July 28 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Ted Lepcio taught the Red Sox the power of a player scorned when they made him a Tiger.  Ted started his major league career in 1952 as a member of the Red Sox.  They played the Washington Senators in Washington on opening day and the tradition was back then that the president of the United States would throw out the ball from the stands.  Harry Truman tossed out the ball and several of the players scrambled for it, but Ted came up with it.  He returned it to Truman and the two chatted as pictures were taken.  In the seventh inning of the game Ted got a single and then stole second on a botched hit and run.  The Sox beat the Senators 3-0.  The next day the Washington papers talked about the three hot rookies for the Sox, Faye Throneberry (Marvelous Marv’s brother), Jimmy Piersall and Ted.  Ted and Jimmy were roommates and Ted was one of the few players to recognize Piersall had an illness and defended his roommate when his teammates wanted to cause him physical harm.  Ted played mainly second that first season but also some third.  He would continue bouncing around between second third and short hitting .247 and being an average fielder his entire time with the Sox until 1959 when the Sox sent him to Detroit with Dave Sisler for Billy Hoeft.  In his first game as a Tiger the Sox came to Detroit and Briggs Stadium.  Ted went 2 for 4 with walk and a grand slam to take the lead in the game and ultimately win it 8-3.  He went 5 for 12 in the three game series.  For 1959 Ted played against the Sox in 12 games and hit .357.  A bit better than the .247 he had hit with the Bosox.  Ted has his best season at the plate with the Tiges as utility infielder hitting .279 in 76 games.  But at the end of the season he was traded with Ken Walters and minor leaguer Alex Cosmidis for Chico Fernandez and Ray Semproch.  Ted did not respond well to his new surroundings and manager Eddie Sawyer.  Sawyer called Ted the worst major leaguer he had ever seen.  Big talk coming from a manager who had managed the Phils to last place finishes the two previous seasons.  Eddie skippered the first game of the season, a 9-4 loss to the Reds where Eddie left Robin Roberts in the game for four and third innings giving up 8 runs on 7 hits and 2 walks.  It was a poor decision by manager Eddie and it would be his last of his managerial career as he was fired after the game.  But Ted still had a career to play.  Ted hit only .227 for the last place Phils and at then spent one more season in the majors, 1961, where he split time with the White Sox and Twins.  His career average for 10 years was .245.

Ben Steiner

John Glaiser

Hank Perry

July 27 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Max Scherzer

Ray Boone

Benny Bengough

Charley Hall

Harry Kane

July 26 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Joaquin Benoit

Jody Reed

John Knox

Milt Welch

Jimmy Bloodworth

Larry Woodall

July 25 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Torey Lovullo

Jose Bautista

Mick Kelleher almost ended his major league playing career as a Tiger.  He started his major league career in 1972 with the Cardinals and was the stereotypical weak hitting shortstop.  In his first four seasons in the majors he was a .160 hitter for the Cards and Houston Astros.  He had a total of 4 doubles and 1 triple in 181 plate appearances with 5 RBI’s in that time frame.  He was then traded to the Chicago Cubs where for the next 5 seasons he had possibly his best time in the majors.  He hit .226 and drove in 53 of his career 65 RBI’s.  He was the Cubs starting shortstop his first year and then was a utility infielder after that.  The Tigers purchased Mick just prior to the 1981 season.  The Tiger media guide talked about how Mick had 4 hits in his first 5 games as a Tiger.  That was considered a highlight.  If you put that with the 16 plate appearances you get a .267 batting average.  Mick played 61 games for the Tiges in 1981 and hit .221 with 4 doubles and 6 RBI’s.  He returned to the Tigers for 1982 but only appeared in 2 games before he was sold to the California Angels.  In those two games he made 1 plate appearance and did not get a hit.  For his career he was a .213 hitter with an above average glove and range.  He never did hit a homer in 11 seasons in the majors.   In 2014 he is the Yankees infield coach.

Fred Scherman came out of the Ohio State University where the lefty spent one year before becoming a pro with the Minnesota Twins organization in 1964.  But the Tigers claimed him less than a year later.  He paid his dues in the minors until 1969 when he got into a total of 4 games for the Tiges that were fairly spread out.  In April he made his major league debut and did well with one exception.  He got his first batter, Joe LaHoud to ground out.  Then he got Mike Andres to fly out.  Then he gave up a homer to Carl Yastrzemski.  He did end the inning getting Tony Conigliaro to fly out.  He pitched one more innint giving up a triple to Dalton Jones but he did not score and Fred Did get George Scott to ground out and K’d Rico Petrocelli.   It was about two weeks later when he got in his next game.  There he gave up another homer to Harmon Killebrew in his only inning pitched.  It would be months before he got in another game and in that one he came in to pitch the top of the 13^th inning against the Oakland Athletics in a 3-3 tie with two outs.  He faced Terry Francona and got Francona to ground out to end the inning.  In the Tiges half of the inning Jim Northrup hit a homer with two outs to win the game and give Fred his first win in the majors by facing only one batter.  A couple of weeks later Fred pitched his last game of season.  4 games, 4 innings pitched, a 6.75 ERA and 1 win.  In 1970 Fred started to come into his own.  He appeared in 48 games and had a 3.23 ERA as strictly a bull pen guy.  In 1971 Fred had a great season.  He was in 69 games and recorded 20 saves, third in the league.  He was 11-6 and had his best ERA of 2.71.  He even made one start and made it count.  In a game between the division leading Baltimore Orioles and the second place Tigers he pitched a complete game and beat the Orioles 5-3 on 6 hits.  He was voted King Tiger of the Year for the season.  He came back in 1972 and was the lefty closer with 12 saves for the Tigers pennant winning team along with the righty closer Chuck Seelbach who had 14.  Fred was 7-3 in with a 3.64 ERA in 57 games.  The pair accounted for over 200 innings pitched and 16 wins while also posting a combined 26 saves.  In 1973 John Hiller came into his own and Fred only had 1 save.  Fred posted a 4.23 ERA where John Hiller had a phenomenal 1.44 ERA.  During that season Fed was caught up in a kind of bizarre situation.  Tiger skipper Billy Martin was complaining that opposing pitcher Gaylord Perry was throwing a spit ball.  The umps did not seem to care about Billy’s complaints.  So Billy ordered Fred to throw a spit ball.  As Fred complied as he said “I didn't know how to throw a spitball so I just spit on it and threw it.”   Three days late Billy was fired and at the end of the season the Tigers sent Fred to the Houston Astros with some cash for Jim Ray and Gary Sutherland.  Fred was an average bull pen pitcher on an average Astros team which was 81-81.   In 1975, after his ERA grew from 4.11 the year before to 4.96 the Astros sold Fred to the Montreal Expos.  He lasted one year and one month with the Expos and was better than he had been at Houston.  He was 6-5 with a 4.02 ERA and 1 save.  But he was released half way through the 1976 season with Montreal.  

Larry Sherry

Clutch hitting

Yesterday I saw Bill James on 60 minutes. I saw him a few years ago at a SABR convention. His presentation was filled to the brim with convention attendees. It was baseballs version of the sermon on the mount. All that was missing was a box of self filling crackerjack. I had looked at the presentation schedule long before and knew he was going to speak. So I went a picked up a first edition of his Historical Baseball Abstract. After his presentation I had him sign the book. Kinda like my own miracle.

Anyway, I think Bill James is great and most the time way over my head on his statistical analysis. However, I have one disagreement with him. He says clutch hitting doesn’t exist. This has been a debate in SABR journals for years now with folks going back and forth. As an athlete I know all people focus more or perform better at certain points in competition. This may not sound like much but I know in high school cross country I was terrible in the clutch. Yet I was the number one runner on the team. I know that I choked in half the league meets and the state championship. I thought too much about it and blew it. At non league meets I felt no pressure and did great. Now when I went to college I played rugby and nothing was expected of me. Because nothing was expected of me I felt I did pretty good at all games and especially against Norte Dame. I thought I had a really good game. I was focused more on that game and still recall that game more so then any other game I played.

Here is another story. I had a season ticket package to Fenway park in the early 90’s. I always felt that if the game was on the line I would want Dwight Evans to be at the plate, not batting champ Wade Boggs. Why did I think this? Bill James will tell you I felt this for no reason other then my own preference of a hunch. But I think it was due to months watching the two so that my head was telling me logically what I was not thinking in terms of math.

What does this tell us so far? Nothing. It is pure anecdote. However, these things tell me that clutch play exists.

So how do you grade it? How can you put a number to it or rank on it? I don’t know how to do it for pitchers but for hitters I think it is simple. In many of the SABR journal arguments the problem everyone runs into is that the number of clutch situations is so limited that the sample size is not significant. So how do you increase the sample size? Change your definition. You don’t have to have the game on the line. Open it up to having runners on base in front of you and less then two outs. What are the possible outcomes?

1. You can get drive the runner in and get an RBI.
2. You can strike out or pop up or ground out or even walk and nothing happens to the runner. In betting terms, a push.
3. You can ground into a double play. Absolutely the worst thing possible. Not only are you out but you took out the base runner as well.

So take the number of times player grounds into a double play and divide that by their RBI’s. I went through and ranked many of the HOFers and included Boggs and Evens and here is what I got..





Low and behold! You get a lot of the guys everyone always calls great hitters like Mantle and Bonds and Morgan and Stargell and Schmidt at the top. Guys who do not have the reputations of great players are towards the bottom like Mazeroski, Aparicio, and……Boggs. Where is Dwight Evans? He has a ratio of .164 to Boggs .233.

How about last years AL RBI leaders?




Where do you think they rank?

Dave Bergman's shoes

A few years ago I saw someone selling a pair of Dave Bergman’s shoes on Ebay. The seller wanted $7 for the minimum bid. I looked at the shoes and looked at all the photos I could find of Dave Bergman and found that the shoes did match what I saw Dave Bergman wearing, Mizuno. I thought for $7 even if they were not legit I was not out that much money and they would still look cool even if they weren’t his. So I bid and won them for the minimum.

I went and picked the shoes up from the seller who was local. I talked to him and asked him the story behind the shoes. He said he had worked the summer for the local school district. The district had several boxes of Dave Bergman’s shoes that he had donated to the school. However, they were now throwing them out as metal spikes were no longer allowed in high school. Supposedly they told the seller that he could take them if he wanted as otherwise they were going in the trash. This sounded legit to me as I knew that Dave Bergman lived in the area.

The seller then told me he had seven pairs of the shoes. He was disappointed that no one else bid and offered them all to me for $7 a pair. He had pairs of both home black and white, and away black and orange. Most of them were still in boxes. I collect Tigers things as a Tiger fan and I knew a few others who I thought would like the shoes as well. So I agreed and took all the shoes home with me.

Very shortly after this Dave Bergman was signing at a card show. I was giving pairs of both home and away shoes to my brother and also pairs of home and away to a writer friend of mine. My brother joined me in going to the card show to get the shoes signed. I got in line to get a bat and cap of Dave Bergman’s that I have and the shoes signed. My bother looked around the show a bit before getting in line a few people behind me.

When it got to my turn I put the shoes out in front of Mr. Bergman. He looked at them and asked me where I got them. I told him the story. He was not happy. He said “these were supposed to be used by the boys!” He put the pen up the shoe and then paused and said “I shouldn’t even sign these.” Then he put the pen up to the shoe again and again paused and said “I’m going to call the school and find out what they are doing.” Then he put the pen up to the shoe said “I’ll sign them but I’m not signing any other shoes ever again after these!”

Now I may not know everything about my brother I do know that he would be a bit disappointed if I got my shoes signed and he didn’t get his signed. I figured I should do something. So I brilliantly sprang into action and said “…uhhh,….my brother is behind me in line and …he has some shoes too….”

My brilliance and articulation was too much for Mr. Bergman. He caved and said “well his will be the last shoes I ever sign!” I apologized and gathered all my items and stepped aside and waited for my brother feeling very sheepish.

As a collector I have always tried to be very polite to the players as I feel as fans we are more often then not interfering with their personal lives. No matter how unobtrusive we try to be we fans are still invading their privacy or their work space. Only at card signings do I feel a player is now obligated to be polite to us fans.

But clearly I had crossed a line by having shoes that he intended to give to under privileged kids. This really made me feel more then just an intruder. I felt like thief. So I wrote a letter to Mr. Bergman. I wrote:

Dear Mr. Bergman,

I am the Tiger fan who had you sign the shoes at this past weekends’ show. I would like to again apologize for obviously for obviously surprising you with the shoes. After thinking about it I feel as if they are stolen property and the possessor of stolen property is still not the owner. I believe the shoes are obviously more yours than mine.

I would not feel comfortable offering the shoes that have already been spoken for by my friends. I don’t think it is fair that I take back what has already gone into their collections. However, I would like to offer you the shoes that I had intended to keep for myself. I would send them to you and you could either give them to a charity for auction or to your friends or keep them for yourself. All I would ask in return is that if you give them to a charity for auction please let me know as I would like to try and buy them back for my own collection.

Please let me know and I will send them to you right away.

Sincerely,
Chuck

A few days later I received the following letter:

Dear Chuck,

Thanks so much for caring! I was a little surprised by seeing the shoes, but after you explained I didn’t have problem with what took place. I failed to realize that high school players couldn’t wear spikes.

Please feel free to keep the shoes that rightfully belong to you. It is quality people like you that allows me to keep the faith in the religious memorabilia collectors!

Dave Bergman

So instead of loosing the shoes I now have a cool story and a letter of authenticity signed by Mr. Bergman himself!!

Phil Masi has been released from his entombment.

I did it. I bought my first professionally graded card for my collection. It was #19 Phil Masi from the 1951 Topps blue back set. It was vg-ex 4. It is a nice looking card. It has a mild crease in it but that is it. I didn’t think cards in that range would have a crease but that is ok. It must be ok, the graders said so. It is still a nice card and I will keep it as I tinker with the set. Phil was the starting catcher for the White Sox that year. He caught 85 games for the southsiders in 1951. It was at the twilight of his career. Phil was born in Chicago so I would think he was happy to be winding down his career back home. He would only appear in 30 more games for the Sox in 1952 and then his major league playing career would be over. It had been a couple years since his last All-Star appearance. Phil was selected to the squad 4 years in a row from 1945-48 while playing for the Braves. Phil died in Mt. Prospect IL in 1990. I didn’t think Phil deserved to be slabbed. He deserved better. So I released Phil from his plastic entombment. I think I heard a sigh when I took him out. Phil’s birthday is January 6. Happy birthday Phil.