Bill Madlock kinda finished his major league career with the
Tigers. He started it with the Texas
Rangers in 1973 after a couple years in the Washington Senators/Texas Rangers
farm system. He got in 21 games and hit
.351 with a .532 slugging percentage. At
the end of the season he was traded to the Cubs with Vic Harris for future Hall
of Famer Fergie Jenkins. His at bats
were not enough to qualify as a true rookie.
So in 1974 he had his true rookie season and finished third in Rookie of
the Year balloting behind Bake McBride and Greg Gross. His next year he was an all star and a
batting champ. It would be his first of
4 batting titles he would earn with the Cubs and Pirates. He left the Cubs in a trade with Rob Sperring
to San Francisco Giants for Bobby Murcer, Steve Ontiveros and a minor leaguer. He would play second for the Giants as
opposed to third which was where he started his career. The Giants sent him to Pittsburgh where he
was moved back to third. He was sent to
the Dodgers in 1985 for a player to be named later. The Pirates eventually got RJ Reynolds, Cecil
Espy and Sid Bream out of the deal. The aging star hit .285 in three seasons
for the Dodgers before being released early in 1987 at the age of 36. He was hitting .180 at the time. The Tigers signed him as a free agent and he
went on to hit .279 for the Tiges in the pennant season with 14 homers and 50
RBI’s while getting in 87 games as a DH and first baseman. He was on the Tigers 1987 Post Season roster
and in game one of the 1987 ALCS he was the DH hitting second in the
lineup. He was 0-5 with 3 K’s. He never appeared in a major league game in
North America again. However, the next
year he was playing in Japan with the Lotte Orions. He went on to play in the Senior Professional
Baseball Association and also coached in the minors leading the Michigan Battle
Cats in 1998. He returned to the Tigers
in 2000 and 2001 as the hitting coach.
Cliff Dapper never played for the Tigers but he was the
minor league catcher that was traded for announcer Ernie Harwell in 1948. He actually had a long baseball career of his
own in the minors and as a coach. The
story goes that Brooklyn announcer Red Barber was sick so they Dodgers needed a
new radio announcer. They called Atlanta
and wanted their announcer, Ernie Harwell.
But the Atlanta Crackers were in need of a catcher. So the Dodgers sent their catcher from their
AAA affiliate, the Montreal Royals, to class AA Atlanta (which was not
affiliated with Brooklyn) for Ernie Harwell.
Cliff actually had a 17 year minor league career and even managed for 8
seasons in the minors. Ernie and Cliff
never actually met until 2002.
Red Kress almost ended his playing career as a Tiger. He started his career in 1927 with the St.
Louis Browns as a shortstop. He would
play 12 seasons with the Browns, White Sox and Washington Senators before
coming to Detroit in 1939. In that time
he played mainly short but also some third, first and outfield. He also played a few games at catcher and
pitched in three games for the Senators in 1935. He did not record a win. Red was a career .286 hitter but with Detroit
he was a .234 hitter as a coach and backup infielder. In 1940 he was a 35 year old who played 17
games at third and 12 at short and hit .222.
He did not get into the 1940 World Series. In 1941 he was started to manage in the
minors while still playing the field and continuing to pitch on occasion. He would end his minor league career with a
20-23 record as a pitcher at the age of 46 in 1951. He did make one more sojourn to the majors in
1946 with the New York Giants as a player coach. He was brought in to pitch in a game that the
Giants pitcher, Ken Trinkle, lasted only one third of an inning and allowed 3
runs on 5 hits. Red came in and pitched
through the fourth inning and allowed another 5 runs on 5 hits in 3.2 innings
pitched. At the plate he was 0-1 with a
walk. He was 41 years old and was the
third oldest player in the league at the time.
Red never played in the majors again.
George Boehler was a very good minor league pitcher who
never quite made it as a Tiger. He started his professional pitching career at
the age of 19 in 1911 for the Class D Springfield Reapers of the Ohio State
League. He went 12-6. The next year the Reapers were no longer in
existence so George signed on with the Newark Skeeters in the same league where
he led the league in wins with 27. This
was enough to have the Tigers give George a look. He was brought to Detroit and made his major
league debut against the Washington Senators.
George did not get a decision as the Tigers won 9-8. George would get in 4 more games and go 0-2
while putting up an unremarkable ERA of 6.47.
The next year George was up to Class A level ball with the St. Joseph
Drummers of the Western League where he again led the league with 27 wins. The Tiges agan called up George at the end of
the season and George got in one game.
He pitched a complete game of 8 innings but lost the game after giving
up 9 runs apparently to the Washington Senators again. In 1914 George finally stayed a season with
the Tiges. He started and ended the
season in Detroit and had possible his best season in the majors going 2-3 with
a 3.57 ERA in 18 games. In 1915 George
spent the full season with the Tigers but was used only in 8 games and was 1-1
with a 1.80 ERA. 1916 found George in
minors to start the season but was up in Detroit only three days into the
season. He would be in Detroit for a
month. He was 1-1 in five games and had
an ERA of 4.73. At the end of a month it
appears he was injured and out for the season.
He would never pitch for the Tigers again. George continued to play pro ball through
1930 and some of those seasons were in the majors with the St. Louis Browns,
Pittsburgh Pirates and Brooklyn Robins but he would be a combined 2-4 in 24
games and mainly out of the bull pen. He
pitched in the minors most of the time and won 248 games in 17 seasons
including winning 20 or more games another five times after the two seasons of
27 wins. His best was 1922 when he won
38 games against only 13 losses. His
major league totals were 6 wins against 12 losses and a 4-8 record in Detroit
in 5 seasons.
Sam Crane was a Detroit Wolverine before their best
season. He was at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in the late 1870’s and was spending his summers in the
minors with Lowell in Massachusetts as well as Worcester and Springfield. He was hired in 1880 to manage and play
second base for the Buffalo Bisons but he benched himself after hitting only
.129. The Bisons had been 46-32 prior to
the arrival of Sam but dropped to 24-58 under Sam’s leadership. He was gone from the Bisons at the end of the
year. He then became a traveling salesman
for the Holyoke Envelope company before joining the ranks of the majors again
in 1883. He had his best year that year
going .235 with no RBI’s as the New York Metropolitans of the American
Association. He was in the minors again
by 1885 with the Indianapolis Hoosiers of the Western League. 8 of the 13 players of the 1885 Hoosiers also
played for the 1885 Detroit Wolverines including Sam. Sam was the Wolverines Second baseman but hit
only .192. But his back up, Joe Quest was not much better of a hitter hitting
only .195. Sam hit .141 for the
Wolverines in 1886 when they picked up Fred Dunlap from St. Louis to play
second base. Fred hit .286 and it did
not take his years at MIT to tell Sam he was done with the Wolverines. So Sam left Detroit for Fred’s old team, the
St. Louis Maroons. Sam stuck around in
the majors and minors into 1890. In
1889 he made the papers for a couple of reasons. First, he tried to reorganize the New York
Metropolitans as a co-op team. But the
thing that really made the tabloids was when it was reported he had run off
with Hattie Frankenfeller, the wife of a Scranton gangster. The affair ended up in court but was ruled in
Sam’s favor as Mr. Frankenfeller failed to appear in court as he was being
indicted on charges of receiving stolen property. After his playing days Sam was a writer for
the New York Evening Journal and was considered the dean of American Sports
writers. He died in 1925 at the age of
71.
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