Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB. Once that is done, we intend to look at how each team honor their past players, coaches and executives. As such it is huge news that the Detroit Tigers will be retiring the number 1 of former Second Baseman, Lou Whitaker.
Playing at Second Base, Whitaker played his entire career with the Tigers. The five-time All-Star won the 1978 Rookie of the Year Award, where he also won three Gold Gloves and four Silver Sluggers. He was an integral part of Detroit’s last World Series Championship in 1984. He would overall accumulate 2,369 Hits with 244 Home Runs and 1,084 Runs Batted In.
The official retirement will take place on August 29, during Detroit’s home game against the Boston Red Sox.
Whitaker becomes the 10thplayer to have his number retired. He joins Charlie Gehringer (#2), Alan Trammell (#3), Hank Greenberg (#5), Al Kaline (#6), Sparky Anderson (#11), Hal Newhouser (#16), Willie Horton (#23), Jackie Robinson (#42) and Jack Morris (#47).
Along with Anderson, Trammell & Morris, he is the fourth member of the 1984 World Series winning team to have his number retired.
We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Lou Whitaker for earning this prestigious honor, and thank the Detroit Tigers for honoring their former star.
The world of Baseball lost a legend today as it was announced that Al Kaline passed away today at the age of 85. The cause of death was not disclosed.
The Outfielder debuted in 1953 as a teenager, and he would play a total of 22 seasons in the Majors, all of which were with the Detroit Tigers. Kaline would become a star quickly, going to the All-Star Game in 15 of his seasons, and finishing in the top ten in MVP voting nine times. His other accolades included winning the 1955 Batting Titles, ten Gold Gloves, and he would help Detroit win the 1968 World Series.
He retired after the 1974 season, one Home Run shy of 400. While he could have likely played another season, he had reached the 3,000 Hit mark late that year, finishing with 3,007 total.
After his career was over, he remained with the Tigers in some capacity until he died. He served as their color commentator from 1975 to 2002, and he would be a Special Assistant to the President afterward. With an over six-decade association with the club, could there be anyone else could possibly be called “Mr. Tiger”?
Kaline was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1980, which was his first year of eligibility.
We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to extend our condolences to the friends and family of Al Kaline.
Yes, we know that this is taking a while!
As many of you know, we here at Notinhalloffame.com are slowly generating the 50 of each major North American sports team. That being said, we have existing Top 50 lists out and we always consistently look to update them when we can and based on necessity. As such, we are very happy to present the second revision of our top 50 Detroit Tigers of all-time.
As for all of our top 50 players in baseball we look at the following:
1. Advanced Statistics.
2. Traditional statistics and how they finished in the American League.
3. Playoff accomplishments.
4. Their overall impact on the team and other intangibles not reflected in a stat sheet.
This is the first time that we have revised this since 2016, and with a tweak in our algorithm and that has altered the rankings somewhat and has added two new players, though none of them are active.
Remember, this is ONLY based on what a player does on that particular team and not what he accomplished elsewhere and also note that we have placed an increased importance on the first two categories, which has altered the rankings considerably.
This list is updated up until the end of the 2019 Season.
The complete list can be found here, but as always we announce our top five in this article. They are:
1. Ty Cobb
2. Al Kaline
5. MiguelCabrera
There are multiple changes on this list, including the top five.
Newhowser moved from #7 to #3 based on the new algorithm, which moved Harry Heilman from the top five. A notable drop was Sam Crawford from #4 to #11.
There are existing Detroit Tigers, but only two that debuted, both of whom are now current. Again, they debut based on the change of our Baseball algorithm.
The two new Tigers on the all-time franchise list are Al Benton (#44) and Jim Northrup (#50).
As always, we thank you for your support.
Playing with Alan Trammell for virtually his entire career, Lou Whitaker was one half of the longest running double play combination in Baseball history. Like Trammell, Whitaker was a great player with both bat and glove and a big part of Detroit’s World Series win in 1984.
Talk about being forgotten. Darrell Evans is one of the few eligible players to hit more than 400 Home Runs and not get elected to the Hall of Fame. He actually never made it past the first ballot. He only made the All Star Team twice. He was a great fielder but Mike Schmidt won all the Gold Gloves at third. He won a World Series with Detroit but was overshadowed by Whitaker, Trammell, Morris and Hernandez. A lot of this may have happened because he had a lifetime Batting Average of .248.
How is it possible to hit .361 and hit 41 home runs without anyone noticing? The answer is to perform that incredible feat the same year that Roger Maris hit 61 Home Runs.
