|
|
 |
Tales from the Detroit Tigers Dugout
CHAPTER EXCERPT
|
|
| |
|
| |
| Tales from the Detroit Tigers Dugout by Jack Ebling |
|
|
 |
|
This excerpt may not be reproduced without express written consent of Sports Publishing LLC. Please feel free to link to this page. We encourage anyone interested in receiving a percentage of online sales from their referrals on this title to sign up for our AFFILIATE PROGRAM. " |
|
|
|
DOUBLE EXCERPT :
Henry Greenberg (from Chapter 5) & Kenny Rogers (from Chapter 18)
From Chapter 5, The Legendary G-Men
Henry Benjamin Greenberg grew to be a major sociological force as the first Jewish star in baseball. The American League MVP in 1935 and ’40 led the league in home runs and RBIs four times and led both leagues in courage until Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
Greenberg was born in New York City, went to school in the Bronx and turned down the Yankees to attend NYU, in part because they already had a sturdy first baseman—some guy named Gehrig. One year later, Greenberg signed with the Tigers for $9,000.
He had one at-bat with Detroit in 1930 at age 19, then returned from a three-year stint in the minors at 22. The 6-foot-4 Greenberg’s first real chance with the Tigers produced a .301 average and 87 RBIs, a hint of what was to come.
In 1934, he hit .339, led the American League with 63 doubles, and ranked third with 139 RBIs and a .600 slugging percentage. But Greenberg did more by not playing one day than he did in his career’s best game.
With Detroit leading the league by four games in early September, he had to decide what to do about his religion’s High Holy Days. Greenberg elected to play on Rosh Hashanah and hit two home runs against Boston in a 2-1 win. Ten days later he spent Yom Kippur in a synagogue, inspiring this poem by Edgar Guest:
Come Yom Kippur—holy fast day wide-world over to the Jew—
And Hank Greenberg to his teaching and the old tradition true
Spent the day among his people and he didn’t come to play
Said Murphy to Mulrooney, “We shall lose the game today!
We shall miss him in the infield and shall miss him at the bat,
But he’s true to his religion—and I honor him for that!”
Anti-Semitism couldn’t stop “The Baseball Moses” any better than opposing pitchers did.
“Throw him a pork chop! He can’t hit that!” the St. Louis Cardinals taunted during the ’34 World Series.
The following year, Greenberg hit everything. He led the league with 170 RBIs and a career-high 389 total bases. He also ranked second with 46 doubles, 16 triples, and a .628 slugging percentage.
Greenberg’s numbers in 1937 were even better. He drove in 183 runs, the third-highest total in history, while batting .337 with 200 hits. Greenberg hit the first-ever homer into the center-field bleachers at Yankee Stadium. And he ranked second with 40 homers, 59 doubles, a .668 slugging percentage, and 102 walks—not bad in Gehringer’s MVP season.
The following year brought a serious challenge to Ruth’s hallowed record of 60 home runs. Greenberg homered in four straight at-bats and finished with 58 of them. He was intentionally walked several times toward the end of the season. And many still believe that happened to keep a Jew from holding the most important record in sports.
Who knows how many homers he’d have hit if he hadn’t tied for the league lead with 119 walks in 1938? We do know that Greenberg led the league with 144 runs and ranked second with 146 RBIs and a .680 slugging percentage.
We also know that Greenberg went into the White Sox clubhouse to confront manager Jimmy Dykes. And it bothered him that he couldn’t buy property in the plush Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe. But his responses generally came in the form of a long home run and another tour of the bases.
He responded as well as anyone could after a move to the outfield in 1940. Greenberg hit 41 homers and led the league for the third time in six years. He batted .340 and was first in the American League with 150 RBIs, 50 doubles, 384 total bases and a .670 slugging percentage. That made him one of just three players to be named MVP at two positions.
“He was one of the truly great hitters,” Yankees hero Joe DiMaggio said. “When I first saw him at bat, he made my eyes pop out.”
As World War I approached, Greenberg was first diagnosed with flat feet and classified 4F by the Detroit draft board. Amid rumors that he’d bribed officials, Greenberg passed a second examination and was drafted in late 1940. He was honorably discharged on December 5, 1941, after Congress released all men age 28 or older.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor two days later, Greenberg re-enlisted in the Army Air Corps, completed Officer Candidate School, and was commissioned as a first lieutenant, serving in the China-Burma-India Theater.
He returned to baseball in the summer of 1945 and was selected to play in the All-Star Game without a single day of spring training. Greenberg homered in his first game back, drove in 60 runs in 78 games, and saved the best for last. His ninth-inning grand slam in the final game of the season gave the Tigers the American League pennant.
After leading the league for the final time with 44 homers and 127 RBIs in 1946, Greenberg became embroiled in a salary dispute and was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he became the first $100,000 ballplayer. Fittingly, he was also one of the first players to go public and embrace Robinson’s arrival. If Greenberg didn’t know everything Robinson would face, he knew a lot more than most.
“Class tells,” Robinson said. “It sticks out all over Mr. Greenberg.”
Greenberg said goodbye after a year in Pittsburgh, only his ninth full season. In a career without interruptions, he would’ve hit more than 500 homers. Instead, in just eight full seasons with Detroit, he finished with 306 to go with 1,202 RBIs in 1,269 games.
After serving as farm director, general manager, and part owner of the Cleveland Indians, another first for a Jew, Greenberg became part owner of the White Sox, again with Bill Veeck. Blocked by the Dodgers’ Walter O’Malley in a bid to own an American League expansion team in Los Angeles, Greenberg became a successful Wall Street investment banker.
At about that time, Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax became the second Jewish superstar in baseball. His path to success and acceptance had been blazed by Greenberg.
“I thought he’d be the first Jewish president,” attorney Alan Dershowitz said.
Actor Walter Matthau said, “I joined the Beverly Hills Tennis Club to eat lunch with him. I don’t even play tennis.”
Greenberg died of cancer in 1986 in Beverly Hills, California. Twenty years later, he was saluted on one of four commemorative stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service. But the greatest tribute is the way his memory lives on in the name of cancer research.
The Michigan Jewish Sports Foundation has held the Hank Greenberg Memorial Golf & Tennis Invitational for nearly 20 years and has generated close to $2 million to battle the disease. All these years and he’s still battling to make the world a better place.
From Chapter 18, The Yankee Killers
When destiny’s darlings returned to Comerica Park on a frosty Friday, the crowd was as electric as Detroit Edison. With “Mr. Tiger” Al Kaline throwing out the first ball and Kenny Rogers firing the rest, it was truly an evening to remember.
Back home, Leyland’s concern before the series—handling the media and having the courage to say no—was finally a factor. Could that be tougher than facing Damon, Jeter, Abreu, Rodriguez, Giambi, Posada, Hideki Matsui, Bernie Williams, and Cano, with Gary Sheffield waiting to pinch hit? Maybe so, as easy as Rogers made it look.
“It’s hard to say no when all of a sudden you’ve got 10,000 more friends than you thought you had, all wanting tickets,” Leyland said. “You’re getting people situated and making runs to the airport. If you get caught up in all those distractions, you’re going to get your ass beat.
“I’m sure some people think I’m grumpy. I really don’t give a shit. I don’t want people making demands on the players to go to Joe’s Hot Dog Stand to sign autographs when we’re getting ready for the playoffs. I don’t want to lead the league in appearances at Joe’s Hot Dogs so people will say, ‘Boy, those Tigers are really good in the community!’ I want to win games! That’s how you get people out here.”
He couldn’t have kept fans away from Game 3 if he had put a 10-foot-tall, barbed-wire fence around the ballpark. If a delirious crowd had been any louder, we may not have heard Rogers’ self-psyching shrieks in a 6-0 masterpiece.
Scattering five hits in 7 2/3 innings, he fanned eight with a full buffet of pitches, including a 94-mph fastball. Rogers, 41, beat cinch Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, 43, in an AARP-sponsored matchup and avoided decapitation with a Gold Glove snare.
“It was my pleasure to catch him today,” Ivan Rodriguez said. “He didn’t miss anything—changeups, fastballs, breaking balls, whatever I wanted. It was unbelievable.”
“He was so emotional,” Zumaya said. “He pitched his heart out. You can’t ask for any more than he did tonight. And if that ball up the middle had been hit at me, I probably would’ve been dead.”
Rogers had never been more alive on the mound. And his experience had never been more valuable, especially when he was a split second from a Rawlings tattoo.
“I’m pretty good at chuckin’ and duckin’,” he said. “But I was lucky to get my glove on that one. It hit me right in the pocket. It was a make-or-break play.”
Four singles produced three Detroit runs in the second inning. “I-Rod” and Casey doubled in a two-run fifth. And Granderson ended the scoring in the sixth with his second homer of the week. That was more than enough support against a team that couldn’t hang in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.
“I don’t think Kenny could’ve thrown the ball any better,” Tigers president Dave Dombrowski said. “He has been such a quality individual since he has been with us. He has some ghosts in his background. But pitching like this against the New York Yankees in the postseason, I’m just absolutely thrilled for him and our club.”
When told that 90 percent of the country was pulling for his team, Dombrowski smiled and said, “Well, let’s hope we make them happy then!”
In the visitors’ clubhouse Damon tried to put a brave face on a desperate situation, trailing 2-1 and facing elimination. His body language wasn’t that convincing.
“We have our work cut out, but we have to believe we’re the team to beat,” Damon said. “It’s all very shocking, not scoring for 14 innings. We’re just kinda guessing what went wrong. But we’re a good team. We’ll come back tomorrow and win. We just need to try to get back to Yankee Stadium for Game 5.”
As he trudged toward the exit, veteran pitcher Mike Mussina put it a different way, as a three-year graduate of Stanford would: “Our whole season is tomorrow. If we don’t win, nothing else matters. The whole thing will be gone.”
It vanished quicker than a Bonderman fastball. Retiring the first 15 hitters, he held New York to five hits in 8 1⁄3 innings of an 8-3 win. Magglio Ordonez and Craig Monroe homered off Jared Wright, who was relieved in the bottom of the third by Cory Lidle—his last appearance before perishing in a plane crash.
“There’s a special thing going on here,” Bonderman said. “And we’re going to try to ride it. Nobody gave us a shot! But these are the playoffs. Anything goes!”
“I want to give these fans a lot of credit,” Monroe said. “They’ve been through the worst of times. And they’ve stuck by us. That’s what makes this so sweet. Look at ’em! We beat the best team in baseball. And this is for them! Thank you, Detroit!”
They celebrated with cases and cases of G.H. Mumm champagne, spraying everything that moved. Some climbed into the stands. And if they hadn’t had a date with Oakland, Guillen might still be on top of the Detroit dugout.
“It’s a dream come true!” Casey said. “It’s awesome! Jim Leyland told us we had to respect the Yankees but couldn’t fear them. He said if we came out and played our game, we could win this series. And that’s what we did!”
If anyone had more fun than Rogers, it had to be Thames, who spoke between dousings: “My wife told me this morning that today would be something special. And every time I play those guys, I want to beat them. I’m just being honest! They traded me away. And to be with the Tigers and knock them out, it feels great!”
Not if you were in or just outside the New York clubhouse, where senior vice president and G.M. Brian Cashman couldn’t say enough about Detroit’s performance.
“There are no guarantees in sports,” he said. “But the Tigers were awesome—flat-out awesome! They have great ability. They were hungry. They wanted this series. And they took it. It’s the age-old lesson. They led the league in ERA for a reason. Good pitching always beats good hitting. If we needed another history lesson, this was it.”
A series for the ages. And 75 minutes after the game, three of the hundreds of signs in the stands said it all:
“Jeter can’t handle our heater—No. 54!” (Zumaya)
“Leyland for President”
And most appropriately, “You Can’t Buy Heart!”
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
