Francisco Cordero played one season for the Tigers in 1999. He started his major league career with
Detroit and was a reliever who went 2-2 with a 3.32 ERA. He was 24 when he was with Detroit. He got in to his first major league game in
August of 1999. He faced the White Sox
at Tiger Stadium in its last year. Brad
Ausmus was the catcher. Francisco faced
the heart of the Sox order and aside from allowing Frank Thomas, he got the
side out in order including Magglio Ordonez.
He got in 20 games for the Tiges and was 2-2 with a 3.32 ERA. But at the end of the year he was traded to
the Rangers in the Juan Gonzalez trade by Randy Smith. He went on to become an excellent closer and
a three time all-star. He saved 329
games which puts him 14th all time in MLB history. This all took place after he left
Detroit. He did it with the Rangers,
Reds, Brewers, Blue Jays and Astros. But we
had Juan Gonzalez and for the Tigers Juan hit…..never mind.
Bill Bean played for the Tigers in 1987-1989. Over that time he appeared in 45 games and
hit .216 with 4 RBI’s. Not stellar
stats. Bill was sent to the Dodgers and
later the Padres. He did much better
there and raised his career batting average to .226. After baseball he came out of the closet and
with a book titled “Going the Other Way”.
His story appeared on an ABC News Nightline or the sort. In it they talked about how gays were now
well accepted at in pro sports and especially baseball. They also had Brad Ausmus in the story. They asked Brad his opinion and if he
understood it. He responded “Understand
it? No, I don’t understand it. But I don’t understand quantum physics
either. But Bill is friend regardless of
his sexual orientation.” (The quote is
paraphrased.)
Walt Terrell came to Detroit in the trade of Howard Johnson
to the Mets after the 1984 season. Walt
became the number two starter on a solid rotation of Jack Morris, Walt, Frank Tanana
and Dan Petry. He won 17 games for the
1987 team that won the AL East. After
the 1988 season we traded him to the Padres for Chris Brown and Keith Moreland. Walt never panned out for the Padres or
later the Yankees and Pirates. After
being released the Tigers signed him as a free agent and again Walt won 12
games in his first year back. After the
1992 season the Tigers granted him free agency and he signed a minor league
contract with his original team, the Mets.
He was done with baseball in 1993.
Mark Huismann played for 6 teams in 9 seasons including the
1988 season with the Tigers. He played
five games for Detroit and won one against the Blue Jays by 6-5. He did not start it but came in in relief in
the 7th after a blown save by Paul Gibson. It really should not have been a blown save
to Gibson as it was a throwing error by Tom Brookens that gave up the tying
run. But Mark came in and got the win
back for the Tigers. Mark finished his 9
year major league career with a 13-11 record and a 4.40 ERA.
Rip Sewell was cousin on Joe, Luke and Tommy Sewell and he
played one season with the Tigers in 1932.
He appeared in five games and did not record a decision. His major league debut came in a game against
a strong Philadelphia Athletics team.
The Tigers were behind 5-3 when Rip came in and in one inning he gave up
4 runs on 4 hits, including a homer by Jimmie Foxx and the game was blown
open. That was the extent of Rip’s 1932
seasons with the Tiges. After the 1932
season, Rip would not appear in the majors again until 1938 with the
Pirates. Rip pitched for the Pirates for
12 years and won 143 games with them including 21 in the war year of 1943.
Charlie Gehringer is one of my all time favorite
Tigers. He is in the HOF and always
makes the all time Tiger team as the greatest second baseman. I met him once and he had the biggest hands I
have ever seen. He had fingers the size
of bratwurst. He was called the
Mechanical Man because you wind him up and he hits .360 all season long
according to Lefty Gomez. He was known
for being very quiet. One of the best
Gehringer stories is supposed to have taken place at breakfast one day with
Chief Hogsett who was also a man on few words.
Supposedly Chief said “salt” when asking for Charlie to pass the salt
and Charlie was said to respond annoyed “you could have just pointed”. When our son Charlie was born my wife said
there absolutely would not be a Charles Ernest Ailsworth IV. So we had to come up with another name. I suggested Charles Henry Ailsworth. I thought it would be great to get two of my
favorite players in on his name in Charlie Gehringer and Hank Greenberg. We ended up with a Charles Lee for my wife’s
maiden name. But we call him Charlie,
for Charlie Gehringer.
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