June 24 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

George Harper started his major league career with the Tigers.  He started his professional baseball career in 1913 with the Paris Boosters of the Texas Oklahoma League.  It was class D and in 125 games he hit .309 as an outfielder.  His play so impressive that he moved up to the Kansas City Blues of the American Association which was class AA.  He continued to hit with a .297 average.  But in 1914 he again started the season in Paris and again hit well at an almost identical .308 average.  Before moving up to class B Fort Worth for 1915 where he hit .299.  The Tigers figured he was the real deal and brought him up to the Tigers for 1916.  He made his debut against the White Sox and Eddie Cicotte in Chicago as a pinch hitter.  He recorded and out as the Tigers lost 9-4.  The lefty hitting back up outfielder hit only .161 in 44 games as a back up outfielder.  In fact he appeared in 44 games that first year and only had 56 at bats as he only started 9 games.  It was a tough outfield to crack as a rookie as the Tigers had Hall of Famers Ty Cobb, and Sam Crawford plus standout Bobby Veach.  On the bench they also had up and coming Hall of Famer Harry Heilmann.  In 1917 he got in more games as Crawford retired and Heilmann went into service for World War I.  George picked up his average to .205 and in 1918 he furthered it to .242.  1919 found him out of baseball.  He went to manage the saw mill that he owned.  But it was not a good year for him as his five year old daughter died and his new born daughter also died.  So for 1920 he hired someone to run his sawmill and returned to baseball with the Oklahoma City Indians in the Western League.  He did manage to get back to the majors in 1922 with the Reds and stayed up in the majors thru 1929.  He would finish in the top 10 in OBP 3 times, homers 4 times, while still possessing good speed and a solid glove, even leading the league in fielding percentage.  After that he dropped to the PCL and eventually down to C ball where he finished his playing career in 1936.  A 20 year professional baseball career with three years as a Tiger. His major league batting average was .303 while his batting average as a Tiger was only .220.