Friday, April 24, 2015

April 5 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Ted Scheffler started his major league career as a Detroit Wolverine.  By the time he died he had seen a lot of history.  He was born in 1864, during the Civil War, in New York City.  He first appeared in organized ball in Toronto in 1885.  He has a sketchy record on baseball-reference.com where he is not listed as having played with the New York Mets in 1887 of the American Association.  He did not enjoy his time in the American Association as he played in only one exhibition game while showing up on the roster for months on end.  Because of this, when the Worcester Grays were trying to make a go of it they tried to sell Ted to Kansas City of the American Association.  But Ted made it clear he wanted no part of the AA.  So Worcester sold him to Detroit.  He got in 27 games with the Wolverines in 1888 and hit .202 while drawing enough walks and got hit by a pitch to bring is OBP to .286 while playing mainly back up out field for the Wolverines.   He was known for being speedy and having a good OBP.  But that was not felt to be important at the time in baseball.  That was the extent of his major league career with the exception of a season with the Rochester Broncos in 1890 where he was one of the starting outfielder and hit .245.  But he never made it back to the majors again.  He went to the minors and was there until 1904, a year after the Wright Brothers learned to fly.  He died in 1946, a year after World War II ended.

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