The Detroit Tigers in Wartime

The 1941 Detroit Tigers arrived in spring training as defending American League champions, a 90-win club the previous season that lost a seven-game World Series to the Cincinnati Reds by the narrowest of margins: a 2-1 loss in Game Seven. Del Baker’s club won the pennant in 1940 by a single game over the Cleveland Indians and two games over the New York Yankees. But at the end of the 1941 season, the Tigers found themselves tied for fourth place, a distant 26 games behind the eventual World Series champion Yankees.

Though the United States was still eight months from entering World War II, the conflict had already affected the club’s lineup. Slugger Hank Greenberg played in just 19 games in 1941. On May 6 against the Yankees at Briggs Stadium, he left Tigers fans with some familiar memories, hitting a pair of home runs and knocking in three runs in a 7-4 Tigers win. Greenberg wouldn’t appear in a game again for more than four years, and that left Rudy York to generate much of the offensive firepower – the slugging first baseman did his part, finishing the 1941 season with 27 homers and 111 RBIs – and an assembled cast of veterans and rookies to pick up the slack.

After the season, 23-year-old outfielder Pat Mullin, who hit .345 in his first full year in the majors, enlisted in the Army and didn’t return to Detroit until 1946.

Tigers 1941 Opening Day Lineup

• Tuck Stainback, RF
• Charlie Gehringer, 2B
• Barney McCosky, CF
• Hank Greenberg, LF
• Rudy York, 1B
• Pinky Higgins, 3B
• Dick Bartell, SS
• Billy Sullivan, C
• Bobo Newsom, P

1942

The Tigers in 1942 continued to slide further down the American League standings, and in just about every other notable category. With Greenberg serving in the Army Air Force, where he’d be joined in midseason by shortstop Billy Hitchcock, Detroit ranked near the bottom of most offensive rankings.

The light-hitting Hitchcock, who played in 85 games before leaving for the military, was replaced by a trio of backups: 19-year-old rookie Johnny Lipon and veterans Eric McNair and Moe Franklin. When he departed, Hitchcock was hitting .211 and his replacements didn’t provide much of an offensive upgrade – Lipon hit just .191, McNair.162; and Franklin a relatively prodigious .260 – nor were they an improvement in the field. Franklin was the most sure-handed of the trio of replacements – a .967 fielding percentage, while Lipon (.945) and McNair (.881) proved to be more iron-gloved.

Barney McCosky led the team with a .293 average and York provided the power – 26 doubles, 20 homers, and 90 RBIs. Meanwhile, Baker’s pitching staff proved to be as stingy as they came, posting a 3.13 ERA, second in the league. Six Tigers pitchers made 20 or more starts and only Dizzy Trout had an ERA over 3.00 (3.43). But solid pitching wasn’t enough to keep Detroit from a fifth-place, 73-81 record, 30 games back of the Yankees. Home attendance of 580,000 was more than 100,000 below the club’s 1941 gate.

By the end of the 1942 season, the Tigers had grown accustomed to Greenberg’s absence and they were about to begin life without the other half of their legendary G-Men duo. The ’42 campaign brought to a close the 19-year career of future Hall of Fame second baseman Charlie Gehringer. The 39-year-old played in just 45 games, batting .267 in 52 plate appearances. The Mechanical Man transitioned the second-base job to 24-year-old Jimmy Bloodworth, and soon thereafter entered the Navy. Gehringer was named head coach of the St. Mary’s Naval Pre-Flight School baseball team in California for the 1943 season.

1942 Tigers Opening Day Lineup

• Jimmy Bloodworth, 2B
• Doc Cramer, CF
• Barney McCosky, LF
• Rudy York, 1B
• Pinky Higgins, 3B
• Ned Harris, RF
• Eric McNair, SS
• Birdie Tebbetts, C
• Al Benton, P

1943

By 1943, World War II began to decimate the Tigers’ roster, as was the case with most other franchises. Seven players – outfielders Greenberg, McCosky, and Mullin, infielders Billy Hitchcock and Johnny Lipon, and pitchers Al Benton and Les Mueller – were serving in the military, and four others joined them before year’s end. A 12th player, reliever Hal Manders, left baseball behind, beginning work in 1943 on a stock farm in his native Iowa. The right-hander sat out two more seasons before returning to the Tigers, at age 29, for a brief stint in 1946. These roster holes forced Detroit’s new manager, Steve O’Neill, to retool his lineup, which on Opening Day in Cleveland featured five different starters from the 1942 season-opening lineup.

Though the standings indicate otherwise, the 1943 season was one of marked improvement for Detroit. The club led the league with a .261 team batting average and the pitching staff had a 3.00 ERA, second overall. Dizzy Trout posted a 20-12 record and 2.48 ERA to pace a rotation that finished with a league-high 16 shutouts and 706 strikeouts. Attendance was back up above 600,000. When the season ended in Washington on Oct. 3 – a 4-1 win, Trout’s 20th – the Tigers had won five more games than in ’42 and had a winning record of 78-76, but remained stuck in fifth place, 20 games behind the Yankees.

After the 1943 season, pitchers Virgil Trucks and Hal White and outfielder Dick Wakefield entered the Navy; pitcher Tommy Bridges and infielder Jimmy Bloodworth began tours of duty in the Army.

1943 Tigers Opening Day Lineup

• Doc Cramer, CF
• Rip Radcliff, RF
• Dick Wakefield, LF
• Rudy York, 1B
• Pinky Higgins, 3B
• Jimmy Bloodworth, 2B
• Joe Hoover, SS
• Dixie Parsons, C
• Tommy Bridges, P

1944

On Opening Day 1944, the Tigers had 10 players serving in the military, including two of their best players and one budding star in Wakefield. And even though the roster had aged by an average of almost two years, it was a breakthrough campaign for Detroit. The Tigers won 10 more games and featured a starting rotation with a dominant one-two punch in right-hander Trout and lefty Hal Newhouser.

At just 23 years old, Newhouser made a dramatic leap: from an 8-17 record in 1943 to leading the majors in wins in 1944 with a 29-9 record and a 2.22 ERA, which earned him the American League Most Valuable Player award. For his part, Trout posted a 27-14 record and a major-league-best 2.12 ERA. Detroit’s .263 team batting average was fourth in the American League, led by the steady Rudy York’s .276, 18 home runs, and 98 RBIs, and helped by Wakefield’s return in July. He finished the year with a .355 average, 12 homers, 53 RBIs, and an OPS of 1.040. His 78-game performance earned the outfielder a fifth-place showing in the American League MVP voting. Without Greenberg and McCosky, and only a half-season of Wakefield, the Tigers outfield delivered little firepower but hit for average: 38-year-old Doc Cramer hit .292 and 40-year-old Chuck Hostetler finished the season at .298.

To fill other roster holes, the Tigers turned to 34-year-old Eddie Mayo to replace Bloodworth at second base, and tried to overcome the loss of Bridges, Trucks, and White with Rufe Gentry (12-14, 4.24 ERA), Johnny Gorsica (6-14, 4.11), and lefty Stubby Overmire (11-11, 3.07).

The Tigers made a big move in the standings, finishing in second place with an 88-66 record, one game behind the pennant-winning Browns. Fans responded to the club’s resurgence — attendance soared by more than 50 percent to 923,176 — perhaps anticipating what was in store for 1945.

1944 Tigers Opening Day Lineup

• Don Heffner, 2B
• Eddie Mayo, SS
• Doc Cramer, CF
• Rudy York, 1B
• Pinky Higgins, 3B
• Jimmy Outlaw, LF
• Don Ross, RF
• Bob Swift, C
• Dizzy Trout, P

1945

On June 30, 1945, more than seven weeks after Germany’s surrender, the Tigers defeated the Philadelphia Athletics 4-1 at Briggs Stadium to maintain a 1½-game lead over the Yankees. The next day the team welcomed Hank Greenberg back to the lineup – and the 34-year-old wasted little time marking his return. Batting cleanup, he homered and scored twice in the first game of a Tigers doubleheader sweep of the A’s. Greenberg played in 77 of the Tigers’ remaining 93 games.

During the season the Tigers also welcomed back pitchers Al Benton, Tommy Bridges, and Les Mueller, and introduced 31-year-old rookie reliever Walt Wilson, a Navy veteran. But the headliner was, of course, Greenberg.

Just how valuable an addition was he? He finished with a .311 average, 20 doubles, 13 homers, and 60 RBIs in half the number of games it took Rudy York and outfielder Roy Cullenbine to amass similar numbers. York hit 25 doubles and 18 homers, and had 87 RBIs, and Cullenbine hit 27 doubles and 18 homers, with 93 RBIs.

Greenberg, York, Cullenbine, and second baseman Eddie Mayo powered the offense, and Newhouser and Trout once again gave the Tigers a formidable front end of the rotation, with Benton a sturdy presence behind them. Shaking off two seasons of rust, he posted a 13-8 record with a 2.02 ERA in 27 starts. Newhouser led the major leagues in virtually every pitching category: 25 wins, 1.81 ERA, 212 strikeouts, 29 complete games, and 8 shutouts. The veteran Trout again constructed a solid year: 18-15 and a 3.14 ERA.

If the Tigers were to win the pennant, it wouldn’t be easy. They played three doubleheaders in 11 days – in which they mustered a sweep and two splits – and needed a win on the final day of the season to punch a ticket to the World Series. Behind Newhouser and a ninth-inning rally, Detroit clinched the American League pennant with a 6-3 win over the Browns at St. Louis’s Sportsman’s Park. Next up, the Cubs.

Detroit and Chicago matched up in a classic World Series that featured a 12-inning, 8-7 Cubs win in Game Six. In Game Seven the Tigers jumped on Cubs starter Hank Borowy and reliever Paul Derringer for five runs in the top of the first and Newhouser cruised to a complete-game, 10-strikeout, 9-3 victory to bring Detroit its first World Series championship since 1935. Greenberg was instrumental in the Tigers’ win. He played in all seven games and collected seven hits, three doubles, six walks, a pair of homers, and seven runs batted in.

Newhouser’s storybook season concluded with his second consecutive American League Most Valuable Player award, which he won comfortably over runner-up Eddie Mayo.

Though the war had ended in Europe, combat in the Pacific continued through mid-August, delaying the return of Billy Hitchcock, Johnny Lipon, and Pinky Higgins, who had entered the Navy in March. All three, along with Pat Mullin, would return to Detroit in 1946.

1945 Tigers Opening Day Lineup

• Skeeter Webb, SS
• Eddie Mayo, 2B
• Jimmy Outlaw, RF
• Rudy York, 1B
• Doc Cramer, CF
• Bob Maier, LF
• Don Ross, 3B
• Paul Richards, C
• Hal Newhouser, P

1946

In the five-year span from 1941 through ’45, the Tigers had one World Series appearance, three unremarkable seasons, and one tantalizingly close call with a pennant. Entering the 1946 campaign, the Tigers had reason to expect that returning servicemen Higgins, Hitchcock, Lipon, Mullin, and Trucks would upgrade a championship roster. And in many ways, it did.

On the field and at the turnstiles the Tigers improved: four more wins, 70 more runs scored, and a half-million additional paying customers at Briggs Stadium. Cullenbine (.335) and newly acquired third baseman George Kell (.327) bolstered a potent offense that was missing Rudy York, who had been dealt to the Red Sox in the offseason. But there was no slowing down 35-year-old Hank Greenberg. In his final season in Detroit, he batted .277 and led the majors with 44 homers and 127 RBIs.

Newhouser continued to dazzle, finishing the year 26-9 with a league-best 1.94 ERA. The balance of the rotation, Trout (17-13, 2.34 ERA), Trucks (14-9, 3.23), and Fred Hutchinson (14-11, 3.09) provided a tremendous supporting cast for Prince Hal.

However, even with a full season of Greenberg, a terrific starting staff, and the return of five seasoned-yet-rusty players, Detroit was no match for the Red Sox, who marched to the World Series with 104 wins.

The most notable impact World War II had on the Tigers was Hank Greenberg’s four-season absence, but Detroit had lost nearly a third of its roster to military service. Still, Greenberg, Jimmy Bloodworth, Pinky Higgins, Billy Hitchcock, Johnny Lipon, and Virgil Trucks probably wouldn’t have been enough to make up for the 20- and 30-game deficits Detroit often faced in the standings during their tours of duty.

These players’ collective absence certainly allowed other Tigers players to develop and ultimately deliver a World Series victory – and their collective military service helped deliver an Allied victory in World War II.

1946 Tigers Opening Day Lineup

• Eddie Lake, SS
• Eddie Mayo, 2B
• Barney McCosky, CF
• Hank Greenberg, 1B
• Dick Wakefield, LF
• Pat Mullin, RF
• Pinky Higgins, 3B
• Paul Richards, C
• Hal Newhouser, P

MIKE McCLARY contributed to the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish and from 2006-2013 wrote about Tigers on his blog The Daily Fungo. The first Tigers game he attended was also Jack Morris’s first big-league win — which means he firmly believes Morris belongs in the Hall of Fame. He follows the Tigers from his home in Scottsdale, Arizona.

 

Sources

Anderson, William M. The Detroit Tigers: A Pictorial Celebration of the Greatest Players and Moments in Tigers History, fourth edition (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008).

Omaha Evening World-Herald, April 7, 1943, 23.

baseballinwartime.com

SABR BioProject

Baseball-Reference.com