Milt Cuyler was one of Sparky Anderson’s hot new
Tigers. Milt was a number 2 draft pick
by the Tigers in 1986. At the age of 17
he found himself playing Rookie ball for the Bristol Tigers. He hit .230 but stole 12 bases while being
caught only 4 times. However, 4
teammates hit for a higher average and stole as many if not more bases than
Milt. Milt moved up to A ball in 1987
and 1988 and his hitting improved to .292 and .296 and his steals increased to
27 and then 50 which finally led a ball club.
And his .296 was second on the team.
So at 19 he was doing well in A ball.
That meant a move up to AA ball in 1989 and his average dropped to
.262. This was compounded by his K’s to
BB’s which were 101 to 55. But the Tiges
moved him up to AAA Toledo before the season was over. In 24 games he hit only .169 and this was
where 27 of his K’s came from, 24 games.
But 1990 looked better for Milt.
He seemed to be catching up to the AAA pitching at Toledo. He was hitting .258 and had 52 steals and was
only caught 14 times when he got the call to join the Tigers as a late season
call up with expansion of the rosters. In
a unique situation, his major league debut did not happen. He was brought in to a game at Tiger Stadium
in the 6th inning to replace John Shelby in right. But rain came and the game was called. As the inning was not completed, the game was considered
official after the 5th inning and the 6th inning
appearance by Milt was struck from the records. However, the next day Milt was the starter
in center field for the Tigers in Milwaukee County Stadium against the
Brewers. In the 7th with the
Brewers leading 6-3 Milt got his first major league hit off of Teddy
Higuera. He scored along with Rich
Rowland on a double by Travis Fryman to make the score 6-5 Brewers. In the 9th with 2 outs and the
score still 6-5, Milt grounded out to end the game. It is tough to be hero in your first
game. Milt got in 19 games for the
Tigers and hit .255. He stole one base
but was caught twice. But he was one of
Sparky’s up and coming new stars. Sparky
would often laud the minor league phenom that he had a hunch was to be the next
Mickey Mantle. Milt was fast and was a
switch hitter so Sparky treated Milt like Chris Pittaro. Chris was the next Mickey Mantle in 1985. You may not remember Chris’s 28 game career
as a Tiger but he was all Sparky was talking about coming out of spring
training in 1985 as the Tigers defended their 1984 World Series title. In 1991 Chris was the starting center fielder
and hit .257. He did lead the team with
41 stolen bases. But this was a team of
power hitters like Cecil Fielder, Mickey Tettleton, Pete Incaviglia and Rob
Deer. Those 4 starters combined for 5
stolen bases for the season! This was
not a fast team. But Milt never had as
productive season again. He was the
starter again in 1992. But hit
.241. This was even lower than Rob
Deer’s .247. His 62 K’s fit in with the
rest of the teams K’s, Fielder 151, Fryman 144, Tettleton 137, Deer 131,
Phillips 93. But those guys did it in
some cases twice the games and all had way more walks than Milt’s 10. The others were walking 122 times, 114, 73,
51 and 45. In 1993 Milt was again the
starter in center but the Tigers filled center by a committee of players. Milt had more time in center than any other
Tiger but he was less than half the innings in center for season and nine
players were in center for the Tigers that season. Plus most of them had a higher fielding
percentage than Milt as well. Couple the
below average fielding with a .213 average and Milt’s days as a starter were
over. He played two more seasons with
the Tigers with a third of his appearances coming off the bench. After the 1995 season Sparky retired and so
ended the time for the next Mickey Mantle in Detroit as with Sparky’s
retirement the Tigers then released Milt.
Milt played 1996 for the Red Sox but hit only .200. He bounced around in the minors and was
purchased by the Texas Rangers at the end of 1998 but after 7 games was
released. Today Milt is a hitting coach
in the Minnesota Twins farm system and at Tigers Fantasy camp.
Joe Presko was a pitcher for the Tigers in 1957 and 1958
going 1-1 in 14 games.
Moses Fleetwood Walker was never a Tiger. But he did play for the Toledo Blue Stockings
in 1884 and at University of Michigan in 1882.
Toledo played in the American Association which was considered a Major
League in 1884. This made Walker the
last black to play in the majors until Jackie Robinson in 1947.
No comments:
Post a Comment