April 12 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Brennan Boesch started his major league career by hitting the first pitch he ever saw for a double to deep left field.  He went on to go 2-4 that day.  He hit 12 homers with 49 RBI’s and a batting average of .342 before the All Star break in 2010.  Then it fell apart.  He hit 2 homers with 18 RBI’s and hit only .163 after the break.  In 2011 he  brought it back and hit .283 with 16 homer and 54 RBIs’s.  But his pre all star average was 80 points higher than his post All Star average.  In 2012 is was all below .250 with him hitting .243 before the break and .237 after the break.  So this year the Tigers tried to hold him as trade bait.  But there were no takers.  I can’t blame the other GM’s.  You see Brendan was about 7^th on the outfield depth charts for the Tiges.  You know at some point they will have to let him go.  So you wait to sign him as a reduced cost free agent.  The Yankees did so.  He was batting 5^th for the Yankees on opening day.   I am sorry to say but that is more a sign of the Yankees injuries than Brandon’s abilities.  He is hitting .250 with 1 homer and 2 RBI’s with the Yanks this year.  Do not expect to see him hitting 5^th at the end of the season.

Woody Fryman was part of the 1972 Tigers.  He started his career in Pittsburgh in 1966.  In only his 9^th start he gave up a lead of single and then picked off the runner.  He then retired the next 26 batters in a row for a unique non perfect game.  The starts before and after that game were complete game shutouts.  He was sent to the Phillies prior to the 1968 season and became an all star.  He had gone 4-10 with a 4.36 ERA for the Phils in 1972 when he was waived in August.   Detroit picked up off of waivers and he promptly went 10-3 with a 2.06 ERA and helped the Tigers win the division title.  He stayed with Detroit two more years before being sent to Montreal for back up catcher Terry Humphrey and pitcher Tom Walker.  Woody became a closer for Montreal and continued to pitch into 1983.  He had started his career in the NL in 1966 with the Pirates.  I wrote him a couple of times and he always responded very promptly.  The last time I wrote him was January 2011.  He died about two weeks later on February 4.   The Tigers honored Woody and several others who died in the off season at opening day with a moment of silence.  

Charlie Lau started his career in the majors with the Tigers in 1956 as a weak hitting back up catcher.  How weak?  He hit .157 with Detroit.  He was sent to the Braves of Milwaukee in 1960 and he hit .200 for the Braves.  The Braves sent him to Baltimore and then things changed for Charlie as he changed his batting stance to that of a contact hitter.  In 1962, his first full year with the Orioles he hit .294.  For his seven years in Baltimore he hit .269.  He spent some time in Kansas City with the Athletics and finished his career with the Braves of Atlanta in 1967.  After his playing days he became a batting coach.  He is one of the more famous batting coaches.  In fact he is known for his rules of hitting.  Maybe you could call them Lau’s laws.  He was the batting coach for Royals in the 1970’s with guys like Amos Otis, Hal McRae, Willie Wilson and an average hitter by the name of George Brett.  He then went on to Chicago to coach Carton Fisk and Harold Baines.  Charlie died in 1984 from cancer.

Bill Wight was a lefty pitcher for eight teams when the major leagues consisted of 16 teams.  He played part of two seasons with Detroit and racked up a 5-12 record.  As a pitcher he was used all over the place.  As a starter, as a reliever and as a closer.  His most wins in a season was in 1949 with the White Sox when he won 15 games.  The next he won 10.  He never won in double digits after that.  Basically, he made a career out of being a lefty. 

Black Jack Wilson was a pitcher mainly for the Red Sox in the 1930’s.  He compiled a record of 67-67 with the Sox in 7 years.  He was normally the number two starter behind Lefty Grove.  His best year was 1937 when he won 16 and lost 10.  Six days after Pearl Harbor, Jack was traded to the Senators.  Later in the season he was sold to the Tigers.  With Detroit he appeared in nine games and did not record a decision.  At the end of the season he was done in the majors and went out to pitch in the PCL with the Portland Beavers.   Jack died in 1995 and is buried in Holyrood Catholic Cemetery in Seattle.

Eric McNair was shortstop mainly but also played spent about a quarter of his time at second and another quarter at third.  He was the utility infielder for the Philadelphia Athletics on their World Series teams of 1930 and 1931.  He became the starting shortstop in for the Athletics in 1932 and kept the roll until he was sent to the Boston Red Sox after the 1935 season.  He stayed in Boston until the end of the 1938 season when we went to the White Sox.  The Tigers picked him up off waivers after the1940 season.  With Detroit he was a back up infielder and hit a lowly .173.  TheTigers sold Eric back to the Athletics during the 1942 season.  He was released at the end of the season and tried to continue his pro ball career in the minors.  But even after 1943 he was done in the minors.  He dabbled in managing in the minors during the 1940’s but never got above the class A level.

Bill Bailey was a pitcher for the Tigers in 1918 and won one game for the Tigers and lost two.   That was one of his better years.  Unfortunately for Bill, he played on some bad teams.  He was on the St. Louis Browns from 1907 thru 1912.  In 1910 with the Browns going 47-107, Bill won 3 games and lost 18.  He later joined the Baltimore Terrapins of the Federal League who went 47-107 (Maybe it was Bill) in 1915 and Bill went 6-19 before joining the Chicago Whales of the Federal League where he went 3-1 for a combined record of 9-20 for the season.

Lew Post played three games in 1902 with the Tigers in Chicago.  He played the outfield and made four put outs to one error.  At the plate Lew got one hit in 12 at bats.  He struck out three times but did get two RBI’s.  The Tigers had picked up Lew from Flint of the Michigan State League.  A class D league where Lew played the outfield.  Lew was not known to play organized ball at any other time except 1902.  In fact, so little is known about Lew that it is not even known if he batted or threw left or right.

Today we have Kid Elberfeld.  Kid got the first hit for the Tigers as a major league franchise in 1901.  There is a great story about him in Sam Crawford’s chapter of The Glory of Their Times where he and some other ball players are in a restaurant and are not getting served as they are considered a bunch of toughs that the establishment would rather not have on their premises.  The players are wondering how to get the attention of the wait staff and according to Sam Crawford “Darned if he didn’t take one of the plates and sail it way up in the air, and when it came down on that tile floor it smashed into a million pieces. … Sure enough, we had four or five waiters around there in no time.”