The Detroit Tigers--A Pictorial Celebration of the Greatest Players and Moments in Tiger History, and: Hello Everybody I'm George Kell, and: The Tigers of '68: Baseball's Last Real Champions (review)

In The Detroit Tigers—A Pictorial Celebration of the Greatest Players and Moments in Tiger History, William Anderson provides a history of Detroit Major League Baseball from 1844 to 1977. The pictures are mainly from the Detroit public library, private collections, and Baseball Magazine. In this last year of Tiger Stadium, the Detroit News is running a series of Tiger photos from its archives, and it is a pity that some of these did not make the book.

Anderson begins with the Detroit Wolverines, Detroit's entry into the National League. The Wolverines won a championship in 1887. Most of these photos are studio poses of mustachioed players. Despite the services of several Hall of Famers, Detroit dropped out of the Major Leagues in 1889 and in 1894 joined the Western League. Unfortunately, Anderson does not record this period. In 1901, the Western League metamorphosed into the American League, and the Detroit team, now the Tigers, played in Bennet Park, named after Charles Bennet, the popular catcher of the 1880s. The first team photo features the two Kids—Gleason and Elberfeld—with teammates in assorted uniforms. Not one has a mustache. The most interesting is a 1908 photo showing the shrewd Frank Navin, who would later become a major stockholder in the team, supervising an overflow crowd in the outfield. A player is talking to a fan, probably explaining that he wants no interference during the game.

The team did not take its character until Cobb arrived in 1905 For the next twenty-two years, he dominated the Tigers. The famous Conlon photo, taken early in Cobb's career, shows him sliding into third base. Of the over four hundred photographs, the following are the most striking: a 1937 photo of a sprawled Cochrane, whose extraordinary career has just been ended by a beanball; an action photo of an 1887 game at Recreation Park; a 1940 photo of Floyd Giebel carried on the shoulders of ecstatic teammates; a photo of Greenberg sliding around Hack in the 1945 World Series; and a 1951 photo of Bob Swift, though on his knees catching a pitch, towering over the midget Eddie Gaedel.

The photographs are arranged in a chronological sequence giving an outline history of the Tigers. The format provides an opportunity for Tiger buffs to reminisce about past players. My three favorite names—Absalom Red Wingo, Izzy Goldstein, and Elan Vagilder. The three greatest characters—Mark Fidrych, Herman Schaefer, and Bob Fothergill. The three players who did not fulfill their great promise—John Groth, Dick Wakefield, and Joe Sparma.

No student of Detroit Tigers baseball can fail to appreciate the contribution of Ty Cobb, but Anderson is uncritically supportive of the Georgia Peach. In 1926, Dutch Leonard accused Cobb and other players of betting on the outcome of a meaningless game in 1919. Anderson states that Leonard's charges were false. The evidence is clearly against Cobb, who may not have participated in a fix, but who, by wagering in a game he played in, violated the rules. Judge Landis, the pompous, overpaid commissioner, was afraid to tangle with Cobb, who had impressive political connections, and thus exonerated him and his accomplices. Anderson argues that no one could have done better than Cobb as manager with the material at hand. Cobb could not get along with his players and, while good at developing hitters, never produced any pitching. Earl Whitehill, his best pitcher, would not talk to him. Cobb never gave Carl Hubbell a chance to pitch even in an...