March 7 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Red Wilson was with the Tigers from 1954 to 1960.  He played center on the football team at Wisconsin and was the Big 10 MVP in 1949 as well as baseball and lettered all four years in both sports.  He went into baseball after graduating rather than join the Philadelphia Eagles and signed with the White Sox.   He came to the Tigers in a trade with the White Sox where we sent the Sox the player with one of the all time great baseball names, Matt Batts.  Red shared the catching duties with Frank House until 1958 when Frank was sent to the Kansas City A’s.  However that role was short lived for Red.  At that end of the 1958 season the Tigers traded for Lou Berberet from the Red Sox and Red was the backup back stop.  Red became the personal catcher of Frank Lary iln the 50’s when Frank was the Yankee Killer, going 16-3 against the Bronx Bombers.  Red and Frank feasted on the Yanks.  Red was a career .262 hitter as a Tiger.  But when he was catching Frank Lary against the Yanks he hit .354.  Red also helped Frank beat the Red Sox in Fenway in 1955.  The Tigers Bill Tuttle was on second when Red came to the plate.  He hit a grounder up the middle.  Frank Bolling, the Sox second baseman threw to the plate to try to get Tuttle.  But the ump ruled him safe.  The Sox catcher, Sammy White, started arguing and threw the ball into center field in his anger.  Jim Piersall retrieved the ball and threw it back in.  All the while Red proceeded around the bases and while everyone was focused on the argument Red stepped around the ump at home plate as he was cleaning the plate to score.  The Sox went nuts claiming time had been called.   But the umps stated when the ball was thrown into the outfield they did have an opportunity to call time.   Red was traded to the Indians part way through the 1960 season.  Red was drafted by the Angles in the 1961 expansion draft but then unceremoniously returned to the Indians.  He was a career .250 hitter who was actually pretty fast.  He had 10 stolen bases in 1958, his one year as a Tiger starter and was second in fielding percentage in the league as a catcher.

Harry “Stinky” Davis was the Tigers starting first baseman as a rookie in 1932.  Dale Alexander was the Tigers starting first baseman since 1929.  But he was replaced by Harry in the opening day line-up of 1932.  Harry wasted no time going 2 for 6 with an RBI off of Wes Ferrell of the Indians.  Dale was traded to the Boston Red Sox half way through the 1932 season and Harry took over as sole first baseman.  Harry did not have quite the year everyone had hoped hitting .269 with 4 homers and 74 RBI’s.  Harry’s days as a starter lasted until 1933 when yet another rookie came up to take the job of first base for the Tigers, Hank Greenberg.  Hank had a little more staying power then Harry or Dale.  Hank hit .301 with 12 homers and 87 RBI’s while now back up Harry, hit .214 with no homers and 14 RBI’s.  Harry never played for h the Tigers again.  He played briefly one more year in the bigs in 1937.  The hapless St. Louis Browns got him from the Toledo Mud Hens.  Harry stuck out the baseball life until his final year in pro ball with the class C Amarillo Gold Sox where he played at the age of 42 when he was player manager of the team.  Maybe he did heave more staying power then Greenberg after all as he had 3039 hits in 23 seasons in the minors.

Ed Willett was a pitcher for the Tigers early in the last century.  He was given a late season trial in 1906.  In his debut he pitched a complete game against the White Sox in Detroit.  He pitched the complete game and gave up only two runs.  However, the Tigers did not score at all and Ed lost 2-0.  Ed pitched two other complete games in 1906 for complete games but also for losses.  In 1907 Ed was not in the rotation but was 1-5 with the Tigers as they won the AL flag only to lose in the World Series to the Cubs.  The Tigers pitching staff of the early 1900’s had a very good rotation of George Mullin, Ed Willett, Ed Summers, Ed Killian and Bill Donavan.  In 1908 Ed was the number four starter and went 15-8 and the Tiges again won the AL flag and again the Cubs beat the Tiges and Ed did not get in the series.   In 1909 Ed had his best year going 21-10 and this time when the Tiges went to the World Series and faced Honus Wagner and the Pirates, Ed got in the series.  In game three Ed came in to relieve Ed Summers when Ed failed to get out of the first and gave up 5 runs in two thirds of an inning.  Ed came in and pitched the next 6.2 innings and did not give up an earned run.   He did give up a run in the second when he hit Tommy Leach and then Fred Clarke.  Honus Wagner came up and grounded out to advance the runners.  Leach then stole home and was out except for Ed’s error at the plate.  Ed also replaced Ed Summers again in game 6 when Ed was down 8-4 in the 8^th with a runner on first.  Ed did not allow a base runner and got the Tigers out the inning before the Tigers lost the game by the score of 8-4. While Ed got in the series, the results were the same, a Tigers loss.  Ed continued to pitch for the Tiges through 1913.  He would win 96 and lose 80 games as a Tiger.  Ed also had one more big day for the Tiges in 1912.  On June 30, hit two homers in the second game of a double header to give the Tigers a 11-9 win over the White Sox in Detroit.  While his pitching may not have been great the two homers is one shy of the record for homers in a game for pitchers.  In 1913 Ed left the Tigers and joined the St. Louis Terriers of the New Major league, the Federal League.  The Terriers were last in the Federal League in 1914 and Ed was 4-17.  Ed stayed with them in 1915 and the Terriers won the Federal League title.  However, Ed was not a big part of it going 2-3 in 17 games.  Ed had not had the same success as he did with Detroit.  In two years for the Terriers he was 6-20.  At the end of the season the Federal League folded when half the owners were bought out by the NL and AL owners and some of the Federal League owners were allowed to buy struggling AL or NL teams.  The owner of the St. Louis Terriers bought the St. Louis Browns and merged the teams.  Ed was left out of the majors in the merger and went down to the minors.  He went on to play four more years before his playing career in baseball was over.  But he then managed a couple of years in the 1920’s before his career in baseball ended.

Below is a Colgan's Chip's card of Ed from my collection.