December 4 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Pat Sheridan played most of his games in the majors with the Tigers.  He was born in Ann Arbor and went to Wayne High School before going to college at Eastern Michigan University.  He was drafted by the Kansas City Royals and debuted with the Royals in 1981 as a late season call up.  He got in three games that season and then spent 1982 in the minors before three seasons as a Royals outfielder.  He was a .251 hitter for the Royals as an above average fielder.  Before the 1986 season the Royals brought up Mike Kingery, a speedy minor leaguer who would make Pat unneeded by the Royals and the lefty hitting Sheridan was released.  The Tigers signed Pat as a free agent for $150,000 for the 1986 season.  Pat was the number 2 right fielder behind Kirk Gibson and the number 2 center fielder behind Chet Lemon and hit only .237.  But in 1987 the Tigers were back on top of the AL East and Pat was the starting right fielder.  He hit .259 and got some big hits for the Tiges including a 7^th inning homer against the Red Sox in Fenway to win the game for the Tiges and hitting a homer off of Bret Saberhagen to beat the Royals at Tiger Stadium.  Pat also hit an 8^th inning two run shot off of Jeff Reardon to give the Tigers their lone win in the ALCS against the damned Minnesota Twinkies.  (It’s been 25 years, I’m almost over it.) Pat was back with the Tigers in 1988 but was in left field.  Kirk Gibson was gone and Gary Pettis took over center moving Chet Lemon to right.  Pat had a similar year hitting .254 with 11 homers.  But 1989 saw a changing of the Tigers and a whole new crop of outfielders came to town in Fred Lynn and Ken Williams as well as others.  Pat became expendable as was traded to the San Francisco Giants for outfielder Tracy Jones in June.  After finishing the season at San Fran Pat would get one more crack at the majors with the New York Yankees in 1991.  Pat ended his 9 year career as a .252 hitter but was in the playoffs four times and in the World Series twice winning once with the Royals in 1985 and losing the series with the San Francisco Giants in 1989.

Barbaro Garbey picked the perfect season to be a rookie for the Tigers.  Barbaro was born and raised in Cuba and played on the Cuban Olympic team in 1976 that won the gold medal.  He was banned from playing in Cuba for gambling and left Cuba as part of the 1980 Cuban flotilla that brought 125,000 people from Cuba to the US.  The Tigers signed him and he quickly moved up the Tigers farm system hitting .321 in AAA Evansville by 1983.  In 1984 he made the Tigers squad and was one of the Tigers utility players playing every position except short, catcher and pitcher in 110 games for the World Champs.  He hit .287 but only had 5 homers.  In the playoffs he was DH and went 3 for 9.  In the World Series he struggled going 0 for 12 as a DH.  He returned to the Tiges in 1985 but his hitting dropped to .257 in 86 games.  At the end of the season he was traded to the Oakland Athletics for Dave Collins.  Before spring training was over in 1986 the Athletics released Barbaro.  He went to play in Mexico but came back to the US and the majors in 1988 with the Texas Rangers.  He hit only .194 and wound up his career back in Mexico in 1994.  After his playing days Barbaro has spent his time coaching in the minors with the Tigers and Cubs organizations. 

Harvey Kuenn spent most of his time in the majors as a Tiger.  Kuenn (Pronounced Keen.) began his major league career in 1952 with the Tigers when at the age of 21 he played 19 games as a Tiger shortstop hitting .325 as a late season call up.  He picked up where he left off in 1953 when he hit .308 as the Tigers starting shortstop and leading the league in hits with 209 while on his way to winning Rookie of the Year honors.  That was also the first year of 8 years in a row that Harvey was an all star.  Harvey stayed at short until 1957 when he moved to the outfield for the Tiges.  In 1959 Harvey won the batting title hitting .353 for the Tiges.  He was rewarded with a trade for Rocky Colavito from Cleveland who had just won the home run title for Cleveland.  It was considered a huge block buster trade with the exchange of the league batting champ for the home run champ.  But Harvey’s skills started to diminish.  He hit .308 for the Indians before they traded him to the Giants for the 1961 season.  He would hit .300 only one more time in 1962 and would done playing after 1966.  But Harvey was not finished with baseball.  He became a manager for the Milwaukee Brewers who were known as “Harvey’s Wallbangers” due to their home run hitting and led them to their first World Series in 1982 when they lost in 7 games to the St. Louis Cardinals.  But Harvey was not doing well with his health.  As a player he was known to always have a cheek full of tobacco.  In 1980, before he took over the Brewers as skipper, he had his right leg amputated.  In 1988 Harvey died at the age of 57.

Allen Conkwright played one season in the majors as a right handed pitcher for the Tigers.  He came out of Utah State University and played a couple of non descript seasons in the minors before going 24-7 with the Bloomington Bloomers of the Three I League in 1920.  The Tigers signed him and he debuted as a reliever as a late season call up.  He came in to face the Red Sox at Detroit’s Navin Field in the 5^th inning of a game the tigers were trailing 5 to 3.  He pitched the next six innings and gave up 1 run on 4 hits and 3 walks.  The Tigers came back and scored 3 in the 8^th and 1 more in the 10^th to win the game and give Allen his first career victory.  Allen got in 4 more games for the Tigers and went 2-1 for the season with a 6.98 ERA.  He went back to the minors and never returned to the majors and was done in baseball after 1924 at the age of 27.