Denny Bautista should not be confused with Danny Bautista
who was a Tiger outfielder in the mid 1990’s.
Denny was a right handed cousin of Pedro Martinez and Ramon
Martinez. However, Denny did not achieve
the same success as cousin Pedro. Denny
started his major league career in 2004 with the Baltimore Orioles. He played two games with Baltimore before
being sent to Kansas City that same year.
In KC he was 0-4 in 5 starts. KC
brought him back in 2005 and in 7 starts he was 2-2 with a 5.80 ERA. Those two wins were his first wins of his
career. He split time in 2006 with KC
and Colorado and won 2 more games for a career total of 4 in 2007 with
Colorado. After the 2007 season he was
traded to the Tigers for Jose Capelian.
Jose had been 0-1 with a 6.43 ERA for the Tigers in a partial season
with the Tigers as a member of the bull pen.
Denny was with the Tiges for the first half of the 2008 season and was
0-1 in 16 games with a 3.32 ERA also coming out of the pen. So we got the better of the deal. At the end of June in 2008 he was sent to
Pittsburgh for Kyle Pearson. Denny was
off to the San Francisco Giants for part of 2010 where he won a World Series
before ending his career in the Seattle Mariners farm system in 2011 at the age
of 28. His final MLB stats was a 11-15
record over 7 seasons and a 5.88 ERA.
Dwight Lowry
Jim Bunning will likely never be elected in the state of
Michigan even after being a Tiger. He
was at Xavier University when the Tigers signed him in 1949. He was given a $4,000 signing bonus and $150
a month. He was also allowed to miss
spring training for the next three years as he finished up college.
Billy Sullivan Jr.
was one of first father/son combos to play for the Tigers. His father played one game as a catcher for the
Tigers after a 16 year major league career. Billy Jr. was told by his dad that a life in the minors was
not a way to make a living in baseball. So Billy went to college at Notre Dame while playing first
base. He was very busy in college and graduated in 3 years. After college he was signed by the Chicago White
Sox in 1931. He was a lefty pull hitter and upon reporting to the Sox
manager Donie Bush immediately threw Billy into a game starting in right field. The next day he was shifted over to third base and
became the Sox starting third baseman for the season. In 1932 he was finally moved back over to his
normal first base spot. He hit .278 with the Sox over three seasons while earning his
law degree from Notre Dame. He was sent to Cincinnati and the Cleveland. In Cleveland he learned to play catcher under
Steve O’Neil. The Indians then traded Billy for a more established catcher,
Rollie Hemsley, of the lowly St. Luis Browns. There
he became the starting catcher in 1938 but it was for the Browns. Billy was the starter for two seasons before being
traded to the Tigers in January of 1940. Enclosed are copies of the paperwork Billy received in the
mail telling him he was no longer with the St. Louis club. If people tell you baseball didn’t used to be a
business you can tell them they are wrong. Clearly this is not a very warm way to find you need to pack
up your family and leave town. For Billy it turned out to be a good thing. On the Tigers was former St. Louis Browns pitcher,
Bobo Newsom. Bobo was very superstitious and while Billy was back up to
Birdie Tebbets Bobo insisted that Billy catch his games as he did in St. Louis. The Tigers won the AL Pennant and the pennant
clinching game was a wild one in Cleveland. Billy started the game and had to go the entire game after a
Tribe fan dropped a peach basket of beer bottles on the head of Birdie Tebbets
in the bull pen knocking him unconscious. During the game Billy kept changing the signs every inning. The Tigers were paranoid that their signs were
being stolen. This is probably due to the fact that they were stealing
signs from the other teams with binoculars in the bleachers. After
the game Billy was immortalized in photos by hefting the Tigers starter that
day, Floyd Giebel on his shoulders with Rudy York and carrying him off the field. Billy started 3 games in the World Series, all of
Bobo’s starts. Thus Billy and his dad became the first father son combo to
both play in a World Series. Unfortunately Billy went 2 for 13 and the Tigers lost the
series to the Reds. Billy played one more year for the Tigers before being traded
to the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1943 Billy joined the Navy for the duration of the war. He war broke out and Billy went into the Navy. After the war he gave baseball one more shot and
joined his former Tiger teammate, Hank Greenberg on 1947 Pittsburgh Pirates
before calling his baseball career over. For his career Billy was a .289 hitter. For his two seasons as a Tiger he hit .295.
Jack Jones
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