Gene Myers

Special to the Detroit Free Press

In three straight innings, once upon a time, from his lair in right field, Al Kaline nailed a Chicago White Sox runner trying for an extra base.

By July 7, 1954 — halfway through his first full season with the Detroit Tigers — Kaline had established himself as a top-shelf fielder. Manager Fred Hutchinson even had gushed: “Kaline keeps making the kinds of plays we haven’t seen in right field in years.”

Then came a nondescript game in another nondescript season typical of the Tigers in the 1950s. They were 20½ games out of first place — and 14½ behind that day’s opponent at Briggs Stadium, the third-place White Sox. Only 5,099 fans bothered to come to The Corner on a summer Wednesday afternoon.

After 2 hours, 28 minutes, the speedy White Sox had coasted to a 9-0 victory behind 16 hits. But the talk of the day became the arm of the Tigers’ skinny and shy 19-year-old right fielder. This game, his 99th in the big leagues, 65 years ago today, did more than any prior to brandish his defensive reputation and serve as a precursor to his 10 Gold Gloves and 22-season Hall of Fame career.

The Detroit Free Press wrote: “Only some spectacular fielding by Al Kaline kept the count from going higher. … Kaline now has pegged out five runners at home this season and retired two others at third.”

The Detroit Times wrote: “Al Kaline has again proved that rivals are not to take liberties with his remarkable arm without courting danger.”

The Detroit News wrote: “Gratitude for the work of Al Kaline was about all the Tigers could muster to relieve the gloom of the clubhouse after their annihilation by the White Sox. … In successive innings three runners were cut down by the arm of the Baltimore bonus player as they attempted to deepen Detroit’s humiliation.”

In defense, of Mr. Tiger...

In the second inning, the White Sox took a 2-0 lead off left-hander Billy Hoeft on Fred Marsh’s one-out double. After a walk and a lineout, Nellie Fox drilled a single to right field. Kaline fired a strike to catcher Frank House; the throw beat Marsh by so much that House had plenty of time to block the plate and brace himself for a collision. Marsh lowered a shoulder, House and Marsh crashed to the ground, but House held on to the ball, ending the inning and giving Kaline his first assist of the game.

In the third inning, Hoeft’s day ended with a pair of leadoff singles to left field by Minnie Minoso and Ron Jackson. After Ray Herbert walked Sherm Lollar to load the bases, Jim Rivera singled off second baseman Frank Bolling’s glove to score two runs. That left runners at the corners for Johnny Groth, who singled to Kaline. As Lollar coasted home from third, Rivera, who stole 22 bases in ’54, raced to go from first to third. Kaline fired another strike, this time to third baseman Ray Boone. Kaline’s throw beat Rivera by more than five feet, and all Boone had to do was apply the tag when Rivera arrived via a headfirst slide.

In the fourth inning, the White Sox built their lead to 5-0 on a single by Chico Carrasquel and a double by Fox. Minoso made it 6-0 with a long drive to right. But Minoso, who would lead the league with 25 steals, wasn’t content stopping at second, and Kaline made him pay. He fired the ball to Bolling and Minoso was stuck in no-man’s land. A rundown ensued — Bolling to shortstop Harvey Kuenn to Boone to Kuenn.

Kuenn’s tag of Minoso not that far from second base gave Kaline his third outfield assist of the game and an assist in three straight innings.

Kaline fell one assist shy of the American League record for an outfielder, set by Ducky Holmes of the Chicago White Stockings in 1903 and equaled four times, but not since 1928.

None of Detroit’s three daily newspapers quoted Kaline in their reports the next day. Such coverage would be unlikely these days but was common at the time.

In “The Al Kaline Story,” a 1964 biography, Al Hirshberg, a prolific freelance writer from Boston, wrote: “When Al was congratulated in the locker room for the almost unbelievable feat of throwing three men out from right field, he could do nothing but grin. And when a newspaperman asked him how he felt about it, he stammered, ‘That was a fair day. I liked it.’

“So did the Tigers and their fans. On that one day, Kaline stamped himself as a baseball star and a hometown favorite. The word spread quickly around the league, and from then on, opposing ballplayers ran the bases with great care whenever the ball was hit to him.

“Hutch, of course, was delighted. ‘When he does things like that,’ he enthused, ‘I don’t care if he hits .200.’ ”

In “Al Kaline and the Detroit Tigers,” a 1973 biography, Hal Butler, a prolific jack-of-all-trades writer and editor from Detroit, wrote: “Kaline’s three assists … assured him that very few runners would henceforth take a chance on his throwing arm. Al, in his modest way, acknowledged the feat to reporters merely by saying, ‘That was a fair day. Real fair. I liked it.’ ”

'Bonus baby' with a golden arm

The Tigers never planned on using Kaline as their everyday right fielder in 1954. The job belonged to Steve Souchock, who would have started the season as a 35-year-old who had never reached 300 at-bats in a season. But Souchock had hit .302 with 11 home runs in 89 games in 1953, which, for that Tigers era, wasn’t half bad.

Souchock, though, suffered a broken wrist playing winter ball in Cuba. In equal parts admiration and desperation, Hutchinson announced that Kaline, less than nine months after graduating from high school, would take Souchock’s place during Grapefruit League games but Souchock would be the starter when his wrist healed, with luck in time for Opening Day.

In the 1950s, when there wasn’t an entry draft, baseball tried to prevent bidding wars for amateur players with this hammer: Anyone signed for more than $4,000 had to spend two years in the majors before he could be sent to the minors for seasoning.

Kaline had signed for $35,000 in June 1953. Like most “bonus babies” at the time, he rarely saw the field. In three-plus months with the Tigers, he played in only 30 games and came to the plate only 30 times. In nine games, all he did was pinch run. He might see the field in the late innings of the blowout or when Hutchinson ran out of bodies. Until his first start, on Sept. 26, 1953, when he went 3-for-5, Kaline had never played before the fifth inning and had played before the seventh inning only four times.

He finished with a .250 average (7-for-28) with a home run (his only extra-base hit) and two RBIs (both in September). He scored nine runs — five as a pinch runner. He walked once, was hit by a pitch and struck out five times.

At Lakeland, Florida, in 1954, for his first spring training, Kaline caught fire. That prompted the Free Press’ sports editor, Lyall Smith, to file this report in late March: “Kaline, the slender but slick bonus baby from Baltimore, is the hottest item on a squad which has been able to win five of 11 games at the halfway mark of the Florida exhibition schedule.

“Al has been used in all three outfield spots. Only twice has he started, and finished, a game. Hutchinson prefers to use him for ‘spot’ duty.

“But the way he is performing will make it practically impossible for Hutchinson to keep him out of his outfield. Kaline has slapped out nine hits in 16 tries for a sparkling .563 average.

“One of those blows was a long home run. Another was a triple. A third one was a double.

“He is the fastest man in camp. He is an excellent fielder. His throwing arm is strong. Despite his age, his baseball savvy is sound.”

When Souchock’s injury continued to linger, Hutchinson told Kaline in Florida: “You’re my right fielder until somebody else shows me they can take the job away from you.”

Plenty of people — in the front office, dugout, press box and stands — wondered whether Kaline could hit enough to play in the majors. Kaline admitted in a 1964 interview with Sports Illustrated that he wondered, too.

“I was there because I was a fielder,” Kaline told SI’s Jack Olsen. “That’s what kept me in the league. The question was: Did I have enough bat?”

He was hitting under .200 in late April. He bumped his average by nearly 100 points at times in May but finished the month with only two extra-base hits. In June, he belted a grand slam against the Philadelphia Athletics — at 19, the second youngest to do so in baseball history — but contributed only three RBIs for the rest of the month. In July, he didn’t have an extra-base hit until July 18 and finished the month batting .247 for the season.

On July 7, the day he threw out the three White Sox, Kaline singled in three at-bats, raising his average to .251.

Kaline’s bat heated up in August: He went 37-for-89 (.416) with 10 extra-base hits and 10 RBIs. But he struggled again in September: 20-for-83 (.241) with two doubles.

Kaline finished his first full season hitting a respectable .276 (139-for-504) but with only 25 extra-base hits and 43 RBIs over 138 games. He finished third in the rookie of the year balloting, though, behind Yankees right-hander Bob Grim (20-6, 3.26 ERA) and Athletics third baseman Jim Finigan (.302, seven homers, 52 RBIs).

(The National League rookie of the year was Cardinals center fielder Wally Moon. The NL runners-up featured two future Hall of Famers: Cubs shortstop Ernie Banks and Braves left fielder Henry Aaron. All first-ballot inductees, Banks made Cooperstown in 1977, Kaline in 1980 and Aaron in 1982.)

For much of Kaline’s rookie season, it certainly was his glove that kept him in the lineup. His three-assist game was the highlight of highlights. But a month later he delivered another signature defensive moment that would be referenced for the rest of his career: He threw out a runner while sitting on his bottom in the outfield grass.

By the end of the next season, Kaline had married his high school sweetheart, gained 20 pounds, belted three home runs in a game, started in the All-Star Game, and erased Ty Cobb from the record book as the youngest player to win a batting championship.

Gene Myers retired from the Free Press in late 2015 after 22½ years as sports editor.