Buddy Bell was a skipper for the Tigers. He will be the trivia answer to who replaced
Sparky Anderson as Tigers skipper. Buddy
had been an all star and gold glove third baseman and outfielder for mainly
Cleveland and Texas for 18 years before retiring from his playing career in
1989. He was working in the White Sox
farm system and then moved on to the Cleveland Indians as a coach until being
hired by the Tiges as the manager in 1996.
He took a team that was 60-84 under Sparky and they dropped to a 53-109
record under Buddy. To Buddy’s defense
the Tigers lost second baseman Lou Whitaker after 1995, first baseman Cecil
Fielder was traded partway through the season, shortstop Alan Trammell was down
to 66 games for the season. The outfield
was in transition, the catcher job switched from John Flaherty to Brad Ausmus
and the pitching staff was under similar turmoil. Other then that the Tigers were the same team
from 1995 to 1996. 1997 saw Buddy take a
team still in transition and go 79-83.
This was third in the AL East behind Baltimore and New York. But in 1998, after a lot of great trades by
GM Randy Smith, Buddy and the Tigers finished last in the AL Central with a 65-97
record. Larry Parrish took the reins for
1999 and the Tiges finished only a few games above 1998 at 69-92. Keep in mind
that the Tiges were also telling everyone the reason they could not compete was
Tiger Stadium. Yet only two years before
a second year manager took the team to close to a .500 season. Randy Smith’s job was to get the Tigers to a
new stadium and he succeeded in this and Buddy was one of the casualties along
the way. Buddy was eventually hired by
the Colorado Rockies in 2000 and stayed there for two and part of a third
season. He had his only year finishing
above .500 his first year in Colorado when he was 82-80. After Colorado he had three seasons with the
Royals from 2005-2007. He is with the
White Sox organization in 2014 as a VP in charge of player development.
Em Lindbeck
Bun Troy had a single game career in the majors of one game
in 1912 with the Tigers. That being said
it is easy to assume he was part of the Ty Cobb strike game. But that is not correct. Bun was born Robert Gustave Troy in Bad
Warzach, Germany in 1888. I am was not
aware that “Robert” was a German name.
He started playing pro ball in 1910 with the “McKeesport Tubers” of the
Ohio-Penn league. He was 6-8 for the
“Tubers”. He went to Steubenville Stubs of
the same league for 1911. He was 6-11
which was third for the team in wins.
But the teams overall record is unknown.
In 1912 Bun dropped down to class D level ball (as the Ohio-Penn League
was class C). He went to the Adrian
Lions in Michigan and was 23-14 and led the league in K’s. The Tigers must have been impressed by his
record as they gave him a start on September 15 of 1912. The Tiges were hopelessly out of the race at
34.5 games out of first and in fifth place. He faced the Washington Senators. He lasted 6.2 innings and gave up 4 runs on 9
hits and 3 walks. He also K’d 1 and hit
a batter. He took the loss in the 6-3
game to the Senators. That was the
extent of his major league career. He
stayed in Adrian for 1913 and ended his career in 1914. !914 was the year World War I started. Bun joined the US Army. He served in France for the US Army fighting
against the country of his birth, Germany.
He died in France on October 7, 1918 while serving in the US Army. The war ended about a month later on
November 11, 1918. He did not live long
enough to see the end of the war. He was
just barely 30 years old and would become part of the lost generation as one of
the millions of men killed in World War 1.
Baldy Louden
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