February 23 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Rondell White was a starting outfielder for the Tigers.  He started his major league career in 1993 with the Montreal Expos.  He only got in 23 games and hit .260.  He continues with the Expos and in 1995 became the starting center fielder.  He was second on the team in OBP, stolen bases and doubles and third in batting average.  In 1999 he moved over to left for the Expos but was still solid at the plate hitting .312.  In 2000 he was traded to the Cubs for Scott Downs.  His last four seasons in Montreal he purchased 200 tickets every Sunday for underprivileged kids in Montreal.  He stayed with the Cubs through 2001 and was still hitting over .300.  After the 2001 season he signed as a free agent with the Yankees.  The Yanks kept Rondell for one year and then sent him to the Padres for Mark Phillips, Bubba Trammell and cash.  He was an all star vor ht Padres yet did not last the season before he was sent to the Kansas City Royals to finish the season.  At the end of 2003 The Tigers signed Rondell as a free agent for $2,750,000.  Rondell was out starting left fielder in 2004 and hit .270 and was in a three way tie for third place on the team in homers with 19.  The others he tied with were Pudge Rodriguez and Eric Munson.  Rondell returned as a Tiger in 2005 and hit .313 in 97 games as the left fielder.  He was granted free agency by the Tigers at the end of the season and signed with the Twins.  He played in Minnesota for 2006 and 2007 but was hitting only .229.  That December he was named in the Mitchell report for using steroids.  He did not play again in the majors after that. 

John Shelby ended his career as a Tiger.  He started his career in 1981 with the Orioles and appeared in 7 games with 2 at bats but did not get a hit.  He stayed in Baltimore into 1987 playing mainly center field.  In seven seasons with the O’s, T-Bone, as he was called, stole 52 bases in 512 games.  But he only hit .239 with an OBP of .281.  The O’s sent T-Bone to the Dodgers early in the 1987 season with Brad Havens for Tom Niedenfuer.   He stayed with the Dodgers and showed his speed stealing 43 bases in 393 games as their center fielder.  Before the 1990 season was over T-Bone was released and signed by the Tigers.  I always remember him for a July game at Fenway Park in 1991.  T-Bone was hitting 9^th in the lineup behind Pete Incaviglia and Rob Deer.  In the second inning Roger Clemons walked Dave Bergman and then gave up back to back homers to Pete Incaviglia and Rob Deer making the score 3-2.  Roger was not happy and wanted to show his displeasure.  T-Bone hit .154 for the season and only 3 homers and Roger threw 130 pitches that day and only 41 were not for strikes.   However, he somehow lost control of an 0-1 pitch to T-Bone and threw it behind him so when T-Bone bailed he bailed into the pitch and it hit him in the back.  T-Bone justifiably was not happy and charged the mound.  The benches cleared and there was a typical baseball brawl for 15 minutes.  Unfortunately T-Bone did not drop his bat before charging the mound.  As result he was ejected while Roger stayed in the game.  As a Tiger fan in Fenway I could not get too vocal but I did give my displeasure with a loud boo when T-Bone left the field.  T-Bone was done as a major leaguer about a month later.  His career average was .239 while his average with Detroit was .211.

Roy Johnson started his career as Tiger.  In 1929 Roy was 26 and in his first season in the majors jumped right into the Tiger starting line up and hit .314 as the starting left fielder.   He led the league in at bats and in doubles his rookie season.  He moved over to right in 1930 but his batting average dropped to .275.  He stayed in right for the Tigers into the 1932 season.  He was traded to the Red Sox half way through the 1932 season with Dale Alexander for Earl Webb.  In his four seasons with the Tiges Roy hit .287 with 23 homers and 181 RBI’s.  In 1933 Roy’s brother, Bob, joined the majors with the Philadelphia Athletics.  Bob was known as “Indian Bob” as the Johnson’s were part Cherokee.  Roy would go on to play for the Yankees and Boston Bee’s (also known as the Brave’s) and was a career .296 hitter with a career .369 OBP.