Motor City Bengals All-Time Detroit Tigers Team: Manager Sparky Anderson

Oct 16, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; View outside of Comerica Park as fans leave during the eighth inning in game four of the American League Championship Series baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox. Mandatory Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

Today we wrap up our entries into Motor City Bengals All-Time Detroit Tigers team. Last week, we wrapped up the players (view the slideshow to read all of our entries on the team laid out below), but where would we be without a competent manager to lead this team of Hall-of-Famers, should-be Hall-of-Famers, and future Hall-of-Famers?

None other than a Hall-of-Fame manager: George “Sparky” Anderson.

1B: Hank Greenberg

2B Charlie Gehringer

SS: Alan Trammell

3B: Miguel Cabrera

C: Bill Freehan

LF: Willie Horton

CF: Ty Cobb

RF: Al Kaline

SP: Justin Verlander

RP: Aurelio Lopez

Closer: Willie Hernandez

DH: Victor Martinez

Bench: Gates Brown

Born in South Dakota in 1934, George Anderson’s baseball skills took him to the minor leagues, but his lack of skills kept him mostly stranded there. It was during time spent with a AA team in the Texas League in 1955, that the nickname “Sparky” was given to him by a radio announcer who used it to describe his feisty play. The name stuck the rest of his life, but for close friends—Sparky was always called “George.”

Sparky did manage to play one season at the big league level, 1959, but he hit just .218 in 152 games and never appeared as a player in the majors again. After four more years in the minors, Jack Kent Cooke (who would later own the NFL’s Washington Redskins) recognized that his player’s skills did not translate to playing, but understood he exhibited strong leadership traits and made him the manager of his AAA team in Toronto in 1964.

After time in the minors as manager and on big league clubs as a coach, the Cincinnati Reds came calling in 1970. The Big Red Machine under Anderson’s watch began to fuel up in 1972. They were annually in the postseason, becoming World Series champions in 1975, repeating in ’76. Incredibly, when the Reds failed to qualify for the postseason in 1977 and ’78, Sparky was fired.

He would not be unemployed for long.

The Detroit Tigers started their 1979 season with Les Moss at the helm, but lurking in the weeds was Sparky Anderson. The Tigers had a young nucleus of players on the team or in the high minors that seemed on the cusp—much like the Reds a decade before.

Sparky came aboard in June 1979 and promised a pennant within five years. They competed in 1983, but finished second to Baltimore in the AL East before putting everything together in 1984. The Tigers began the year with nine straight wins and an incredible 35-5 start, which has never been approached to start a season since.

The Tigers breezed through the postseason, losing only once in two rounds, and clinched the franchise’s fourth, and most recent, World Series title. In the process, Sparky became the first manager to win a World Series in both leagues and delivered on his five-year promise.

Like Sparky’s prior team, the Tigers aged relatively quickly and rapidly fell back to the pack in 1985 and 1986. They nabbed a divisional title in 1987, but were quickly ousted from the playoffs by the Minnesota Twins.

His teams never seriously contended after that. The Tigers held first place in the AL East for several months in 1993, but were ultimately overtaken by the eventual World Champion Toronto Blue Jays.

With baseball coming back after a strike that wiped out half of the 1994 regular season, playoffs, and World Series—Anderson refused to manager a group of replacement players put together by the owners in an attempt to bust the union in Spring Training 1995. Eventually sides agreed to end the strike and regular players and Sparky returned.

But the damage was done. New Tigers’ owner Mike Illitch was said to have been livid with Sparky for that refusal. When Sparky stepped away from the Tigers after the 1995 season, many thought the 61-year-old would get another opportunity to manage, likely for the Angels who were near his hometown in California, but that chance never came.

Some claim that Sparky had been blackballed from managing by owners angry he turned on them during the strike.

The contentiousness between Sparky and the Tigers never seemed to abate during his lifetime. He rarely came back to Detroit—even missing out on the final game at Tiger Stadium in 1999 and entered the Hall-of-Fame as a member of the Cincinnati Reds in 2000, although he stated many times while in Detroit that he’d enter as a Tiger.

It wasn’t until after Sparky’s death in 2010 that the franchise finally retired his number 11.

Some knock Sparky’s legacy with Detroit because he only won one World Series and had only two postseason appearances in 17 seasons with the club. It’s worth noting that on the four World Series champions the Tigers have had in their history (’35, ’45, ’68 and ’84) each had a different manager and only Mickey Cochrane won a World Series and took the team to the postseason another year (World Series loss in ’34).

Ultimately, Sparky edged Jim Leyland by one vote for franchise best manager. Although Jim never brought a World Championship to Detroit, fans who remember what this team was prior to his arrival will be forever thankful for the role he played.

Honorable mention goes to Cochrane and Mayo Smith.

Take one final spin through the All-Time Detroit Tigers team by viewing the slideshow. Did we miss anyone? Let us know!

Oct 7, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers designated hitter

(41) celebrates after scoring in the fourth inning against the Oakland Athletics in game three of the American League divisional series playoff baseball game at Comerica Park. Oakland won 6-3. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

We’re nearing the finish line for Motor City Bengals All-Time Detroit Tigers team. This installment will be the last to feature a player (or in this case, players). Next week, in the final installment, we’ll name the All-Time Detroit Tigers manager.

We decided to combine two positions for this edition of the all-time team simply because a player that comes in during late innings to add a bit of pop to the lineup is a somewhat antiquated notion, at least where it concerns the American League and the DH.

So who is the Tigers All-Time designated hitter?

Victor Martinez

Tigers fans knew that when the Cleveland Indians came to Comerica Park, Victor Martinez was going to light them up. V-Mart signed as an amateur free agent with the Tribe in 1996, and made his major league debut in 2002, playing in a dozen games with a .281 average.

It wasn’t until 2004 that V-Mart ascended to full-time status in Cleveland as their starting catcher. His first full season saw him hit .283 with 23 homers and 98 RBIs and earn the first of four All-Star appearances.

Martinez was a fan favorite in Cleveland until being dealt to the Boston Red Sox near the trading deadline of 2009. He stayed in Boston for the 2010 season, but jumped to the Detroit Tigers before 2011.

The Tigers needed a DH. Through most of the DH-era, the Tigers lacked a dedicated DH who was productive. Usually the franchise used the position as a way to give older guys a rest out of the field. In 2010, the DH position was one of the weakest hitting positions in the entire lineup.

Martinez made an immediate impact, hitting .330 and driving in over 100 runs. He helped turn an underachieving team into a division winner by 15 games.

With expectations high for 2012, Tigers fans received a cruel blow when it was announced that Martinez tore his anterior cruciate ligament during the off-season. The potential loss of V-Mart caused the Tigers to offer Prince Fielder a contract he couldn’t refuse.

V-Mart missed the entire season and came back with a tremendous amount of rust through the first couple months of 2013, but went on a tear the rest of the season, ultimately finishing with a .301 average.

In 11 years, Victor, who has never played in a World Series, has a .303 career average with 1,480 hits, 157 homers, and 824 RBIs. He is a free agent after this season.

Gates Brown

In the years before the DH, Gates Brown (despite a .257 average) served the role of a guy that could sit on the bench for seven or eight innings, and then come in and get the key hit the Tigers needed.

His versatility endeared him to the Tigers and their fans, having played outfield, first base, and near the end of his career, DH.

Brown’s biggest asset was that of a pinch hitter. Over his career (which spanned from 1963 to 1975—all with Detroit), he notched 107 pinch hits, including 16 homers. His career defining moment may have come during the 1968 World Series where he hit .450.

Gator, as he was known by Detroit faithful, reformed his life after spending time in the Ohio State Reformatory for burglary. It was there that a prison guard encouraged the inmate to try baseball, and the rest is history.

Brown passed away last September at the age of 74.

Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

Last week, we looked at the All-Time Detroit Tigers reliever. So who is Aurelio Rodriguez setting up on the Motor City Bengals’ team for the ages? The honor of closer goes to none other than Guillermo “Willie” Hernandez.

Hernandez signed as a free agent with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1973, but didn’t break into the majors until 1977 with the Chicago Cubs. He had success in middle relief for Chicago, posting a 16-9 record with 3.03 ERA that year, and a little higher, but still respectable 3.77 ERA in 1978. Trying to capitalize on his time in the bullpen, the Cubs tried Willie as a starter and it failed spectacularly to the tune of a 1-9 record with an ERA north of 4 ½.

A return to the pen lifted Hernandez back to respectability and he was traded mid-year to the Phillies in 1983. That year the Phillies made the World Series, where Willie pitched in three World Series games, spanning four innings, and was perfect aside from a walk.

I was five years old when the Tigers shipped Glenn Wilson and John Wockenfuss to the Phillies for Hernandez and Dave Bergman, so I don’t really know what fans thought they were getting in Willie Hernandez. The Tigers were a team on the cusp in 1983 and were adding veteran parts like Hernandez and Darrell Evans (still my all-time favorite Tiger) in hopes it would push them over the top in ‘84.

Probably not many people expected Detroit to start 35-5, win 104 games, and claim the franchise’s fourth World Championship, but probably no one expected the type of season that Willie had.

Keep in mind, these were the days of two and three inning saves and Hernandez thrived. He appeared in 80 games—many in which a save was not on the line, saving 32, allowing just five homers in 140 innings. 140 innings! To put it in perspective to today’s closer—in Jose Valverde’s magical season of 2011 when he went 49-for-49 in save opportunities, he threw just 72.1 innings.

In those 140 innings, he struck out 112, blew only one save, and posted an ERA of 1.92. It was just a stunning season for a slightly above average pitcher to that point. He appeared in six games in the 1984 World Series and was fittingly on the mound to record the final out of Game 5 to clinch the Tigers most recent World Championship. At the time, he became one of only two relievers to win the MVP award (Dennis Eckersley became the fourth about a decade later).  He also, of course, won the Cy Young.

He remained fairly steady for the Tigers through 1986, but began to decline sharply in 1987 and beyond. Willie ultimately lost his job to a new closer, Mike Henneman, and was cut in August 1989. Though he would try a few comebacks, he’d never pitch in the majors again.

While he had a really small window, that window was historical. Not many relievers came out of nowhere to have a season like that and then quickly fade back into obscurity. While some MCB staffers tabbed Henneman, John Hiller, and Todd Jones as franchise best closers, ultimately the majority picked Willie.

After all, none of those other guys helped bring a World Series to Detroit.

Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

When choosing our Motor City Bengals All-Time Detroit Tigers team, we made a distinction between relief pitcher and closer. Next week, we’ll choose our all-time closer, but this week we look at the Tigers all-time relief pitcher/non-closer.

And that honor belongs to Aurelio Alejandro Lopez Rios–or more simply Aurelio Lopez.

To be fair, Lopez did technically close games from time-to-time, in fact some years he served as the Tigers’ primary closer. Back when Senior Smoke pitched, the closer was not as defined and he usually went two to three innings, instead of today’s one inning. Lopez was the set-up man for Willie Hernandez during the 1984 season, posting a 10-1 record with 14 saves 2.94 ERA.

Lopez broke into the major leagues with the Kansas City Royals in 1974, but left America for his native Mexico where he pitched until the St. Louis Cardinals purchased his contract in 1978. He spent a rather nondescript year with the Cardinals before being traded to the Tigers prior to the 1979 season.

Lopez found himself in those early years in Detroit. He posted double-digit wins and 21 saves in both 1979 and 1980. During Spring Training 1982, he suffered shoulder problems and spent most of the season in the Tigers’ AAA affiliate in Evansville, Indiana. Not long after receiving a September call-up, Lopez decided to retire and move back to Mexico, but reversed course before the 1983 season.

He was back in top form in ’83, posting a 2.81 ERA with 18 saves.  After a terrific regular season, Lopez pitched six scoreless innings over three games in the ALCS and World Series.

He regressed in 1985 (as did most of the Tigers who regressed a lot after winning 104 games and the World Series in ’84), and was granted free agency. Lopez finished his major league career with two years in Houston in 1986 and 1987.

Sadly, this member of the All-Time Detroit Tigers team met his demise at an early age in a car accident on his 44th birthday.

Honorable mention for this position goes to John Hiller and Harry Covelski.

October 10, 2013; Oakland, CA, USA; Detroit Tigers starting pitcher

(35) delivers a pitch during the fifth inning in game five of the American League divisional series playoff baseball game against the Oakland Athletics at O.co Coliseum. The Tigers defeated the Athletics 3-0. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

The Detroit Tigers have had some great starting pitchers over the years, but when you think that the team will be entering its 113th year of baseball in 2014, they really haven’t had that many terrific pitchers. Perhaps that had to do with playing a majority of their games in the hitter-friendly ballpark that was Tiger Stadium, and all its previous incarnations.

Still, there were quite a few players to choose from, and while it was a very close vote, ultimately the staff of Motor City Bengals chose the team’s current ace, Justin Verlander, to take the hill for its All-Time Detroit Tigers team.

Keep in mind that when putting this All-Time team together, we wanted it to represent the exact team we’d throw out there for one game for the ages–perhaps a game played on the Field of Dreams.

So knowing that we had one pitcher we’d want for that one important game, we picked Justin Brooks Verlander. The Tigers picked Justin in the 2004 MLB Draft and after a prolonged and somewhat contentious contract negotiation period, signed the second overall pick in October.  It didn’t take him long to reach the majors when he started a pair of games in July 2005, getting rocked for 9 earned runs over 11 innings. Nonetheless he dominated in the minor leagues to the tune of a 1.29 ERA with 136 strikeouts over 118 innings.

2005 would be his one and only season in the minors. Not many expected Verlander to make the team for Opening Day 2006, but he did just that. The rookie paid the team back for their faith in him by winning 17 games, helping the team make the postseason for the first time in 18 years, starting Game 1 of the World Series, and winning the Rookie of the Year.

Verlander suffered no sophomore slump in 2007, improving his record from 17-9 to 18-6, and earning his first of six All-Star appearances. On June 12, 2007 against the Milwaukee Brewers, he threw the franchise’s first no-hitter since Jack Morris in 1984 and first Tigers’ no-hitter in Detroit since Virgil Trucks in 1952.

Prior to the 2008 season, the Tigers made a blockbuster trade that brought in Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis. Many predicted the Tigers to waltz through the American League and win the World Series. The team took a step back and finished in last place, and so did Verlander, going 11-17 with a 4.84 ERA.

Starting in 2009, Verlander began establishing himself as one of the top pitchers in baseball. In a year for the ages, Verlander won the Cy Young and MVP award (the first pitcher to win the award since Dennis Eckersley in 1992) when he won 24 games and posted a 2.40 ERA in 2011. At one point that season, he won 12-straight decisions and helped the Tigers win their first division title since 1987.

JV was very good in 2012, finishing second in the Cy Young voting. After struggling in the postseason in the earlier part of his career, Verlander has really put it together, allowing no more than one run in six of his last seven playoff starts. Justin has become public enemy number one in Oakland as he shut the Athletics out in two winner-take-all ALDS Game 5 starts (2012, 2013)–each on the road.

Verlander had a sub-par 2013 regular season, but atoned for it big time by allowing just one run in 23 innings in the postseason. But he also had a bad year in 2008 and recovered very nicely in 2009.

Verlander’s biggest challenger for this honor was Hal Newhouser. “Prince Hal” is the only Detroit Tiger pitcher in the Hall-of-Fame (while a few others in the Hall wore a Tigers uniform, such as Jim Bunning, the bulk of their HOF career was spent elsewhere). Newhouser went 207-150 in his 17-year major league career (15 in Detroit).

So, if we were using a rotation, we’d use Verlander, Newhouser, Morris, Mickey Lolich, and Denny McLain.

Who’d we miss?

and

. Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports

No Detroit Tigers historical list could ever be complete without “Mr. Tiger.” With all apologies to Harry Heilmann, who was another Tigers’ great in right field–there are perhaps just two faces on the Tigers’ Mt. Rushmore–Ty Cobb and Al Kaline.

Albert William “Al” Kaline was one of the few greats of Major League Baseball that never played an inning in the minor leagues. The boyish Kaline made his major league debut on June 25, 1953, just weeks after graduating from Baltimore’s Southern High School.

There are certain numbers that you can blurt out to Detroit sports fans and they’ll immediately utter a name back to you. Number 9–Gordie Howe. Number 20? Barry Sanders. Number 11, Isiah Thomas. Number 19–“The Captain.” It’s perhaps hard to believe, but Number 6 wore Number 25 during his first half-season in Detroit before switching to #6 for the rest of his 22-year career.

Al really came into his own in 1955, posting a league leading 200 hits and .340 average, finishing second to Yogi Berra for the AL MVP. This was also the season in which Kaline began his long 13-year All-Star streak (18 appearances in all).

The Tigers were a lousy franchise during the 1950’s, but Kaline kept fans coming to Briggs Stadium. Not only did he hit for power and average, he rarely struck out. In fact during his early days, Ted Williams had this to say about Kaline:

In my book, he’s the greatest right-handed hitter in the league. There’s no telling how far the kid could go.

As great as he was at the plate, he may have been even better defensively. A ten-time Gold Glove winner, Al Kaline had one of the best arms of any right fielder in baseball history. Not only was he accurate with his throw, he had a precise system for positioning himself properly to get the most out of his cannon arm.

Amazingly, Tigers’ fans did not always think of “Mr. Tiger” so highly. I have an old Sports Illustrated from Tiger Stadium’s last year that reprinted an article from 1964 describing how Al Kaline had been struggling, and how it was grating on Detroit fans and media.

…Al Kaline, the best all around ballplayer the Tigers have had since [sic] Charley Gehringer, is finding himself disliked. Not long ago he stepped to the plate in a home game to the accompaniment of a Shostakovich symphony of boos and catcalls…   ….While these hostilities were being ventilated, a kindly and gifted sportswriter, long addicted to the wonders of the Tigers and their star rightfielder, was stomping about the windswept press box announcing to all who would listen, ‘As far as I’m concerned, Al Kaline can go take a jump. I’ve had 10 years of Al Kaline and that’s enough!’ -Jack Olsen, Sports Illustrated, May 11, 1964

Yikes, our Tiger fan ancestors were dicks! Keep in mind that in 1964, Kaline had just two sub .300 seasons after he broke out in 1955–and one of those seasons, 1957, he finished at .295! For the record, Kaline finished 1964 at .293 with 17 homers–a season many players today would kill for. I guess it’s true when it’s said that you never appreciate what you have until it’s gone.

Though Al’s average would stay mostly under .300 the rest of his career, he was always great in right field. Kaline had a lot of injuries, which really hampered his playing time–never playing a full 154- or 162-game season. One of those seasons was 1968 when he missed the final two months of the regular season because of a broken arm.

Mayo Smith famously made room for the veteran in right field during the World Series by moving Mickey Stanley to shortstop, and benching light-hitting Ray Oyler. While many of the Tigers struggled at the plate, Kaline hit .379 and had a key bases-loaded single in Game 5 with the Tigers trailing 3 games to 1. The hit drove in two runs to turn a 3-2 deficit until a 4-3 lead Detroit would never relinquish. They went on to win the next two games in St. Louis to win it all.

On Sept. 24, 1974, just about a week before his final game, Al reached the 3,000-hit plateau (the last Tiger to do so) in his hometown of Baltimore. He finished with 3,007 hits, a .297 average, 399 homers, and 1,583 RBIs. Al Kaline was elected to the Hall-of-Fame on his first ballot with 88.3 percent of the vote in 1980 and was the first Tiger to have his number retired by the franchise. As great of a player as he was, imagine if he could have stayed healthy.

Of course Al’s story didn’t end there. For children of the 1980’s-90’s who never saw Al play, he was a part of our childhood along with George Kell. The duo called Tigers’ games on Channel 4 for many, many years. While I enjoy Mario and Rod on Fox Sports Detroit–there was only one Tigers’ TV pairing for me, and that was George and Al.

Today, the 79-year-old  Mr. Tiger is as much a staple of Comerica Park as a hot dog. Motor City Bengals salutes our all-time Detroit Tigers right fielder!

Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

“Ty Cobb wanted to play, but none of us could stand the son-of-a-bitch when we were alive, so we told him to stick it!” –Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams”

We’ve had several no-brainers when it came to picking players on our All-Time Detroit Tigers team, and Ty Cobb was certainly a no-brainer. He is an easy unanimous choice for our all-time best Detroit Tigers centerfielder.

One of the best players in the history of the game, and easily the game’s premier player before Babe Ruth came along, Ty Cobb has left quite an uneasy legacy.

In the iconic baseball movie “Field of Dreams,” the above sentiment was echoed in the fictional baseball world where the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson, a man thrown out of baseball for fixing a World Series, didn’t deem Cobb worthy of his companionship.

“The Georgia Peach” was apparently an ironic nickname for Cobb, who came from a hard upbringing which saw his father accidentally gunned down by his mother. He was accused of being a vehement racist, beat up a black groundskeeper, and choked the man’s wife when she attempted to intervene.

The best moments of Cobb’s troubled life came on the baseball diamond. In his second full year in baseball, he batted a league-leading .350. In 1911 and 1912, he hit over .400 and never hit below .334 the rest of his time in Detroit, including his third .400 plus season late in his career (1922). He won the Triple Crown in 1909 and was named the AL MVP (in a forerunner to the award that would begin to be annually presented in the 1930’s).

Cobb wasn’t particularly liked by his teammates, and opponents despised his aggressive play on the field which included the dreaded spikes-first slide. In later years, Cobb served as player-manager for the Tigers before deciding to retire in 1926. The Philadelphia Athletics coaxed him back and he shed his management responsibilities to focus on playing. He retired one final time in 1928 after two very good years in Philly.

Cobb was the hits leader with 4,191 for many decades until Pete Rose surpassed him in 1985. He still holds the highest career batting average in baseball history at .366, and was a charter member of the Baseball Hall-of-Fame in 1936.

Some say Cobb mellowed out a bit later in life, though Al Stump’s biography of the legend spoke differently. The stories in that book, the basis for the 1994 movie “Cobb” with Tommy Lee Jones as the titular anti-hero, may have been exaggerated.

Cobb’s racism seemed to ease later in life as he often spoke in favor of baseball dropping its ban against African-Americans, saying:

Let me say also that no white man has the right to be less of a gentleman than a colored man. In my book that goes not only for baseball, but all walks of life.

While his character will always be called into question, the fact that he is a Tigers’ legend on the diamond is not.

Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Last week we touched on some 1968 nostalgia by naming Bill Freehan as our all-time Tigers’ catcher, and this week we continue it by naming our all-time Tigers’ left fielder, Willie Horton.

Willie Wattison Horton made his major league debut for the Tigers in 1963 and played sparingly before coming up full-time in 1965. It was a break-out rookie campaign for Horton, who earned the first of four All-Star appearances, slammed 29 homers (after just two in 1963-64), 104 RBIs and hit a respectable .273.

One of the enduring stories of Horton came on July 23, 1967. On what would become an infamous chapter in the history of the city of Detroit, the Tigers had just split a double-header with the New York Yankees at Tiger Stadium while hostilities were boiling over elsewhere in the city. Horton went to the center of the riot area, stood on a car in full uniform, and pleaded for order that never came. Still, his passion for the city created an undying bond between Tigers’ fans and Willie.

His career year came in 1968 when he hit 36 homers. More importantly, Horton hit .304 with a home run in the World Series against St. Louis. Last week, we described Freehan’s career moment coming in Game 5 with the Tigers’ backs against the wall. This was also a moment for the ages for Horton.

With the Tigers facing elimination at Tiger Stadium in Game 5, perhaps Freehan’s signature moment occurred. St. Louis was up by a run in the fifth inning when Lou Brock tried to score from second on a single to left. Willie Horton gunned the ball into the catcher, who had the foresight to remember the scouting report on Brock which said he rarely slid into home. Freehan stuck his left leg out and held the ball in a collision, thus preventing the Cardinals from going up by two runs.

It was the turning point of the series as the Tigers went on to win that game and the next two in St. Louis. If Horton’s throw went awry, the series may not have gone back to Busch Stadium. Willie listed this as easily the best moment of his career.

Horton had several productive years post-’68. He was known more for his bat than his glove, which was a reason he became one of the first successful designated hitters. He was named the AL’s Outstanding DH in 1975 after hitting 25 homers and 92 RBIs for a terrible Tigers team.

After a year that saw offensive numbers drop across the board, Detroit traded Horton to Texas. He spent the rest of his career meandering around the American League with stops in Cleveland, Oakland, and Toronto before finishing in Seattle. He picked up the AL Outstanding DH award again, for the Mariners in 1979, and retired following the 1980 season.

Willie Horton finished with 1,993 hits, a .273 average, 873 runs, and 1,163 RBIs. At the time of his retirement, his 325 homers put him sixth in AL history.

The Tigers retired his #23, and debuted his statue, in a ceremony at Comerica Park on July 15, 2000. While his numbers don’t make him Hall-of-Fame worthy and perhaps make his number retirement debatable, his acts on and off the field in 1967-68 endeared him to fans of that era, and earned him a spot on Motor City Bengals’ All-Time Detroit Tigers team.

Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

Another unappreciated legend has been named to the Motor City Bengals All-Time Detroit Tigers team in the form of catcher Bill Freehan. One of the best catchers of the 1960’s, Freehan doesn’t get much mention nationally these days, but Tigers’ fans whose roots go back to the 1960’s will always remember Freehan fondly.

This doesn’t mean the vote between MCB staffers was not a close one. In fact, Freehan edged a Detroit Hall-of-Famer, Mickey Cochrane, by just one vote for the honor. Lance Parrish and Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez also received mentions.

William Ashley Freehan was a native Detroiter, the only member of the MCB All-Time Team to be born in the city he played for and one of two players (Charlie Gehringer) to be born in Michigan. He played his college ball at the University of Michigan, setting the all-time Big Ten batting mark of .585 in 1961. He actually made a brief appearance for the Tigers that same season, but bowed out of the majors until returning full-time in 1963.

He split time behind the plate with Gus Triandos that first full season, but grabbed the starting job in 1964, hitting .300 with 18 homers and 80 RBIs. That year began a streak of 10 straight All-Star appearances which included seven starts. He began another streak the following year, 1965, when he collected the first of four straight Gold Glove awards.

Bill had an accurate canon behind home, throwing out a league-leading 53 percent of would-be stealers in 1964. While that exceptionally high number would plateau in later seasons, he would never dip below 32 percent in that category the rest of his career, save for his last year when he saw limited action.

Freehan’s average dipped for a few years, but as the Tigers moved back into contention in the mid-1960’s, his average and home run production increased. He placed second in the MVP voting in 1968, finishing behind teammate and 31-game winner Denny McLain.

In the Year of the Pitcher, its not a surprise that Freehan and his teammates struggled in the World Series against St. Louis Cardinals’ pitching, led by NL MVP and Cy Young winner Bob Gibson. So while Freehan’s contribution to the Tigers’ championship didn’t come at the plate (hitting just .083), it certainly came behind it.

With the Tigers facing elimination at Tiger Stadium in Game 5, perhaps Freehan’s signature moment occurred. St. Louis was up by a run in the fifth inning when Lou Brock tried to score from second on a single to left. Willie Horton gunned the ball into the catcher, who had the foresight to remember the scouting report on Brock which said he rarely slid into home. Freehan stuck his left leg out and held the ball in a collision, thus preventing the Cardinals from going up by two runs.

The rest was history. The Tigers went on to win that game and the next two in St. Louis to capture the franchise’s third championship. Had Freehan missed the tag or prepared for Brock to slide, the series may have never gone back to Busch Stadium.

All told, Freehan was known more for his glove than bat, yet when he retired in 1976 he had 200 home runs and 2,502 total bases, placing him behind just Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey for American League catchers (both of whom are in the Hall-of-Fame). He held the highest career fielding percentage of .9933 until 2002 and held the record for putouts (9,941) until 1988.

A strong case can be made for Freehan’s Hall-of-Fame candidacy. He ranks 14th among catchers in JAWS. Of the top 10 players for that statistic, only three aren’t in the Hall. Mike Piazza (#5) will eventually get in and you’d think Rodriguez (#3) would also get in, but you never know with Pudge’s PED allegations. Nonetheless, Freehan’s placement puts him ahead of Hall-of-Fame catchers Buck Ewing, Roy Campanella, and several others.

Freehan, who went on to be the head baseball coach at U-M, and had a brief run as a color guy for Tigers’ games on PASS cable, has fallen out of the limelight in recent years. Sadly, this is because the 72-year old is reportedly battling Alzheimer’s disease.

Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

More than likely our All-Time Detroit Tigers third baseman will spend just two years at the position, but how could we not name Miguel Cabrera to Motor City Bengals’ All-Time Detroit Tigers team?

Cabrera will shift back to first base in 2014 after spending two seasons at the hot corner during Prince Fielder‘s brief tenure in Detroit. Certainly Miggy wasn’t the best defensive third basemen around, and the strain of the position may have hampered any possible recovery from various injuries down the stretch in 2013, but how can you knock those two years at third which included two MVP awards and the first Triple Crown in 45 years?

Haling from Venezuela, 20-year-old Cabrera burst on the scene with the Florida Marlins in 2003–making the jump all the way from Double-A. He would never return to the minors and instead would land in the clean-up spot for the soon-to-be World Champion Marlins. He helped to further the misery of the Chicago Cubs by pounding out three homers in the NLCS.

In 2005, Miggy hit over .300 for the first time (.323) and hit 33 homers for the second straight season. He was an NL All-Star from 2004 to 2007.

In one of the more lopsided trades in baseball history, the Florida Marlins, perhaps worried that Cabrera would command too much in future income, began shopping him around baseball. Many were interested, but the Detroit Tigers won the sweepstakes by shipping Andrew Miller, Dallas Trahern, Eulogio De La Cruz, Burke Badenhop, Cameron Maybin and Mike Rabelo to Florida for Miggy and Dontrelle Willis. Before the start of the 2008 season, the Tigers agreed to an eight-year, $152.3 million contract.

Miggy didn’t miss a beat changing leagues. While his average dipped below .300 for the first time in four seasons, he still managed to hit 27 homers and drive in 127. The following year began his current streak of .300 seasons, and nearly each season has seen that average rise.

He won the Triple Crown in 2012 with numbers of .330, 44 homers and 139 RBIs (all career highs). And yet thorough much of 2013, he was on a better pace than his final 2012 numbers. Ultimately, the injuries hampered him and he again finished with 44 homers, good for second in the AL, but won his third straight batting title with an average of .348.

No one knows what the future for Miguel Cabrera holds in Detroit. One of the best pure hitters of this generation will be eligible for free agency after the 2015 season. More than likely the Tigers will do all they can to hold on to him, but the then 33-year old is sure to command a pretty penny or two.

It’s worth noting that George Kell would have been the top pick for Tigers’ third basemen if not for Miguel’s incredible few years at the position.

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The best Detroit Tigers shortstop of all-time is Alan Trammell.

Alan Stuart Trammell was the second round pick of the Detroit Tigers in the 1976 draft. It didn’t take the San Diego native long to make his first appearance in the major leagues. On Sept. 9, 1977, in the second game of a double-header at Fenway Park, Trammell and a young second baseman named Lou Whitaker each made their major league debut.

The pair would go on to play together for 19 seasons. While his partner won the 1978 AL Rookie of the Year award (Tram finished fourth), Trammell hit nearly 100 points higher than in his limited action of 1977. His average reached .300 for the first time in 1980, and it netted him the first of six All-Star appearances.

As the Tigers began to contend in the American League East in the early 1980’s, Trammell’s plate production increased. In 1983, the Tigers won more than 90 games (92-70) for the first time since 1971 but finished a distant second place to the eventual World Champion Baltimore Orioles and, of course, we all know what happened in 1984. Those two seasons were among the best of Tram’s career. He notched double-digit home runs for the first time in his career (14 in both ’83 and ’84) and hit .319 and .314 respectively. He had a .351 average with three homers and nine RBIs in the 1984 postseason and won the World Series MVP.

After a couple off-years while battling injuries, Sparky Anderson asked a healthy Trammell to anchor the Tigers’ 1987 lineup and bat cleanup. He responded with the best year of his storied career, setting career highs with a .343 average, 28 homers and 105 RBIs. When it appeared the Tigers would miss out on the postseason after falling behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the standings, Tram came to life. He hit at a .416 clip in September, lifting the Tigers to an astonishing come-from-behind AL East title.

In shades of things to come, Trammell was robbed in the AL MVP voting that season, finishing second to Toronto’s George Bell.

Defensively, Trammell wasn’t thought of in the same sentence as defense-first guys like Ozzie Smith, but he was steady and rarely made miscues or cost his team runs with errors. He won five Gold Gloves during his career and, along with Whitaker, formed the longest continuous double-play combination in baseball history (19 years and more than 2,000 games).

In the latter portions of his career, Trammell battled numerous injuries which caused his production to ebb and flow, however he still batted over .300 three more times. Most expected Trammell to retire when Whitaker announced that the 1995 season would be his last, but Tram decided to give it one more go, playing a reduced roll for the awful 1996 Tigers. Tram spent time at third base, second base, left and center, in addition to shortstop and DH the year Detroit set a then-franchise record of 109 losses.

Seven years later, Trammell managed the worst team in American League history, the 2003 Tigers. The team bounced back from that terrible season and improved by nearly 30 games in 2004, but when the team regressed a bit in 2005, Trammell was fired. It’s worth nothing that even the best managers in baseball history could not have done anything with that 2003 team and, after winning the AL pennant in 2006, Jim Leyland thanked Alan Trammell for his help in turning the franchise around.

We’ve greatly covered Trammell’s continued Hall-of-Fame snub, so we’ll skip that for now. Most believe that he will certainly get in via the Veteran’s Committee, so how fitting will it be when Tram is (eventually) inducted into Cooperstown along with Lou Whitaker? It will happen. It’s just a matter of time.

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We name the organization’s top second sacker, Charlie Gehringer.

We’ve lamented the fact that Lou Whitaker may never make the Hall-of-Fame, but as great as he was, Charlie Gehringer was truly one of the best players in baseball history, and certainly one of the best second basemen of all time.

Gehringer had a long and distinct career in baseball, all with the Tigers. Born in Fowlerville, Charlie was a naive Michigander and would be the place he’d live all his life.

In the early 1920’s, Gehringer lettered in basketball, not baseball, at the University of Michigan, but his skills on the diamond were solid enough to grab the attention of Tiger Bobby Veach. In 1923, Veach brought Gehringer to Navin Field for a workout in front of player-manager Ty Cobb. The Tiger legend loved what he saw and convinced management to tender him a contact.

In his second full season in the big leagues (1927), Charlie became a star under new manager George Moriarty. In the years of Lou Gehrig‘s consecutive games streak, Gehringer was the Tigers’ Iron Man, playing every game from 1928 to 1930, 1933 to 1934, and 1936. He led the league in runs (131), hits (215), doubles (45), triples (19) and steals (19) in 1929.

On the defensive side, he was a very good defender and spent more than 1,000 games forming a keystone combination with shortstop Billy Rogell.

Gehringer was the lone Tigers’ representative in the very first All-Star Game, held at Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1933, and led the team in average in the pennant-winning seasons of 1934 and 1935. He hit .371 in 1937, which was a career high and earned him the MVP.

Gehringer remained a force for the Tigers through their pennant winning season of 1940, hitting .313. In 1941, he hit nearly 100 points off his average and found himself on the bench in 1942. Following that season, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy until 1945. He considered making a comeback at the age of 41, but ultimately decided against it.

In 16 full-seasons in the majors, Charlie hit under .300 just four times (his first full year and his final two). In the peak of his career, from 1927 to 1940, the only sub-.300 season was 1932 when he hit .298. He finished with a career average of .320, 2,839 hits, 184 homers and 1,427 RBIs.

Charlie was a six-time All-Star, won three pennants, one World Series, an MVP, and batting title. His number two was retired alongside Greenberg’s number five in a ceremony at Tiger Stadium in 1983, and he was elected to the Baseball Hall-of-Fame in 1949 with more than 85 percent of the vote.

It is for all these reasons that Charlie Gehringer is named to the Motor City Bengals’ All-Time Detroit Tigers team, and was another unanimous pick by staff.

Honorable mention goes to Whitaker (of course), and Dick McAulliffe.