Fernando Vina was an injury prone second baseman before
ending his career as a Tiger. He has
started his career in 1993 with the Mariners.
He was only in 24 games and was off to the Mets for 1994. He was a utility infielder for the Mets as
they had Jeff Kent at second. The Mets
traded Fernando to the Brewers for 1995 where he became a starter at
second. He played 5 years for the
Brewers hitting .286 with two of the seasons being cut short by injuries and
was an All Star in 1998. After the 1999
season he was traded to the Cardinals. He
spent 4 seasons in St. Louis hitting .285 and winning two Gold Glove
awards. His last year with St. Louis was
cut short due to an injured hamstring.
After the 2003 season he was signed as a free agent by the Tiges. This was the time when the Tiges were
searching for a second baseman and they thought they had one in Fernando for
$3,000,000. But Fernando only got in 29
games for the Tigers before he was placed on the DL for a strained hamstring. In those 29 games he hit .226 and committed
five errors. He was on the roster in
2005 earning another $3,000,000 but still was not ready to play. For the 2006 season he was not given a
contract by the Tiges but was invited to the Seattle Mariners spring
training. He did not make the team. IN 2007 he was an analyst for ESPN’s baseball
tonight. In December of 2007 Fernando
was named in the Mitchell report for using steroids as early as 1993 while with
the Mets and later HGH. He denied it
even though checks from him were found written out to Kirk Radomski who was the
Mets clubhouse boy who was found to be providing steroids. Fernando did admit to using HGH in 2003 to
recover from his injuries.
Bruce Taylor pitched his entire career as a Tiger. He worked in the minors for four and half years
as a reliever (he started 7 games for his first team in A ball) before getting
his call up to the Tigers in 1977. He
made his debut against the Rangers in Detroit in the 8th inning with
two outs and the Rangers up 6-0. He got
Claudell Washington to fly out to end the inning. Bruce returned in the 9th to get
the top of the order out 1-2-3. The
Tigers failed to score and Bruce got a no decision. He got in his last game of the year in the
Tigers second to last game of the season.
He was brought in to face the Yankees in the 5th inning with
the game tied 5-5 and a runner on first.
He got out of the inning with no further damage. He pitched the rest of the game and got the
win 10-7 giving up only 2 runs on 3 hits and 1 walk in 4.1 innings. This was his only decision of the
season. He spent all of 1978 in
Evansville going 4-7 with a 4.57 ERA with the exception of one inning with the
Tigers. He finished one game the Tigers
and put the side out 1-2-3 in the 9th. But the Tigers lost the game. He started the 1979 season on the Tigers
roster. He came into a game against the
White Sox in May trailing 4-3 with runners on first and second. He got a double play in the 8th to
the end the inning. The Tigers came up
and Land Jason Thompson and Lance Parrish drove in runs to take the lead
5-4. Bruce came in to pitch the 9th
and got the side out HBP 2-3-4 to end the game.
This was his second and final win of his time in the majors. Two weeks later he pitched his last game in
the majors against the Yanks at Tiger Stadium.
Bruce finished the season and his career in Evansville.
Dutch Leonard was the reason Ty Cobb did not finish his
career as a Tiger and Tris Speaker did not finish his career with the Indians
and Ban Johnson lost his job as the American League President. Dutch was originally a lefty with the Boston
Red Sox starting in 1913 when he was 14-17.
The next year he was 19-5 with league leading 0.96 ERA, the lowest ERA
of the 20th century. He
stayed with the Red Sox through 1918, when he was traded to the Yankees. Hmmmm, it is possible the curse of the
Bambino was really the curse of Dutch.
However, Dutch never pitched for the Yankees. Instead he was sold to the Tigers in May of
1919. He was 14-13 with the Tigers that
first season as the number four starter.
He was primarily a fast ball and curve ball pitcher but by the time he
became a Tiger he had picked up a spitter as his main pitch and in 1920 he was
grandfathered in and allowed to continue to the spitball while most other
pitchers were prohibited from using it. He
was the number one starter in 1921 going 11-13 and led the team with a 3.75
ERA. He got into a contract dispute with
Tiger owner Frank Navin and jumped his contract and went to play with
Fresno. Major League Baseball banned him
for the next two years due to his breaking of the reserve clause. He returned to the Tigers late in the 1924
season after being reinstated into baseball.
In 1925 he was one of the Tiger starters but was feuding with manager Ty
Cobb. The two hated each other. Cobb went out of his way to literally destroy
Dutch. He overused him intentionally
even after the Tigers team physician stated he was being overused. The feud came to head in July when against
the Philadelphia Athletics Cobb kept Dutch in the game despite the fact that
Dutch had given up 12 runs on 20 hits.
Connie Mack, the Athletics manager, pleaded with Cobb to take him out of
the game but Cobb laughed at the idea.
Cobb then waived Dutch but made sure no other team signed him so he
could trade him out of the majors to the Pacific Coast League. The next year Dutch told American League
President, Ban Johnson that Cobb had conspired with Cleveland Indians manager
Tris Speaker to fix a game in 1919 in order for the Tigers to finish third and
earn some bonus money as the third place finisher in league. Johnson took this info to heart and told
Speaker and Cobb their days in the American were over. They resigned as managers and retired from
baseball. But Commissioner Kenesaw
Mountain Landis wanted to look further into the accusations. Dutch refused to show up to a meeting with
the Judge and the letters from Cobb and others Dutch had provided to Johnson,
while talking about betting were vague about details and did not show that
anyone actually threw a game. Landis
reinstated Speaker and Cobb. However,
both were no longer under contract and were free to sign with the highest
bidder. Tris Speaker signed with the
Washington Senators and Ty left Detroit for the Philadelphia Athletics. Later that summer the American League owners
voted out Ban Johnson as President.
Dutch was done in baseball and went on to run a winery in California.
Gene Ford spent his entire time in the majors with the
Tigers. He started his professional
career with the Indianapolis Indians in 1903 and was 17-16. The next year he moved on to Minneapolis and
the Millers. There he was 17-11. Before the end of the 1904 season his
contract was purchased by the Tigers in August of 1904. He made his debut against the St. Louis Browns
in St. Louis. The Tiges lost the game
11-7. He would get into six more games
over the next two months for the Tiges.
His last game was against the Indians in Cleveland and again the Tiges
lost but this time by a score of 14-3.
After those two months he returned to Minneapolis in 1905 and went
2-4. He pitched in the minors for three
more seasons. His best season was 1906
when he was 21-13 for the Millers. His
final record as a Tiger was a 0-1 record in 7 games with a 5.66 ERA. He only started one game and it was a
complete game loss.
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