Tag: Lance Parrish

Same Time, Next Year for Me, Morris and the Hall of Fame

It’s early January which means I have to write a post about how I’ll hold out hope that Jack Morris will be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Gobs of articles have been written in the past couple of weeks, the majority of which put The Cat squarely in the “great but not Hall-of-Fame great” category.

Sadly, many of them, such as this one by Joe Posnanski, make terrific arguments against Morris’ chances. Even sadder, I’m starting to believe them. As a result I’m resigned to the fact he won’t be elected this year, if ever.

But wait! I have some anecdotes of my own:

In the summer of 2008 I attended the SABR Convention in Cleveland and asked former Indians outfielder Rick Manning if he thought Morris belonged in Cooperstown. He hemmed and hawed and eventually said, “That’s a tough call.” I took it as a “no”.

Then, last spring — thanks to a twist of fate — I had coffee with former major leaguer Ken Phelps and I asked him if he thought Morris belonged in the Hall and he responded without hesitation: “Absolutely.” I told him that many writers disagree and he replied, “Well, they didn’t face him.”

Touche.

I think today I realized why I so badly want to see Morris in the Hall of Fame. It’s because Tigers fans that grew up with the players that formed the core of the 1984 team expected so much from them. Didn’t we honestly think the Tigers would win again and again in the 1980s — not just one other division title in 1987?

For crying out loud, there was Morris, Dan Petry, Lance Parrish, Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell, Kirk Gibson — the best collection of Tigers players in a generation! And all we got was a single World Series championship?

Granted, I wouldn’t trade the summer of ’84 for anything, I just expected it to be the beginning of something great, not a one-time trip to the baseball summit. Didn’t you?

That’s why I want to see Morris or Trammell in the Hall. They deserve — and I think they’ve earned — a lasting baseball legacy. One that includes more than the magic they displayed in October 1984.

Gerald Laird Likely to Lose at His Uniform-Number Shell Game

LairdHead.jpgOn May 29, Gerald Laird changed his uniform number from 8 to 12 in the hope his offensive luck would change. Who could blame him for trying something — anything — to inject some life into his bat.

How’s it worked? He’s 2 for 16, or .125 since the switcheroo.

Before he had clubhouse guy Jim Schmakel sew him up a new uni, Laird was 16 for 101, or .158. And his overall stats for Laird while wearing #8 — the ones we’ll compare below with his predecessors are: .184 avg., 5 HR, .271 OBP, .553 OPS

This uniform-change ploy got me thinking about recent Tigers players that wore number 8 or number 12 to see which had the best offensive numbers and if, based on recent history (going back to 1995ish), Laird might luck out by some numerical karma.

Continue reading “Gerald Laird Likely to Lose at His Uniform-Number Shell Game”

Tigers Catcher of the Future to Wear Number of Catching Star of the Past

If you’re still scratching your head about the Tigers’ roster moves on Tuesday, here’s at least one answer for you: Alex Avila will wear number 13.

I didn’t like Josh Anderson wearing Lance Parrish‘s old number but feel a smidge better that a catcher will wear it this time.

What do you think of the recent surge of roster moves? Cast your vote in the latest Fungo Pulse Check –>

The Curious Case of June 2, 1980: Tigers and Mariners Play to a Tie

OldTimeWriterXSmall.jpgIn case you were wondering, here’s how the Tigers have fared against the Mariners since Seattle joined the American League in 1977:

  • All-Time Record: 185-152-1
  • All-Time at Home: 104-64-1
  • All-Time at Comerica Park: 22-18
  • All-Time at Seattle: 81-88

Wait a second. The Tigers and Mariners played to a tie? In the 20th century?

This little item sent me scrambling to my favorite site, Baseball-Reference.com, for the details. Here’s what I found:

Continue reading “The Curious Case of June 2, 1980: Tigers and Mariners Play to a Tie”

On This Date in 1986…

…the Tigers acquired catcher Dave Engle to the Twins for the one-time Lou-Whitaker-displacing Chris Pittaro and Alejandro Sanchez.

If I remember correctly, the Tigers viewed Engle as insurance for Lance Parrish but he played only three games at catcher, 23 at first and a smattering of games in the outfield. In 86 at bats he hit .256 and was released on Aug. 10, 1986.

While we’re at it:

Happy Birthday to former Tigers catcher/third baseman/World Series overachiever Marty Castillo, who turns 52.

Remembering Dwight Lowry

Today would have been Dwight Lowry‘s 51st birthday. Fans old enough to remember Tigers baseball in the mid-1980s remember the tall gentle giant of a catching prospect.

Lowry_DwightLowry, an 11th-round pick in 1980, emerged from nowhere in Spring Training 1984 jumping from Double-A Birmingham to the big club as Lance Parrish‘s backup. As Sparky Anderson liked to do with new players, he got Lowry into action right away: as a seventh-inning defensive replacement for Parrish on Opening Day 1984 in Minneapolis.

Lowry was born Dwight Lowery and was 26 at the start of his rookie season. The 6′ 3″, 210-lb. left-handed hitter appeared in 32 games for the Tigers knocking 11 hits (two of them homers) in 45 at bats for a .244 average. His first major-league hit came on April 24 during the second game of a doubleheader against the Twins in Detroit: a single off Frank Viola in the seventh inning. The Tigers won the game 4-3 with the win going to Glenn Abbott. On May 20, he hit his first big-league homer off Oakland’s Lary Sorensen at Tiger Stadium. Sparky wrote about it in his 1984 diary Bless You Boys:

Dwight Lowry is a rookie catcher with us. He hit his first major league home run, so you know he’ll never forget May 20.

Lowry spent part of the season at Triple-A Evansville where he hit .220 in 61 games before being recalled by the Tigers in September.

In 1985, he spent the entire year with the Tigers’ new Triple-A affiliate, the Nashville Sounds. In 74 games he hit just .182. The next year he again split time with the Tigers and Triple-A. He appeared in 56 games in 1986 — the year Parrish hurt his back and was out after June — mostly at catcher but appeared in one game at each first base and rightfield. In the 1987 Tigers Yearbook the editors pointed out Lowry’s highlights from ’86:

Had three-run homer against Cleveland and hit .370 against the Indians; hit .500 against Kansas City and .389 against Toronto; against Oakland he hit .375 with eight RBI.

The ’87 season was Lowry’s last in Detroit. Appearing in 13 games, he hit .200.

Shortly after the Tigers were bounced from the ALCS by the Twins, Oct. 16, 1987, the Tigers released him. A week later those same Twins signed Lowry as a free agent. He went hitless in seven games for the 1988 Twins and played his final game on April 23, 1988.

His final major league stats: 108 games, 227 at bats, five home runs, 26 RBI and a .273 average.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, in 1989, Lowry played for the St. Petersburg Pelicans of the Senior Professional Baseball Association. He batted .245 in 43 games.

He returned to the Tigers organization in 1994 as manager of the Double-A Fayatteville Generals of the South Atlantic League. That season they finished in 10th place with a 62-75 record. The next season the Generals finished atop the Sallie League with a 86-55 record.

In ’96 the team finished fifth at 76-63 but won the second-half South Atlantic League Division Title. For his work with the Generals, Lowry was named the Detroit Tigers Player Development Man of the Year. In 1997, Lowry moved on to the Tigers’ New York-Penn League affiliate, the Jamestown (N.Y.) Jammers. Just 22 games into that season, on July 10, Lowry collapsed and died outside his Jamestown a short time after a 9-8 victory over the Batavia Clippers. According to the team’s GM Mike Ferguson, Lowry was taking out the trash when his wife heard him collapse. He was just 39 years old.

Shortly after Lowry’s death, the Tigers renamed their annual Player Development Man of the Year Award in his honor. Lowry is survived by his wife Pamela and children, Sesilie, Amanda and Zachary.

I remember reading about Lowry’s death and being really saddened by it. It was the first time a Tigers player that I’d watched in person — and particularly one from that 1984 club — had passed away. And at 39 it seemed even more cruel.

There are probably a number of people who’ve won the Lowry Award who never knew of him or saw him play. Let’s hope the Tigers make a point of telling these winners who Dwight Lowry was: a marginal major-league player who was helping shape a future generation of Tigers players.