After the 1973 season, when the aging Tiger team gamely defended its division title until an August collapse, Al Kaline spoke to World Series nemesis and fellow Hall of Famer Lou Brick, among others, about hanging up his cleats or returning the get the last 139 hits he needed to reach 3,000, a peak which only 11 previous players had attained.

            He credited the Brock conversation with tipping the scales towards returning for his 22nd season, even though he had to hang up his glove and be solely a DH.

            This cannot have been easy for arguably the best defensive right fielder of all time.

            Fittingly enough, #3,000 came in his home-town of Baltimore on September 24.

            I was keeping track of another statistic no one else seemed to notice.

            Al had 399 career home runs.

            No American League player had 400 career homers and 3,000 hits.

            My junior year at UM, my mode of transportation was a motorcycle.

            I pleaded the historical significance with fellow fans with cars to no avail.

            Andy worked with me in the bowels of the West Quad cafeteria.

            Being from Dayton, he was a Reds’ fan.

            In April, we had gone on my motorcycle to Dayton to drive in a car from his parents’ house to a Reds-Dodgers game in Cincinnati.

            The Dodgers won the pennant that year, before the Big Red Machine rolled to the next two World Series titles.

            Understanding the historical potential of the event, Andy agreed to accompany me on the back of the Honda to Tiger Stadium on Wednesday, October 2, 1974 for the 1:00 p.m. season ending contest.

            It was a dreary day to end a dreary season.

            The Orioles had clinched the division over the Yankees and the Tigers had landed last, finishing with a dismal 72-90 record.

            We were underdressed for the motorcycle ride on I-94 the same way a person wearing sandals shorts and a tank top would be underdressed for climbing Mt. Everest.

            But this was the swan song of my boyhood idol.

            My earliest Tiger memories were of the 1961 team that won 101 games without coming close to the Yankees.

            I remember listening when he saved a 2-1 win over those same damned Yankees early the next season, with a spectacular catch which broke his collarbone.

            While effectively ending the Tigers chance at a pennant.

            He finished with a career high 29 home runs in 398 at bats – over 150 fewer than the seasons before and after.

            Or he would have been well over that 400 mark.

            And if the worms had machine guns the robins would leave them alone.

            In those days, general admission tickets allowed you to it anywhere in the last 5 rows of the lower deck.

            I think they cost $2.50.

            So in we went and I have never seen it so empty.

            There may have been 500 people.

            Maybe.

            We had no problem moving down closer to the action, by the Orioles dugout.

            The weather worsened, colder and more wind.

            Even some snow flurries.

            Al did nothing his first two trips and the Orioles had already sewed up the game.

            How could I get the message to Orioles’ manager Earl Weaver?

To give Al the Mickey Mantle treatment the Tigers had given Mickey Mantle on the same field only 6 years earlier?

            The 1968 Tigers had clinched the pennant and Denny McClain had win #31 in the bag with a 6-1 lead in the 8th inning when the Mick batted.

            McClain summoned catcher Jim Price to the mound asking if he should let him hit one.

Price readily agreed and so informed Mantle, who smacked the pitch over the fence for #535, breaking the tie with Jimmy Foxx.

            Surely, with the game and the flag in hand, if Weaver understood the significance, this honor that Al so richly deserved, he would so instruct his pitcher.

            Al could join Ted Williams in hitting a home run in his last at bat.

            Al would get at least 2 more appearances at the plate.

            We had a view of the Tiger dugout in the 5th inning but it was Ben Oglivie who came out instead.

            I was too stunned to join those in the crowd who were jeering,

            The gloomy weather the (lack of a) crowd all just added to my depression.

            I was sure Al had pulled himself (true)

            He was a humble man who did not care about records.

            He always said he got more credit in Detroit than he deserved.

            But it would have been so great to see him hit #400 and give him just one more standing ovation.

                       

            Godspeed Al Kaline – the True Tiger King.