Celebrating Detroit Tigers teams, players and games from 1977 to '89.
Month: March 2024
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Fernando Arroyo – #36 Righty Fernando Arroyo began the 1975 season in Triple-A Evansville, and made his major-league debut on June 28, 1975 against the Orioles, and in relief of Joe Coleman. He appeared in 14 games for the ’75 Tigers, finishing with a 2-1 record and 4.56 ERA. Evansville was his home for the…
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Tito Fuentes – #3 and #44 When the Tigers sought a player to oversee second base until Lou Whitaker was ready, they could have done a lot worse than Rigoberto “Tito” Fuentes. Offensively, that is. The switch-hitting 33-year-old trailed only Ron LeFlore‘s team-leading .325 average that season but was brutal in the field. He led all American League second…
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Tim Corcoran – #25 Fifty years ago this June, the Tigers signed Tim Corcoran as an amateur free agent, and he started hitting as soon as he got to Lakeland (.270) and Bristol (.370). In 1975, Corcoran was promoted to Double-A Montgomery and hit .245 with a .666 OPS, but in ’76 he hit 64…
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Dwayne Murphy – #18 For more than 10 seasons, Dwyane Murphy was a mainstay in the Oakland lineup, roaming centerfield (a six-time Gold Glove winner), for seven managers: Bobby Winkles, Jack McKeon, Billy Martin, Steve Boros, Jackie Moore, Jeff Newman and Tony La Russa. The Tigers picked him up on June 5, 1988 after the…
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Mickey Stanley – #24 For many fans, Mickey Stanley’s defining moment with the Tigers came in the 1968 World Series when manager Mayo Smith shifted him from the outfield to shortstop — a position he’d played only in nine major-league games. The move was made specifically to keep Al Kaline in the lineup while adding some pop to the ’68 team’s…
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Charles Hudson – #27 In retrospect, the 1989 Tigers season was doomed from the start. The core of the ’84 team was aging or playing elsewhere, and the farm system was dried up. Thanks to the mirage of 1988’s 88-win, second-place finish, one game behind the Red Sox, there was only the flimsiest of hope…
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Morris Madden – #42 Lefty Morris Madden had a micro-career with the Tigers, appearing just twice during the 1987 season. Appearance 1: On June 11 versus Milwaukee at Tiger Stadium, he came in during the sixth inning to relieve Eric King, who had relieved starter Jeff Robinson, with the bases loaded and walked Brewers second…
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Chuck Scrivener – #9 If ever there were a time to break into major leagues, the forlorn Tigers of the mid-1970s presented a golden opportunity … unless you happened to play middle infield. That was the scenario facing Chuck Scrivener who, it appeared, had the talent to be a big leaguer. I mean, he was drafted…
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Champ Summers Champ Summers was a fan favorite in Detroit and for good reason. He came to the Tigers as a career underachiever — at least at the major-league level — in an under-the-radar trade roughly a week before they hired Sparky Anderson in 1979. The Reds traded the 30-year-old Summers to the Tigers for…
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I think we take for granted, if we think about it at all, how MLB.com and ESPN can use Photoshop to instantly change a traded player’s uniform from old team to new. This certainly was not the case in the 1980s. If you need proof, here is Ruppert Jones’s entry in the 1984 Tigers Yearbook.…
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