June 30, 1990: Cecil Fielder breaks out of home-run slump in Tigers’ win over Royals

Cecil Fielder may have appeared to come from nowhere in 1990, but it had been a long road to major-league success. Drafted by the Kansas City Royals in June 1982,1 Fielder was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays before the 1983 season.2

At age 21, Fielder made his major-league debut on July 20, 1985, and hit .311 with 4 homers in 74 at-bats. In 1986 he began the season as the Blue Jays’ designated hitter but batted just .156 through May 11 and was sent to Triple-A Syracuse.

After being recalled in late July, Fielder’s playing time increased but he couldn’t secure a regular spot on a squad whose young talent, including Lloyd Moseby, Jesse Barfield, George Bell, and Tony Fernandez, produced American League East titles in 1985 and 1989 and a second-place finish in 1987.3

Serving as a DH against left-handed pitching and a backup first baseman, Fielder hit .243 with 31 home runs and 84 RBIs in 506 career at-bats through the end of the 1988 season.

When the Blue Jays approached Fielder about an opportunity to play in Japan in 1989, he jumped at the chance. “The Blue Jays didn’t have any room. I was the odd man out,” said Fielder. “I didn’t hesitate. I said yes right away.”4

Fielder had a phenomenal season for Nippon Professional Baseball’s Hanshin Tigers,5 hitting .302 with 38 homers and 81 RBIs in 384 at-bats.6 Although Fielder had become a fan favorite, Hanshin was unwilling to give him a contract extension, so Fielder, now 26 years old, joined a different set of Tigers, signing with a two-year contract with Detroit prior to the 1990 campaign.7

Big Daddy, as he was called because of his massive 6-foot-3, 230-pound frame, hit .247 with 7 homers in his first 24 games with the Tigers,8 but then got hot. From May 6 to June 17, Fielder averaged .366 and belted 18 homers. He was ahead of the pace needed to become the first major leaguer to hit 50 homers since Cincinnati’s George Foster hammered 52 in 1977.9

“I learned patience over there [Japan],” he said. “When I was in Toronto, I knew I had to do it or I would be sitting next time. With platooning, you don’t learn things. In Japan, I knew I could let things happen.”10

Detroit hitting coach Vada Pinson noticed another change – Fielder was not trying to pull everything. “He went to Japan and got his confidence,” Pinson said. “He’s hitting from one foul line to the other now. And he’s got a very powerful swing, like Willie Stargell from the other side of the plate.”11

But then Fielder had his first slump of the season. Over the next 11 games, he hit just .146 – dropping his average to .295 – with no homers and two RBIs.

A crowd of 34,404 turned out on a sweltering Saturday night for the second game of a three-game series at Royals Stadium on June 30. Despite winning the opener,12 the Royals were last in the AL West with a 31-41 record, 15 games back of the first-place Chicago White Sox. The Tigers were a bit better at 35-41, fourth in the AL East, 9½ games behind the division-leading Boston Red Sox.

The Royals started 28-year-old right-hander Storm Davis, who was 2-5 with a 4.94 ERA in 10 starts.13 Davis had signed as a free agent after going 19-7 with a 4.36 ERA in 31 starts for a powerful Oakland A’s team that swept the San Francisco Giants in the 1989 World Series.14

Davis was opposed by veteran righty Dan Petry.15 He was 5-5 with a 3.39 ERA in 18 games, including 13 starts. Petry had enjoyed early success but had won just one of his previous eight starts and lost his last two by allowing 10 runs in 9 innings.  

Davis got off to a rough start. Lou Whitaker singled to center on the game’s first pitch and Tony Phillips walked. One out later, Fielder singled to load the bases, but Larry Sheets struck out swinging and Gary Ward fouled out to first to end the threat.

The Tigers broke through in the second. Scott Lusader led off with a walk and went to third on Mike Heath’s one-out double. After Whitaker struck out swinging, Phillips turned on a down-and-in forkball and lined a homer that just reached the seats down the right-field line. Detroit had a 3-0 lead.16

“It was a bad pitch to hit,” Philips admitted. “It’s a ball I would usually ground out to the second baseman on. I don’t know what happened.”17

Davis recovered to set the Tigers down in order in the next two frames. He ran his streak to eight straight when Phillips grounded to second to start the fifth before Alan Trammell reached on an infield single to shortstop.

Fielder, who had been taking extra batting practice to end his slump, then “reached over the plate and hit the ball virtually one-handed”18 to the left-field seats to increase the Tigers’ lead to 5-0. The blast was his league-leading 26th homer and gave him a league-best 65 RBIs.

“I knew something would happen sometime,” said Fielder. “I was pulling off the ball and losing sight of it. If you can’t see it, you won’t hit it.”19

“Even in my other at bats, I felt comfortable. Maybe I’m out of it,” he added.20

“Nobody keeps up the pace all year that he was setting,” said Detroit manager Sparky Anderson. “I said all along he’d begin to struggle because everyone does. I’m not sure he will return to how hot he was, but there’s a good middle ground between what’s happening now and what was happening then.”

Petry was laboring in the summer heat, needing 63 pitches to get through three scoreless innings. Bo Jackson’s one-out double and Gerald Perry’s two-out walk in the second were Kansas City’s first baserunners, but Mike Macfarlane was retired on a short fly to left that ended the threat. Petry flirted with danger in the third when Kevin Seitzer singled with one out and George Brett and Danny Tartabull walked with two outs before Jackson flied out to the warning track.

After a 10-pitch fourth inning, Petry’s luck ran out in the fifth. Frank White, in his 18th season in Kansas City, led off with his 400th career double21 on a liner to left; Seitzer singled him to third. Bill Pecota drew a free pass to fill the bases. Brett – like White, a Royal since 1973 – picked up an RBI on a weak groundout to Fielder. Tartabull then laced a double to left on Petry’s 96th pitch of the night, 42 of which were balls. Seitzer and Pecota scored to trim Detroit’s lead to 5-3.

Ed Nuñez relieved Petry and walked Jackson but retired the side with no further damage.22 Nuñez set the Royals down in order in the sixth and seventh, throwing just 14 pitches. After fanning Jackson to start the eighth, he walked Jim Eisenreich on four pitches and was replaced by former Royal Jerry Don Gleaton, who induced an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play off the bat of Pat Tabler.

Andy McGaffigan and Steve Farr each worked two scoreless innings to keep it a two-run game after Davis’s departure, and Detroit turned to closer Mike Henneman in the ninth. After two quick outs, Seitzer reached on a throwing error by third baseman Phillips to bring the tying run to the plate.

With Pecota due, Kansas City manager John Wathan opted to pinch-hit Kurt Stillwell,23 who flied out to center fielder John Shelby to end the game.24

The win was just the third in the first nine games of the Tigers’ 13-game road trip but ended their 11-game losing streak at Royals Stadium.

Fielder hit seven homers in July and nine in August – including a mammoth blast onto the roof of Tiger Stadium25 against Oakland ace Dave Stewart on August 25 – to enter the final month with 42 home runs. He reached 49 on September 27 against Boston’s Dennis Lamp.

After five homerless games, the season’s final game was against New York at Yankee Stadium on October 3.26 In the fourth inning, Fielder connected against rookie lefty Steve Adkins27 for a long drive that stayed fair and landed in the third deck.28 With the pressure off, in his final at-bat of the season he added a three-run bomb on a 3-and-2 pitch from rookie Alan Mills.29

“After number 49, I got really caught up in this,” Fielder said. “I wasn’t being myself anymore at the plate. I was trying to please everyone. I became a different hitter. I was trying to pull the ball. That’s not something I tried to do all year. I tried to hit to all fields.”30

Fielder remained in Detroit until he was traded to New York on July 31, 1996, where he helped the Yankees to a World Series title. After spending 1997 in New York, he split his final season between the Anaheim Angels and Cleveland Indians, retiring with 319 major-league homers.31

Author’s Note 

The author attended this game with some college buddies while taking classes at the University of Arkansas in the summer of 1990.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Laura Peebles and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Cecil Fielder, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted data from Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA199006300.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1990/B06300KCA1990.htm

Notes

1 Fielder was originally selected in the 31st round of the June 1981 draft by the Baltimore Orioles but did not sign.

2 The Royals received journeyman outfielder Leon Roberts in return for Fielder.

3 Fred McGriff debuted in 1986, appearing in three games, and was not part of the 1985 Blue Jays.

4 Gary Swan, “Fielder a Success in Two Hemispheres,” Kansas City Star, July 1, 1990: 3.

5 Fielder earned $1,050,000 in his one season in Japan, substantially more than the $125,000 salary he earned in 1988 with Toronto. Swan.

6 Fielder missed the final 24 games of the season when he suffered a broken little finger in a freakish accident: His bat bounced back and hit his hand after the threw it down in frustration. Gene Guidi, “At Last, Fielder Glad He Changed Tiger Stripes.” Detroit Free Pess, January 23, 1990: 2C.

7 Detroit gave Fielder a $1.5 million signing bonus. His two-year contract was for $500,000 for 1990 and $1 million for 1991. Guidi.

8 After the games on May 5, Fielder’s seven home runs were good enough for a tie for the major-league lead with Bobby Bonilla, Glenn Davis, Howard Johnson, Kelly Gruber, and Mark McGwire. Fielder was the only one of the group who would finish with more than 40 homers in the 1990 season.

9 Fielder was seeking to become the first American League player to hit at least 50 since Yankees teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle each did so in 1961.

10 Swan.

11 Swan.

12 In Kansas City’s 3-2 win in the series opener, George Brett walked four times, including twice intentionally, to tie a team record. After a three-homer game by Brett against Detroit in 1981, Tigers manager Sparky Anderson had vowed to never let the Royals star beat him again. Associated Press, Atchison (Kansas) Daily Globe, “Royals Dump Detroit,” July 1, 1990: 7A.

13 In four starts with Oakland in 1989 against Detroit, Davis was 1-2 while allowing 22 hits and 14 walks for 15 earned runs in just 14⅓ innings pitched.

14 Davis did not appear in the 1989 World Series. Due to the 12-day delay between Games Two and Three caused by the Loma Prieta earthquake, the A’s opted to use Dave Stewart and Mike Moore, who started Games One and Two respectively as the starters in Games Three and Four. Davis did win Game Four of the 1983 World Series for the Baltimore Orioles when they beat the Philadelphia Phillies in five games.

15 After nine seasons with the Tigers – in which he won 107 games, including 18 when they won the World Series in 1984 – Petry had spent two seasons with the California Angels before returning to Detroit for the 1990 season.

16 It was just Phillips’ fifth homer of the season, but his second in two games.

17 Dick Kaegel, “Fielder Breaks Out, Pops Royals,” Kansas City Star, July 1, 1990: Sports-1.

18 Kaegel.

19 Kaegel.

20 Tom Gage, “Tigers’ Formula Works, 5-3,” Detroit Free Press, July 1, 1990: 1E.

21 The hit was the 1,977th for White in his Royals career, tying him for second place with Amos Otis. Associated Press, “Detroit Defeats KC to Stop Skid at Royals Stadium,” St. Joseph (Missouri) News-Press, July 1, 1990: D1.

22 In the games they had won, including this one, the Detroit bullpen had allowed just five runs in 106 innings. Gage.

23 Stillwell had been taken from Seattle’s Kingdome on a stretcher two days earlier with severe back pain. Originally diagnosed with a herniated disk that would require season-ending surgery, he was really suffering from a kidney stone. Once he passed the stone, the pain disappeared. Mike DeArmond, “Stillwell Pinch Hits, Likely to Start Today,” Kansas City Star, July 1, 1990: 1.

24 The save was Henneman’s 17th of the season. After a 4-4 record with 17 saves in his first 35 appearances, Henneman was 4-2 with just five saves in his last 34 appearances in 1990.

25 “OAK@DET: Cecil Fielder Homers Over Tiger Stadium Roof,” YouTube video (MLB.com), 0:58, accessed March 29, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cum4NKXnho.

26 Fielder was 0-for-8 with five strikeouts in the first two games of the New York series.

27 Adkins’ career consisted of five starts in the final three weeks of the 1990 season. He allowed four home runs in 24 innings pitched. With the homer against Adkins, Fielder became the second Detroit Tiger to hit 50 homers in a season, joining Hank Greenberg, who hit 58 in 1938. As of the end of the 2023 season, no other Tigers player has hit 50 in a season.

28 “Cecil Fielder Hits 50th Home Run [at] Yankee Stadium 1990 off Steve Adkins,” YouTube video (CourtsideTweets), 0:25, accessed March 29, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJaKjubZW2s.

29 Fielder finished with 132 RBIs to lead the major leagues. He also led the majors 1991 with 133 and in 1992 with 124. As of the end of the 2023 season, the only players to lead the majors in RBIs for three consecutive seasons since 1900 are Ty Cobb (1907-1909), Babe Ruth (1919-1921), Rogers Hornsby (1920-1922), Joe Medwick (1936-1938), George Foster (1976-1978), and Fielder. Ryan Howard led the majors in RBIs in 2006, 2008, and 2009. In 2007, he finished one RBI behind Matt Holliday, who benefited from a season-ending tiebreaking game between Colorado and San Diego which decided the National League wild card. Holliday drove in two runs in the extra game – including one in the deciding bottom of the 13th inning – to keep Howard from becoming first player to lead the majors in RBIs for four consecutive seasons.

30 Sebastion Oslund, “Detroit Tigers: Big Daddy’s Big Season: Cecil Fielder in 1990,” Motor City Bengals, February 7, 2020, https://motorcitybengals.com/2020/02/07/big-daddys-big-season-cecil-fielder-in-1990/.

31 Fielder’s career homer total was matched by his son Prince Fielder, whose major-league career was from 2005 to 2016. Prince Fielder also had a 50-home-run season when he hit 50 for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2007. He led the National League in RBIs with 141 in 2009. Tom Gordon and Jamie Moyer were the only pitchers to surrender homers to both Cecil and Prince. Sarah Langs, “Perfect Match: Fielders Finished in HR Tie,” MLB.com, January 7, 2022, https://www.mlb.com/news/cecil-fielder-prince-fielder-319-career-home-runs.