Hondo, Redux Would Be Nice Tonic For Gasping Tigers
What the Tigers could use right now is a 2006 version of Frank Howard.
Howard – The Capital Punisher. Hondo. All six-foot-seven of him. The man who once hit ten homers in one week, in 1968.
The Tigers bought Howard late in the 1972 season from Texas, missing postseason eligibility for him by hours. No matter. Hondo, 369 career homers under his belt when the Tigers acquired him, became not only one of the team’s biggest – literally – cheerleaders, he chipped in with a homer in 33 late-season at-bats. The Tigers won the AL East during the season’s final weekend. Howard, sadly, had to watch the ALCS from the dugout, prevented from being on the Tigers’ playoff roster. The Tigers lost to Oakland in a five-game heartbreaker (the ALCS was best-of-five back then).
Today, the Tigers, 9-19 in their last 28 games and now Dmitri Young-less, could use a big bat to rescue them. Big Al said at Tigers Blogger Night Tuesday that he wished the team would have pursued Alfonso Soriano at the trading deadline. Certainly he wouldn’t have traded prospect Cameron Maybin, would he, for Soriano? Yet that’s who the Nationals were requesting.
Anyhow, a thunder stick would look awfully nice in the middle of the Tigers’ lineup, even if it was just for a few weeks in September, while the team tries to get this thing back onto the track.
Frank Howard is 70 years old and is likely no longer a stretch run candidate, even for a team owned by a man who has a fetish for acquiring players long in the tooth, at least with his hockey dealings.
But is there someone ELSE out there?
Let’s hope Dave Dombrowski’s airtime minutes have been skyrocketing lately.
Howard – The Capital Punisher. Hondo. All six-foot-seven of him. The man who once hit ten homers in one week, in 1968.
The Tigers bought Howard late in the 1972 season from Texas, missing postseason eligibility for him by hours. No matter. Hondo, 369 career homers under his belt when the Tigers acquired him, became not only one of the team’s biggest – literally – cheerleaders, he chipped in with a homer in 33 late-season at-bats. The Tigers won the AL East during the season’s final weekend. Howard, sadly, had to watch the ALCS from the dugout, prevented from being on the Tigers’ playoff roster. The Tigers lost to Oakland in a five-game heartbreaker (the ALCS was best-of-five back then).
Today, the Tigers, 9-19 in their last 28 games and now Dmitri Young-less, could use a big bat to rescue them. Big Al said at Tigers Blogger Night Tuesday that he wished the team would have pursued Alfonso Soriano at the trading deadline. Certainly he wouldn’t have traded prospect Cameron Maybin, would he, for Soriano? Yet that’s who the Nationals were requesting.
Anyhow, a thunder stick would look awfully nice in the middle of the Tigers’ lineup, even if it was just for a few weeks in September, while the team tries to get this thing back onto the track.
Frank Howard is 70 years old and is likely no longer a stretch run candidate, even for a team owned by a man who has a fetish for acquiring players long in the tooth, at least with his hockey dealings.
But is there someone ELSE out there?
Let’s hope Dave Dombrowski’s airtime minutes have been skyrocketing lately.
posted by Greg Eno at 12:11 PM
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