Masked Men In Suits A Tigers Tradition

The commissioner of baseball himself was staring at the proposed trade, and he looked at the Tigers general manager who was about to jump out of his skin, waiting for the final stamp of approval.

“This is what they agreed to?,” Bowie Kuhn asked Jim Campbell, who was about to add another fleecing to his resume.

“Short agreed to it,” Campbell affirmed. Short was Bob Short, flamboyant owner of the Washington Senators. It was a few days after the 1970 World Series.

Kuhn looked to his underling and, with nothing else to do, nodded his approval.

And so it was announced in short order – no pun intended – that the Detroit Tigers were sending pitchers Dennis McLain and Norm McRae, outfielder Elliott Maddox, and third baseman Don Wert to the Senators for pitchers Joe Coleman and Jim Hannan, shortstop Ed Brinkman, and third baseman Aurelio Rodriguez.

Highway robbery – by a masked man in a business suit!


Denny McLain, Washington Senator (and not happy about it)

Ten years before, the Tigers – general managed by trade-happy Bill DeWitt, held up the Cleveland Indians. Detroit sent bench fodder Steve Demeter to the Tribe for a power-hitting first baseman named Norm Cash. DeWitt didn’t get them all right, but he sure nailed this one. Cash would hit over 300 home runs as a Tiger from 1960-74. Demeter? He played four games with the Indians in 1960. He went 0-for-5. That was the end of his baseball career.

And yet somehow, Bill DeWitt avoided arrest.

End of spring training, 1984. This time the masked man is Tigers GM Bill Lajoie. He’s in his second season in that role, having learned from the thief Campbell himself. Seeing a need and an opportunity – and a willing victim – Lajoie sends outfielder Glenn Wilson and catcher/first baseman Johnny Wockenfuss to the Philadelphia Phillies for reliever Willie Hernandez and first baseman Dave Bergman. Wilson and Wockenfuss are fine players, but Hernandez pitches an almost perfect year as the Tigers closer, Bergman delivers clutch hits and stellar defense, and the Tigers win the World Series. Hernandez is named AL Cy Young and MVP winner.

Phillies fleeced.

Today, the Tigers’ bandit is Dave Dombrowski. Already, in his six years as Tigers president and GM, he’s pulled off some robberies. Perhaps the biggest was his acquisition of Placido Polanco from the Phillies in 2005, for reliever Ugueth Urbina. Urbina sits in a jail somewhere in Central America, guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. It’s usually a good trade when the player you dealt ends up behind bars.

But last week Dombrowski struck again. He brandished a weapon, pulled down his ski mask, and spoke to Atlanta Braves GM Frank Wren. Now, you’d think Dombrowski would show Wren some compassion, having once been Wren’s boss in Florida. Instead, he took his weapon and, masked, stole All-Star shortstop Edgar Renteria from the Braves. The cost was a couple of prospects – pitcher Jair Jurrjens and outfielder Gorkys Hernandez. Yes, they are two of the Tigers’ upper tier prospects. But Renteria is NOW. He’s a five-time All-Star. He’s a marvelous fielder. And he’s a career .292 hitter, topped by his .332 average in 2007. Tigers manager Jim Leyland had him in Florida in 1997, when the Marlins won the World Series.

“I’m thrilled to have him again,” Leyland told the crime, er, baseball reporters. “He’ll fit in perfectly.”

The Tigers were in need of a shortstop after the conversion of Carlos Guillen to a first baseman, announced soon after the season was finished. So they simply went out and got the best one available by trade, the 32-year-old Renteria.

Jurrjens isn’t chopped liver – or a Steve Demeter in waiting. Neither is Hernandez, at least by all accounts. The bluest chip prospect is still outfielder Cameron Maybin, but many folks had Hernandez not far behind Maybin in terms of skill and big league potential.

Yet the trade has the makings of a fleecing, if only because Renteria needs little introduction, and fills a hole with such aplomb that Tigers fans will be tickled pink having him in town.

Someday, somewhere, Jurrjens and/or Hernandez will be bona fide major league ballplayers. Maybe. By that time, the Tigers might have added another World Series championship -- or two – to their history. Edgar Renteria, it says here, will be a major part of that, if it materializes.

But back to McLain.

The Runyon-esque pitcher had had a tumultuous 1970 season with the Tigers. He was suspended by the league twice: once for carrying a loaded gun, another time for his suspected consorting with gangsters. Then the Tigers suspended him for dumping a bucket of ice water on some beat reporters. When all was done, McLain – just two years removed from his 31-win season of 1968 – got into only 14 games, going 3-5 with a 4.63 ERA. He had become too much for the Tigers to handle.

Jim Campbell wanted to get rid of Denny McLain very badly.

He found a taker in Senators owner Short, who wanted a marquee name to spruce up his ballclub, managed by the cantankerous Ted Williams. So when Short inquired about McLain, Campbell drooled. The Tigers liked Coleman, who had never lost to them. And they looked at Rodriguez as an upgrade from Wert. McRae and Maddox weren’t in their plans, and in Hannan the Tigers got an extra arm. Plus, there was Brinkman, a sure-handed though light-hitting shortstop.

No wonder Kuhn eyed the trade suspiciously before granting approval.

Coleman, Rodriguez, and Brinkman helped thrust the Tigers into contender status immediately. McLain and Williams didn’t get along at all – and if Bob Short didn’t see that coming, then he deserved what he got.

And what he got was robbed.

Now Dave Dombrowski has done it to his old employee Frank Wren. Most likely, anyway.

Tigers execs have often worn the mask and brandished the gun.Better to do it than to have it done TO you, I say.