How many of the great Tiger third basemen can you name? Well, let's
see, there's George Kell, and ... and... and.... The Tigers, over the
course of their history, have probably had fewer stellar performers at third
base than at any other position. Yet despite that, the Tigers have shown
remarkable patience with their third sackers. For example, for 25 seasons
from 1964 through 1988, Don Wert, Aurelio Rodriguez, and Tom Brookens
basically manned the position (although Brookens periodically gave way for a
year to a Howard Johnson or a Darnell Coles, while still drawing a couple
hundred at-bats or more). Over those 25 years, these three guys put up
slugging averages above .400 exactly twice: Brookens' .418 in 1980, his
first full season on the job, and Rodriguez's .401 in 1971 - *his* first
season on the job. Before them there was Kell, of course, and Marv Owen.
Lots of older Tiger fans tend to think of Owen, the third baseman on the
1934-35 champs, as a pretty good player, but he really wasn't. Indeed, in
six years as the Tiger regular, Owen only slugged over .400 one time, and
this was during the 1930s! And though it may be unfair to Owen to put it
this way, it wasn't Gehringer and Greenberg and York, and Al Simmons and Gee
Walker and Goose Goslin, that couldn't quite match up with the Yankees in
1936 and 1937. 

This may overstate the dismal state of third base in Tiger history,
however. If we did the same analysis for most teams, we would fine that few
teams had many outstanding third basemen before about 1955. There are
probably fewer all-time greats, at least from before 1955, at third base
than at any other position. Much of this can be attributed to the changing
and sometimes ambiguous nature of the position. Is third base primarily an
offensive position or primarily a defensive position? Certainly before
1920, it was a defensive position - probably the key defensive position on a
team, even more than shortstop. In the dead ball era, when runs and hits
were hard to come by, players regularly bunted for hits, bunted to move
runners along, bunted the suicide squeeze, and bunted, it sometimes seems,
just for the heck of it. The third baseman was expected to play in tight to
cut off all these bunts, but at the same time, he had to be ready for the
line drive or hard grounder pulled to left. The position truly earned the
name, "the Hot Corner." Third basemen were expected to have jackrabbit
reflexes, a powerful arm, good range, speed, and instinct. After the lively
ball era began, however, some of these traits became less important.
Players bunted less, tried to pull the ball hard more. This created an
opening for the modern third base type, the bigger, stronger player,
possibly with slower reflexes, perhaps with less range, but possessing a
strong arm and expected to contribute far more at the plate. However, this
change did not come about immediately. As we know, baseball is a closed and
often stubborn world. The old image of the third baseman faded slowly. A's
manager Connie Mack had used good hitting third basemen in Home Run Baker
and Jimmy Dykes during the teens and twenties, but the first real wave of
good hitting third basemen didn't come until the 1930s and 1940s, when
Connie Mack followed up Dykes (a future Tiger manager) with Pinky Higgins (a
future Tiger player) at third, and then players such as Harlond Clift of the
Browns (whom the Tigers once tried to acquire in trade), Stan Hack, Kenny
Keltner, and eventually George Kell showed up. They were followed by the
first real power hitting third baseman to appear on the scene, after the war
- players such as Vern Stephens, Bob Elliott, Whitey Kurowski, and
eventually, the players who would change the image of the third baseman for
good, Al Rosen of the Indians, who began playing regularly in 1950, and
Eddie Matthews of the Braves, who debuted in 1952 with the Boston Braves and
closed out his career as a back-up 1B/pinch hitter with Detroit in 1967-68.
I agree with Bill James, who argues that virtually all of the greatest third
basemen have played in the past 40 years.

The Tigers' problem is that they have never had a top notch third
basemen during this "modern" era of third base. Moreover, most of the
Tigers' third basemen have not been particularly interesting. To compare
them just to the three positions we have already covered - catcher, first
base, and second base, there is no player who made a significant
contribution to the development of the game or strategy, such as catchers
Boss Schmitt, Oscar Stanage, or Deacon McGwire; no players with particularly
interesting or unusual careers, such as catcher Johnny Bassler, first
baseman Norm Cash, second baseman Eddie Mayo or catcher-first baseman Rudy
York; no player of social significance, such as first baseman Hank
Greenberg; no player who can truly claim to be one of the very greatest
ever at his position, such as Greenberg, or catcher Mickey Cochrane, or
second baseman Charlie Gehringer; no "characters," such as second baseman
Germany Schaefer; not even any unsung stars, such as second baseman Dick
McAuliffe. So just what is there? A whole bunch of "Tom Brookens", to tell
the truth.

The Tigers' early third basemen set the pattern for being a
non-descript bunch. There was Doc Casey, who hit .283 and .273 (about the
league average) in 1901/02, with a few walks and slugging averages a bit
below the league norm. Casey was OK - he scored 105 runs and stole 34 bases
in '01. He jumped back to the NL in 1903. There was Joe Yeager, a
light-hitting (.256/.288/.323) former pitcher (1903), and Ed "Battleship"
Gremminger, who closed out a four year major league career hitting by .214
for Detroit in 1904. In August of that 1904 season, the Tigers paid
Washington $7500 to purchase the contracts of catcher Lew Drill and second
baseman Bill Coughlin. Coughlin took over from 1905 through 1908, and was
typical of the type of light-hitting defensive player common to the position
at the time. In four years as the Tigers regular, he never hit higher than
.252, slugged over .300 just once, and never walked as many as 40 times
(although in fairness, his .252 BA and .317 slugging in 1905 were slightly
above the league average). Despite his lack of offense, he was good enough
to be the regular on the '07-'08 league champs, and was considered one of
the better defensive third basemen in the league. How weak was offense at
third in those days? Here are just the batting averages for the league's
regular third basemen in 1906-08:
1906 1907
1908
LEAGUE .249 LEAGUE .247
LEAGUE .239
Coughlin, Det. .235 Coughlin, Det .243
Coughlin, Det. .215
Tannehill, Chi. .188 Rohe, Chi. .213
Tannehill, Chi. .216
LaPort, NY .264 Moriarty, NY .277
Conroy, NY .237
Bradley Clev. .275 Bradley, Clev. .223
Bradley, Clev. .243
Knight, Phil. .194 Collins, Phil. .274
Collins, Phil. .217
Hartzell, St.L. .213 Yeager, St.L. .239
Ferris, St. L. .270
Cross, Wash. .263 Shipke, Wash./ .196
Shipke, Wash. .208
Cross,
Wash. .199
Morgan, Bos. .215 Knight, Bos. .212
Lord, Bos. .260

Obviously, BA is a relatively poor overall measure of productivity, but it's
easily recognizable and understood, and you can see, these guys weren't
hitters. Trust me, none of them hit with any power or drew many walks,
either. It was a defensive position. It's also worth noting, perhaps, that
Coughlin is the only guy in the bunch to start all three seasons.

Coughlin retired after the 1908 season and the Tigers purchased
George Moriarty from New York to take his place in 1909. Moriarty more or
less held the job through the 1914 season, although in 1912 he played most
of the season at first base, with two old Ernie Harwell favorites, Charlie
Deal and Ozzie Vitt, sharing time at third, and in 1913 he split the duties
with Baldy Louden. Moriarty was a good fielder, at various times leading
the league in both fielding percentage and range factor (calculated
retroactively). His first year or two he hit pretty well, too. His 1909 BA
and slugging of .273 and .338, for example, are substantially better than
the league average. He didn't walk much but he rarely struck out (unlike
today, strike outs probably were more damaging than other outs back then -
with poorly maintained infields and tiny gloves, simply putting the ball in
play was more beneficial than it is today, and there were far fewer double
plays). He stole around 30 bases a year.

Moriarty was not a nice man, at least not on the field. It is said that
he used to hit baserunners with his glove when the umpire (in those days,
there was usually only one, sometimes two) wasn't looking, often in an
effort to knock their caps off. But he seems to have fit in well with
Hughie Jennings' fiery Tiger team, and was respected enough that he was
later tapped to replace Ty Cobb as the Tiger manager after the 1926 season.
Moriarty managed the Tigers in 1927 and 1928.

Moriarty was replaced at third in 1915 by Ozzie Vitt, who had spent
the three previous years as a utility player. Vitt was pretty mediocre, but
he walked quite a bit, especially for the time. In 1915, for example, he hit
just .250 (league average was .248) but drew 80 walks for a .343 OBP, and he
stole 26 bases. Hitting in front of Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, and Bobby Veach,
that was good enough to score 116 runs, third best in the league. That was
his best season, however: he had no power, didn't draw that many walks ever
again, and never slugged within 20 points of the league average. 

In 1918, the Tigers began to platoon the right-handed Vitt with
second year lefty Bob "Ducky" Jones, and Jones took over the whole job in
1919. Between 1918 and 1925, Jones was sort of like Tom Brookens would be
60 years later. The Tigers kept trying to replace him, but they could never
find somebody better, even if Jones wasn't too good. Jones was, like many
of those before him, a pretty good fielder, but he was pretty much an
offensive zero - he had no power (7 career homers); never stole more than 11
bases in a season, never walked more than 37 times. He did hit for higher
averages than his predecessor, but remember that averages were soaring all
around the league: in what was far and away Jones' best season, 1921, he hit
.303/.347/.383, but the league that year hit .292/.350/.408. The Tigers
were never quite satisfied with Jones. They tried either giving the job
away or platooning Jones with Babe Pinelli in 1920 (great baseball name,
rotten baseball player); Del Pratt in 1923 (an aging second baseman playing
out of position); and Fred Haney from 1922-25. As the righty part of a
platoon, Haney hit better than Jones - good averages with modest power - but
was weaker on defense. The Haney/Jones platoon gave way in 1926, as Haney
was traded to the Red Sox and Jones retired. Frank "Blackie" O'Rourke, the
Tigers' regular second baseman in 1925, slid over to share the job with Jack
Warner in 1926 (it wasn't a platoon: both players were right handed), and
Warner won the job in 1927, only to lose it part way through the 1928 season
to Marty McManus. 

McManus was also a former second baseman, acquired from St. Louis as
part of a seven player deal (including Blackie O'Rourke) before the 1927
season. He had been the Browns' regular second baseman, but the Tigers
bounced him around all four infield positions in 1927. In 1928, he played
92 games at third and 45 at first base. In 1929 he played 150 games at
third. McManus was probably the best Tiger third baseman to that point. He
remained the regular until traded to Boston on August 31, 1931, in exchange
for Muddy Ruel. With the Tigers, he put up slugging averages of .431, .430,
.451, and .475 before slumping to .361 in 1931. This made him the first
Tiger regular to slug .400 at the position (Fred Haney had slugged .423 in
1922, playing 42 games at third). He drew about 60 walks a year, hit as high
as .320 (1930), hit plenty of doubles (37 in 1928, 40 in 1930), hit as many
as 18 home runs in a year (1929), and led the league in stolen bases in
1930. The former second baseman remained a nimble glove man, with
consistently good range factors and a league leading fielding percentage in
1930, when he was probably the league's outstanding third baseman. Still,
you have to keep McManus in perspective: in 1929, for example, when McManus
hit .280, the league average was .284, and this is pretty typical of
McManus's averages. McManus was slugging around .430 to .470 at a time when
the league average (including pitchers, remember) was usually above .400.
He was good, but not too: perhaps in the way that Travis Fryman is good
today.

McManus was shipped off to Boston in 1931 (he became the manager
there in 1932 - have you noticed how many of these early Tiger third basemen
became managers - Moriarty, Vitt, McManus, Pinky Higgins, who comes along
soon enough) in part to make room for young Marv Owen, but Owen wasn't
ready, and was sent back to the minors in 1932 while Billy Rhiel, Heinie
Schuble, and Nolen Richardsen botched the job. Owen re-emerged in 1933 to
take over the position. 

When I was a kid, Marv Owen was 30 years gone as a Tiger - and it's
now been about 30 years since I was a kid. So as a memory, Marv Owen was to
an earlier generation what Don Wert is to me now. Owen seemed to be highly
regarded, probably as the best Tiger third baseman after George Kell. Owen
is remembered well, I think, for being the regular on the 1934-35 pennant
winners, and a part of the "400 RBI infield" along with Hank Greenberg,
Charlie Gehringer, and Billy Rogell. Certainly both his batting and
fielding stats have some glitz to them: a .317 average in 1934, 105 RBI in
1936; the league leader in put-outs in 1934 and 1936, and in fielding
percentage in 1937. With the greater statistical knowledge that we now
have, however, Owen doesn't stack up as much more than an average to
slightly above average player. 

As a defensive player, Owen appears to have had good but
unspectacular range. I presume he was a better than average defender, but
you don't find many reports glowing about his glove work. On offense, in
the context of the hit happy 1930s, he was an average player. Only once in
his career - 1934, when he slugged .451 versus a league average of .399 -
did he outslug the league, and indeed 1934 is the only year he slugged over
.400. In 1936, when he drove in 105 RBI, he slugged .389, the second
highest average of his career but 32 points below the league. Owens' RBI
totals make him look like a serious hitter, until put into context. The 105
RBI aren't too impressive when you remember that that was just the 18th best
total in an 8 team league, and only fourth best on his own team. Similarly,
his 96 RBI in 1934 was just the 5th highest total on his own team. He
didn't help himself by walking much either, averaging just 45 walks, with a
high of 59 in 1934, over six years as a Tiger regular. Only in 1934 could
he be considered among the league's elite third basemen, and even then his
.317/.381/.451 averages, with 34 doubles and 96 RBI, doesn't really match up
to Pinky Higgins' .330/.392/.508, with 37 doubles, 16 homers, and 90 RBI, or
Bill Werber's .321/.396/.472, with 41 doubles, 40 SBs, and 129 runs scored.
So Owen was OK, but not a whole lot more.

And so it was that Owen was eventually traded to Chicago after the 1937
season. He was replaced in 1938 by Don Ross, who would resurface as a
part-time Tiger outfielder during the war, and Mark Christman. Again, it
was not a platoon, as both were right-handed. It's just that neither really
did the job. This put the Tigers back into the market, and in December of
1938 they acquired Pinky Higgins and Archie McKain from Boston for Eldon
Auker, Chet Morgan, and minor leaguer Jake Wade. Higgins was installed at
third base to start the 1939 season.

HISTORY OF TIGER THIRD BASEMEN (PART 2)

Pinky Higgins became the Tigers' regular third baseman in 1939. A
two time All-Star who had hit as high as .330 in his career in driven in
over 100 runs in each of 1937 and 1938, he was expected to fill the hole at
third on an otherwise powerful Tiger line-up that included Hank Greenberg,
Charlie Gehringer, Rudy York, and Dixie Walker. Instead, Higgins had the
worst year of his career. Although his raw numbers don't look particularly
bad, he established new career lows for BA (.276), OBP (.350), slugging
(.380), doubles (23), runs (57) and RBI (76), and was far less productive on
offense than six of the other seven regulars in the league: Red Rolfe,
Harlond Clift, Jim Tabor, Buddy Lewis, Ken Keltner, or Eric McNair.
Higgins' 1940 season was quite similar to his 1939 campaign, just a touch
better (.271/.353/.415), 13 HRs, 76 RBI, 70 runs scored, in almost the exact
same number of games and plate appearances. Not terrible production, once
again, and better than 1939 when compared to the league's other third
basemen. Still, the Tigers, in the middle of a pennant race with New York,
offered the Browns $200,000 for Clift and two other players late in the
season. The Browns rejected the offer, so Higgins remained the Tigers' man.
The Tigers won the pennant anyway, and Higgins hit .333 with a .407 OBP and
.667 slugging average in a losing World Series effort. 

What may have saved Higgins' career is less his performance in the
1940 Series than the coming of the War. Higgins was 32 by May of the 1941
season, and clearly headed downhill. But he was not called up until after
the 1944 season, and against the second rate competition of the war years
re-established himself as one of the better third basemen in the league.
It's an interesting reflection on wartime baseball that Higgins' numbers did
not so much get better as that they stayed the same while others got worse.
For example, in 1940, Higgins slugged .415, just 8 points above the league
average. By 1944, his slugging average dipped slightly to .409, but that
was 56 points better than the league average (dead balls, as much as
anything, led to a general downturn in hitting during the war.) Higgins
made the All Star team that year for the only time as a Tiger. He was
called up the next year, and returned to baseball in 1946. By that time he
was 36 years old, and with the good players back, he couldn't keep up. He
was sold to Boston in May of 1946 and retired after the season. He later
managed Boston for several years.

Although Higgins was something of a disappointment to Detroit, he
has to go down as one of the team's better third basemen. He was the
regular for 6 full seasons, and never drove in fewer than 73 runs. With
Detroit, he consistently slugged in the low .400s, not very good figures in
1939-40 but quite good from 1941-44. He walked more than most. His best
seasons at the plate with Detroit were 1941, when he hit .298/.376/.422,
with 11 home runs and 73 RBI, and his last year with the Tigers, 1944, when
he put up .297/.391/.409 averages with 76 RBI. He was not a very good
defensive player, with limited range and poor hands (he twice led the league
in errors while with Detroit).

Bob Maier was Detroit's third baseman in 1945, and I mention him
only because he's one of those rare players (Sparky Anderson is another) who
played in only one major league season, but played regularly in that year
(132 games.) He was a 29 year old career minor leaguer, and though he hit a
respectable .263/.315/.350 (the league BA was .255 and league slugging just
.346), he was pushed aside after the year. 

The Tigers opened the 1946 season with Higgins back at third, and
after a slow start (.217 in 18 games), on May 18 the Tigers traded
outfielder Barney McCoskey, barely 28 years old and a career .316 hitter
over 4 seasons, to Philadelphia for 23 year old George Kell. On the next
day, Higgins was sold to Boston.

On the face of it, there was little reason for the Tigers to have
such confidence in Kell. He had taken over the third base slot for the
Athletics in 1944, and against depleted wartime competition, hit .268 with
no home runs, 15 doubles, and just 22 walks. He improved only a little in
'45, hitting .272 with 4 home runs, 30 doubles, and just 27 walks. He was
young, but hardly had stardome written all over him. Fortunately for
Detroit, he quickly blossomed, hitting .327 over the rest 1946. He went on
to hold the Tiger third base job until traded midway through the 1952
season, and was eventually selected to the Hall of Fame in 1983, as the
greatest Tiger third sacker ever. 

George Kell is, to be honest, a most marginal choice for the Hall of
Fame. He was certainly a fine two-way player, and one can argue that he was
as good a third baseman as any that played between 1920 and 1950. Kell was
a high average hitter with doubles power: between 1946 and 1952, his Tiger
years, he hit .322 (4th in the league); .320 (5th); .304; .343 (1st); .340
(2nd); .319 (3rd); and .311 (4th). In addition to his 1949 batting title,
Kell led the league in hits and doubles in both 1950 and 1951, once hitting
over 50 doubles in a season. In 1947 he drew 61 walks, and generally stayed
in the 60-70 walk range for the rest of his career. He rarely struck out -
in 1949, he drew 71 walks against 13 Ks, and in his best season, 1950, drew
66 walks against 18 Ks. That year he hit .340/.401/.484, and both scored
and drove in 100+ runs for the only time in his career. 

Still, Kell was only a top player for about 6 years, and he was not
so good as to dominate. Compare Kell, for example, to former Tiger Bill
Freehan: each was a regular for 14 years total. Kell has a much higher
career BA (.306 to .262) and, correspondingly, more career hits. But
Freehan has a few more career walks in fewer PAs, an almost identical
slugging average (.412 to .414), and a huge edge in homers (200 to 78).
Freehan played a less important offensive position and a more important
defensive position, yet his hitting is almost as good and his defense
superior. Most of his career was played in a period of lower offensive
production. Relatively speaking, he was a better defensive player, one of
the best ever at his position. He played on a pennant winner, which Kell
never did. He played his entire career with one team - Kell was traded 4
times. Freehan was an 11 time All-Star, Kell just 5. Kell never broke the
top 5 in MVP voting, as Freehan did twice. Which of the two would you put
in the Hall? Yet Freehan is never seriously considered for entry. You
could also compare Kell to others who have played third: was he better
than Ron Santo, a multiple gold-glover with power and walks that dwarfed
Kell? Or Craig Nettles, a multiple gold-glover with 389 career homers? Or
Darrell Evans, with over 400 career homers? Or former MVP Ken Boyer? Or Al
Rosen, a truly great player for 6 years, but whose total career is just
seven years? Kell was a fine player, recognized as the best third baseman in
the AL in the late 1940s, but he's the type of Hall selection that opens the
Hall to a lower calibre of player than is generally accepted for membership.
Still, he was a fine player, and almost certainly the best third baseman the
Tigers have had. 

Kell was traded in early June of 1952 to Boston as part of a nine
player trade involving several relatively big but generally washed up names
- Walt Dropo, Johnny Pesky, Dizzy Trout, and Hoot Evers were all involved in
the deal. One of the players acquired was Fred Hatfield, and he played
third for the rest of the year and opened 1953 there. In early June of
1953, the Tigers pulled off another deal that made the news for quantity, if
not quality - this time an 8 player trade with Cleveland. One of four
players the Tigers acquired in the deal, and the only one to make any impact
with them (that's OK, they didn't give up much either), was Ray Boone.

Ray "Ike" Boone was a tall, slender man, 6' tall, 170 pounds. The
father of Bob Boone and grandfather of Brett Boone, he was a shortstop when
the Tigers acquired him, having played just 2 games in his career at third
base before joining the Tigers. He was nearly 30 years old, and though he
had hit .301 for Cleveland in 1950, he had slumped to just .233 in 1951,
.263 in 1952, and .241 through the first 34 games of 1953. He had never
drawn as many as 60 walks, hit as many as 15 doubles, or driven in as many
as 60 runs in a season. His career high in homers was 12. Yet literally from
the day he was traded to Detroit, he emerged as one of the best hitters in
the league, and for four years was a major offensive force.

Whether it was the cozy confines of Tiger Stadium versus cavernous
Memorial Stadium, or being released from the burdens of playing shortstop,
Boone's turn-around was impressive. Over the rest of 1953, he hit .312 with
22 home runs and 93 RBI in just 101 games. He slugged over .530 with the
Tigers, finishing at .519 on the season, good for 4th in the league. He set
what was, to that point, career highs in hits, BA, slugging, OBP (.385),
doubles, triples, home runs, runs, RBI, and walks. He finished 5th in the
league in home runs and third in RBI. He also became an instant crowd
favorite for the Tigers. His appearances at the plate would be greeted with
a resounding chorus of "Boooooone," leading the casual ear to think he was
the most unpopular player on the squad - that was part of the fun. 

Boone remained one of the top hitting third sackers in the league
through 1956, hitting between .284 and .308 with 20 to 25 home runs, drawing
about 70 walks a season, and leading the league in RBI in 1955 with 116.
His best year was 1956, when he hit .308/.403/.518, with 25 homers and 81
RBI. In the field he was OK - he had good range early on, a reminder of his
shortstop days, although this declined as he aged; and he had good enough
hands and arm. The Tigers moved Boone over to first base in 1957, in part
due to defensive deficiencies, and his play declined that year (he was 34).
After a slow start in 1958, he was traded to Chicago in June, and wrapped up
his career in 1960. Boone is an interesting player because he is one of
those rare types who suddenly learned how to hit at age 30. From 1953
through 1956, he was a very good hitter, indeed.

Boone's place was taken in 1957 by Italian born Reno Bertoia, a hot
prospect who never really panned out. He shared the job with journeyman Jim
Finigan in '57 and with Ozzie Virgil in 1958. Ozzie Virgil was nothing
special as a player (a .231 career BA in 753 ABs), but he is certainly one
of the most significant of Tiger third basemen, because he was the first
black player in Tiger history. Despite Detroit's sizeable minority
population, the Tigers were one of the last major league teams to promote a
black player to the majors. Virgil, acquired from the Giants before the
season, finally broke the ice. He played for Detroit as a back-up infielder
until traded to Kansas City in 1961 (in a deal that, among other players,
brought Reno Bertoia, traded after the 1958 season, back to Detroit.)
Virigl's son, also Ozzie Virgil, will be familiar to many as a power hitting
national league catcher in the 1980s. 

1959 opened with a new third baseman, a player who is a favorite to
some on this list: Eddie "The Walking Man" Yost. The Walking Man first
reached the majors as a 17 year old wartime player, but didn't stick for
good until 1947, when he was 20. Before joining Detroit he had scored over
100 runs four times, despite a modest career batting average of .254 and
despite playing with poor hitting Washington teams in a pitcher's ballpark.
He did this by walking. Between 1948 and 1960 he average over 110 walks
per year, leading the league 6 times, and his career high of 151 walks in
1956 has been topped only by Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, and Ted Williams.
Yost was 32 when he joined Detroit, quite old for those days, but he
surprised the baseball world by adding 21 home runs to his league-leading
135 walks. From 1949 to 1958 he had hit between 7 and 12 homers every year,
but a close look at the record shows that he typically hit 6-10 on the road,
and only a couple in spacious Griffith Stadium, so the move to Tiger Stadium
helped him enormously. He led the league in runs in 1961 with 115, putting
up .278/.427/.436 numbers. Had he played his whole career in Detroit or
some other better hitters' park, it's not at all inconceivable that Yost
might have had a Hall of Fame career. Yost followed up his fine 1959
campaign with a solid 1960, again leading the league in walks with 125,
while popping 14 home runs, for .260/.408/.398 figures. 

What Eddie Yost was was Ricky Henderson without the speed. If only
someone would call Yost to the attention of current Tiger management, which
seems fixated on speed at the top of the line-up, perhaps the current Tigers
would be better off. Yost got on base, and he scored runs. For example, in
1956, he hit just .231, and still put up an OBP in excess of .400, allowing
him to score 94 runs for one of the worst hitting teams in the league. Speed
didn't matter: his career high in stolen bases was 9, in 1959. Yost was
also a very good defensive player, with excellent range and steady hands.
His name shows up frequently among fielding leaders in the 1950s.
Unfortunately, the Tigers didn't get Yost until he was on the wrong side of
30. The Angels claimed him in the expansion draft before the '61 season and
he finished his career there in 1962, putting up a .410 OBP despite a .240
BA, in about 150 plate appearances. Yost began coaching for Washington in
1963, and continued to coach, later for Boston, into this decade. He never
got a chance to manage, save for one game as an interim with the Senators
back in the sixties. 

With Yost lost to expansion, the 1961 Tigers turned to 24 year old
prospect Steve Boros, who would later manage the Oakland As. Boros played
better for Detroit than the Tigers gave him credit for: the 1960s marked
the height of disinterest in the base on balls and emphasis on batting
average. Boros drew lots of the first and provided little of the latter.
In '62 he hit .270 and threw up a .376 OBP, very good for the time. In '63
he also showed some power, hitting 16 dingers, but his batting average
dropped to .228. He was also pretty bad defensively, and so the Tigers
traded him to Chicago after the season.

The Tigers opened 1963 with journeyman and converted outfielder
Bubba Phillips at third, but late in the year gave substantial playing time
to rookie Don Wert. Wert took over the job the next year and held it until
late in the 1970 campaign. I recall Don Wert from Tiger press guides of the
time as a rather ugly man with a big smile. He was a popular player,
winning one of the Tiger Fan Club's Tiger of the Year Awards. After Brooks
Robinson and Clete Boyer, he was generally recognized as the best defensive
third baseman in the AL. Wert could hit some - from his rookie season in
1963 through 1967 he hit between .257 and .268, not bad for the time,
averaging about 10 homers a year. He drew 73 walks in 1965, his second full
season, but, unlike many players, his walk rates declined over time. His
offensive collapse came in 1968, when he hit just .200 with a .299 slugging
average and 37 walks. [Picture this: the 1968 Tigers' 7-8-9 hitters were
Wert, Ray Oyler (.135/.205/.186) and the pitcher. They led the league in
runs scored. That's how bad offense was in those days]. Wert did have the
distinction, however, of driving home the winning run on the night the
Tigers' clinched the pennant. And, believe it or not, he made the All-Star
team that year, another sign of how bad offenses were in the league. He
bounced back some in 1969, hitting .225 with a career high 14 homers, but
dropped back to .218/6/33 in 1970, lost playing time to Elliott Maddox late
in the year, and was traded to Washington after the season, along with
Maddox and others, as part of the Denny McLain trade. His career ended
after a 2 for 41 start with Washington in 1971.

Wert's replacement, Aurelio Rodriguez, came over in the McLain
trade. Rodriguez was considered by many to be the key player in the trade.
He had reached the majors at age 19, and seemed to be making progress. In
1970, he hit .249/19/83 with California and Washington (bad hitters parks),
with 33 doubles and 15 stolen bases. The RBIs, even more overvalued then
than now, made some eyes pop open, and he was seen as a player who might
combine power and speed with tremendous defense at the position. He had
even walked a little in 1970 - 40 times, not a lot but better than some
young players and enough to indicate some command of the strike zone. Just
22 years old when the trade was made, he seemed poised for stardom.

Instead, Rodriguez was always a disappointment. He never again hit
for as much power or drew as many walks as he did in 1970. He never again
reached double figures in stolen bases. He played excellent defense, to be
sure, and in 1976 snapped Brooks Robinson's string of 16 consecutive gold
gloves. But he was always disappointing at the plate, and by 1974 had
become an offensive zero, with a .222 BA, just 26 walks, five homeruns, a
.306 slugging average, and just 2 stolen bases. He would recover a bit from
that low, even hitting as high as .265 after left-handed hitting Phil
Mankowski arrived to help him out in 1978, but he never contributed much
with the bat, and few Tiger fans were sorry to see him sold to San Diego
after the 1979 season. And yet... quick - who holds the Tiger record for
most career games played at third base? Aurelio Rodriguez, of course. 

Mankowski, a sort of early version of Scott Livingston (high
average, left-handed singles hitter with no walks or power, average defense)
took some of the pressure off of Rodriguez in 1977-78, and Tom Brookens,
another righty, joined the club in 1979 and took further ABs away from
Rodriguez. 

Tom Brookens was Rodney Dangerfield - he never got no respect, and
the Tigers were always trying to replace him. But no matter how hard the
Tigers tried (and I'm not sure they ever tried too hard), Brookens always
seemed to reappear at third. Not that the Tigers were wrong to try to
replace him. Brookens was one of the last of the many prospects to come out
of the Tiger farm system in the middle and late 1970s. He was never a
particularly hot prospect, and turned 26 within days of his call-up in 1979.
He performed well enough over the last two months of that year that the
Tigers traded both Mankowski and Rodriguez in the off season. In 1980,
Brookens won the job in spring training over veteran Richie Hebner and
turned in a decent year, hitting .270 with a passable .418 slugging average.
However, he slumped badly in 1981, launching the first of many efforts to
find a better alternative on the cheap. In 1981, that came in the form of
two veteran utility players, Mick Kelleher and Stan Papi - even Brookens was
better than that. 

Before the 1982 season, the Tigers added veteran Enos Cabell to the
mix at third. But Cabell was over the hill, and Brookens regained the job
by mid-May. However, a serious challenge arrived with the mid-summer
call-up of highly touted Howard Johnson. HoJo hit .300 over the last two
months of the season, and it seemed that the job would be his come 1983.
But HoJo had an awful spring, and made the types of youthful mistakes for
which Sparky Anderson never had much patience. When he got off to a slow
start in the first few games of the regular season, Sparky sent HoJo down,
and Brookens was again left at third, although Marty Castillo ate into his
playing time later in the year. Johnson, meanwhile, had a terrible year at
AAA, hampered by several minor injuries. Still, HoJo took over at third in
1984, although Brookens and, to a lesser extent, Castillo, Darrell Evans and
Barbaro Garbey all got time there. Sparky's lack of confidence in Johnson
manifested itself in the postseason, however, when Johnson was benched in
favor of a platoon of Castillo and Evans (the regular DH). Johnson didn't
play in either the LCS or the World Series, except to pinch hit in the last
game of the World Series. In the off-season, HoJo was traded for pitcher
Walt Terrell.

HoJo's trade, and the collapse of Castillo (he hit .119 in 57 games
in 1985) and Garbey (a singles hitter who quit hitting enough singles, and
never could play defense) left Brookens back on the job in 1985, setting a
career high in games played, but hitting just .237/.277/.375. So the Tigers
went back into the market and plucked from the waiver wire Darnell Coles,
formerly a top prospect of the Mariners who had been pushed aside by Phil
Bradley. Still just 23, Coles became the regular in 1986. He responded
with a fine season, putting up triple crown stats of .273/20/86, with OBP of
.330 and a slugging average of .453, the highest by a Tiger third baseman
since Ray Boone thirty years before. 

But Coles was a rotten defensive player, and when he slumped in '87
(hitting just .181 in 53 games), Sparky turned back to Brookens, eventually
trading Coles for Jim Morrison late in the season (a dismal trade, as it
turned out, and one that set in motion some of the events leading to the
Tigers' collapse in 1989.) Morrison was at the end of the line, so Brookens
returned to the job in 1988. Finally, after the '88 season, the Tigers
picked up San Diego's Chris Brown to play third, and shortly before opening
day of 1989, dealt Brookens to New York for pitcher Charlie Hudson. 

Brookens was a very popular player with many Detroit fans. Though
never a leader on the 1980s Tigers - the leaders were Parrish, Trammell,
Evans, and Gibson -- many fans seemed to take to him almost as the soul of
the Tigers, and trace the beginnings of the 1989 collapse, from the which
the Tigers have never fully recovered, to the hasty, almost panic stricken
dumping of Brookens before that awful season. He never caused problems,
always came ready to play, and did whatever Sparky asked. Indeed, he played
every position as a Tiger save pitcher and center field. Sparky liked him
enormously, and probably gave him more chances, and his competitors fewer,
than might otherwise have been the case. But we must face facts: Brookens
was, throughout his Tiger career, the weakest link in the starting line-up.
He never contributed any post-season heroics, often an arena for unlikely
heros (he was 0 for 18 in post-season play). I'm sure he may have done it,
but I don't recall Brookens ever winning a game with a key hit or great
defensive play late in the game. He was a very good, solid bench player who
was simply not up to being an everyday starter, which he was constantly
called on to be. Maybe that's part of what endeared him to fans - he always
answered the call, doing the best he could. 

After Brookens, the Tigers' third base situation veered into chaos.
Chris Brown was a talented young player known as an attitude problem.
Sparky, who had some sort of tie to the Brown family, thought he could
straighten Brown out. But Brown was late for practices, lackadaisical in
attitude, disruptive at times in the clubhouse. With Brown hitting below
.200 through the first month of the year, Sparky realized his mistake: Brown
wasn't misguided, he was just a jerk. Brown was released, leaving a
complete void at third eventually filled by a pathetic platoon of rookie
Doug Strange and journeyman Rick Schu, each of whom hit exactly .214. 

Before 1990 the Tigers attempted to remedy the problem by signing
free agent Tony Phillips. Phillips turned in a nice year at third, hitting
just .251 while drawing lots of walks, but it would not be until the next
year, when he was no longer the regular, that Phillips turned in to the
hard-hitting, monster OBP man he remains today. Phillips was able to move
off of third in '91due to the arrival of two youngsters: Travis Fryman, who
actually arrived in the latter part of 1990 and split 1991 between third and
shortstop, and Scott Livingstone, who came up in '91 and, like Phillips,
played about 40 games at third that year. 

I won't say too much about these players, with whom most readers
will be familiar. Livingstone was a high average singles hitter; not a bad
pinch hitter/sub/platoon man, but not really a front liner. He was traded
early in the 1994 season. Fryman started his career with stardom written all
over him, hitting .300 as a 21 year old rookie shortstop/third baseman. It
looked like he would make it big after a superb 1993 season, but after that
he lapsed into a curious mediocrity, although that word is a bit strong. He
has continued to hit well enough, with triple crown stats that fall pretty
consistently into the .270/20/95 range, and he is very good defensively, but
he has never really reached the upper echelons of the game. Travis will be
just 30 in 1999. He has been very durable, and could continue to put up
similar numbers for another five to ten years, which would give him some
very nice career totals, indeed. He has already been selected to four
All-Star teams, two as a shortstop and two as a third baseman. Nevetheless,
I think his career will always have, at least for Detroit fans, an aura of
disappointment to it. After splitting his early career between third and
short, Fryman has played almost exclusively at third since the start of the
1994 season. Like many other fans, I continue to see Fryman as a
potentially great shortstop playing as merely a good third baseman. 

In any case, Travis is now gone, Joe Randa and Gabe Alvarez had
their chances, and, for better or for worse (worse, IMHO) Dean Palmer now
has a $35 million, five year contract to play third base for Detroit.
Palmer should hit some home runs in 1999, but not help where it's most
needed, in the on-base department. With Randa as a stopgap and two so-so
prospects in Alvarez and Carlos Villalobos, it seems a bit odd that the
Tigers saw the need to spend big money on such an average player at third
base. One thing is for sure: unless Dean Palmer can step it up a notch at
age 30, third base will remain, for at least a few more years, as one of the
least distinguished positions in Tiger history. Go Dean!

TIGER THIRD BASEMEN AWARDS AND HONORS

HALL OF FAME: George Kell

MVPs: None

Rookie of the Year: None

Gold Gloves: Aurelio Rodriguez, 1976

Only at first base (0) and pitcher (1) have the Tigers not won more
Gold Gloves.

All-Star Selections: Pinky Higgins, 1944
George Kell, 1947, 1948,
1949, 1950, 1951
Ray Boone, 1954, 1956
Don Wert, 1968
Travis Fryman, 1994, 1996

The Tigers have had fewer All-Star selections at third base than at any
other position. Note that eight of the 11 selections came in a 13 year
period from 1944 through 1956, with seven of those eight in the 10 year
period 1947-56. 

SMITH'S PICKS

CAREER VALUE 			PEAK VALUE
1. George Kell 		1. George Kell
2. Pinky Higgins/ 		2. Ray Boone
Travis Fryman 			3. Travis Fryman
4. Aurelio Rodriguez 	4. Eddie Yost
5. Ray Boone/Marty 		5. Marty McManus
McManus/George Moriarty/
Don Wert

In career value, Kell is an easy first pick. After that, it's very
tough, as you basically trade off longevity versus ability - it seems like
the best Tiger third basemen, such as Boone, Yost, and McManus, were
relative short-timers. Higgins was OK for longer than any of that bunch;
six years. Travis spent 8 seasons with the Tigers, four as the regular
third baseman, 3 splitting his time between third and short, one as the
regular shortstop. Rodriguez was very darn average for a long period of
time - he did play great "d." You'd need to give it much tougher scrutiny
than I have here to sort these guys, and Don Wert (the regular for nearly 8
years) out.

It's somewhat the same for peak value. I was sorely tempted to put
Boone ahead of Kell: Boone's two best OPSes are .921 and .904; Kell's are
.888 and .886. Each had excellent peripheral stats for those years. I
finally went with Kell, on the theory that 1) he's a Hall of Famer, and far
be it for me to stand against the mob; and 2) he was a better defensive
player than Boone. Again, closer scrutiny could easily change my mind. After
that it's pick 'em time. Yost's 1959 season was probably better than any of
Travis Fryman's, but as I've noted, I tend to think of peak value as a 2-3
year peak; Yost's only other Tiger season, 1960, was OK but probably not as
good as the typical Travis Fryman year. McManus was very good for a couple
years and could rank ahead of either. Pinky Higgins was the league's best
third baseman for a year or two before joining Detroit, but with Detroit he
was among the league's better third basemen only during the war years.

Bradley A. Smith Phone: (614) 236-6676
Associate Professor Fax: (614)236-6956
Capital University Law School e-mail:
bsmith@law.capital.edu
303 E. Broad St.
Columbus, OH 43215

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