Doug Baker
Gary Pettis had two stints as a
Tiger. He started his career as a speedy back up outfielder for the
California Angels in 1982. He became their starting center fielder
in 1984 when the Angels moved Fred Lynn to right with Brian Downing in left. Gary hit
weakly in terms of both power and average. But his
speed was always a threat. He was the Angels starting center fielder for 4
years as a .240 hitter who twice hit only one homer for the season, yet stole
50 bases in a season. He also won a couple of Gold Glove awards in those years. After the
1987 season the Tigers traded pitcher Dan Petry for Gary. Kirk
Gibson had signed with the Dodgers as a free agent so the Tigers picked up Gary
to put in center and moved Chet Lemon to right to replace Gibson and kept Pat
Sheridan in left. Gary led the team in stolen bases with 44 while only getting
caught 10 times. Only Jim Walewander joined him with double digit steals at 11 that
season. Not even close to Gary. Unfortunately Gary only hit .210. But he
did win another Gold Glove now as a Tiger. 1989
found Fred Lynn re-joining Gary in the outfield but in Tiger Stadium as Fred
took over left from Pat Sheridan. Another 1989 highlite for Gary was that
he had the coolest baseball card that year. A new company called “Upper Deck” came
out with a great baseball card set and the Pettis card was the coolest. The card
set was the first to have color pictures of the player on both the front and
the back. What was unique about Gary’s was that the picture on the front
showed Gary holding his own card that was in the picture! Actually,
the photo showed Gary holding the card and you saw the back of the card you
were holding in your hand. But it made you do a double take and
was cool, none the less. Gary had a better season in 1989 thanks to hitting coach Vada
Pinson. Vada taught him to take some more pitches so his walks went up and
he found he was hitting .257 and still getting 43 steals (second on the team
was Tram at 10). He also won another Gold Glove award. But after
the season he was a free agent and signed with the Rangers. Gary was
in Texas for two seasons. His steals started to drop and with his K’s and
his low on base percentage it became too much for the Rangers and before the
1992 season started the Rangers released Gary. He signed
with the Padres but hit only .200 so the Padres released him in June. The
Tigers then signed him for the remainder of the season. That
would prove to be Gary’s last season in the majors. He hit
.202 for the Tiges but in only 48 games he still led the team in steals with
13. For his three year Tiger career Gary was a .229
hitter with 158 walks to 225 K’s but 100 stolen bases in 129 attempts for a 78%
success rate and two Gold Gloves.
Alex Grammas This Side of Cooperstwon
Dick Conger started his major league
career as a Tiger. In the beginning of 1940 then Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain
Landis gutted the Tigers farm system. Landis was never a fan of the farm
system that was created by Branch Rickey. In his mind it meant the top players
were not in the major leagues. In 1938 he had decimated the Cardinals
farm system for no apparent reason and did the same to the Tigers in January of
1940. He said the contracts were not appropriate and granted free agency
to 75% of the Tiger farm hands and several of the members of the 1939 Tiger
squad. So the Tiges went out and had to start over creating a farm
system. They signed 18 year old Dick who had played only one season at
UCLA. Dick was on the roster at the beginning of the year and made his
major league and professional debut in the 5th game of
the season. He came in from the bull pen in the 8th with the
Tigers trailing the Chicago White Sox 5-4 in Chicago’s Comiskey
Park. Dick pitched one inning of near perfect ball allowing only one
walk while striking out one. The Tigers came back in the top of the
ninth to score two and win the game and give Dick a win in professional debut
by a score of 6-5. Less than a week later the Tigers were playing the Cleveland
Indians at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium. The Tiers trailed 8-2 in the seventh
when Dick got the call from the pen. Dick came in and gave up 1 run on 2
hits and 2 walks. But the Tigers scored one run in both the 7th and 8th and then
scored 6 more in the 9th to make the score 9-9. But the
Tiges brought in Bud Thomas to pitch the 10th. The tribe
got two runs off of Bud and won the game 11-9. The
Tigers would get the last laugh on the Indians winning the pennant that year
despite losing their farm system and taking the flag in a wild affair in
Cleveland to end the season. However, Dick was not there. After his
second game as Tiger Dick was sent down to the new Tiger minors. He was
8-10 with Beaumont of the Texas League but was left unprotected at the end of
the season and was taken by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Rule 5 draft after
the season. Dick never won a game in 2 seasons and 4 games as a Pirate and was
with the Phillies in 1943 where he was 2-7. He never played in the majors again
after 1943 and appears to have been in the military for 1945. He was
done in baseball in 1950. He scouted a bit for the Dodgers and worked for his home town
paper the Los Angeles Times until he died 20 years after his baseball career
ended at the age of 48.
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