September 19 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Andrew Good was a Tiger pitcher in 2005.  He went to Rochester High School before he started his professional baseball experience.   He was a starter his minor league career and in 2003 the Arizona Diamondbacks brought him up as a mid season call up.  He started 10 of the 16 games he appeared in that year with the D-Backs and was 4-2 that year.   But his ERA was a bit high at 5.29.  In 2004 He was no longer a starter for Arizona but was used more as a middle reliever.  He was 1-2 in 2004 with a 5.31 ERA.  At the end of the season the D-Back let him go.  The Tigers then signed him as a free agent in before the 2005 season.   The Tigers brought him up in the beginning of the season and on April 18, two years to the day of his major league debut, he made his debut in a Tiger uniform against the Orioles.  With the Tigers up 13-3 Andrew came in and put the Orioles down 1-2-3 and K’s two of the three.  Two days later on April 20, Andrew came in to take over for Wil Ledezma in the sixth of a 6-1 White Sox lead.  Andrew finished the game but gave up a three run homer and also had to pitch out of a jam he got himself in when he put two men on before getting the nest three out.  That was enough for the Tigers and he was sent down to Toledo.  Andrew would not pitch in the majors again.  He was released by the Tigers at the end of the 2005 season after going 9-5 with a 3.68 ERA.

Russ Nagelson ended his major league experience as a Tiger in 1970.  He had been with the Indians since 1968 as a pinch hitter/ outfielder getting very limited time at the plate.  He only made 52 plate appearances  for the Indians from his debut in 1968 until he was traded with Billy Rohr for Fred Lasher in May of 1970.  For Detroit, Russ did not get much of a change.  He was again mainly a pinch hitter and an outfielder.   He had 38 plate appearances in 28 games.  His biggest problem was that as a pinch hitter he needed a higher batting average.  He hit .188 as a Tiger which was not far off of his career .211 average.  He did have good speed stealing 20 bases without ever getting caught.  But if you can not get on base you will not last long in the majors.  After the 1970 season Russ was done in the major leagues.  He would play one more year in the minors before his pro baseball career was over.   

Ron Shoop made his major league debut as a Tiger in August of 1959.  He came in to catch in the top of the ninth in a game the Tigers were behind 1-7 to the Red Sox.  He did not make an error nor did he make a put out other than a K to finish the inning.  Several weeks later he started a game against the White sox as the catcher for Jim Proctor.  He did not make an error and no one stole a base on him.  But he also did not get a hit.  He did drive in a run to make the score Pale Hose 5, Tigers 3.  However, the score did not end any better.  In fact the final score was 10-5 Sox.  The next day Ron started the game again as the catcher for Bob Bruce.  This time Louis Aparicio stole two times on Ron.  Ron did get his first major league hit in the third inning.  He scored on Harvey Kuenn’s single to give the Tiges their second run to put them only down 2-5.  In the ninth the Tigers were down 4-6.  Frank Bolling got on by an error and Ron was the tying run coming to the plate.  Unfortunately Ron grounded into a 6-4-3 double play and the game was over.  Ron never made another appearance in a major league game.  His final stats over the three games of his career were 1 hit in 7 plate appearances with 1 RBI and 1 run scored. 

Frank Reiber was a catcher for the Tigers in the mid 1930’s.  He went to Detroit Central High School and made his way up the minor league ladder before joining the Tigers in 1933 as a back up catcher.  He was fourth on the depth charts getting into only 13 games for the Tiges that season.  He got five hits and one homer in 1933.  In 1934 he made three plate appearences and never got behind the plate that season.  The three plate appearences resulted in 2 walks.  In 1935 Frank got in 8 games and hit .273.  Finally in 1936 Frank again hit .273 but in 20 games.  After the 1936 season, Frank’s major league time was over.  In total he got into 44 games, hit .271 with two homers and 9 RBI’s. 

Here is the Willard Chocolate card of Ralph Young from my collection.

Ralph Young was the Tigers starting second baseman for 7 years.   He first made the majors with the Yankees in 1913 and played 7 games with only one hit.  He spent 1914 playing for the Sacramento Wolves of the Pacific Coast League hitting .275 in 199 games.  No, that is not a typo.  The Pacific Coast league used to play over 200 games in a season.   In 1915 Ralph came to Detroit and became the starting second baseman.  A position he would hold through 1921.  During that period Ralph hit .251 but walked 437 times and drove in 219 runs while scoring 146 runs.  At the end of the 1921 season the Tigers picked up George Cutshaw from the Pirates off of waivers.  George became the starting second baseman and prior to the 1922 season Ralph was waived.   The Philadelphia Athletics signed him and Ralph played one more season in the majors in Philly. 

Yank Robinson started his major league career in 1882 with the Detroit Wolverines of the National League.  He played shortstop, outfield and even pitched.  Unlike the Pacific Coast League of Ralph Young’s time, the National League of Yank’s time played 84 games.  Ralph got into 11 of them.  He pitched in one throwing 2 scoreless innings and only giving up one base runner on a walk.  He played 10 games at short and fielded at an .800 fielding percentage compared to the team average of .857.  He also had his one game in the outfield where he fielded flawlessly.  At the plate Yank hit .179 compared to the team average of .230.  Yank played the 1883 season with the East Saginaw Grays.   Yank played with the St. Louis Browns against the Detroit Wolverines in the 1887 World Series hitting .326 in a losing effort as the Wolverines won it 10 games to 5.  Yank stayed in St. Louis until 1890 when he jumped to the Pittsburgh Burghers of the ill fated Players League.  1891 found him back in the American Association but this time with the Cincinnati Kelly’s Killers.  It was there that he set a dubious record of committing seven errors in seven chances at second base.   His last year in baseball was 1892 when he played for the Washington Senators of the National League.  Two years later William H. “Yank” Robinson died of tuberculosis in St. Louis at the age of 34.