Let the Pitching Parade Begin!

Clear the good dishes off the table Ma, what I’m about to write might just start a fight.

Of all the positions we’ve looked at, the Tigers are, to put it mildly, a little thin in the pitching department. To put it bluntly, they sucked.

Of all the pitchers in the Hall of Fame, only two spent more than a year or two of their career in a Tiger uniform. They have some good pitchers, quite a few guys you’d like three or four deep in your rotation, but great? Not many. (I’ll discuss them going from the oldest to more modern days.)
One you’ve probably never even heard of deserves your consideration. “Wild Bill” Donovan
spent 11 of his 18 year career with the Bengals from ’03 to 1912, and then again for a short stint in 1918. He posted some incredible numbers, like pitching in 323 games for the Tigers, 3,000 innings total lifetime, with an ERA of 2.84 against the likes of Shoeless Joe and Ty Cobb.

Of course, in those days, “relief” meant that your team’s batters scored five runs or more. In 1904 he started 34 games, and finished all of them. In 1907, Wild Bill started 28 games, and completed 27 of them, winning 25 games and losing only four. Bill James claims he was “the luckiest pitcher of all time” with a team like Cobb, Crawford and other guns behind him. I disagree.

With an ERA of 2.19 over 271 innings, there wasn’t a lot of luck involved.

The Tigers did excel in having pitchers with really cool nicknames though.

Names like “Hooks” Dauss, Schoolboy Rowe, Dizzy Trout, Bobo Newsome and Stubby Overmire. (Alright, Stubby was barely good, let alone great, with a record of 43-49 with the Tigers, but I liked the way he sounds. At 5’7” he hardly deserves his moniker, and he’s a native Michigander, attened what is now Western Michigan University, managed the Lakeland Flying Tigers, and is buried in Lakeland. But as usual, I digress.

Let’s move ahead to a few more notable Bengal hurlers, like Tommy Bridges and Schoolboy Rowe. Both were fairly good pitchers, but they threw for a powerhouse lineup in the 1930’s and 40’s, with hitters like Mickey Cochrane, Charlie Gehringer and Hank Greenberg.

Bridges nearly led the league in wins in 1935, but his ERA was about a point higher than the league leaders. But give Bridges his due, he pitched for 16 years, won 20 or more games for three years in a row,and collected 194 wins, had a 3.57 ERA in an era when the hitters were running wild. It was rumored that the source of his deadly curve ball was use of a spitter; in fact when one opposing manager demanded that the ump examine the ball, Tiger cather Birdie Tebbets fired the ball into the outfiled, where all three outfielders handled it first before throwing it in.

The pride of Waco, Texas, Schoolboy Rowe threw for many of those same power-laden teams, and placed on three All-Star Teams. He seemed to be something of a holdover from the days of Bill Donovan, turning in a 12-inning complete game during the 1934 World Series, and in ’35 he had 21 complete games and six shutouts. But he was known for his youthful good looks, charm, and slightly erratic antics, like talking to the ball. (Sound familiar?) In a national radio broadcast, he asked his fiance “How’m I doin’ Edna?” in his Texas drawl, and the fans went crazy.

After 1936, the innings started to take a toll on his arm, and the Tigers dealt him to Brooklyn.

Dizzy Trout, another natty nickname, was in Detroit from 1939 to 1952 leading the league with 20 wins in 1943, 27 wins in 1944. but really, how good was the league during the war?

“Prince Hal” Newhouse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Newhouser was another native Detroit boy who played for the Tigers, and perhaps was our best home-grown product. Signed at 18 in 1940, it took him a few years to get his control, but then he started to take a bite out of American League hitters, winning the MVP in 1944 and ’45, the only pitcher to claim consecutive MVPs. Critics said this was due to the fact that all the good players went to war (Hal tried several times but had a medical deferment.) He proved them wrong in 1946 by going 26 and 9, with an incredible 1.94 ERA. (Despite facing strong hitters like Williams and DiMaggio, with the top five hitters in the league all coming in above .316.)

When the Tigers traded him to Cleveland after 13 years in Detroit, he morphed into a great long reliever, going 7-2 with a 2.54 ERA, but maybe that’s outside our purview, as well as the fact that he was a great scout in retirement, identifying the young talents of Milt Pappas, Dean Cahnce and Derek Jeter.

Perhaps our only senator/pitcher is Jim Bunning. (how many can there be?) Bunning pitched for four teams, starting with the Tigers in 1956. He was a four time All Star with the Tigers, pitching a no-hitter. His earned run average and W-L record got a lot better after the stinky Tiger teams of the late ‘50’s traded him to the top division Phillies.

He made it to the Hall of Fame after numerous votes by the Veteran’s Committee.

Another good Tiger pitcher from the 1950’s and ‘60’s was Frank Strong (his real middle name) Lary, AKA “The Yankee Killer.” Going a litte over .500 in a decade with some pretty sorry Bengal teams. He was the primary Tiger starter for seven years, going way over 200 innings per year, winning 128 games, and striking out 1,099.

He earned his nickname by going 28 – 13 against the pinstripes. Casey Stengel would alter his pitching rotation when the Tigers came to town, saying “If Lary is going to beat us anyway, why should I waste my best pitcher?" Lary was twice an All-Star and four times earned a Gold Glove.
One of the nicest guys on the Tiger teams of our youth was Mickey Lolich. In my recollection, Lolich was a good pitcher with a Poo-Bear belly, who seemed to eternally pitch with men on or from behind the count. But his career numbers reveal far more than a less than spectacular physique. A three time All-Star, Lolich won 14 or more games for more than ten years, and ranks third in career strikeouts behind Steve Carlton and Randy Johnson. He has more career wins than all but two other Tiger pitchers. Of course, most of us remember his great performance in the 1968 World Series, when he started, completed and won three games, the only southpaw ever to do so.

Denny McLain’s meteroic career hit its apex in 1968 with 31 wins, the last major leaguer to do so. He earned a Cy Young and MVP, the first pitcher to do so in history. He shared another Cy Young in 1969, but his career came apart in 1970, being suspended multiple times. By the end of the century, Denny had spend six years in federal prison.

Jack Morris Was another workhorse, pitching 14 of his 18 years in Detroit, working a lifetime total of 3,824 innings! His ERA was a respectable 3.9 and a five time All-Star.
It’s hard to note a tougher competitor than Morris, but I’m getting tired of writing. Make your choices, gents! Pick four hurlers to complete our staff.)

(We'll tackle relief pitchers next week. No set up man, just the best pitcher.)