The Greatest Tiger Designated Hitters

In 1973 baseball decided to let fat guys and guys that could not play the field any longer a new way to stay in the game, and thus the Designated Hitter was created. Ron Bloomberg, a notoriously bad fielder, was the first DH in the American League. It has been great for the game and has extended the careers of many players so that they had an impact. Can you imagine what would have happened to the careers of Edgar Martinez, Tony Oliva, Willie Horton, and today, David Ortiz, Frank Thomas, and Jim Thome without the DH. The National League is crazy for not adopting the rule. Even Hank Aaron was a DH.

Now, everyone has the DH. Softball, Little League, Colleges, and High Schools. It is great for the game and participation for all levels. The object of the game is to play, and some guys can just flat out hit a baseball, even if they can't catch one. Specialists they call them.

I live in Northern Virginia where the Nationals are the home team, but I would rather drive to Baltimore to watch a real game instead of the pitcher sacrificing the runner 5 times a game. Besides, it keeps those old managers in the dugout and the announcers from getting a thrill talking about the double switch. Take that Tim McCarver. Here are some DH facts and firsts:

• Ron Blomberg became the first DH in major league history (1973)
• Tony Oliva became the first DH to hit a home run (1973)
• Dan Driessen became the first National League DH, and the first to hit a home run in a World Series (Games 1 and 3, 1976)
• Glenallen Hill became the first non-Series DH in NL history (interleague play, 1997)
• Rickey Henderson became the first non-Series DH to hit a home run in NL history (interleague play, 1997)
• Pedro Guerrerro became the first National League DH in an All-Star game (1989)Box score of the 1989 Baseball All-Star Game from Retrosheet
• Minnie Miñoso is the oldest player to have appeared as a DH (at age 53, 1976)
• Edgar Martinez is the only DH to win a batting title (1995)
• Al Kaline became the first player selected for the Baseball Hall of Fame to have ever played as a DH (1974)
• Rafael Palmeiro is the only DH to win a Gold Glove Award (despite playing only 28 games at first base, 1999)
• Frank Howard has been the tallest DH (at 6 ft 7 in, 280 pounds (127 kg), 1973)
• No player in MLB history has won the MVP Award during a season in which his primary position was designated hitter.

Only three players have won the MVP Award in years they played a significant amount of games as a DH. The first was Boston Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice, who in 1978 played as a DH in 49 of his 163 games (including the one-game playoff against the Yankees). In 1979, California Angels outfielder Don Baylor played 65 of his 162 games as a DH, and in 1996, Texas Rangers outfielder Juan González played 32 of his 134 games as a DH.

The Tigers have had their share of good and bad DH's. Remember that Robert Fick hit the last homerun in Tiger Stadium playing the DH spot. When I think of DH's and the Tigers, I immediately think of Gates Brown. The "Gater" was a joy to watch as he waddled to the plate and there was always excitement when he was at the plate because he had a flair for the dramatic. He did much more as a pinch hitter than a DH, but he was the Tigers first DH. Gates played in a career high 133 games in 1973, the first year of the DH.

Rusty Staub

The Mickey Lolich trade to the Mets brought Le Grand Orange, Rusty Staub, to the Tigers. Rusty was a professional hitter, and slower than Sean Casey, and me.

Before the 1976 season, he was traded to the Detroit Tigers with pitcher Bill Laxton for pitcher Mickey Lolich and outfielder Billy Baldwin.

In his three plus seasons with the Tigers, Staub hit .277 with 70 home runs. He was voted to start the 1976 All-Star Game, where he went 2-for-2.

In 1978, Staub became the first player to play in all 162 regular-season games exclusively as a designated hitter. Not playing the field at all proved beneficial, as Staub finished second in the Major Leagues with 121 RBI and finished fifth in American League Most Valuable Player voting. He was selected to the Sporting News American League All-Star team at the end of the season as the designated hitter.

Staub held out to start the 1979 season, and eventually he was dealt to the Montreal Expos in July of that same season.

The Others

Actually if you look at the most dominant of the Tiger DH's, you will be surprised to know that the alltime leader in games played at the position is a fat guy named Dimitri (I never missed a meal) Young, followed by Kirk Gibson, Rusty Staub, and Darrell Evans. Not a bad group at all. Dimitri played more games, 488, and had the highest average, and 82 dingers, and an impressive 267 RBI. Staub played 100 fewer games and had 255 RBI and 55 home runs.

I think that Darrell Evans was one of the greatest free agent signings of all time. He had very good years in Detroit and was here with the 1984 and 1987 teams. Darrell was an impact player.

Kirk (Two Swings) Gibson also had a productive career at the DH spot hitting 60 home runs from that position to go along with 220 RBI. The other prominent DH's for the Tigers were Willie Horton and Al Kaline, at the end of their careers. It is a pretty good field and I know how I would vote if looking at it objectively.

Greatest Tiger Relief Pitchers

The Tigers throughout the years have had some pretty good relief pitching, and some pretty bad ones as well. Growing up in Detroit, I certainly remember some of the ones from the 60's. Do you remember Terry Fox, Ron Kline, Ron Nischwicz, and John Wyatt. And then there were some of those guys that we got at the end of their careers. Guys like Elroy Face and Johnny Podres, who made their fame in other uniforms. We also can't forget the big one that got away, or in our case, three that got away. Those might be John Smoltz, Phil Regan, and Mike Marshall. But the real time of the relief pitcher was in the late 60's, 70's, and 80's, when we had good teams.

As I look back now, the greatest Tiger relief pitchers are actually none of these. No, Tom Timmerman is nor under consideration. I do propose to you the following "Masters of The Final Out". Those great pitchers would be: John Hiller, who was the greatest left handed relief pitcher of his time, and still looks good; Willie Hernandez, who came to the Tigers on the last day of Spring Training in 1984 for Glenn Wilson and went on to become the MVP and the Cy Young winner in the same year; Aurelio Lopez (aka. Senor Smoke) who was a great reliever that became even better with Guilermo taking over the 9th inning duties; Mike Henneman, who was a good pitcher on a bad team; and finally, The Rollercoaster, Todd Jones, the alltime saves leader for the Tigers and served for two stints, both of which was pretty successful. All of these guys had great attributes;

John Hiller


Hiller ranks 22nd on the alltime saves list in spite of his heart attack and subsequent return. I saw him a couple of years ago and he looks like he could still get guys out.

1968 World Series
1972 American League Championship Series

All-Star Selections
1974 AL

Not bad!!!

Willie Hernandez

When Willie Hernandez was acquired by the Detroit Tigers in a four-player trade in the last week of spring training in 1984, there was little way of knowing just how crucial he would be to the team's success that season. As a veteran reliever who had never saved more than 10 games or pitched more than 115 innings in a season, Hernandez was seen as a decent setup man with experience. But he mastered his screwball in '84 and baffled American League batters on his way to the Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards. He converted 32 of 33 save opportunities and posted a stingy 1.92 ERA, as his carefully permed hair and cheek bulging with chew became familiar to Tigers' fans in his 80 games on the mound. Far from a one-year wonder, Willie followed with a similar season in 1985, and retired with more saves than any other Tigers pitcher.

Willie Hernandez ranks #38 among the Top 50 all-time at RP

Post-Season Appearances
1983 World Series
1984 American League Championship Series
1984 World Series
1987 American League Championship Series

Awards and Honors
1984 AL Cy Young
1984 AL MVP

Matchup Data
Over the 1977 and 1978 seasons, Hernandez went 21 innings without allowing a run to the Pirates.

All-Star Selections
1984 AL
1985 AL
1986 AL


Aurelio Lopez

Best Season: 1984
Yeah, he went 10-1 out of the pen, but that was because he was in the right place to win a lot of tie games. But he pitched very, very well as Willie Hernandez's setup man. The Tigers really had two closers. Lopez was tough on right-handed batters, and he fanned 94 overall in more than 137 innings. He posted a 2.94 ERA and was on his game in the post-season, when he hurled six innings of shutout ball and earned two victories - one in the LCS and one in the World Series.

Post-Season Appearances
1984 American League Championship Series
1984 World Series
1986 National League Championship Series

All-Star Selections
1983 AL

Senor Smoke was good for a long time. He died in a tragic accident in 1992.

Todd Jones


The Alltime Tigers Saves Leader

Nicknames
The Roller Coaster

Tiger broadcaster Ernie Harwell dubbed Jones "The Roller Coaster" because of his exciting, up-and-down relief appearances.

Related Players
Mike Henneman replaced Jones as closer for the Astros in 1995, after coming over from the Tigers. Later, Jones broke Henneman's all-time save record for Detroit.

Awards and Honors
2000 AL Rolaids Relief

Notes
On May 18, 2006, Jones recorded his 154th save as a Tiger, tying Mike Henneman for the all-time Detroit franchise mark.

All-Star Selections
2000 AL

Post Season
2006 ALDS, ALDS, World Series

Mike Henneman

Like I said, he was a good pitcher for a long time, and some marginal teams. He eventually wore out and was traded to Texas, where he ended his career. He held the Tigers save record until the Rollercoaster abolished it in 2006.

Post-Season Appearances
1987 American League Championship Series

All-Star Selections
1989 AL

Are the Yankees buying a pennant

What are your thoughts about the Yankees aka Stankees chances this year. With the addition of Sabathia, Burnett, and Texeiera are they a shoo -in? It was only a year ago many thought the Tigers were a shoo-in with the additions to their roster. What say yea?

Another one bites the dust

Another potential stopper in the Tiger bullpen, John Smolz, goes unsigned by our boys.

He went to Boston for what seems to me to be a measly $5 mill. The guy has 200 wins and 150 saves, and could be an instant favorite at Comerica as he is a local boy.

Sure he was hurt last year, but he's got a good head on his shoulders, knows how to pitch. Sounds better than our current village idiot who blows out his wrist playing Guitar Hero.

Tigers' spring training tickets on sale Saturday

Tickets for the Tigers’ 2009 spring training home games go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. at Tigers.com.

To purchase tickets, visit the schedule on the web site and click the icon next to the game you wish to attend.

Season packages for spring training games can also be purchased at the Joker Marchant Stadium ticket office or can be ordered by mail at: Detroit Tigers, Attn. Ticket Office, 2125 N. Lake Ave., Lakeland, FL 33805.

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.)

To Whom It May Concern:

What can we as fans do to influence the voting for Alan Trammell and Jack Morris into the Hall of Fame? I'm thinking of not just for myself but all of us to have our say and influence.