Frank Catalanotto made his major league debut in a Detroit
uniform in 1997. He drew a walk on five
pitches as pinch hitter in the top of the 9th. He did not score nor move off of first. He would play for the Tigers through 1999 and
hit .280 for the Tigers as a utilty infielder.
He then was sent to the Rangers with Justin Thompson, Gabe Kapler, Bill
Haselman, Francisco Cordero and Alan Webb for Gregg Zaun, Danny Patterson and
everybody’s favorite, Juan Gonzalez.
Frank did the same everywhere he went.
He was a career .290 hitter and retired from baseball in 2010.
Bob McDonald pitched for the Tigers in 1997 after playing
for the Blue Jays for three years. He
went 3-3 and had an ERA of 5.35. He was
signed and released for various teams without ever actually making the big
league roster until he played 1995 with the Yankees and 1996 with the
Mets. After that he was done in the
majors. His career record was 8-9 with 3
saves.
George Archie played for the Tigers in 1938 for three
games. He went 0-1 in his first game
against the Red Sox. Two days later he
struck out in his only appearance against the Yankees and Lefty Gomez. About a week later he came in as a pinch
runner for Rudy York who had just walked as a pinch hitter. George scored the winning run in a 7-6 win
over the Senators. That was the end of
George’s career as a Tiger. George
continued playing for the Senators and Browns for two more season in 1941 and
1946 with time off for the war. He was a
career .272 hitter with none of his 115 hits for the Tigers.
George “Sassafrass” Winter finished his major league career as
a Tiger. He was born in Pennsylvania and
went to college at Gettysburg College where he was a team mate with Hall of
Famer Eddie Plank. While Eddie went to
the Philadelphia Athletics, George went to Boston where he became a member of
the Red Sox or Boston Americans as they were known at the time. The righty George was the number 2 pitcher
for Boston behind Cy Young. George was
16-12 as a rookie. George dropped to the
number 3 starter in 1902 and dropped further in 1903 to the number 5
starter. That was the year of the first modern
World Series which his team, the Americans was a participant. George did not play. By 1905 George had made it back to the number
3 slot. In 1907 George would make it back
to the number 2 slot behind Cy Young.
But it was not so much due to his abilities as he was 12-15 but more that
the Americans had fallen on hard times and were now the number 7 team out of 8
in the AL. In 1908 the Americans had
picked up a young Eddie Cicotte and he was throwing well as was recent
acquisition, Cy Morgan. George was now
30 and was low man on the roster. In
July he was waived and the Tigers, in the midst of a pennant race, picked up
George. George got in 7 games as a
Tiger, 6 of which were starts. He was
1-5 but did post a nice 1.60 ERA for the Tigers. The Tiges won the pennant and faced the Cubs
in the World Series. George made the
roster. In game 4 of the 1908 World
Series against the Cubs he was called in to pitch the 9th with Cubs
up 2-0. He got the first two outs of the
inning and then gave up a single to Johnny Evers of “Tinkers to Evers to
Chance” fame. He stole second and when Frank Chance was at
the plate Evers scored an unearned run on a fielding error by Ty Cobb. George got the last out but never played in
the majors again. He played 2 more years
in the minors with the Montreal Royals before his career was over.
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