Were it up to Lance Parrish, he likely would have spent his entire career with the Tigers.
He was drafted by the team in 1974, debuted in 1977 and became the everyday catcher in 1979. He was a crucial member of the 1984 World Champs.
By the time he hit free agency after the 1986 season, Parrish was a six-time All-Star. He figured he'd be rewarded. He figured wrong.
When the Tigers refused to pay him what he deserved, Parrish decided to sign with Philadelphia. To this day, parting ways with the club that raised him is the biggest heartbreak of his 19-year career.
He shared that story, and several others, on 97.1 The Ticket's podcast The Time That.
"If I had to point my finger at one thing, yeah, leaving Detroit absolutely broke my heart, because I did not want to leave Detroit," Parish said. "I’ll throw this out there. It was at the height of the collusion era and there was not supposed to be a free agent market. They had pretty much shut that down. I think (then-Tigers president) Jim Campbell was basing the fact that I was not going to be allowed to go anywhere or nobody would sign me on him kind of low-balling me with my contract offer. And I was extremely disappointed in that.
"I was coming off a six-year contract and I was one of, if not the, top catcher in the American League at the time. Gary Carter, who was kind of my peer in the National League, was making three times what I was making in Detroit. But even though I was underpaid throughout the last few years of my contract, I didn’t say anything. I just figured, when I become a free agent the Tigers will take care of me. But when I became a free agent they wouldn’t give me a $1 raise on what I was making from the year before, and they had pulled a long term extension off the table in spring training because they were instructed not to do that. I told the Tigers when they offered me the contract for the next year, I said, ‘If anybody offers me anything, I’m leaving. Because I cannot believe you’re doing this, number one, and I don’t believe you’re being fair.' So they played it out and I ended up going to Philadelphia.
"But trust me, I grew up in Detroit, I cut my teeth in the Tigers organization. I did not want to go, but it was like they backed me into a corner and almost forced me to go. That’s kind of the way things turned out. It was me, then Gibby, then Jack (Morris). It’s unfortunate that we all left, but that’s just kind of the way things play out sometimes."
Sure, Parrish technically had the choice to stay, but he would have done himself a disservice by accepting Detroit's offer.
"People can argue everything. The bottom line is, yeah, we play for the love of the game, but you only have a window of opportunity to make halfway decent money, and you have to put yourself in the position to be able to earn that. I felt like I had done that and the Tigers would take care of me, but it just didn’t play out that way," he said.
Parrish, 63, now serves as manager of the West Michigan Whitecaps, the Tigers' Class-A affiliate. That means he gets a daily look at Riley Greene, who was promoted there earlier this month. For Parrish, it's not necessarily Greene's bat that has stood out, despite what the scouting report might say. Rather, it's Greene's defense in center field -- where
the 18-year-old is trying to prove he can play long term.
"He’s certainly filled up the highlight reels the last couple weeks," Parrish said. "He’s made some incredible plays in the outfield. I don’t think I’ve seen a guy that can go get ‘em like he can for quite some time. Not that the guy that we had out there (before), Parker Meadows, is by any means slacking. But this guy, he makes diving, layout catches like you’d see a wide receiver make in the end zone. It’s nice when you see him to do it one time. But when he does it three or four times, it’s like, okay, this guy’s got something real special."
Considering the strides Greene's made defensively, could he earn a call-up to the Tigers as soon as next season? Or is that out of the realm of possibility?
"Nothing’s out of the realm of possibility," Parrish said. "Never say never, right? I would find it very unlikely. He would have to just go off on an amazing tear for them to even consider that, but defensively I think he could play the outfield right now in Detroit, he’s that good. He gets great reads and great jumps and all that. It’s just the offensive part of it that he’s going to have a tough time with, and I just don’t see him making that huge of a jump in his development to be able to go to the big leagues (next year)."
The biggest improvement Greene needs to make offensively, said Parrish, is in his pitch selection. He's hitting .200 with a .554 OPS through 20 games with West Michigan.
"It just takes time," Parrish said. "He’s 18 years old and he’s bounced up a couple levels now. The pitching here is a little bit tougher than he’s used to seeing on a consistent basis. We’ve got some pretty talented pitchers in the Midwest League. Everybody looks for weaknesses or tendencies, and at this point he’s very aggressive at the plate. If you watch him take batting practice, he’s really something to watch, but there’s an old saying in baseball: It’s hard enough to hit strikes.
Are the 1984 Tigers are one of the best baseball teams of all time: "Absolutely. Now we’ve got three Hall of Famers as a part of that team: Sparky Anderson, Jack Morris, Alan Trammell. And it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Lou Whitaker could get in there. Kirk Gibson, one of the most exciting players in the history of the game, he’d come up with some really big hits and could do a lot of things. You go down the line, we had some guys. Willy Hernandez, the MVP and CY Young Award winner that year. So for me, you just look at the numbers and it’s hard not to argue the fact that we were one of the best teams ever."
Why has Lou Whitaker been excluded from the Hall of Fame: "I think it is a crime. And I think it’s incredibly telling as to how off base some of this voting goes when a guy like Alan Trammell can make the Hall of Fame and Lou has almost identical numbers. The crazy thing about it, if you pull up Tram’s numbers and Lou’s numbers, they’re almost identical -- yet Tram’s in the HOF and Lou gets bumped off after his first year on the ballot. That’s something that I don’t understand. I obviously am a little biased because I played with Lou for a long time and saw how he matched up against all the other second basemen. I would take Lou over just about anybody that we played against second base wise. He was always consistent with the bat, always consistent with the glove, he was a huge sparkplug to our offense and very solid in anchoring our defense with that DP combination of him and Tram. For me, I thought they both deserved to be in the Hall of Fame, and I’m still holding out that he’s going to get there. I just don’t know when."
How did he get the nickname 'Big Wheel': "Back in the day, might’ve been '82, '83,' 84, before they had ESPN and so many games on TV, they used to have the weekly highlights show, This Week in Baseball, narrated by Mel Allen. We were at some point during the season notified that we were going to be the featured team on This Week in Baseball. We were going to be at the ballpark on Saturday afternoon, so we sat in front of our little TV sitting up on the lockers and we all gathered around and watched This Week In Baseball. Mel Allen opened the segment by saying something like, ‘The wheels of the Motor City are turning,’ and they showed highlights of different guys doing different things. I must’ve been pretty hot during that week, so when he got to me, he said, ‘And then the big wheel...' As soon as he said it, that was it. Gibby was all over it, Tram was all over it. From then on I was referred to as the 'Big Wheel.' To be honest with you, I could have a lot worse nicknames than that. It’s not too bad of a deal having Mel Allen give you your nickname."
Who was the toughest hitter to get out: "George Brett. I’ve been asked that from time to time, and I’ve always said George Brett. You can throw a bunch of names out there, but the teams I played for with the Tigers, he just wore us out. He was one of those guys where you didn’t know where to pitch him. You could throw him anything and he could hit it foul pole to foul pole. He was a very, very difficult guy to pitch to."
Who was the toughest pitcher he faced: "I didn’t have a whole lot of success against Randy Johnson, not that I faced him all that much. It seemed like he was throwing the ball form right field sometimes, he’d get such live extension. When he got that big 6’10 frame coming right at you it was like he was right on top of you when he was throwing the ball. Even though he was left-handed and I was right-handed, I didn’t have a whole lot of success against him. And trust me, there’s a whole lot of guys that I didn’t have a whole lot of success against. He’s just one that comes to mind."
What was his favorite aspect of Tiger Stadium: "Just the fact that the fans were right on top of us. I always referenced the fact that I thought Tiger Stadium was like a cathedral for baseball. Everybody was right on top of you, you could feel the electricity in the stadium. I loved played there. It just gave you a great feeling when you went on that field. It was completely unlike what I was used to seeing. I grew up in Southern California seeing the angels at Anaheim Stadium and the Dodgers at Dodgers Stadium. When I walked in Tiger Stadium (for the first time), it was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was unique and I loved it from the very beginning. A true pleasure to be able to play there as long as I did."
How often did he get chewed out by Sparky Anderson: "Well, quite a bit, actually. ... He got all over me one time when we were playing in Oakland when Billy Martin was managing the A’s. Jack Morris was on the mound and they stole home off of Jack twice that game. The first time was kind of a surprise because no one really expects a team to steal home. But (Morris) was going from the windup and Billy Martin was on top of everything and they just decided to try it and they were successful. The next time, an inning or two later when they got a guy on third base, (pitching coach) Roger Craig came out to the mound and told Jack, ‘I want you to pitch from the stretch. I don't want you to pitch from the windup.' And Jack said, ‘I’m not pitching from the stretch and they’re not going to steal home off of me.' Roger was pretty adamant about, ‘Look, I want you to pitch from the stretch,’ and Jack goes, ‘No, I’m pitching from the windup and they’re not going to steal home.' So we go out and Jack pitches from the windup. He starts his windup and here comes (the runner), I think it was Wayne Gross, who wasn’t even really that fast. But Jack saw him take off and tried to rush his delivery and bounced the ball, the ball got by me, guy was safe. I’m running back to the backstop trying to get the ball, and they’re laughing at us over in their dugout.
"So I came in the dugout and I was pretty upset after the inning was over. I went to throw my glove against the back wall of the dugout, and right as I was getting ready to let it go, I noticed that there was a spigot coming off of a pipe that was running down the ball. Well, before I could stop my momentum, I threw my glove and hit that spigot and snapped it right off of the pipe. It was like a fire hydrant erupted in our dugout. Our dugout’s filling up with water, and everybody’s scrambling trying to get all their stuff so it doesn’t get soaked. They finally had the grounds crew get over there and find a way to shut the water off, but in the meantime our dugout was filling up with water. Sparky was pissed, everybody was pissed.
"So when the game was over -- and they pretty much humiliated us that day -- we had a clubhouse meeting. And Sparky was in rare form. He was chewing everybody out for anything and everything, and then he looked at me and he goes, ‘And YOU! I’m fining you $500 because I’ll be damned if I’m swimming in my own dugout!’ So he let me have it pretty good. I’m going to cut it off at that, but he had a few more choice words."
