Baseball place No. 68: Tiger Stadium

The famous flag pole that was in play out in centerfield was the only thing remaining of Tiger Stadium when I drove past the site along I-75 last month.

Detroit started tearing down the glorious stadium last season, leaving the portion stretching from dugout to dugout. But the plans to save even that part were, like so much of Detroit, cast aside.

Josh Pahigian taps the stadium at thet corner of Michigan and Trumbull as place No. 68 in his "101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out."

Tiger Stadium was my baseball home away from home, second only to Shea in terms of games attended. Adventures there have been all over these places.

Rather than recount those, I thought it would be more fun to share some photos from the vault. Back in 1990 and 1991 BC -- before children -- I'd make it to a game each homestand, arrive early and take photos. The bullpens were open, near the stands and fans could get within 10 feet of pitchers warming up.

I'd also try to snag some autographs, but got tried of the professional collectors pushing in and being rude.


One of my favorite shots. Rock Raines and Frank Thomas were posing for someone else, and I started snapping away.

Nolan Ryan and Goose Gossage came to town with the Rangers.


Roger Clemens in pre-bat-chucking days.



Brett Saberhagen


I'm not sure who is in the middle, but that's Dave Henderson -- another favorite -- and Reggie Jackson. Henderson always seemed to have fun with fans. I remember once yelled out, "Dave, you're on my Rotisserie team!" and he smiled and said, "I know! That's why I'm doing so well!"
George Brett

Cecil Fielder was chatting with Dave Stewart -- who shot me the evil eye.


Bob Welch

Mike Moore
Julio Franco

Ron Karkovice and Milt Cuyler were favorite players even though they weren't stars.

Yankees Hall of Shame

I'm sure that getting roughed up by the Angels in the post-season was exactly what the Yankees had in mind when they brought in Randy Johnson this season.

And let's face it, The Unit's tenure has not been impressive. When he wasn't roughing up cameramen he was getting lit up by Mets relievers who were probably picking up a bat for the first time in their lives.

And that's pretty much what Johnson deserves for strong-arming the Diamondbacks into handing him over to the Skanks.

And amazingly, the Unit's misadventures are nothing compared some of the disgraceful behavior displayed by Yankees over the years. Goodness, there should be disclaimers printed on the back of ticket stubs warning that you will be exposed to some of the most embarrassing and vile actions seen surrounding a baseball team.

I could dedicate a whole book to these atrocities. But in the interest of space, I'll only air the laundry dirtied since 1970.

And gentle reader, it brings me no joy to list these deeds. But you don't get tagged "The Evil Empire" or good behavior and sportsmanship.

Mike Kekich, Fritz Peterson swap families
And Yankee fans have the nerve to ask Pedro “Who’s you daddy?”

The kids of Yankees pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson would have had a hard time with that one.

Apparently Kekich and Peterson liked to share. The players in 1972 went on a double date and joked about wife-swapping. You mean that doesn’t come up in conversation when you and your wives go out with friends? No, me neither.

By the time spring training rolled around the next year, the two pitchers not only swapped wives, they swapped everything – the house, the car, the pets, the kids.

“We didn't do anything sneaky or lecherous,” explained one of the wives. “There isn't anything smutty about this."

Apparently even the Yankees have some standards; Kekich was soon dispatched to Cleveland.

“I thought it was the ball”
It was Game Two of the 2000 Subway Series. The Skanks already stole a win in Game One when Todd Zeile’s would-be two-run homer hits the top of the wall and Timo Perez forgets to run hard.

The next night, everybody’s favorite catcher come to the plate in the first inning and breaks a bat on a foul ball, with the sharp shard harmlessly flopping between the mound and the first base line.

So what does Roger “Mr. Class” Clemens do? How about heave the bat at Piazza? Considering that Clemens had already beaned Piazza on July 8, no one believed Rocket when he later claimed the whole thing was accidental, and that he was merely being emotional. At one point he said he thought the bat was the ball. Makes sense. I confuse the two all the time. Right.

Piazza later said Clemens “seemed extremely apologetic and unsure and confused and unstable."

In other words, a typical Yankee.

It Starts With Seagulls
Future Hall-of-Famer Dave Winfield claims he was playing catch with a ballboy during fifth-inning warmups in Toronto's Exhibition Stadium in 1983 when he unleashed his famously strong throwing arm on a defenseless seagull.

Now, anyone who has brought a picnic to Jones Beach knows that seagulls are often called “rats with wings” for a reason. But that doesn’t mean Yankees get to snuff out their lives for kicks. I swear these guys show no respect for life.

And come on, they were playing the Blue Jays! You start by killing seagulls and work your way up the bird-chain and next thing you know Garth Iorg is laying there with seam marks on his noggin.

A right-thinking Canadian arrested Winfield in the Yankees locker room on a charge of cruelty to animals. Winfield posts $500 bail for his release – only about $300 American -- but was let off the hook the next day.

He needs the cap to cover the horns.

Taking One for the Team
Hey, Winfield was a bird-killer. But he wasn’t all that bad as far as Yankees go.

But that didn’t stop George Steinbernner from paying a gambler $40,000 for information he could use to discredit Winfield.

Let that sink in for a second. The Yankees owner was trying to did up dirt about one of his own players, arguably his best one at that! Hey George, how is that going to help your team win ballgames?

Then-commissioner Fay Vincent, wasn’t amused and slapped a "lifetime ban" on the Boss. Sadly, in Vincent’s dictionary the definition of “lifetime” is “three years.”

It wasn’t even the first time Steinbrenner was banned by baseball. A grand jury in 1974 indicted him on 14 counts, including making illegal political contributions to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign.

Steinbrenner pleaded guilty to a felony was fined $15,000. Then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn banned him for two years for illegal actions that “undermine the public's confidence in our game.”

Brawlin' Billy and Reggie
George’s little legal troubles led to one of the most famous quotes in Yankees history, perhaps only after Lou Gehrig’s “luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”

Reggie Jackson came to New York as one of Steinbrenner’s first much-ballyhooed free agents and humbly proclaimed himself “the straw that stirs the drink.” This didn’t go over too well with manager Billy Martin, whose career was pockmarked with boozing and brawling.

It all spilled over June 18, 1977 in Fenway Park. Jim Rice hit a checked-swing fly ball to right field. “The Straw” allowed it to drop in for a base hit, lazily picked it up and tossed it towards the pitchers' mound as Rice strolled to second.

Martin yanked Reggie from the game, and the two nearly came to blows in the dugout on national television.

Hey, I get it. I had my moment with Reggie. But at least I didn't try to slug the guy.

The next year, Reggie showed Billy up after being asked to bunt, earning Reggie a five-game suspension. A few days later, Martin got lose with this little gem about his employer and top employee: He said Jackson and Steinbrenner deserve each other. “One's a born liar, the other's been convicted.” And Billy was soon unemployed.

Billy Martin showing that Yankee dignity.

Billy Martin rounds three through five
But not unemployeed for long.

I have no problem with the Yankees hiring Billy Martin the first time, and maybe even the second time. But what in the heck was Steinbrenner thinking when he brought Martin back for a third, fourth and fifth times? Martin lasted parts of three years the first time, part of 1979, ending after Billy had a brawl with a marshmallow salesman in a bar. He managed to last all of 1983 for the third round, then was brought back for parts of 1985 and 1988.

I can only imagine the conversation leading up to Billy V.:

“I think he’s changed, guys. He’ll behave,” George might have said.

“Gee whiz, boss. We kind of thought that before.”

“But he’s a real Yankee!” Steinbrenner might have replied.

“But so were Yogi and Piniella, and you kind of showed them the door.”

“Nah, this time it will work.”

Either six pitchers had the game of their lives, or the Yankees really stink.

Shame Times Six

Getting no-hit is bad, but there’s no shame when great pitchers like Sandy Koufax and Ed Halicki are on the mound.

Getting no-hit by multiple pitchers is just plain embarrassing. Getting no-hit by six Astros pitchers? Devil Rays are known to be heard saying, “We suck, but at least that didn’t happen to us.”

In an inter-league game, the Astros were at the hole in the Bronx and starter Roy Oswalt went down with an injury after throwing 24 pitches.

Oswalt turned the ball over to Pete Munro, who was followed by Kirk Saarloos, Brad Lidge, ex-Met Octavio Dotel and Billy Wagner – who held the Yankees hitless. It was a record for most pitchers to throw a combined no-no.

Dotel gets the distinction of not only helping to preserve the no-no, but also fanning four batters in a single inning. Alfonso Soriano reached on a wild pitch, but Dotel struck out Derek Jeter and Jason Giambi to end the inning.

Bat-Chucker Can't Take Care of Business
There was one time – one time! — in my entire life when I rooted for the Yankees to win.

The BaseballTruth.com Executive Board had scheduled our annual executive game for Detroit’s Comerica Park months in advance, and it just worked out that it would be the day that Bat-Chucker would be going for win No. 300.

Now, I have no love for Clemens. But I do love baseball history, and to be able to see someone reach an historic milestone is an amazing thing. I’ve seen Tom Seaver get his 300th win, and to see such history a second time would be a major thrill – even if it does involve a Yankee.

And the woeful Tigers were ripe for the picking. This was the year they would eventually come one loss shy of the 1962 Mets’ tally – without the benefit of being an expansion team.

So we were feeling pretty good when Clemens was up 7-1. But Bleeping Jeter and Bleeping Soriano decided to throw the ball all over the place. Clemens left the game with an 8-6 lead and nine outs to go. We still felt safe. After all, these are the Tigers. But noooo. Bleeping Sterling Hitchcock coughs up some runs and the Tigers tied the game.

So with our chance at history lost, we then reverted to normal Yankee-hating mode. But since the punks are intent to break our hearts over and over, they came back and won the game – in the 17th inning.

Freaking Clemens. Everyone knows that when you go for that milestone, you gut it out and get the complete game. You don’t turn your shot at history over to the bullpen, and if they pull it off, congratulate you at the post-game spread instead of on the field.

Absolutely shameful.

In Other Words...

Will does an excellent job writing about our annual Executive Game adventures. You can read about Clemens attempt at 300 here.

Speaking of Shame...

Oh, how I miss the New York tabloids on days like this!

Hall of Fame Atrocities

I’m hearing a lot of bellyaching about Rafael Palmiero and whether he should go into the Hall of Fame.

Of course he should, unless you want to exclude every other slugger from the juiced era. Raffy may be the first to actually get caught -- not counting leaked grand jury testimony -- but I think no one at this point will be shocked to find out that every great slugger of this era except Mike Piazza was having, ahem, accidental doses of flaxseed oil.

And besides, there are far, far worse things defiling baseball’s sacred shrine in Cooperstown.

I'm talking, of course, about the complete lack of respect to players belonging to a certain New York team -- and some completely unworthy adulation heaped upon another New York team. Some of these omissions are fixable, and we’d better get to it before it’s too late and our hallowed Hall starts to resemble that tacky truck stop in Canton that football calls its hall. The integrity of the baseball Hall itself is at stake, so let's get busy.


Phil Rizzuto: Why does this plaque exist? Enshrining Scooter alone almost forces the place to change its name to the “Hall of Fame Plus an Unworthy Guy Added When the Veteran’s Committee Relented to the Yankee PR Machine.” If Scooter was so good, why did it take 38 years after he retired to put him in? He won an MVP. Well, Dale Murphy has two, and he’s on the outside. The presence of this plaque among true heroes like Jackie Robinson, Tom Seaver and Ted Williams should allow anyone paying admission to demand a refund. I realize that the Yankees would like us to enshrine all their players, even weasels like Derek Jeter, and they darn near get away with it. But we've got to draw the line somewhere, and that line should have been drawn in front of Scooter.

At least this Scooter fiasco is easily repairable, given a crow bar and a few distracted security guards. Some of these other atrocities will be more difficult to fix. I submit the following:


Reggie Jackson: Why is this man wearing a Yankees cap? Baseball’s all-time strikeout king – as a batter, mind you – played 10 years for the Athletics and won three World Series and an MVP. He played five years for the Yankees, a tenure largely remembered for getting Billy Martin fired a couple times and one evening where some rubber-armed Dodger hurlers playing away from their pitcher-friendly yard allow him to doink a hit or three into the cheap seats in a World Series game. And that’s supposed to get him in Lou Gehrig’s company? And we all know what Reggie does when you ask him to sign your Hall of Fame ball. You can read about it here.


Willie Mays: Why is Willie wearing a San Francisco cap on his plaque? Mays started in New York, and he closed his brilliant career in New York, playing a couple seasons – well, 14 of them – on the West Coast. The Hall could have made both Giants and Mets fans happy by using a New York Giants cap, which, of course, bears a striking resemblance to the Mets cap. But no, Metsies are given the short end of the Hall stick. I’m not a big conspiracy guy, but this happens a lot, as you will soon read.


Yogi Berra: I’m fairly confident Yogi is rightfully wearing a Mets cap on his plaque. You just can’t see it -- another slight! And I can’t blame him for dissing the Yanks after the way the team treated him. Yogi played his entire career in pinstripes, became their manager, took them to the World Series in his first year as skipper and they went and fired the guy. So the Mets brought him over, coaxed him out of retirement for four very important games in 1965 and put him at the helm when fatherly Gil Hodges unexpectedly dies. Of course, Yogi took the Mets to the series, too. Now, look at his plaque: “Managed Yankees to pennant in 1964.” Hello! What are we forgetting? Who’s writing this stuff, Bob Klapisch and his Yankee apologist buddies? I know, I know, Yogi was elected to the Hall in 1972, before the 1973 “You Gotta Believe” team. But that’s what happens when you start adding managerial stuff to plaques when a guy is still managing.

Nolan Ryan: Another clear example of the Mets not getting the love. Ryan pitched five years for the Mets, the same number as he did for the Rangers. His tenure with the Mets is best remembered for a win in the first-ever NLCS and a fine performance in the World Series, earning the only ring of his 27-year career. Meanwhile, his time with the Rangers is remembered for bitch-slapping Robin Ventura. And we have to keep in mind that the Mets made the ultimate act of charity by giving Ryan to a poor, struggling Angels team in search of an identity. For all that, we don’t even get a mention in the text of his plaque. I could forgive the non-reference if he was at least donning that classy interlocking NY on his plaque cap.

Gary Carter: The Expos' abstract logo is hard enough to figure out when it's in color. But in bas relief on a plaque? Forget about it! I can picture a young fan in the not-so-distant future admiring the plaques of baseball's heroes and saying, "Daddy, why does this guy have a moose footprint on his cap? Isn't this the guy who started the Miracle of Game Six with a base hit?" The father will say, "Well, son, it is true that Gary Carter is known as a Met and even wanted to go into the Hall as a Met. But the people running baseball were feeling guilty for screwing up what was a great team in Montreal through a series of inept owners, including the commissioner. Yes, he owned even another team at the time. Sometimes that's called a conflict of interest. But we can read about that on his plaque. I think he's wearing a Yankee cap. Anyway, the guilt-ridden people running baseball wanted proof that the Expos existed, so they strong-armed the Hall into putting the Montreal logo on the cap."

There you go. I have issues with the plaques of Richie Asburn, Warren Sphan, Casey Stengel and Eddie Murray, but you see the devious tend at work here.

Luckily there's still time for us to start pressuring the Hall for the proper cap to be proudly displayed on the plaques of Rickey Henderson, Tom Glavine, Mike Piazza and Pedro Martinez.

In other words...

Speaking of Pedro, he's only the latest Mets pitcher to have a no-hitter foiled. The guys at Faith and Fear in Flushing have a great article about the rogue's gallery of dream-killers here.

Every Signature Tells a Story: Reggie Jackson, Punk

Reggie's signature on the Hall of Fame ball, and Willie Mays, too.


It’s my fault. I accept all the blame. I trusted a Yankee.

To be fair, Reggie Jackson had two strikes against him even before he picked up the famed Hall of Fame ball.

His two-run blast in Game Seven of the 1973 World Series crushed the Mets’ bid for a championship. Then he became Mr. Yankee, forcing all of us to have to endure endless stories about those three home runs in the 1977 series against the Dodgers.

But Reggie’s actions at a 1989 baseball card show in New Haven, Conn., were shameful -- even by Yankee standards.

My Hall of Fame ball is a prized baseball possession, second perhaps only to my autograph-filled Mets history book.

Autographs were fairly inexpensive then. Card shows were just starting to pop up as the hobby was taking off. I jumped at chance to meet any Hall-of-Famer who passed through the area and thought it would be fun to have them all sign the same ball.

It’s been signed by Tom Seaver, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Bob Feller, Duke Snider, Harmon Killebrew, Whitey Ford, Monte Irvin and Johnny Mize.

Sometimes I had to think long and hard about whom would gain entry. Some of the recently retired players were making the rounds and I wanted to limit the ball only to guys who would eventually be enshrined in Cooperstown.

Seaver was a no-brainer, of course. But I wasn’t sure about Steve Garvey, so he didn’t get to sign the ball. I was on the fence about Dave Winfield. He was still a ways from getting his 3,000th hit at the time and didn’t ask him to sign, a mistake in hindsight.

I had no doubts about Pete Rose — did any of us? He remains the only person on the ball who isn’t in the Hall of Fame. Pete signed while he was still managing the Reds, and I remember there two televisions showing football games near the table where he was applying his signature to the parade of balls, photos and bats, which I thought it was odd at the time.

Reggie was appearing at a show where several 1980s Mets were signing, and I thought it would be fine to add another Hall-of-Famer to the ball. He wasn’t enshrined yet, but a safe choice.

And as with the book, I like to shake hands with the player and maybe ask a question or two. Several of the players commented on the ball, treating it respectfully and turning it around to see the other signatures.

It was near the end of Reggie’s time to sign, and the line wasn’t very long as I approached.

I handed Reggie my ball and extended my hand for him to shake. He barely looked up as is signed and refused to shake my hand, leaving it hanging there.

Then Reggie palmed my prized ball and started banging it -- banging it! -- on the table.

“Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” he said, thumping the ball three times, then rolling it down the table. I had to move quickly to catch the ball before it rolled off the side and on to the floor.

I was absolutely stunned. “What a jerk!” I said to no one in particular.

I realize that Reggie was under no obligation to shake my hand, answer a silly question or even make eye contact. I paid for a signature, and that’s what I got.

But to take my prized ball, bang it on the table and roll it away was just horrible.

But I learned a valuable lesson that day. Never, ever trust a Yankee.