Clete Thomas was a Tiger hopeful for a couple of years. He was named after his Dad’s favorite player,
Clete Boyer. He got his start for the
Tiges on opening day 2008. Curtis
Granderson was on the DL and Clete made the roster. He got a hit in 11th inning of
opening day and was hot for the next couple of games. He was sent back down to Toledo when
Granderson came back to the line up at the end of April 2008. He was brought back up in July and in 40
games hit .284. However, he was not a
great fielder. He has a career .973
fielding percentage to a league average .987.
In 2009 he was with the Tiges most of the season but hit .240. He did have the highlight of his career that
year when he came into a game as a pinch runner against the Angels and wound up
hitting a grand slam homer in the 8th. He was in the minors in 2010 and 2011 hitting
.183 and .251 but was brought up briefly in 2012. However, at 28 years old with a dropping
average and not a great glove he was expendable. He was waived in April and claimed by the
Twins. He spent most of 2012 in the
Twins AAA team in Rochester where he hit .232 with a .983 fielding percentage.
Fu-Te Ni
Willie Hernandez
Johnnie Seale spent his entire time in the majors with the
Tigers. The lefty pitcher started in pro
ball in 1958 for the Washington Senators and bounced around in the minors for
various organizations as a reliever until 1964 when the Tigers called him up as
late September call up. He debuted
against the Cleveland Indians and pitched 1.2 innings of perfect ball getting 4
out of his 5 outs to hit fly balls with two not even getting out of the
infield. Two days later he was called in
to face the Orioles and relieve Phil Regan who did not record an out to start
the game but rather had given up 3 hits and a walk to start the game and put
the Tigers down 2-0. Johnnie came in and
pitched the first four innings and allowed only one run. While he was doing that on the mound, his
Tiger teammates came back and scored 4 runs.
Johnnie was taken out of the game after the fourth but recorded his
first win as Tiger. It would also be his
only win as a Tiger. Johnnie would get
into 2 more games before the season ended and also got into 4 more games for
the Tiges in early 1965 but he did not record another decision. In total he was 1-0 with a 5.54 ERA in 13
innings pitched in the major leagues.
Fred Carisch came out of retirement to be Tiger player. Fred had started his major league career in
1903 with the Pittsburgh Pirates when he got into 5 games for the Pirates and
hit .333 as a back up catcher. He played
the next three seasons as a back up before going down to the minors. He returned to the majors in 1912 at the age
of 30 as a back up catcher for the Cleveland Naps for three more years as a
.226 hitter. He then went back to the
minors and would get into coaching and even managing before becoming a coach
for the Tigers in the early 1920’s. In
1923 on the Fourth of July at Cleveland, Fred came out of retirement as a
player. In the 10th inning of
a game tied 7-7 the Tiger catcher, Larry Woodall, was called out at second on
force out. Larry argued with the umps,
Billy Evans and Pants Rowland and was ejected.
The half inning ended and the Tigers had a problem. The problem was Larry had replaced starting
catcher Johnny Bassler and the Tiges third catcher, Clyde Manion, had been used
as pinch hitter earlier in the game. So
the Tigers had no catcher. Manager Ty
Cobb asked to use either Manion or Bassler.
Cleveland skipper, Tris Speaker, refused to allow either to come back in
the game. So Fred was called into
action at the age of 41. The last time
he had played catcher was in 1914 with Speaker’s Indians. Speaker objected stating that Fred was not
on the active list and played the rest of the game under protest. But Glenn Myatt hit a three run homer that
ended the game and gave the Indians the win.
Fred never played in the majors again.
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