Few and Chosen

Defining Tigers Greatness Across the Eras

By Lance Parrish, Phil Pepe

Triumph Books

Copyright © 2010 Lance Parrish and Phil Pepe
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60078-286-2

Contents

Foreword by Al Kaline,
Preface by Lance Parrish,
Acknowledgments,
Introduction by Phil Pepe,
ONE Catcher,
TWO First Baseman,
THREE Second Baseman,
FOUR Shortstop,
FIVE Third Baseman,
SIX Left Fielder,
SEVEN Center Fielder,
EIGHT Right Fielder,
NINE Right-Handed Pitcher,
TEN Left-Handed Pitcher,
ELEVEN Relief Pitcher,
TWELVE Manager,
Epilogue,
Index,

CHAPTER 1

Catcher

1. Bill Freehan

2. Ivan Rodriguez

3. Mickey Cochrane

4. Mickey Tettleton

5. Matt Nokes

This is not a misprint, and it’s not evidence of my ignorance of baseball history. I know Mickey Cochrane is in the Hall of Fame, Pudge Rodriguez will be once he becomes eligible, and Bill Freehan is not. I know Cochrane had a lifetime batting average of .320 and that he hit over .300 nine times, that Rodriguez is hovering around .300 lifetime and has hit over .300 10 times, whereas Freehan had a lifetime batting average of .262 and batted .300 just once.

But the objective here is not to pick an all-time team, but to pick my all- time Tigers team. Cochrane played for the Tigers only four of his 13 major league seasons (the other nine were spent with the Philadelphia Athletics). Rodriguez made his name, for the most part, with the Texas Rangers; he was a Tiger for only five of his almost 20 major league seasons. Freehan was “Mr. Michigan.” He spent his entire 15-year career with the Tigers.

So Bill Freehan is my choice as the No. 1 catcher in Tigers history because of his longevity with the team — and I’ll take the flak from those who would disagree. Actually, I don’t feel I have to apologize for picking Freehan as the Tigers’ No. 1 catcher — that’s how good he was.

Besides, Freehan is a hometown guy. A Detroit native, he was a football and baseball star at the University of Michigan (and when his playing career was over, he went back and coached his alma mater’s baseball team from 1990–95) who was signed out of college by the Tigers for the then-princely sum of $100,000.

That was in 1961. Two years later, Bill took over as the Tigers’ No. 1 catcher at the age of 21 and kept the job for the next 14 seasons, except for 1974, when he played more games at first base than at catcher. After he became the Tigers’ regular catcher, he was a fixture there, making the All-Star team 10 straight years, seven as a starter. He even had the honor of catching a pop-up off the bat of Tim McCarver for the final out of the 1968 World Series, which is entirely fitting because Bill was, and is, one of the most popular players in Tigers history.

I admit to being slightly biased where Freehan is concerned. Bill was still the Tigers’ No. 1 catcher as I was coming up through their farm system in the mid-1970s. After his career ended in 1976, he would come down to spring training and work with the catchers, so naturally he worked with me quite a bit. The Tigers made me his pet project. He spent a lot of time with me in the bullpen and on the field working on mechanics, so he sort of became my personal instructor and mentor. I learned a lot from him.

As a young guy trying to soak up knowledge, having a guy like Bill Freehan there to learn from, with all he has accomplished in the game, gave a big boost to my development. One thing was especially helpful: Bill and I are about the same height — he’s 6’2″ and I’m 6’3″ — and I struggled to find a comfortable stance behind the plate. I never knew if I was low enough, nor did I ever get confirmation from anyone that I had a proper stance until Bill started working with me.

Bill made good suggestions, like getting me to spread my feet more, and he would always tell me if I was doing things right. Getting that reassurance that I was on the right track from someone like him, such an outstanding catcher, was a great boost for my confidence.

All of the pitchers I talked to for whom Freehan caught, including Mickey Lolich, John Hiller, and Hank Aguirre, had nothing but great things to say about Bill. They praised his ability to handle a pitching staff, to call a game, to set up hitters, and to stay on the same page about pitch selection throughout the course of the game. From what they said, he was a very good glove man who rarely dropped anything, which I found interesting, because Bill used one of those old “no break” gloves. When I was in high school, I played with one. It was like a big, round pillow with a little pocket. Unless your glove was really broken in, you needed to catch two-handed. But these guys — Lolich, Hiller, and Aguirre — just raved about Freehan’s hands, how soft they were and how well he handled pitchers.

All of that is supported by his statistics. Freehan led the American League in putouts six times and in fielding average three times, and he won five Gold Gloves. When he retired, he had a career fielding percentage of .9333, a major league record for catchers that lasted for almost 30 years. He also had major league records for career putouts and total chances that would last for more than 10 years, and he was ninth in major league history in games caught.

As a hitter, Freehan finished with 200 homers and 2,502 total bases, placing him third all-time among American League catchers at his retirement.

On the Tigers’ all-time list, Bill is 10 in games played and at-bats and ninth in home runs. He also holds a couple of Tigers records I’m sure he’d rather not have. He’s their all-time leader for a single season and a career in getting hit by a pitch.

Five years after he retires (if he ever does retire), Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez will be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, in all likelihood in his first year of eligibility. It will be an honor and distinction that is richly deserved.

What Mickey Cochrane and Gabby Hartnett were to the 1920s and 1930s, Bill Dickey was to the 1940s, Yogi Berra and Roy Campanella were to the 1950s, Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk were to the 1970s, and Fisk and Gary Carter were to the 1980s, Pudge Rodriguez is to the 1990s and 2000s — the standard by which all catchers are measured.

Pudge is a pretty amazing catcher. As far as numbers go, there are not too many guys who can compete with him — in offense as well as defense.

I remember watching Pudge when he came up with Texas in the early 1990s. He was a pretty good hitter, but the thing that stood out to everybody was his defensive skill, especially in throwing. Hitters just couldn’t steal off him, and they couldn’t get too far off base or they would be picked off.

The thing that baseball people talk about when they look at a catcher is footwork. When you’re throwing the ball to second base or you’re trying to pick a runner off first, the movement of your feet is a big determinant in how fast your throw will get there. I have always said that Pudge had the quickest feet of any catcher I have ever seen.

In 1999, when Rodriguez won the American League’s Most Valuable Player award playing for Texas, somebody asked me about him, and I said, “This guy, when he’s behind the plate, has a chance to control the tempo of the game and control the opposition’s running game. He’s that good. Guys are afraid to get off first base too far, they don’t get good leads, and that lends itself to runners not stealing second base too often. And if they do try to steal, he has an excellent chance of throwing them out. His percentage of throwing runners out is pretty phenomenal [Editor’s note: Rodriguez has a 47 percent success rate at throwing runners out attempting to steal. By comparison, Carlton Fisk threw out 34 percent of runners attempting to steal, Gary Carter 35 percent, and Johnny Bench 43 percent.] Pudge has the ability to singlehandedly shut down a team’s running game.”

When Rodriguez left Detroit late in the 2008 season, he had made the All-Star team 14 times, 12 times as the starting catcher, and he had won 13 Gold Gloves, the most of any catcher ever and three more than Bench.

And I haven’t even talked about his offense yet. Besides the .300 lifetime batting average and 10 seasons over .300 — eight in a row from 1995–2002 — he has a higher lifetime average than Bench, Berra, Campanella, Carter, Fisk, and Hartnett; more home runs that Campanella, Cochrane, Dickey, and Hartnett; and more RBI than Campanella, Carter, Cochrane, Dickey, and Hartnett. And he’s still playing.

Is Pudge a Hall of Famer? Without a doubt. I would be shocked if he isn’t elected on the first ballot.

Mickey Cochrane is one of the greatest (many say the greatest) catchers ever to play the game. I’m not disputing that fact. He was the third catcher elected to the Hall of Fame, is one of only 13 catchers enshrined in Cooperstown, and at the time he retired, his lifetime batting average of .320 was the highest ever for a catcher.

So why isn’t he No. 1 on my list of all-time Tigers catchers?

Simple. Most of Cochrane’s best years came before he arrived in Detroit in 1934. In nine seasons with the Philadelphia Athletics, he batted over .300 six times and only once batted lower than .293. He was a left-handed, line-drive hitter who ran well enough for Athletics manager Connie Mack to use him as his leadoff hitter. Cochrane hit 59 triples for the A’s and stole 50 bases.

In 1934, his first year with the Tigers, Cochrane batted .320, drove in 76 runs, and was named American League MVP for the second time (he won as a member of the Athletics in 1928). Thereafter his offense declined. In his four seasons in Detroit, Cochrane batted .313 but had only 11 home runs and 152 RBI.

Cochrane’s time in Detroit as a manager is more noteworthy. In his first two years, he won back-to-back pennants and one World Series. In his next two years, he finished second.

I’ll talk more about Mickey Cochrane in Chapter 12.

Mickey Tettleton had a very productive 14-year major league career with four teams, including four years with the Tigers. He signed some lucrative contracts in the free-agent era, but he probably could have made much more money than he did if someone would have had the good sense to employ him as a spokesman for Kellogg’s Froot Loops cereal.

Tettleton was originally drafted by the Oakland A’s and spent four years with them as a backup catcher of little distinction before being released. He then signed on as a free agent with Baltimore and showed a little more promise in 1988, batting .261 with 11 homers and 37 RBI, platooning with Terry Kennedy.

When Kennedy left Baltimore in 1989, Mickey took over as the Orioles’ No. 1 catcher. It was his breakout year. He hit 26 homers, drove in 65 runs, and was selected to the American League All-Star team. When reporters began looking for reasons behind Tettleton’s sudden improvement, his wife attributed it to Mickey eating Froot Loops for breakfast.

The Froot Loops legend followed him to Detroit when he was traded to the Tigers as a free agent after the 1990 season. Over the next four years, Tettleton put up some very impressive numbers for the Tigers, including 112 home runs and 333 RBI.

I never played with Tettleton, but I played against him — and he caught my eye when he was with Baltimore. I was a fan of his hitting style, I suppose because whenever we played against him, he gave us fits. He was a switch-hitter with excellent power. I remember him behind the batter, but he also played first base and was a designated hitter. You never knew where you were going to see him. But I do remember thinking that when he caught, he did a good job behind the plate and he threw pretty well.

One of the things that impressed me most about him was his patience and discipline at the plate. He seemed to get 100 walks or close to it every year. He had four consecutive years, and five out of six, with more than 100 walks. He finished in the top five in walks in the American League for seven consecutive years, from 1990–96. With the Tigers in 1992, he led the American League in walks with 122, which is also sixth on Detroit’s all-time list for walks in a season.

When Matt Nokes was coming up through the Tigers’ farm system, I didn’t know much about him. I first saw him in spring training, and what I saw was a pretty good-looking young catcher, a left-handed hitter who swung the bat well and had some pop. Little did I know that he would become my replacement as the Tigers’ regular catcher.

After I left Detroit for Philadelphia in 1987, Nokes got his chance to be the Tigers’ regular catcher, and he made the most of it. He was only 23 years old, and the numbers he put up in his first full season — a .289 average, higher than any average I had in my entire big-league career; 32 home runs, one less than I hit in 1984, my eighth season, when I briefly held the record for the most home runs by an American League catcher; 87 RBI; and selection to the All-Star team — made the Tigers and their fans forget about me in a hurry. They had a young catcher who was a left-handed power hitter and had a tremendous upside. The people of Detroit hardly had a chance to notice I was gone. Nokes picked up the slack and ran with it.

Then, just as quickly, he tailed off. In his second full season, he slipped from a .289 average to .251, from 32 homers to 16, and from 87 RBI to 53. The following year, he fell even farther, to a .250 average, only nine homers and 39 RBI, and the year after that he was traded to the Yankees in June.

Whether it was simply a case of too much too soon or simply that he needed more time in the minor leagues or as a backup to hone his skills, I have no idea, but the fact is that Nokes played 902 major league games for five teams in 11 seasons and, although he had a couple of pretty good power years with the Yankees, he never again so much as came close to duplicating what he did for the Tigers in his rookie year.

CHAPTER 2

First Baseman

1. Hank Greenberg

2. Norm Cash

3. Rudy York

4. Cecil Fielder

5. Tony Clark

One of my greatest regrets about my baseball career is that I never took advantage of the opportunity to talk hitting with Hank Greenberg.

I met him once, at the 1980 All-Star Game in Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles. It was my first All-Star Game, and Greenberg was the American League’s honorary captain. I could kick myself … I didn’t even ask him to sign a baseball. But I was still a young player, and I felt funny about asking guys like that for autographs.

It was an honor just to meet him. Obviously, playing in Detroit and coming up through the Tigers’ farm system, I had heard plenty about him. We exchanged a few words of greeting (I don’t even remember what) and that was kind of neat, but I didn’t get to talk to him as much as I would have liked. Those All-Star Games come and go so quickly and there’s so much going on that you really don’t have a chance to spend a lot of time with the visiting dignitaries.

I saw Greenberg one other time. It was in 1983, and the Tigers had invited him and Charlie Gehringer to Tiger Stadium for a ceremony to officially retire their numbers, Greenberg’s No. 5 and Gehringer’s No. 2. Unfortunately, they never came through the clubhouse, which was disappointing. They simply went on the field for the ceremony and were whisked away as quickly as they’d arrived.

I suppose at the time I thought that there would be other occasions when I would get the chance to talk to Greenberg, but I never did. He lived on the West Coast then, and he died three years later.

Playing in Detroit, I had heard so many great things from so many people about Greenberg, both as a tremendous player and as a man of dignity and class, that I would have enjoyed talking baseball with him, especially hitting. I have always put a higher premium on run production than batting average, and Greenberg’s production was off the charts. Eight times he had a slugging percentage of .600 or better, and his career percentage of .605 is seventh all-time, ahead of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Mark McGwire.

Some might look at Greenberg’s career numbers and wonder what all the fuss is about. He hit only 331 home runs and drove in only 1,276 runs. A lot of guys had higher numbers than that, but in Greenberg’s case, the numbers don’t tell the whole story. He spent parts of 13 seasons in the major leagues, but in only nine seasons did he play more than 100 games, and in only six did he play in more than 140 games.

He missed all of 1942, 1943, and 1944, all but 19 games in 1941 and all but 78 games in 1945 — just after his 30 birthday until just after his 34 birthday, prime years for a baseball player — to military service in World War II. He also missed all but 12 games with a broken wrist in 1936.

That’s more than 800 games and approximately 51/4 seasons that Greenberg lost in service to his country and by injury during what might have been the prime of his career. What would his numbers have been if he had not lost those 800 games?

To give you an idea of what he might have accomplished in those missing years, in 1935, the year before he broke his wrist, Greenberg had 36 home runs and (gasp!) 170 RBI. In 1940, his last full season before he went off to war, Greenberg hit 41 home runs and drove in 150. A conservative estimate is that he might have averaged 35 homers and 140 RBI in those missing years, so it is not inconceivable that had he not missed those 800 games, he would have added about 185 home runs and 750 RBI to his career total, giving him 516 homers and 2,026 RBI, which, when he retired, would have placed him second on the all-time list in both categories.

(Continues…)Excerpted from Few and Chosen by Lance Parrish, Phil Pepe. Copyright © 2010 Lance Parrish and Phil Pepe. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
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