Thursday, July 05, 2007

Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame Update

Earlier in the year, I wrote about a Detroit Tigers Hall Of Fame we have been creating at MotownSports. After five months of research, debating and voting, the first phase of the project is now complete and 54 members have been inducted. Officially named the Bluhm Memorial Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame, the project is led by Dave Troppens (known on MotownSports as DTroppens) and Alan Chichester (DT34456884), two excellent writers and long time contributors to MotownSports. For those who don't know, Brian Bluhm was one of the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings in April. He was a very avid Tigers fan, a friend to many of us in the Tigers online community and one of the most active participants in this project.

We currently have 20 voters, most of whom have been on the project since the initial election. That first election included players who finished their careers with the Tigers by 1915. The second election included all players who ended their Tigers careers between 1916 and 1920. Each week, we had an election including players from a new 5 year period. On June 15th, we completed the voting for players who ended their careers between 2001-2005. In each election, each voter is allowed to vote for as many as 5 players. Managers, executives and broadcasters are also eligible. Any player receiving 75% of the votes gets into the Hall of Fame.

This is an ongoing project with plans in place for voting of Detroit Wolverines (a National League team from 1881-1888) and the Detroit Stars (a Negro League team in the 1920s and 1930s) players. Those elections will be held separately because there is less information available and more time will be required for research. There will also be annual elections for newly retired players and for players who received a significant portion of votes but failed to get elected in the first phase.

If you go to the the link above, you'll see a profile of each of the 54 members. A brief summary is included in the Table below.

Table: Bluhm Memorial Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame

Name

Position

First Year as Tiger

Last Year as Tiger

Ed Killian

Pitcher

1904

1910

George Mullin

Pitcher

1902

1913

Sam Crawford

Outfielder

1903

1917

Bill Donovan

Pitcher

1903

1918

Hughie Jennings

Manager

1907

1920

Donie Bush

Shortstop

1908

1921

Bobby Veach

Outfielder

1912

1923

Ty Cobb

Outfielder

1905

1926

Hooks Dauss

Pitcher

1912

1926

Harry Heilmann

Outfielder

1914

1929

Frank Navin

Owner,Executive

1903

1935

Mickey Cochrane

Catcher, Manager

1934

1938

Charlie Gehringer

Second baseman

1924

1942

School Boy Rowe

Pitcher

1933

1942

Rudy York

First baseman

1934

1945

Hank Greenberg

First baseman

1930

1946

Tommy Bridges

Pitcher

1930

1946

Wish Egan

Scout

1907

1951

Dizzy Trout

Pitcher

1932

1952

George Kell

Third baseman

1946

1952

Walter Briggs, Sr.

Owner, Executive

1920

1952

Ty Tyson

Broadcaster

1927

1952

Hal Newhouser

Pitcher

1939

1953

Fred Hutchinson

Pitcher

1939

1953

Virgil Trucks

Pitcher

1941

1956

Ray Boone

Third baseman

1953

1958

Harvey Kuenn

Shortstop

1952

1959

Jim Bunning

Pitcher

1955

1963

Vic Wertz

Outfielder

1947

1963

Rocky Colavito

Outfielder

1960

1963

Frank Lary

Pitcher

1954

1964

Denny McLain

Pitcher

1963

1970

Dick McAuliffe

Second baseman

1960

1973

Willie Horton

Outfielder

1963

1973

Al Kaline

Outfielder

1953

1974

Norm Cash

First baseman

1960

1974

Jim Northrup

Outfielder

1964

1974

Mickey Lolich

Pitcher

1963

1975

Bill Freehan

Catcher

1961

1976

John Hiller

Pitcher

1965

1980

John Fetzer

Owner, Executive

1956

1983

Lance Parrish

Catcher

1977

1986

Willie Hernandez

Pitcher

1984

1989

Jack Morris

Pitcher

1977

1990

Chet Lemon

Outfielder

1982

1990

Jim Campbell

GM, Executive

1962

1990

Paul Carey

Broadcaster

1973

1991

Lou Whitaker

Second baseman

1977

1995

Kirk Gibson

Outfielder

1979

1995

Sparky Anderson

Manager

1979

1995

Alan Trammell

Shortstop

1977

1996

Cecil Fielder

First baseman

1990

1996

Travis Fryman

Third baseman

1990

1997

Ernie Harwell

Broadcaster

1960

2002

6 comments:

  1. well done, Lee, and fellow MTS'ers!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 07, 2007

    I have to question the induction of Fryman. If you MUST have someone from the recent era then it has to be Higginson. As much as I dislike Bobby's most recent form and the outrageous money he made, he did not ever sign with a rival team. Also, Bobby's stats are better than Fryman's in just about every category.. A VERY questionable induction, one that I think must be reconsidered..

    Fryman - http://www.baseball-reference.com/f/frymatr01.shtml

    Higgy - http://www.baseball-reference.com/h/higgibo02.shtml

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jon,

    I voted for both of them. I don't agree that Higginson is more deserving though. Higginson has slightly better stats but you would expect a corner outfielder to have better stats than a third baseman. Fryman stacks up well compared to other third basemen of his time as well as Tigers third basemen historically. He is a pretty solid candidate when you consider position.

    Fryman playing with the Indians is not a factor at all. The Tigers did not want to pay Fryman so they traded him to the Diamondbacks for Joe Randa, Matt Drews and Gabe Alvarez. The Diamondbacks then traded him to the Indians with Tom Martin for Matt Williams. That's business.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJuly 07, 2007

    Lee,

    I was thinking later in the day about the "Indians" point I brought up and must agree with you regarding the business point of view 100%..

    I think it's safe to say regarding the 'worthy inductees from the 90's' debate is that we have had one sorry decade as fans!! Not a whole lot there.

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJuly 08, 2007

    Just curious as to how close Ron LeFlore came in your voting.

    ReplyDelete
  6. dh,

    Leflore got a few votes (mine was one of them) but he was not that close. There was actually a lot of discussion about Leflore among voters and some presented stats showing that he was not a great enough offensive player (even with all the SB) compared to other Tiger outfielders in history or compared to other MLB outfielders of his time. He was also not a great defender. I think if he had been with the Tigers a couple years longer, he would have made it.

    ReplyDelete

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