10/9/98
A few years back, when Lance Parrish was breaking in, Sparky Anderson told Sports Illustrated that he thought that Parrish could be the best Tiger catcher ever, which caused SI to note that the Tigers' line of catchers included Mickey Cochrane and Bill Freehan. The Tigers have, indeed, produced their share of good hitting, durable catchers over the years - not exactly Dickey to Berra to Howard to Munson, but a good bunch.
The Tigers very first catcher, back in 1901, was a man named Fritz Buelow. Buelow is hardly the obvious predecessor to power hitting catchers such as Freehan, Parrish, Matt Nokes, and Mickey Tettleton: his career BA was just .192, and he never drove in or scored 30 runs in season. Of course, in those days of limited equipment and tiny mitts, very few catchers truly played regularly. Buck Ewing, the Hall of Fame catcher from the 1890s, never caught 100 games in a season; King Kelly, the only other HoF catcher of the era, never even caught 85. Most teams split the catching duties among 2 or 3 players, and Buelow's mates in that first Tiger season were Sport McAllister and Al Shaw.
In 1902, the Tigers added Deacon McGuire to replace McAllister and Shaw. McGuire was 18 years into a long, successful career, and definitely past his prime, but in his prime, he had represented those two traits of many future Tiger catchers: durability, and a powerful bat. In 1895, with Washington, he had hit 10 home runs, 5th in the league, and that same year had caught the then astronomical total of 132 games. He had also caught more than 100 games on two other ocassions, and regularly caught 90 or so games. Deacon didn't carry those workloads with Detroit - he caught 70 games in 1902, 69 the following year - nor did he hit much with Detroit. But perhaps his presence in Detroit showed a management mindset towards catchers that somehow carried down through the years.
The Tigers opened the 1904 season with Buelow still the #1 catcher, sharing the duties with a player named Bob Wood. But Buelow had lost what little hitting ability he once had - by the end of July, he was hitting .110 (no, that's not a typo), and the Tigers were able to trade him to Cleveland for power-hitting OF Piano Legs Hickman, whose name alone made the trade worthwhile, even if Hickman was a disappointment as a Tiger (we'll talk more about him when we get to outfielders). They then bought third baseman Billy Coughlin and catcher Lew Drill from Washington for $7500, and Drill, a very average player, was the Tigers primary catcher for the rest of 1904 and all of 1905, which would be the last year in his 4 year ML career.
In 1906, the Tigers introduced a 26 year old rookie catcher from Coal Hill, Arkansas, with the wonderful name of Boss Schmidt. Schmidt is an important player, less for Tiger history than for baseball history. In the Baseball Encyclopedia, Bill James attempted to isolate the first incidence of true platooning - that is, using lefty/righty splits, not just alternating players - in baseball history. The earliest example he found was the 1906 Tigers' catchers, Boss Schmidt, Freddy Payne, and Jack Warner. Schmidt, who is listed in the Baseball Encyclopedia as a switch hitter, played only against RHPs, while Payne played against all lefties. Warner, a left-handed batter, was the third catcher. This arrangement continued over the next 4 years, with Schmidt platooning with Payne in 1907, Ira Thomas in 1908 and Oscar Stanage in 1909-10.
Schmidt is a guy who a deserves a place in Tiger annals for two other reasons. Foremost, as the lefty half of the platoon, he was the Tigers #1 catcher on the first great Tiger teams, the 1907-09 pennant winners. Secondly, he helped set the mode of durable Tiger catchers. He caught a league high 104 games in 1907. Then, in 1908, Giants HoFer Roger Bresnahan introduced shin guards and the padded face mask, and caught 139 games. Moreover, Pittsburg catcher George Gibson, also using Bresnahan's new gear, caught 140 games. These were amazing totals at the time. Whether Boss Schmidt adopted Bresnahan's inventions I've not been able to discover (I suspect he didn't, or it would be prominently mentioned), but Schmidt in 1908 caught 122 games, an American league record at the time. Perhaps the wear was too much; while Gibson caught 150 and 143 games the next two seasons, Bresnahan never caught 90 games in a season again, and Schmidt dropped to 84 games in 1909 and 71 in 1910. He finished his career by playing in 28 games for the 1911 Tigers, 18 of them as a pinch hitter. Schmidt's younger brother, Walter, also had a 10 year career as a ML catcher.
Over the 1909 and 1910 seasons, Schmidt was gradually replaced as the #1 catcher by Oscar Stanage. Stanage would remain the Tigers #1 catcher, more or less, through the 1920 season (remember, throughout this period it remained the exception to catch 100 games in a season.) Stanage was not a great player, but he was something like the Terry Steinbach of his day - not as good as Wally Schang or Ray Schalk or the other top catchers, but consistently above average over many years. Another durable catcher, in 1911 he shattered Schmidt's AL record for games caught, catching 141, which lasted until Schalk broke it in 1920. He also led the league in games caught in 1912 with 119, and caught 122 games, still a huge total, in 1914. Even by deadball standards, he wasn't much of a hitter, with a career BA of just .234, few walks, and a slugging pct. of .295. I assume, without added evidence, that he must have been a fine defensive catcher. Over this period, he shared catching duties with a number of catchers who are entirely forgettable, save for a couple who had great baseball names: Red McKee (1913-16); Tubby Spencer (1917-18); Archie Yelle (1918); and Ed Ainsmith. For all intents and purposes Stanage finished his career platooning with Ainsmith in 1919-20. He then coached for Ty Cobb, coming out of retirement to catch 3 games in 1925. Besides having a long and successful career, Oscar Stanage, like Boss Schmidt before him, was a true Tiger - other than one game with Cincinnati in 1906, all of his1094 ML appearances were in a Tiger uniform.
Stanage was immediately replaced for the 1921 season by another fine catcher, Johnny Bassler. Bassler had caught a total of 44 games for the Indians in 1913-14, but had then been stuck in the minors for six years before the Tigers resurrected his career. Bassler would be the Tigers regular catcher for the next five years (continue to bear in mind that in those days, that meant catching 110-120 games a year), then was a part-time player in 1926 and 1927, after which he retired. During his seven seasons with Detroit, Bassler hit .307, .323, .298, .346, .279, .305, and .285, for a career .304. These were good, but not fantastic averages, for that time. For example, Bassler's .346 average in 1924 was only 5th best in the league. His .323 in 1922 was only 14th best (in an 8 team league). He had no power - zero, zip, none - with just 1 career HR (and remember, we're now in the lively ball era). By reputation, he was one of, if not the, slowest player of his time. (Although the stats don't obviously show this - he hit as many as 5 triples in a season, stole one or two bases a year, and once even stole home). He never batted 400 times in a season. He did walk a lot for the era (60-75 BBs/year), and rarely struck out (he never K's more than 16 times in a season; in 1925 he had 74 walks and just 6 Ks in 344 ABs), an important attribute in an era when small gloves and bad fields made putting the ball in play more important.
But here's what is most remarkable about Johnny Bassler: in 1922, he finished 6th in the AL in MVP voting; in 1923, he finished 7th; and in 1924, he finished 5th. This was playing in a league in which Babe Ruth, Tris Speaker, Harry Heilman, Gene Sisler, Joe Sewell, Eddie Collins, and Walter Johnson were in their primes, on a team which never finished closer than 6 games out of first, and was at least 15 back every other year. Yet Bassler, never playing 130 games or batting 400 times, was consistently considered one of the top players in the league. I know little more about Johnny Bassler, except that he later worked in the PCL for a while, and died in 1979 in Santa Monica, CA. But Bassler deserves to be considered one of the best catchers in Tiger history.
After Bassler, for the first time in 20 years, the Tigers had some instability at catcher. Undistinguished players such as Clyde Manion, Larry Woodall, Eddie Phillips, and Merv Shea filled the slot, in various combos, for a few years. The best of that group was Ray Hayworth, who, after a couple years sharing the duties, seized the job full-time with a .293 average in 1932, becoming the first Tiger since Bassler in 1925 to catch more than 100 games. Hayworth remained the regular in 1933, but slipped to a .245 average and just 1 HR, pretty bad in league with a .273 BA and home run hitters such as Jimmy Foxx and Lou Gehrig.
On December 12, 1933, the Tigers traded a 28 year old back-up catcher named Johnny Pasek and $100,000 cash, to the cash-strapped Connie Mack and the Philadelphia A's for Mickey Cochrane. Cochrane is the greatest catcher ever to wear a Tiger uniform, and his 1934-35 seasons, though hardly his best, are quite possibly the best any Tiger catcher ever had. Cochrane took over as player-manager, and led the Tigers to the pennant in 1934 and the World Series Championship in 1935. Along the way, he picked up his second MVP Award in 1934 (he had won it in 1928 with Philly). 1934 was not his best year - his .412 slugging was his lowest since 1926, his 2 HRs the fewest of his career, his .320 BA right at his career BA, and he dropped to 78 BBs after two straight years with more than 100 BBs. But he was undoubtedly the man, and it was fitting that Cochrane scored the winning run in Game 6 of the 1935 World Series, giving the Tigers their first World Championship ever.
Cochrane was 33 years old and had caught over 1400 games by the start of the 1936 season, and was clearly on the downside. He was hitting .270 early in the season when he essentially went down with exhaustion. Always an intense player, Mickey was basically on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He was basically out for the season, playing just 44 games. In 1937, however, Cochrane came out with renewed fire: by mid-May he was hitting .306, with a .490 slugging percentage and nearly a walk per game. In late May the Tigers began an early "showdown" series with the Yankees. Cochrane homered in his first AB against pitcher Bump Hadley, and his next time up, Hadley cracked Cochrane with a pitch to the right temple. Cochrane lay unconscious for 10 days. He eventually came back and managed the team (he was never officially replaced, so in the record books he is listed as the Tiger manager for all 154 games), but Tiger senior management nixed his desire to return to the field. Cochrane managed the Tigers again for most 1938, but had ongoing problems with vision and headaches and eventually stepped down in favor of Del Baker.
Although Cochrane spent 9 of his 13 years as a player with the A's, including his best seasons, when he swept into the Hall of Fame in 1947, his plaque showed him as a Tiger. In 1950, Connie Mack hired Black Mike to be GM of the A's, but with little budget, Cochrane had minimal success. In 1961, Mickey returned to the Tigers as a Vice-President, a position he held until shortly before his death on June 28, 1962, at age 59.
Cochrane is the greatest Tiger catcher ever. Maury Allen ranks him as the 30th greatest player ever; Ritter and Honig in their top 100; Thorn & Palmer rank him 97th; Bill James ranks him 20th in Peak Value, 42nd in Career Value (2nd and 3rd among catchers).
After Mickey Cochrane went down with exhaustion in 1936, and then in 1937 after his beaning by Bump Hadley, the Tiger catching chores fell once again to Ray Hayworth, who had been the Tigers' regular catcher in 1932-33, before Cochrane's arrival. Hayworth was a pretty good back-up - he had hit .293 and .309 while backing up Black Mike in 1934-35 - but he wasn't really up to being an everyday catcher. Birdie Tebbetts, a rookie in 1937, wasn't ready either, hitting just .191 in 48 games.
The solution came in the form of hard-hitting Rudy York. The 23 year old rookie York had been crowding Marv Owen for playing time at third base, but he'd been a catcher in the minors and the Tigers now moved him back to that position. York responded with a fabulous year - a .307 BA, a .651 slugging percentage (third in the league, behind DiMaggio and Greenberg), and 35 HR and 103 RBI in just 104 games. Included was York's magnificent August, when he hit 18 home runs, which stood as the major league record for homers in a month until this decade. York turned in another fine campaign in 1938, with a .298 BA, 33 HRs (4th in league, behind Greenberg, Jimmy Foxx, and Harland Clift), 127 RBI (also fourth in league, behind Greenberg, Foxx, and DiMaggio), a .577 slugging average (5th in league - Foxx, Greenberg, DiMaggio, and Jim Heath) and 92 BBs in 135 games, and made the AL All-Star squad. York's problem was that he couldn't play defense to save his life. In 1939 some minor injuries and defensive woes limited him to 102 games total, just 67 behind the plate, although he hit .307/20/68, with a .544 slugging percentage. How bad was York on defense? How good was he on offense? A partial answer to both questions is that the Tigers moved Hall of Fame first baseman Hank Greenberg to the outfield before the 1940 campaign, so that York could play first base. Indeed, after 1939 he never played a game at any position but first base. For a variety of reasons, which I will discuss when reviewing the history of Tiger first basemen, it's tough to pin down just how good a player York was. But for sure, he could hit.
While York struggled behind the plate, Tebbetts was improving at the plate. He hit .294 in 53 games in 1938, and in 1939 took over the majority of the catching duties from York. Tebbetts was much the opposite of York - a fine defensive player who hit for very little power - just 38 career homers in 3705 career ABs. But Tebbetts hit some singles and the ocassional double, and that, coupled with his defense, made him one of the better catchers of his day. Tebbetts had the best year of his career in 1940, helping the Tigers to the pennant with a .296 BA and .412 slugging percentage. Then came the war years. Tebbetts wasn't called up until 1943, and was the AL's All-Star catcher in the talent depleted years of 1941-42. Journeyman Billy Sullivan caught about 50 games a year in 1940-41 as Tebbetts back-up, and played well, hitting .309 and .282, with a little power (a .450 slugging average in 1940). Dixie Parsons took over the #2 catcher slot in 1942 and did not play well, hitting .197.
With Tebbetts gone to war, Paul Richards became the Tigers primary catcher from 1943-45. Richards was a classic wartime player. He had been a back-up catcher for the Giants, Dodgers, and A's in the 1930s, and had been out of ML baseball since 1935 when the Tigers called him back in 1943. At age 34, he then set his career high in ABs that year, and held the main Tiger job throughout the remainder of the war, with support from future Tiger manager Bob Swift, another guy who couldn't hit a lick.
Tebbetts returned and reclaimed his catching job in 1946, with Swift and Richards each putting in substantial time behind the plate (even in the 1940s, a catcher who caught 120 games was a rarity). But when the 34 year old Tebbetts started the 1947 campaign hitting .094 through 20 games, the Tigers figured he was through, and traded him to Boston for Hal Wagner, a slightly younger (31) catcher who had been a little used back-up in the 30s but gotten more substantial playing time during the war. Wagner hit pretty well (.288) for the rest of 1947, but the trade turned out to be a mistake. After hitting just .202 in 54 games in 1948, the Tigers dumped Wagner, who played just 4 more games in the majors. Tebbetts, as it turns out, wasn't through after all - he hit .299 in 1947 after the trade, and then made the AL All Star team with the Red Sox in both 1948 and 1949. Tebbetts concluded his career with Cleveland in 1952, and then had a lengthy career as a popular, but not terribly successful, scout, coach, and manager.
Meanwhile, in an effort to fill the slot left by Tebbetts departure, the Tigers made an even more disastrous trade, one of the worst in their history. Prior to the 1949 season, they traded 21 year old lefty pitcher Billy Pierce to the White Sox for 33 year old journeyman catcher Aaron Robinson. Robinson had hit .297, with 16 HRs and a .506 slugging average in 100 games, for the 1946 Yankees, but hadn't come close to those figures before or since. Robinson delivered an OK season for the Tigers in 1949, hitting .269 with 13 dingers and a .423 slugging average, but he slipped to .226 the next year, and then was traded to Boston after starting the 1951 season hitting .207 in 36 games. Pierce went on to win 211 games (208 after the trade), with a 3.27 ERA in an 18 year major league career that saw him lead the league, at various times, in wins, ERA, complete games, and Ks.
The dependable, and dependably mediocre, Swift shared the Tiger catching duties with Wagner, and Robinson over those years. Twenty four year old Joe Ginsberg entered the picture with a solid rookie year in 1951 (.260/8/37, 43 BBs in 95 games at catcher), but couldn't build on that and was shipped off to Cleveland in 1953 as part of the 8 player deal that brought Ray Boone to Detroit.
As we have seen, other than some rotation in the early years of the franchise, and a brief period of instability between the retirement of Johnny Bassler after the 1927 season and the arrival of Mickey Cochrane in 1934, the Tigers had been a remarkably stable team at catcher. Between 1934 and 1942, they featured an All Star catcher in 5 years out of 8, and remained solid through Tebbetts departure after 1946. But from Tebbetts' departure until the arrival of Bill Freehan in 1963, catcher was a constant problem. Matt Batts, Johnny Bucha, Frank House, Red Wilson, Lou Berberet, Dick Brown, and Mike Roarke, in addition to the players we've already mentioned, all got substantial playing time for a year or two at catcher - none with any great distinction. House and Brown had the most success. In 1955, House hit .259, with 15 HRs and a .436 slugging average. That was far and away the best he could do, but he played pretty regularly for the Tigers from 1954 through 1957, when he was traded to Kansas City in a 13 player deal of mediocre players, which brought Billy Martin to Detroit for the first time. Brown was acquired in one of the Tigers' better trades of the period, a 6 player deal that brought Brown, Terry Fox, and Billy Bruton to Detroit for a couple of Frank Bolling and minor leaguer Neil Chrisley before the 1961 season. Brown contributed to the Tigers surprising 1961 season (101 wins) with a .266 average, 16 HRs, and .474 slugging, but slipped to .241/12/.353 the next year and was shipped to Baltimore for the aging Gus Triandos after the season.
Triandos opened the season as the Tigers' lead catcher, while the Tigers broke in Bill Freehan behind him. Triandos did his duty, hitting 14 homers in 327 ABs, and after the season he was shipped to Philadelphia in another infamous trade - Triandos and Jim Bunning for Don Demeter and Jack Hamilton (this trade marked the end - and perhaps the apogee - of nearly two decades of generally bad trades for the Tigers).
With the exception of Cochrane, who was Tigers regular catcher for just 2 years and brief parts of 2 others, Bill Freehan is the greatest catcher in Tiger history. After an unassuming rookie season in 1963 (.243/9/36 in 100 games), in 1964 the 22 year-old Freehan hit .300, the first Tiger catcher to do so since York, with 18 HRs and 80 RBI, and his career was off and running. Between 1964 and 1975, Freehan won 5 gold gloves, was selected to 11 All Star teams, set the major league record for fielding percentage by a catcher, and in 1967-68 finished 3rd and then 2nd in AL MVP voting. I won't here go into a long debate on whether or not Freehan belongs in the Hall of Fame - it's unlikely he'll go in in any case, and my own opinion is that he probably should not - but he was definitely a better ballplayer than many of the catchers in the Hall, and is one of the best, if not the best, catcher not in the Hall. At his best, Freehan was a bigtime threat at the plate, hitting for power, fine batting averages in the context of the time (his .263 average in 1968 was 30 points better than the league average - as a percentage of the league average, it would be like hitting about .310 today), and the outstanding defensive catcher of the day, indeed one of the best defensive catchers ever. Had he sustained that level a bit longer, he'd be HoF material. He was also recognized as the team leader on and off the field, so much so that Tiger GM Jim Campbell sometimes bypassed the manager and coaches and had Freehan report directly to him on how a pitcher was doing if Campbell was considering a trade or demotion.
Freehan wrote a book in 1969, a seasonal diary called "Behind the Mask." Had it been written even a year earlier, it would have been rather daring, but it came out at about the same time that Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" broke the mold of puff sports books. There are interesting comments in the book about Denny McLain, in particular. Freehan also notes in the book that he virtually never worked on his hitting - not because he was lazy, but because he spent virtually all of his efforts on defense, including learning his pitchers and opposing hitters. Freehan was also bothered by nagging injuries during much of his career - back problems in 1965-66, a broken nose in early 1969, a sore back, bad knees, split fingers, and other problems that often beset catchers in 1970, '72, and '73. In those seasons he was merely good. When he was healthy - 1964, 1967-68, 1971, 1974, he was a very dangerous hitter, and one of the best players in baseball. Freehan is the all-time career leader for fielding percentage at catcher. He ranks 5th in total put-outs.
Freehan played in one World Series, 1968, and was terrible, hitting just .083. But older Tiger fans will have little trouble conjuring up the image of Freehan catching a foul ball for the final out of that series.
After 1971, Freehan usually got a little platoon help from catchers such as Tom Haller, Duke Sims, Gerry Moses, and John Wockenfuss. He retired after the 1976 season, turning things over to Milt May, acquired by trade a year earlier but injured for most of 1976. May had been a hot prospect at one time, and was still young when the Tigers got him, but he never really developed and was soon pushed out by yet another outstanding, durable, hard-hitting Tiger catcher, Lance Parrish.
Parrish is one of those players who never became as good as I thought he would. He was just 21 in 1978, when he platooned with May and hit 14 HRs. By 1980, he was probably the best catcher in the league, even though he would not be widely recognized as such for a couple more years. He had a great arm, good plate blocking ability, and hit for power that few catchers in history have matched. But Parrish never got the strike zone under control; he never walked much, and undoubtedly hurt his batting average with wild swinging. And even as he won three gold gloves in the mid-1980s, there were concerns about his ability to call a game. Still, not counting the strike-shortened 1981 season, Parrish averaged nearly 28 HRs a year from 1980 through 1986 - among catchers, only Roy Campanella, Johnny Bench, and, since Parrish, Mike Piazza, have done better over a period of similar length.
Parrish was a six time All-Star with Detroit, and also appeared in All Star games with Philadelphia and California. He is 7th All Time for games played at catcher, 7th in career put-outs; 7th in career fielding percentage. He is fourth all time for homers by a catcher, behind Bench, Fisk, and Berra, 7th in RBI, 10th in doubles. Parrish probably won't make the Hall of Fame and probably shouldn't, but it wouldn't be a shock, or a disgrace, to see him elected, most likely by the Veterans Committee at some distant date. In the mid-1980s, he was as good a catcher as could be found in baseball.
When Parrish left for free agency after the 1986 season, a rookie named Matt Nokes stepped in in 1987, bashed 32 homers, and made the AL All Star squad. It looked as though Tiger catching wouldn't miss a beat. But Nokes, a weak defensive catcher, could never match his '87 numbers again, and after his slugging average slipped below .400 in 1989 and early 1990, he was shipped to New York in mid-season for relievers Clay Parker and Lance McCullers. Nokes had been platooning for most of 1988 and '89 with Mike Heath, a competent journeyman first acquired by the Tigers when Parrish went down with an injury in 1986. Heath finished out the 1990 season as the Tigers top catcher, backed by Mark Salas.
In January, 1991, the Tigers pulled off a coup on the trading market by shipping sore-armed lefty pitcher Jeff Robinson to Baltimore for catcher Mickey Tettleton. Tettleton immediately became the third Tiger catcher in a decade to hit 30 or more homers in a season, hitting 31, 32, and 32 homers in 1991-93. Tettleton also raised plate discipline to an art form. While regularly drawing 100 or more walks, Tettleton also regularly led the league in called third strikes. Tettleton had back and, especially, knee problems, and during 1993 and 1994 he increasingly saw playing time in the outfield and DH while Chad Krueter took on more of the catching chores. By the end of 1994, Tettleton's knees kept him from playing catcher more than once or twice a week, and the Tigers allowed him to leave as a free agent after the season. Playing mainly DH, he turned in a couple of productive seasons for the Rangers (including another 30 homer season) before hanging them up. Although Tettleton was selected to one All Star team while with Detroit, the rap on him was that he couldn't play defense. He reportedly had a poor arm, did not call a good game, and lacked agility behind the plate. What is interesting about these evaluations is that Tettleton had begun his career with the A's with a rep as a no hit/good field catcher. Tettleton's arm wasn't strong, and there is no doubt that by 1993 he wasn't too agile, but I suspect that the rap on his game calling was undeserved. His teams consistently had lower ERAs with Tettleton catching than with other catchers behind the plate.
After Tettleton came John Flaherty in 1995-96, and in 1997 and 1998 the Tigers were trying Grade C prospects such as Raul Casanova and Paul Bako behind the plate. Bako played well in 1998, but was certainly no offensive threat and too old to be likely to turn into one. Meanwhile, in September of 1998, the Tigers called up Rob Fick, a power hitting catcher who pasted his first taste of major league pitching. However small that taste might be, Tiger fans can, for now at least, hope that Fick will follow in the line of power hitting catchers such as Mickey Cochrane, Rudy York, Bill Freehan, Lance Parrish, and Mickey Tettleton.
Tiger Catcher Awards:
Hall of Fame: Mickey Cochrane Most Valuable Player: Mickey Cochrane, 1934 Gold Gloves: Bill Freehan, 1965, '66, '67, '68, '69 Lance Parrish, 1983, '84, '85 All Star Selections: Mickey Cochrane, 1934, '35 Rudy York, 1938 Birdie Tebbetts, 1941, '42 Bill Freehan, 1964, '65, '66, '67, '68, '69, '70, '71, '72, '73, '75 Lance Parrish, 1980, '82, '83, '84, '85, '86 Matt Nokes, 1987 Mickey Tettleton, 1993 (The Tigers had an All Star catcher in 19 of the 30 years from 1964 to 1993). The Tigers are the only team in baseball to have four different catchers hit 30 home runs in a season: Rudy York (1938); Lance Parrish (1982, '84); Matt Nokes (1987); and Mickey Tettleton (1991, '92, '93). Smith's Rankings for Best Tiger Catchers: Peak Value (As Tigers only) 1. Mickey Cochrane 2. Bill Freehan 3. Lance Parrish 4. Johnny Bassler 5. Mickey Tettleton/Rudy York Career Value (As Tigers only) 1. Bill Freehan 2. Lance Parrish 3. Johnny Bassler 4. Oscar Stanage 5. Birdie Tebbetts
Bradley A. Smith Phone: (614) 236-6676
Associate Professor Fax: (614)236-6956
Capital University Law School e-mail:
bsmith@law.capital.edu
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