Magic of 1968
40 years later, magic still shines through
By JIM HAWKINS
Don Wert, the wiry 69-year-old third baseman, still affectionately known
to his former Tiger teammates as “Coyote,” smiles at the thought.
“Forty years,” he says softly, shaking his head, his ample belly drooping
over his belt a monument to the passage of time.
Forty years.
At 73, Al Kaline is revered as the Greatest Living Tiger.
“I call Al our Abraham Lincoln,” says beloved 1968 slugger Willie Horton,
who, like Kaline, now serves as a special advisor to Tigers
president/general manager Dave Dombrowski.
“He was our leader. He was the man with the tie on. He always set the tone
for our team.”
They were the Boys of the Summer of ‘68 — back when Tiger Stadium was
Detroit’s Taj Mahal, the visiting players imbibed nighty at the Lindell AC.
Back before computers or cell phones or the Internet. Back before steroids
or free agency or the designated hitter.
Back before any of today’s Tigers, except Kenny Rogers and Todd Jones, were
even born.
Some of the ‘68 Tigers have aged gracefully over the past 40 years. Some
grudgingly.
All have lost a step or two. Mickey Lolich, hero of the ‘68 World Series,
has lost 53 pounds.
“I used to drink a 24-ounce bottle of pop every day,” says Lolich, who still
makes his home in Washington, Mich. “Now I open the bottle, pour myself a
glass, and put the bottle back in the fridge. Now a bottle of pop lasts me
six days.”
Norm Cash, Earl Wlson, Joe Sparma, Pat Dobson, Ray Oyler, Eddie Mathews and
their manager, Mayo Smith, are dead.
“Norm was a leader, too, but I don’t think you’d want your son to be his
type of leader,” says Horton, now 65. “He’d call me at 2 or 3 o’clock in the
morning, looking for something that was going on. But he was one of the best
teammates I ever played with.”
Denny McLain, who could do no wrong during that summer of ‘68 when he won 31
games, has since gone bankrupt twice and spent as much time in prison as he
did in the big leagues.
“A bunch of us were sitting around, playing poker in somebody’s room one
night when Jim Northrup caught McLain cheating,” remembers pitcher John
Hiller.
“Northrup jumped across the bed and grabbed Denny by the throat. He was
yelling, ‘I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you!’
“Gates Brown grabbed Northrup from behind. Gates said, ‘You’re not going to
touch him until we win the pennant. Then he’s all yours.’ “
But, boy, in his prime, could McLain ever pitch.
“The first time I met him, we were playing in the minor leagues at
Knoxville, Tenn., and he showed up wearing a mink coat,” Horton recalls. “I
had never seen a man wearing a mink coat. I said, ‘Wow!’
“He said, ‘I’m not here to stay. I’m just here temporarily. You guys better
get on my coat tails. We’re going to the big leagues.’ “
And they did.
The 2008 Tigers spent the offseason trading for Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle
Willis, Edgar Renteria and Jacque Jones. In 1968, Tigers general manager Jim
Campbell spent the winter trying to trade McLain, whom he deemed to be more
trouble that he was worth.
Unlike today’s Tigers — who, to a man, have nothing but praise and respect
for manager Jim Leyland — the ‘68 players frequently ridiculed Mayo Smith.
And not always behind his back.
During the ill-fated pennant race of ‘67, when the Tigers fell one game
short, one of the Tigers scrawled a message on the clubhouse chalkboard that
read: “Let’s win in spite of Mayo.”
To show you how much things have changed over the past 40 years, 19 members
of this year’s Tiger team will each make more money than the payroll
($980,000) of the entire 1968 team.
In 1967, Hiller made the major league minimum salary: $6,000. That winter,
management mailed him a contract for $12,000.
“Of course, I signed it right away,” Hiller recalls. “I couldn’t believe
they were doubling my pay.”
Only later did Hiller learn the minimum salary had been raised to $10,000
that winter. “So I actually only got a $2,000 raise,” he says.
Unlike today’s Tigers, most of whom have arrived via free agency or major
trades, most of the ‘’68 Tigers were products of the team’s farm system.
Among the key performers, only Cash and Wilson had ever worn another
uniform.
In 1968, Lolich was paid $30,000. After winning three games in the ‘68 World
Series he received a $10,000 raise to 40 grand.
“It was better than digging ditches,” Lolich says.
How much would Mickey Lolich, in the prime of his 217-win career, be worth
on today’s inflated baseball market?
Not as much as you might think, according to Lolich.
“I was the type of guy that, the more I pitched, the better I got,” Lolich
says. “Innings, innings, innings. I had to pitch every four days. When I did
pitch on the fifth day, on occasion, I was lousy.
“So if I was pitching today, (when starters only work once every five days)
I wouldn’t get the innings I need, and I wouldn’t get to pitch when I need
to pitch.
“I probably wouldn’t be in the big leagues.”
Today, managers and pitching coaches are obsessed with pitch counts. About
100 pitches are usually all that any starter gets to make.
“I used to throw 135 pitches every game,” recalls Lolich. “It was routine.
On Opening Day in 1970, I threw 170 pitches. In my next start, I threw 165
pitches.”
For four years in a row, from 1971 to 1974, Lolich topped 300 innings
pitched. No Tiger hurler has worked 300 innings since.
To this day, the survivors of that ‘68 team will tell you they are
baseball’s last true champions — the last team to win the World Series
before baseball’s postseason was diluted by divisional playoffs and then
wild-card qualifiers.
In 1968, as now, the bullpen was the Tigers’ biggest worry.
Jon Warden made the leap from Double-A Rocky Mount, N.C., to the ‘68 Tigers,
primarily because he threw left-handed and could occasionally strike hitters
out.
“I was one of the last guys to make the team,” he recalls.
Warden pitched in 28 games that season, winning four and losing one — and
never appeared in the big leagues again. But he has been able to call
himself a world champion ever since.
“I got more mileage out of that one year in the big leagues than anyone who
ever played the game,” Warden admits. “Being on that World Series team
opened more doors than anything you can imagine.”
It has led to a job on ESPN and more banquets and speaking engagements than
Warden cares to count.
And Warden didn’t appear in a single game during the Series.
“It all happened so fast,” says Warden. “One day, nobody knows who I am,
then I’m on the roster of the Detroit Tigers and we’re fighting for a
pennant. Next day, my arm is gone and my career is over.”
Most of the ‘68 Tigers grew up together in the minor leagues.
“It was like family,” Northrup recalls.
And, unlike today, almost everyone was Caucasian.
In 1968, there were only three black players — Willie Horton, Gates Brown
and Earl Wilson on the team, although a fourth, relief pitcher John Wyatt,
was added late in the season.
The only Hispanic in a home uniform at Tiger Stadium that summer was Julio
Moreno, who pitched batting practice.
To add an international flavor, the Tigers had one Canadian-born player,
John Hiller.
Disappointed by their crushing second-place finish in 1967, the Tigers
reported to training camp the following spring determined to prove they
were, as they believed in their hearts, the best team in baseball.
And they did exactly that.
Forty seasons later, the 2008 Tigers, their title aspirations crippled by
injuries a year ago, are poised to follow in the footsteps of their
predecessors of four decades ago.
Happy anniversary.
Jim Hawkins is the baseball writer and a sports columnist for The Oakland
Press.
