Thursday's Things

(every Thursday at OOB I'll rant in list fashion. Last week it was "Things I Love About Football")

Things You Might Not Know About Detroit Sports

1. That Babe Ruth and Casey Stengel nearly became Tigers managers. In the 1930s, Ruth's career near the end, Tigers management threw the idea of The Bambino managing their team at the aging slugger. He was intrigued, but wanted to wait till he returned from an overseas trip to give his answer. Unwilling to wait, the Tigers hired Mickey Cochrane instead. Ruth would have had the job had he said "yes" right away. As for Stengel, the Tigers had all but hired him to take over the team in 1961, but a doctor's checkup advised against the notion. Stengel had even chosen his Tigers coaching staff, eager to become the pilot in Detroit. Deeply disappointed, the Tigers hired Bob Scheffing.

2. That there will never be another #85 on the Lions. It hasn't been officially retired, but no Lions player has worn #85 since 1971, when WR Chuck Hughes did so before dying on the field of a heart attack. Then again, they didn't officially retire #56 either, and somehow they let LB Pat Swilling talk them into letting him wear Joe Schmidt's old number, in 1993.

3. That the Red Wings played part of a game without a coach. In November 1973, the team flopping on the ice, the Red Wings fired coach Ted Garvin with a game scheduled for later that night. Their intention was to give the job to captain Alex Delvecchio, who was ready to retire as a player. But Delvecchio's retirement papers didn't get processed in time, so therefore he couldn't coach (league rules at the time prohibited active players from coaching) that night's game. Incredibly, management asked Garvin to coach, even though he'd already been canned. With about seven minutes to play, Garvin had had enough and walked off the bench and out of Olympia Stadium. This was the day before assistant coaches. So, injured winger Tim Ecclestone finished coaching the game!

4. That the Lions have only worn their white uniforms once at home. It was Thanksgiving Day, 1970, and NBC was set to broadcast the Lions-Raiders game. Back then, the Raiders' white jerseys featured silver numbers -- which were kind of hard to see on TV sometimes. So the network asked both teams to switch -- the Lions wearing white (with blue numbers) and the Raiders wearing their familiar black jerseys. The Lions won, 28-14 -- but never went back to wearing white at home, like so many teams do nowadays.

5. That Ernie Harwell was traded for a player. While broadcasting in the minor leagues, Harwell's team wanted a particular player. The other team, the Atlanta Crackers, didn't really like anyone on Harwell's team's roster. So after some wrangling, the Crackers agreed to accept Harwell as compensation, because they needed a radio announcer!

6. That the Pistons played a playoff game in a high school. In the early 1960s, before Cobo Arena was ready, the Pistons played home games at Olympia Stadium, sharing it with the Red Wings. But come playoff time, any conflicting dates would go to the Red Wings. One such instance occurred as the Pistons were playing the Los Angeles Lakers in a playoff series. Normally, they would have switched their home games to U-D's Calihan Hall. But that, too, was unavailable. So the Pistons played their two home, nationally-televised playoff games at Grosse Pointe High School. The Pistons won both of them, but lost all three in L.A. to drop the best-of-five series, 3-2.

7. That the Lions were the first NFL team to lose to an AFL team. It happened in the preseason, in 1967. The Lions traveled to Denver, and DT Alex Karras said he'd walk home if the Lions lost. The Lions lost. Karras flew home with the team, after all. No NFL team had lost to an AFL team prior to this. How unsurprising.

OK, all done. Talk amongst yourselves. And remember, they're just things.