November 6 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Deivi Cruz

Bubba Trammell

Chad Curtis

Frank Carswell earned his cup of coffee as a Tiger.   He came out of Jefferson Davis High School in Houston, TX in 1937.  After high school he went to Rice University to play ball.  His minor league record is kind of sketchy.  He was sent from Texarkana to the Tigers prior to the 1941 season.  The problem is there is no record that I can find of him at Texarkana.  He spent the 1941 season under contract to the Tigers at Jamestown of the PONY (Pennsylvania, Ontario, New York League) league which was class D ball.  He hit .338.  He then missed the next four years as he was serving in the US Marine Corps during World War II.  He came out of the war and went back to the minors.  He continued to hit over .300 every year after 1946, when he was no longer under contract to the Tigers, and in 1949 he led the “Big State League” with when he hit 145 RBI’s and had 229 hits.  In 1950 he hit .400 while he was again at…..Texarkana .  My suspicion is that the attribution of Frank playing at Texarkana PRIOR to 1941 is a mistake and is a confusion of his time at Texarkana in 1949 and 1950. He came back under a Tiger contract in 1951 after he left Texarkana and joins Buffalo.  He would spend the majority of the next four years at Buffalo.  Finally, in 1953, Frank got a chance and was with Detroit in early April as a 33 year old rookie.  Frank’s debut was rather inconspicuous.  In the bottom of the 9^th inning of a game between the Indians and the Tiges the Detroiters trailed 5-4.  Johnny Pesky led off with a walk.  Matt Batts then hit a triple to score Pesky to tie the game.  With a runner on third and no outs and the game tied, Fred Hatfield was called into run for Matt Batts and lefty hitting Pat Mullin was called on to pinch hit for righty hitting Dave Madison.  However, with this change the Indians pulled righty pitcher Bob Feller and replaced him with lefty pitcher Lou Brissie.  This made the Tigers pull lefty hitting Pat Mullin for righty hitting Frank Carswell.  If you understand all this great.  If you don’t, don’t worry.  It was all for naught as Frank was given an intentional walk as was Harvey Kuenn behind him.  Owen Friend then hit a fly ball to center to score Hatfield and the game was over.  Frank had received an intentional walk in his major league debut.  The next day Frank got in his second game.  He was brought in as a pinch hitter and given an intentional walk and promptly replaced for a pinch runner.  It was a double header so Frank got a second chance in the second game against the Browns.  He was called in again in the 9^th to pinch hit and got his first major league hit.  It was a single off of former Tiger Bob Cain (pitched to midget Eddie Gadel).  Frank was promptly replaced for a pinch runner.  This was Frank’s lot as a 33 year old rookie.  He was used strictly as pinch hitter for his first 10 games.  Finally he was allowed to remain in the game against Boston after first pinch hitting.  He would end up in only 16 games.  He never got a start.  In those 16 games he had only 18 plate appearances with 3 walks.  He got 4 hits and 2 RBI’s for a .267 batting average and a .389 OBP.  But by the end of May he was done in the majors.  He went back to the minors and was traded off to the Cardinals.  Frank spent the next five years in the minors until he was 38.  At this time he was a player manager in the minors.  He did that for the Tigers until 1970 when he had reached the top of the Tiger farm system, Toledo.  He never got a chance to manage in the majors.  He spent over 30 years in baseball and his time in the majors was only 16 games as a pinch hitter.