as a Tigers fan . He posted: "If the Tigers take a single game off the Astros this series, I will get a Victor Reyes tattoo."
"Obviously, we were just losing every game," Jed said, reflecting on his post. "And the Astros were winning everything."
To everyone's surprise, the Tigers won the third game of the four-game series, a 2-1 victory on Aug. 21 over former Tiger and future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander . The epic route to victory: A different Rodríguez — Ronny, this time — opened the scoring with a home run in the fifth inning, and four innings later, John Hicks broke the tie with a homer off Verlander in the top of the ninth.
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On Sept. 15, 2019, Jed, true to his word, got a tattoo of Victor Reyes' jersey on his left calf in Dublin, Ireland, during his bachelor party.
Detroit Tigers fan Jed Oliver has a Victor Reyes tattoo on his leg, which he got in August 2019 after the Tigers won, 2-1, over the Houston Astros.
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Players in the Tigers' clubhouse took notice.
"I found it really funny," Reyes said in Spanish, interviewed Sept. 17 on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean by MLive's Evan Woodbery . "When my teammates told me, I thought he wasn't going to do it. But he did what he said he was going to do."
Why did Jed pick Reyes?
"He was the poster child for those bad teams," Jed said. "He was a Rule 5 Draft pick, hung around and never really developed into what people thought he might. It was a joke."
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Support from Tigers fans
The Reyes tattoo started as a joke, but following through with it showed his permanent passion for the Tigers — a passion that ultimately brought him all the way from London to Detroit.
Jed loves this team.
His wife, Charlotte, joined the fandom, too.
The couple began dating in December 2007, got engaged in December 2017 and were married in December 2019. The engagement happened during a six-day trip to New York City — their only visit to the United States until this trip to Comerica Park.
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"It's kind of crazy, to be honest," said Charlotte, who finds comfort in listening to Tigers TV voice Jason Benetti as she falls asleep. "This all just feels like a dream. I'm probably going to get emotional. It's one of Jed's biggest dreams to be involved in the atmosphere and actually see the field. It's going to be a wild ride."
Without Charlotte, Jed wouldn't be visiting Comerica Park.
At least not in 2025.
On Sept. 24, 2024, Charlotte convinced Jed to start a GoFundMe to raise money for a trip to Detroit. They had originally booked a visit in 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic derailed those plans. From there, they shifted their focus to saving for a house. Once they bought a home, the Tigers went on a magical 31-11 run toward the end of the 2024 season, snapping a decade-long postseason drought. Watching the Tigers become one of the best teams in baseball sparked the GoFundMe idea. On Oct. 1, 2024, Jed posted the link to donate on his social media .
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"I don't like asking for money and stuff," Jed said.
His wife changed his mind.
"We've got to go while they're good," Charlotte told him. "Just put it up and ask."
"I'll get like 20 quid on it," Jed responded, "but I'll put it up."
Instead of £ 20, Tigers fans donated £6,030 (or about $8,095) — more than £1,000 over his goal. Without that support, Jed and Charlotte likely would've had to wait another year or two before making the long-awaited trip to Detroit.
The pounds poured in within 24 hours.
"It just blew up," Charlotte said.
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"I was surprised," Jed said. "I've been on Twitter for a long time. It was surreal to see people chipping in. They're looking forward to meeting me. It's quite a strange feeling."
The Jed-to-Detroit journey is already underway.
The trip began at Heathrow Airport in London, passed through Toronto 's Pearson International Airport and will continue with a drive to Comerica Park in Detroit.
In total, it's more than 3,500 miles.
After all these years, Jed is ready to walk through the gates at Comerica Park for the first time — exactly 6,786 days after Game 3 of the 2006 World Series.
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It's a dream come true.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold .
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers fan Jed Oliver travels from London for baseball games
