New Season without ‘Mr. Tiger

OUR COMMUNITY

A New Season without ‘Mr. Tiger’

Remembering my favorite baseball legends.

IRWIN COHEN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Our beloved “Mr. Tiger,” Al Kaline, died during the first week of the 2020 baseball season.

In the year since, more than 100 former major leaguers, including Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Whitey Ford, Tommy Lasorda and Tom Seaver, also died. None of the aforementioned, though, impacted me as much as someone who joined Detroit in 1955, Kaline’s best season with the Tigers.

Those of us who were old enough can recall when Kaline won the American League batting championship by hitting .340 and hit 27 home runs at the age of 20 that season. I was at the ballpark on a sunny Sunday when the Tigers slaughtered the Kansas City Athletics 16-0, and Kaline contributed three home runs, two in one inning. I viewed the game from the lower rightfield bleachers, but J.W. Porter had a much better view from the bench in the Tiger dugout.

J.W. Porter broke into the major leagues with the St. Louis Browns in 1952 at the age of 19. He was the only player in the majors without a first name. Porter’s parents didn’t give him one as they said they used up all the names they liked on their four other children.

After playing in his first game with the Browns on July 30, he called his wife, and the former high school sweethearts shared the good news. They decided that since her father was visiting at their last minor league stop in Colorado, his wife and fatherin-law should drive together to their full-time home in Oakland, Calif.

J.W.’s wife and her father were killed the next day by a drowsy driver when his car jumped to the wrong side of the road. Authorities contacted Browns’ owner Bill Veeck who gave J.W. the sad news and made all the arrangements for his young catcher. After taking a week off for the funerals, Porter lived in an apartment in the ballpark that Veeck provided, and his teammates, including the legendary Satchell Paige, tried to cheer him up.

JOINING THE TIGERS

Porter was traded to Detroit after the season but wore an army uniform for the next two years before becoming Kaline’s friend and teammate in 1955. After three seasons of limited playing time with the Tigers, Porter wore the uniforms of the Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators and St. Louis Cardinals, where he made his last major league appearance on the last day of the 1959 season by replacing Stan Musial at first base.

After J.W. dreidled around the minor leagues, including a managerial stint in the 1960s, Ted Williams used his connections to land him a job with Sears. It was a great move as he found love again and married one of the company’s secretaries, and they were a team for 52 years until his passing last October at 87.

SPRING TRAINING

They lived a couple of miles north of my winter dugout in West Palm Beach, and I often saw him during spring training. The last time I saw him, he walked with his familiar cane, fashioned from a baseball bat. We sat together in the first row of a small bleacher area behind the home plate screen where the Houston Astros were taking batting practice in one of their practice fields in West Palm.

The soft-spoken Porter had numerous stories and patiently answered all of my questions about my favorite baseball decade, the 1950s. His wife summed him up best. “He was a sweet soul,” she told the Palm Beach Post. “He always wrote a note and a letter to every person who requested an autograph. And people would write back and thank him for the letter.”

Fast forward to the 2021 baseball season that’s upon us. The Tigers aren’t too interesting. The most interesting name to me is Robbie Grossman, an extra outfielder who is an average player at best. But those are the kind of players I root for. Grossman, who is not Jewish, will probably see more playing time with the Tigers than the several teams he played for in the past few years as the Tigers outfield is one of the worst in the league. But there is hope on the horizon as the baseball mavens in both leagues claim the Tigers have some blue chip prospects in the minor leagues, including infielder Spencer Torkelson, a good hitter with a lot of power. Time will tell, but in the meantime, we can watch overpaid first baseman Miguel Cabrera inch toward 3,000 career hits and 500 career home runs, milestones he should reach during the 2021 season.

Al Kaline

J.W. Porter

Author and public speaker Irwin Cohen headed a national baseball monthly for five years and worked in the front office for the Detroit Tigers, where he earned a 1984 World Series ring. He went on to write several Detroit and baseball history books. He may be reached in his dugout at irdav@sbcglobal.net.