Felipe Lira
Virgil Trucks pitched some very important games other than
his two no-hitters for the Tigers. He
was signed as an outfielder for $100 in 1937.
The Tigers did not assign him to a team so he went to play semi-pro ball
for Shawmut in the Chattahoochee Valley League and it was there that a catcher
by the name of Brunner Nix thought he would make a great pitcher with his arm
strength. As a strike out artist in 1938 he got the
nickname “Fire” which would stick with him the rest of his life. That season he struck out 420 batters. He made his major league debut in 1941 and was
caught napping. Joe Kuhel stole home on
him without a throw. No-one ever stole
home on Virgil again for the rest of his career. The right hander made the starting rotation
in 1942 and went 14-8. He was not taken
into the military in 1942 due to a bad knee.
In 1943 he was 16-10 for the Tiges.
At the end of the 1943 season he took his second military physical and
this time passed so he enlisted in the Navy with the hope of playing at Great
Lakes Training Center. He was
transferred there and played for Mickey Cochrane on one of the best baseball
teams of the war. They had Phil Rizzuto,
Johnny Mize, Dom DiMaggio, Pee Wee Reese, Johnny Vander Meer and Virgil. In the summer of 1945 he aggravated his bad
knee and this led to an early discharge.
He was back with the Tigers three days prior to the end of the 1945
season. He got in one game, the first
game of a double header in St. Louis on the last day of the season. The game kept getting rained out but eventually
he started it and went 5.1 innings of 3 hit ball for the win to give the Tiges
the pennant. Due to the war, there was a
rule that any returning service man was allowed to join a team at any point in
the season and be eligible for the World Series. So Virgil was on the World Series
roster. He pitched game 2 against the
Cubs and won a 4-1 complete game victory.
Over the next several years Virgil joined a Tiger pitching staff that
was very formidable with HOF’er Hal Newhouser, Dizzy Trout, Fred Hutchinson and
himself as the reoccurring starters.
Over these years Virgil won 14, 10, 14, and 19 games. He also led the league in K’s in 1949 with
153 and 6 shut outs. He ended his 1950
season with a pulled tendon in May with a 3-1 record. He came back in 1951 and was again a starter
at 13-8. He had started throwing a curve
and a slider to go along with his fastball to save his arm and became a better
pitcher. But it is 1952 that he is
remembered for. He posted a 5-19 record
for a bad Tigers team. No one has been
less supported as a Tiger starter with possibly the exception of Mike
Maroth. Of his 19 loses 15 had Tiger
runs of 2 or less. His wins consisted of
2 no-hitters, a 1 hitter, a 2 hitter and a 6 hitter. The
two no-hitters held as until Justin Verlander as the only pitcher to throw two
no-hitters for the Tigers. However, at
the end of the season the Tigers traded Virgil to the lowly St. Louis
Browns. It was a low point in his
career. However, you would not tell it
by his numbers. After two months with
the Browns he was 5-4 and clearly their best pitcher. But Browns owner Bill Veeck needed money so
he sold Virgil to the Chicago White Sox.
Virgil went on to win 15 games for the Sox the rest of the season to
post a career high 20 wins. He followed
that with a 19 win season and a 13 win season before the Tigers traded Bubba
Phillips to get him back. He was the
oldest Tiger on the roster by now and had learned to throw a knuckle ball. But his days as a top starter were over. He would stick around In the majors through
1958 with the Kansas City Athletics and the New York Yankees. His final record was 177 wins and 135 loses
for his career with 124 complete games and as a Tiger he had 114 wins with 96
loses with 20 shutouts and 84 complete games.
He was an all-star twice and was in the top 10 for K’s 8 times. He died March 23 of 2013 at the age of
95. The Free Press had a nice write up
about him. He also has a tough to find
autobiography called “Throwing Heat; The Life and Times of Virgil ‘Fire’
Trucks”.
Dale Alexander kinda
won the batting title as a Tiger.
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