The Tigers and Their Dens by McCollister John & Miller Todd

Author:McCollister, John & Miller, Todd [McCollister, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781630762360
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2017-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

A 23-YEAR DROUGHT

Baseball is a profession, not a trade. The reserve clause is the backbone of baseball. Remove it and the game will be ruined.

—H. G. Salsinger, Detroit sportswriter

An old expression says: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The 1946 Detroit Tigers should have done everything in their power to heed that sage advice. Instead, by design or accident, the defending World Series champions picked apart a winning combination and set itself on a path of destruction.

Jack Zeller, Detroit’s popular general manager, had, over the past few years, expressed his desire to retire due to his wife’s failing health. Each year, Owner Briggs was successful in convincing him to stay. No longer. Before the World Championship flag was raised over Briggs Stadium on Opening Day of 1946, Zeller resigned to take care of more important duties.

Prior to his departure, Zeller had radically changed the Tigers’ minor-league policy. In lieu of outright ownership of the clubs, the Tigers would maintain only a “working agreement” with select teams.

Filling Zeller’s shoes was George Trautman of Columbus, Ohio. Trautman was quick to initiate changes. He trimmed the Tiger roster by trading the popular Rudy York to Boston for shortstop Eddie Lake, who led the league the previous year by assisting in 459 double plays.

With the return of all the players who had served in the war—Greenberg, Wakefield, McCosky, Tebbetts, Hutchinson, Evers, Bloodworth, et al.—the Tigers were now at full strength. Other fill-ins who had been added to the ’45 squad were moved out to make way for these proven regulars. At the 1946 spring training camp in Lakeland, Florida, only 13 players on Detroit’s roster just a year earlier were wearing the Tigers uniform.

Earlier that same year, teenage girls in Detroit wore black bobby socks. They mourned the news of the marriage of the city’s most eligible bachelor, Hank Greenberg, to Miss Caral Gimbel.

A record-breaking Opening Day crowd of 52,118 greeted the world champion Tigers. Even that impressive figure was surpassed by nearly 100 on April 28—Detroit’s first Sunday home game that year. What a contrast to the attendance at the 8,500-seat capacity of old Bennett Park.

Trautman continued purging the team. After only 26 games in 1946, outfielder Barney McCosky was sent to the Athletics in exchange for a 23-year-old third baseman from Swifton, Arkansas, named George Clyde Kell. Not many expected much of this personable youngster. The Dodgers had given up on him, and Philadelphia questioned his potential. In addition, the word in scouting circles said that young George suffered from weak knees—an affliction he had since early childhood. But the scrappy Kell surprised even the most optimistic seers by hitting .327 and fielding the hot corner with the skill of a seasoned veteran.

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