November 24 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Jim Northrup was one of the hero’s of the 1968 Tigers.  He was born and raised in MI and attended Alma College form 1958 thru 1960.  After college he signed a contract with the Tiges and was moving up to the point the Tiges gave him a late season call up in 1964 and never went back to the minors.  He played mainly in right but also spent a lot of time in center and left.  In 1968 he hit a walk off grand slam in May against Washington.  It was his first of 4 grand slams for the regular season.  In the World Series he hit another in game 6 to break the game wide open and send the series to a deciding game 7.  In game 7 he hit a triple in the 7^th inning of a scoreless tie and drove in two runs as the Tigers won the game 4-1 and the series 4-3.  In 1974 the Tigers started to rebuild as they had aged from their 1968 days. Jim was one of the older Tigers at 34 and was going to complete his 10^th season in the majors.  If he did than he could negate any trade the Tigers made with him.  So he was sold to Montreal in August.  He spent only about a month in Montreal before being sold to Baltimore.  He ended his career in 1975 with the O’s.  In the mid 1980’s Jim joined PASS and was the Tigers color commentator for 9 years on cable.   He died in 2011 at the age of 71.  He is buried in Breckenridge Cemetery where he was born. 

Walter Wilson pitched his entire major league career as a Tiger.  It was a brief major league career.  He started his pro baseball career in the minors in 1939 at the age of 25.  He was 7-10.  Did get better and was moving up and had made Class B in 1941.  He was still in Class B in the first year of the war in 1942 and was drafted in 1943.  In 1944 he turned 30 and was released from the Army.  He went to AA Buffalo under contract to Detroit and was 18-14.  He made his major league debut on April 17, 1945 at the age of 31.  It was opening day and the Tigers were just trying to get the game over with as they were already down 7-1 in the 9^th to the defending AL Champions, the St. Louis Browns.  Walter came in to pitch the ninth and allowed only one hit to get the Tigers into the clubhouse.  His best game was on May 26 when he faced the Philadelphia Athletics and went the distance allowing only 4 runs on 11 hits and a walk.  The Tiges won 5-4 to give Walter his first and only major league victory.  Walter stayed with the Tigers for the season but did not get into the World Series.  He ended his time it the majors with a 1-3 record and 4.61 ERA.  He died on the 49^th anniversary of his major league debut. 

Billy Rogell was a member of the Battalion of Death for the Tigers.  The Battalion of Death was the catchy name given to the Tiges infield of the early 1930’s.  It was a Battalion of Death to opposing pitchers.  In 1934 the infield of first base Hank Greenberg, second base Charlie Gerhinger, third base Marv Owen and shortstop Billy Rogell each had over 100 RBI’s except Marv Owen who had only 96.  In 1935 Owen and Rogell slipped to only 71 RBI’s each.  Many consider it one of if not the most potent infield ever to play the game.  Rogell came to Detroit in 1930 after a few years in Boston and in the minors with Minneapolis.    He replaced Mark Koenig at short starting in 1931 and was the Tigers starting shortstop until the end of the 1939 season when he was traded to the Cubs for Dick Bartell.  In that time he showed that not only was he a good at the plate but he was also the top fielding shortstop in the AL in 1935, 1936 and 1937.  In spite of his skill, he was never on an all star squad.  Joe Cronin was the AL starting shortstop and played every inning from 1933 thru 1939 with the exception of one year when Luke Appling broke up his streak.  Billy performed very well in both the 1934 and 1935 World Series hitting .283 combined for all 13 games.  In the 1934 World Series he was responsible for knocking out Dizzy Dean.  Dean was running from first to second with his head down on a double play ball.  Billy fielded, stepped on second and rifled the ball to first.  However, it hit Dean on the head and he had to carried off the field.  The next day the newspapers carried the headline “X-Rays of Dean’s head revealed nothing”.  After his time in baseball Billy served on the Detroit City Council for 36 years ending in 1980.  He died in 2003 and is buried at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield. 

Ralph Comstock

Sam McMackin ended his career as a Tiger.  He started playing pro ball in Sandusky , OH in 1893.  He played for 21 teams in the minors from 1893 until 1902 and was an average righty pitcher.  His best year was 1896 when he was 25-16 with a 2.83 ERA.  But the following year he played on three teams and had a combined 7-23 record.  He was called to the Chicago White Sox in September of 1902 and got into a double header with the Boston Red Sox.  He pitched 3 innings and allowed only 1 hit and K’d two while not allowing an earned run.  But he was done with the Sox after that day.  Less than 3 weeks later he got in his final pro ball game.  It was another double header between the Sox and the Tigers.  The Sox swept the Tiges that day.  The Tigers were in last place in the AL.  My assumption is that somehow the Tiges needed a pitcher to get thru the double header as it was their 4^th double header in a week and they had just played one the day before.  Regardless, Sam pitched 8.1 innings of ball against his former mates and lost the first game of the double header, 5-4.   Less than a week later the season was over and Sam never played ball again.  He died the following February of pneumonia at the age of 30 in Columbus, OH.