Lino
Urdaneta spent over half his time in the majors with the Tigers. It is understandable if you have not heard of
Lino. Lino is from Venezuela. He started in pro ball at the age of 19 in
1999 with the Dodgers A+ minor leage team in Vero Beach. He got up to AA in 2003 when he was granted
free agency by the Dodgers. He signed
with the Cleveland Indians in November of 2003 but was picked up by the Tigers
about a month later in the Rule 5 draft.
He started the season in on the 15 day DL with elbow inflammation. At the end of April he was sent to Toledo
for injury rehab. He was 0-2 in 9 games
with one start and a 9.69 ERA. About two
weeks after he was assigned to Toledo he was placed on the 60 day DL. In the beginning of August he was sent to A
level Lakeland for injury rehab again.
In a week at Lakeland he made two starts for Lakeland and was 0-2 with
an 11.57 ERA. Then he was called up to
Detroit in September of 2004 with a stopover in Toledo. On September 9, Lino made his major league
debut. It was against Zack Greinke and
the Royals. In the third inning the
score was 8-2 Royals with 1 out and the bases loaded when Lino was called in
from the pen by manager Alan Trammell to replace Jason Johnson. Lino walked David DeJesus. Then it got ugly. He gave up singles to Angel Berroa, Abraham
Nunez, Matt Stairs, Joe Randa and finally Calvin Pickering. After Pickering Lino was taken out of the
game. He had a final line score of no
innings pitched, 6 batters faced, 5 hits, 1 BB and an infinite ERA. The bases were still loaded when he left the
game. Four days later the Tigers
outrighted him to Toledo. A month later
he was granted free agency. He would
sign with the Mets for 2007 and would appear in 2 games and pitch a total of 1
inning and face only 5 batters for the Mets.
That is one less batter than he faced for the Tigers. He had an ERA of 9.00 for the Mets. His career ERA was 63.00 in one inning
pitched over three games and two seasons in the majors with no decisions.
Ron Cash spent
his entire time in the majors with the Tigers.
He was drafted by the Tigers in 1971 out of Florida State University
where he played with John Grubb. He
quickly worked his way up the minors hitting .300 everywhere he went with the
exception of one stop in AA Montgomery.
The Tigers gave him a call up in September of 1973 and he did not
disappoint. He hit .410 in 14 games as a
Tiger outfielder and third baseman. He
was back in the minors in 1974 and hitting .246 for the Evansville Triplets
when he got another September call up for the Tigers. This time he got in 20 games and hit .226 as
first baseman third baseman. The hope
was that he might replace the aging Norm Cash (no relation) but it was actually
Bill Freehan who spent most of the season at first. Ron would never get back to the majors again
and was out of baseball after 1976 having spent the entire time in the Tigers
organization. He died in 2009 at the age
of 59.
Lou
Berberet ended his major league career as a catcher for the Tigers. He was drafted by the Yankees in 1950 out of
college but went in to the military during the Korean War for 1951 and
1952. He came out and got a couple of
“look see’s” with the Yankees in 1954 and 1955.
In 7 games over those two years he hit .400. But he was not about to replace Yogi Berra or
Elston Howard for the Yankees and was thus trade bait. He was sent to the Washington Senators prior
to the 1956 season. At Washington Lou
showed he had a bit of a clown in him.
He once tried to catch a foul pop with his mitt. But he missed it entirely. Another time he had a chaw in his mouth and
got in a collision at the plate and swallowed it. He had to be replaced for the rest of the
game. But he also showed his defensive
skills. In 1957 he led all catchers with
a 1.00% fielding percentage. He also
caught a league leading 57% of all would be base stealers as the Senators starting
catcher in 1956. He repeated as the
league leader in 1959 at 55% when he was with the Tigers. He had come to the Tigers by way of the
Boston Red Sox in a trade for Herb Moford after the 1958 season. He was the Tiger starting catcher in both
1959 and 1960. While his defensive
skills were very impressive, his offensive skills were a little lacking. In the two seasons as the Tiger starting
catcher he hit only .207 but did show power with 13 homers in 1959. That was almost half of his career total of
31. At the end of the 1960 season the
Tiges traded for Dick Brown as a catcher.
He would start behind the plate in 1961 and while he did not quite have
Lou’s defensive skills, (Dick would throw out 56% of base stealers in 1961 but
had a .990 fielding percentage) Dick did hit .266. With that, Lou’s baseball career was over at
the age of 30.
Augie
Prudhomme reached the peak of his baseball career as a Tiger. He started playing professionally in
1926 in the Class B New England League town of Lawrence for the Lawrence Merry
Macks. Not much is known of
this team. It existed for
only 2 seasons and there are no stats for Augie or most of the players. But it appears that Augie played with
future Tiger 1968 coach, Tony Cuccinello while with the Merry Macks. There is some doubt as to the
two playing together as Augie moved on to Rochester at some point during the
season where he appeared in 7 games going 1-1. Augie continued playing in the minors
and in 1928 had his best statistical season going 19-15 with a 3.02 ERA for the
Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League. This impressed the Tigers enough that
they brought him to Detroit for the 1929 season. Augie made his major league debut in
the fourth game of the 1929 season. He
was called into a tie game between the Tigers and Indians in Cleveland’s League
Park. The score was 4-4 in
the bottom of the 8th. Unfortunately
Augie gave up 3 runs, 2 earned, on 4 hits and the Tigers lost the game
7-4. A couple of weeks
later Augie had the game of his career. He
got the start against the Boston Red Sox in Navin Field. He gave up a run in the first but then
shut the Sox down until they got a second run in the 9th. The second run was meaningless as the
Tigers had already scored 10. Augie
had his first major league win in a complete game. It had taken only 2 hours and 13 minutes
and he gave up the 2 runs on 8 hits and 7 walks. But Augie still had his “W”. It would be the only “W” of his
career. Augie would get in
34 games that season and was 1-6 and recorded a save. His ERA was 6.22 and he went back to
minors after the 1929 season never to make it back to the majors.
Ray
Powell
Dan Casey
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