April 20 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Tim Tolman is someone who I have to say I don’t understand how he was a major leaguer.  I have tried to always be respectful of anyone who makes the majors because as you may know, I never made the majors.  However, I can not understand a guy who never hit .200 in a season was able to stay in the bigs.  Yet he played in the bigs in seven different seasons as a first base outfielder.  He didn’t show a lot of power, five homers in 196 career at bats.  His career slugging was .296.  He didn’t have a lot of speed as he stole only 1 base and was caught stealing 3 times.  His one steal was with Detroit in 1986.  And his record in the minors does not shed a lot of light on his career either.  In 12 seasons in the minors he hit a career .296 and in 1226 games he hit only 91 homers.  He played on the Tigers in 1986 and 1987.  As I said, I respect anyone who plays pro baseball or any other pro sport.  But for the life of me, I can not figure out how Tim played that long in the majors.  It must be that he knows what to do but just can’t do it.  Maybe he is like a Billy Beane from Moneyball.  He did go in to coaching after his playing career and as late as 2010 was coaching in the majors with the Cleveland Indians.  Those who can’t do, teach.

Milt Wilcox started his major league career with the Reds in1970. He stayed there for two seasons before being traded to the Indians.  The Tribe sent Uncle Miltie to the Cubs in 1975.  In those six years Milt was 22 – 30 and 6 saves.  In 1976 the Tigers purchased Milt from the Cubs.  Starting in 1978 Milt became the pitcher I think of him as.  He won 13 games in 1978 and would win 11 to 13 games every year until 1984 and was a solid number 2 starter or a great number 3 starter.  In 1983 Milt took a perfect game into the ninth inning.  With two outs in the ninth pinch hitter Jerry Hairston hit s signed to center field and ruined his perfect game.  In 1984 Milt had his career year.  He started the season 6-0 and went 17-8 with a 4.00 ERA for the Champions for the season.   He won his game in the ALCS and pitched game 3 of the World Series and went six innings giving up only one run and winning the game.  But the wheels came off after the 84 season.  In 1985 he went 1-3, a low in wins he had not had since 1975.  He was released by the Tigers after the season and signed with the Mariners.  He was 0-8 with a 5.50 ERA with the Mariners in June of 86 when he was released.  He did not play pro ball again.  Today he trains dog dock jumping and competes nationally with his dogs Nash, Jetson and Sparky.

Earl Harrist started his major league career with the Reds but was not protected and drafted by the White Sox in the rule 5 draft.  He had the best ERA (3.61) of all the relievers with 50 or more innings that year on a bad Reds team.  In fact he had a better ERA than most of the starters.  He had a similar performance with the White Sox in 1947 on a similarly bad team.  The 1948 White Sox were even worse than the 47 and Earl’s performance was also worse.  So he was sent to the Senators where he was on a bad Senators team.  He spent the next season in the minors in the Yankees organization.  The Oakland Seals of the PCL bought him from the Yanks and he showed good promise going 18-8 in 1950 with a 3.69 ERA while being the number two starter for the PCL pennant winners.  By 1952 he was back in the majors with another poor team, the Browns where again he was a middle of the road reliever.  1953 Earl was on his first winning team in the majors, the 34 year old Earl was used in only 7 games for the White Sox.  In May of that year the Tigers picked up Earl off of waivers.  He played 8 games with the Tigers and was sold to Seattle of the PCL.   I kept looking for the nugget in Earl’s record but could not find it.  His totals in the majors were a 12-28 record with 10 saves and a 4.34 ERA.  

Lou Vedder  came in to pitch the 8^th and 9^th innings of the September 18, game between the Red Sox and Tigers in 1920.  The Red Sox were ahead 7-2 when Lou came in.  He pitched perfect ball for those two innings and even struck out one batter.  But the Red Sox still won 7-4.  That was the extent of Lou’s major league career.  In fact, that appears to be Lou’s entire pro baseball career.