Billy
Beane spent the least amount of time in the majors with the Tigers. This is the Billy Beane of “Moneyball” fame
not of Billy Bean without the “E” of “Going The Other Way” fame. Moneyball is about Billy Beane the Oakland
Athletics GM. This is the Brad Pitt
movie that shows Billy to be the genius GM who goes against all other GM’s and
starts following SABRmetrics to build his team.
Just an FYI, the movie did glamorize and change a few facts to make the
story more compelling. For instance,
Jeremy Giambi was traded May 22, and Carlos Pena was traded a month and a half
later on July 5. And the real story of
the A’s success that year was the fact that the A’s lead the American League in
ERA with a team ERA of 3.68. They were a
team with a solid starting rotation of Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, Mark Mulder and
Cory Lidle. As for the highly touted On
Base Percentage which according to the movie was everything, well, the
Athletics were 5th in the league in OBP behind division rivals
Seattle and Anaheim as well as New York and Boston. “Going the Other Way” is about Billy Bean who
was gay and his story about coming out.
Both Billy Bean(e)’s played with the Tigers in the late 1980’s. Billy with an E started his career in New
York as a Met in 1984. In two seasons he
got in 13 games. He was traded to the
Twins before the 1986 season. He was
there for two seasons hitting .217 with 3 homers, the only homers of his
career. He was traded to the Tigers
before the 1988 season for Balvino Galvez.
For Detroit Billy got in 6 games.
He was an outfielder who made six plate appearances and got one hit and
one RBI. He became a free agent at the
end of the season and signed with the Athletics and rest, as they say, is
history.
Denny
McLain was a famed Tiger pitcher who also had several books. His first book was after he was out of the
majors titled “Nobody’s Perfect”. The
second was “Strikeout: The Denny McLain Story” in 1988. And last was “I Told You I Wasn’t Perfect”
which came out in 2007. Denny was a
great talent who as Lulu Harwell told me “Denny never seemed to think the rules
applied to him.” Denny won 20 games as a
Tiger fireballer in 1966 and should have done the same in 1967. However, Denny missed the last few starts of
the season due to a broken foot that, according to Denny, he got while taking a
nap. He supposedly rolled off the couch
in his sleep and broke the foot. The
unofficial story goes that he got in trouble with some gamblers and they
dropped a cinder block on his foot.
Those last two starts may have made the difference for a team that went
6-5 in the last eleven games and finished one game out of first. Mickey Lolich had to pitch 4 of those last 11
games and was 2-2. In 1968 Denny had his dominating year where he
won 31 games. However, he was a bust in
the World Series going 1-2 losing twice to Bob Gibson. The hero turned out to be Mickey Lolich who
won three complete games and beat Bob Gibson in game seven in one of the all
time great pitching duals in World Series history. Denny did not endear himself to his teammates
in other ways as well. For instance, in
the 1969 All Star game the Tigers sent Bill Freehan as well as Mickey Lolich
with Denny to Washington DC. Denny was a
pilot and offered to fly Bill and Mickey down to the game. They accepted. However, Denny finished pitching in the
fourth inning and took a shower and flew home.
However, Bill and Mickey were still at the game. But Denny came through for the Tiges in the
end. At the end of the 1970 season Denny
was traded to the Senators with Elliot Maddox, Norm McRae and Don Wert for Joe
Coleman, Eddie Brinkman, Aurelio Rodriguez and Jim Hannan. Thus Denny brought Detroit the 1972 AL East
title in 1970.
Ferris
Fain was the aging veteran for a very young Tiger team. Ferris was 34 in 1955 when he joined the
Tigers. He had won 2 batting titles by
then with the Philadelphia Athletics as their first baseman in 1951 and
1952. At the end of the season he was
traded to the White Sox with a minor leaguer for Joe DeMaestri, Ed McGhee and
Eddie Robinson. Ferris was known as a spray hitter without much power. The most homers he ever had in a season was
10 with the 1950 Athletics. He spent two
years in Chicago and hurt his knee in 1954 and his playing time was cut to only
65 games. The Sox then traded him to the
Tiges for the 1955 season to be the Tiges first baseman on a young Tiger
team. Ferris would add some experience
to the team. The trade that brought him
to Detroit was 1954 first baseman Walt Dropo, pitcher Ted Gray and outfielder
Bob Nieman for pitcher Leo Cristante, back up first baseman Jack Phillips and
new first baseman Ferris. Ferris had had
knee surgery in the winter so he was big question mark. The Tiges used Ferris at first for 44 games
of the first half of the season. Then on
July 6, he was released and Earl Torgelson took over at first. A week later Ferris was picked up by the
Indians but at the end of the season he was released and his major league
career was over. If Billy Beane had been
around in the time of Ferris he would have been a star. Ferris had a career batting average of .290
but a career OBP of .424, 13th all time for a career. His last year that was split between Detroit
and Cleveland he had a .455 OBP.
Johnny
Gorsica was one of only three pitchers that made their major league debut as a
Tiger in 1940. The reason for this is Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Landis did
not like the farm system. He felt is stifled the best of baseball rising to the
top. He felt that, for example, the best 16 first basemen were not necessarily
playing in the majors. Some of the best were likely toiling in the minors
behind the stars in a parent club like the Yankees or Tigers that had a star
already at that spot in Lou Gerhig or Hank Greenberg. In 1938 he had declared
that many of the St. Louis Cardinals were being held back illegally and he
declared them free agents. In December of 1939 he nullified a trade the Tigers
made with the Philadelphia Athletics and started to investigate the Tigers farm
system. In January of 1940 he declared that 91 Tiger minor leaguers and some
major leaguers were free agents. This was out of about 140 total farm hands.
Because of this the Tigers had very few minor league players to bring up in
1940. Johnny was one of those that was brought up. He fit in the rotation and
started 20 games as the number four starter. He was 7-7 with a 4.33 ERA. He was
on the World Series roster that year for the Tiges as they faced the Cincinnati
Reds. He got in two games and pitched beautifully. In 11.1 innings he allowed
only 1 run on 6 hits while striking out 4. He has his highest season win total
in 1941 when he went 9-11 with a 4.47 ERA. He continued to play for the Tiges
during the war except in 1945 when he was off to the Navy. He returned to the
Tiges in 1946 but did not record a decision. His final year was 1947 when he
was 2-0 with a 3.75 ERA as a reliever. His totals as a Tiger are 31-39 with a
4.18 ERA and 17 saves in 7 seasons.
Al
Klawitter
Squanto
Wilson
Lou
Schiappacasse
Harry
Lochhead
Duff
Cooley
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