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In baseball’s rough-and-tumble Deadball Era, no player was more vilified for spiking his opponents than Detroit’s Ty Cobb. While there’s no doubt he spiked many players during his 24-year career, a large part of Cobb’s reputation as a vicious baserunner stems from an incident that occurred in the heat of the 1909 American League pennant […]

At the end of the day on September 8, 1934, the Detroit Tigers, who had not been to the World Series since 1909, stood 4½ games ahead of the powerful New York Yankees. This lead had been constricting around the neck of the Tigers since September 5, when the lead stood at 6 games. Fans […]

The explosive Tigers-Yankees matchup that took place at Tiger Stadium on June 17, 1961, was one of the high points of a season that served as a pivotal one for the Tigers in a number of ways. The team surprised baseball by improving from a 71-83 mark the year before, to battling the iconic yet […]

Runs were plentiful in the first three games of a Memorial Day weekend series at St. Louis’s Sportsman’s Park. The defending World Series champion Cleveland Indians took the first three games over the lowly St. Louis Browns by scores of 12-5, 10-8, and 12-6. The four-game set had begun on Thursday afternoon. Over the next […]

Ralph Kiner had an idea what might be coming as baseball’s stars gathered in Detroit, even if the sporting world at large had yet to figure it out. In the summer of 1951, the American and National Leagues were still perceived as playing a different type of game. The junior circuit, in its 50th year […]

The 1934 season began with minimal fanfare for the Detroit Tigers outside of Corktown. The Washington Senators were projected to repeat as American League champions with the Bengals expected to come in behind the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in fourth place. Despite this, new player-manager Mickey Cochrane was entirely optimistic. “We have […]

On Sunday, April 30, 1922, more than 25,000 fans packed Navin Field to see the Tigers play the Chicago White Sox. Since the crowd exceeded the park’s stated capacity of 23,000, Tigers management stretched rope barriers in front of the outfield fence to accommodate the overflow. Special ground rules were instituted for the contest, in […]

The third time was supposed to be the charm for manager Hughie Jennings and the Detroit Tigers. The skipper had led the Detroiters to the World Series in each of his three seasons at the helm, but unfortunately had dropped the first two against the Chicago Cubs. The 1909 Series pitted two of the best […]

In the aftermath of the 1967 Detroit riots, Detroiters desperately needed something positive to take their minds off their torn city. Many sought solace in the Detroit Tigers, who emerged that summer as bona-fide pennant contenders. An entire generation of Tigers fans had witnessed mostly mediocre baseball since the team last won the pennant in […]

After winning the 1968 World Series, the Detroit Tigers seemed poised to be successful for years to come. They were a group of young players who had developed together since the early ‘’60s, led by veteran Al Kaline. They had overcome daunting adversity: From the 1967 Detroit Riots and the loss of the pennant on […]

Would “The Kid” still have it? Opening Day of the 1946 season saw Ted Williams come back after three years in military service during the Second World War. He’d set a rookie record in 1939 that still stood in 2020, with 145 RBIs. In 1941, he hit .406 — the last batter in major-league baseball […]

Dave “Boo” Ferriss, began his major-league career with an astonishing eight consecutive wins in 1945. The start of his career was as unlikely as any player before him, since Ferriss had minimal time as a professional player prior to his debut. In his first six starts for the Boston Red Sox, Ferriss hurled four shutouts […]

“Tonight we must say goodbye. So long old friend. We will miss you.”1 With his voice breaking, legendary radio announcer Ernie Harwell uttered those somber words to mark the end of a storied era on Monday, September 27, 1999, as the Detroit Tigers played their final game at Tiger Stadium, the venerable 87-year-old ballpark at […]

Ask a Tigers fan of recent vintage to associate “Blue Jays” and “extra innings” and the memories will not be positive. On August 10, 2014, Detroit squandered a 5-0 victory, eventually losing when Jose Bautista sliced a game-winning single in the 19th inning. Thirty years before, the Tigers and Blue Jays faced off in an […]

 As the small Sunday-afternoon crowd of 10,813 settled into their Tiger Stadium seats, it’s doubtful anyone realized they were about to witness a special moment in baseball history. The previous day’s game between the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox was a 1-0 pitchers’ duel. Since the turn of the century, more than 130,000 […]

The Detroit Tigers’ dreams of their first World Series title were evaporating after a tough 4-3 Game Six loss in the 1934 World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals were favored in Game Seven and ticket demand wasn’t as strong. The sun shined bright and a cool northeast wind blew in over the right-field wall at […]

“Clem Labine was one of the main reasons the Dodgers won it all in 1955. He had the heart of a lion and the intelligence of a wily fox.” – Vin Scully1 By definition, the relief pitcher is “a substitute pitcher who enters the game, often in a critical situation, to take over for the […]

In the days of two eight-team major leagues, “division” meant something quite different from the three regional designations currently used in the National and American Leagues. Back then, fans and writers alike tended to dwell at some length on which teams were in each league’s “first division” – among the top four teams in the […]

Ted Williams went on a bit of a homer-hitting spree over a 2½-week stretch early in the 1950 season. He homered twice on April 30 (both of them three-run homers), hit six more from May 2 to 13, and had another two-home run game on May 16. Twelve more homers followed in June. By midseason, […]

“Dependable Al is Brooklyn’s second line of defense behind the plate. He’s as smart a backstop as you’ll find in baseball and handles pitchers expertly.” – 1957 Topps Al “Rube” Walker card (#147)1   As their battle with the Phillies for the 1950 National League pennant came down to the last day of the season, […]

Clyde Melno Hatter, whose baseball career was ended by his premature death, was born to Claude Melnow Hatter (the father’s middle name had a “w” at the end while the son’s did not) and Tressie Lay Hatter in Poplar Hills, Jefferson County, Kentucky, on August 7, 1908. He was the last of three children, with […]

When 21-year-old Charlie Beamon debuted for the Baltimore Orioles on September 26, 1956, he became the youngest of the majors’ 15 pitchers of color since Jackie Robinson integrated the sport in 1947.1 The righthander throttled the mighty Yankees, 1-0, with a complete game, but earned only two more victories in his three-year (1956-1958) big league […]

For more than 70 years, pitcher Joe Cleary was the last native of Ireland to play in the major leagues. Appearing in just one game in 1945, Cleary had the misfortune to post a lifetime 189.00 earned run average, the highest on record for pitchers who retired at least one batter, when he yielded seven […]

Johnny Lazor was a ten-year veteran of the minor leagues and a wartime major-league outfielder for the Boston Red Sox, playing for four seasons from 1943 through 1946. Why he never appeared in the ‘46 World Series is a matter of conjecture, but there appear to have been a couple of good reasons. He was […]