NORM CASH

By Bob Palazzo

Stats from www.baseball-reference.com

"I owe my success to expansion pitching, a short right-field fence, and my hollow bats." ­ Norm Cash 

One of the baseball players who made some noise when I was a youth was Norm Cash. Although I was a Yankee fan, my dad was a Detroit Tiger fan, so I tended to follow the Tigers a bit closer than the rest of the teams. Also, a youth, I was totally immersed in baseball and its numbers, and so was quite intrigued with the magical year of 1961. 

Drafted in the 13th round by the NFL's Chicago Bears, Cash opted for baseball, beginning his career as an outfielder in the White Sox system. Norm Cash hit 377 career homers and won the 1961 American League batting title. He filled the middle of the Tiger lineup for 15 seasons, hitting as many as 20 homers 11 times. The Tigers acquired him in a deal with the Indians that turned out to be one of the most lopsided in baseball history. He was traded straight up for third baseman Steve Demeter, who had just five more at-bats in his ML career.  

Cash played in the 1959 World Series, 1968 World Series, and 1972 ALCS and hit .385 with 10 hits in the 1968 World Series. He batted .311 with two homers and seven RBI in 16 career post-season games. 

He was an All-Star four times, in 1961, 1966, 1971-1972; and fourth in the American League Most Valuable Player voting in 1961. He twice won the AL Comeback Player of the Year Award, in 1965 and again in 1971. 

But it was the year 1961 that was Cash's magical year. Like Maris' 61 in '61, Cash is remembered for .361 in '61. It was that magical symmetry that intrigued as a youth. Hitting .360 or .362 wouldn't have been the same; no, not in 1961. His .361 was 37 points ahead of his teammate Al Kaline, who was second. Cash also led the league in OBP (.487), OPS, and hits (193).

Cash enjoyed a breakout season in 1961, batting a league-best .361 with 41 homers, 132 RBIs, 124 walks and a .662 (wouldn't .661 have been appropriate?) slugging percentage. Interestingly, 1961 was the only season Cash hit .300 or higher. In fact, his 118 point drop in batting average from 1961 to 1962 is the largest by a batting champion in baseball history. 

Although he never came within 75 points of that batting average or 130 points of the slugging mark again, he continued to be very successful at the plate. In 1962 he hit 39 homers, second to Harmon Killebrew, and he finished runner-up in that category twice more. He was one of the most feared left-handed sluggers of the 1960s and early 1970s, leading southpaw swingers three times in homers. He walked 1,043 times, just 48 fewer times than he struck out in his career. He had a very good .374 career OBP. For comparison, Al Kaline's was .376. 

He hit 30 or more homers five times and 20 or more eleven times, including nine straight years (1961-69), and twice led the league in HR percentage (1965, 1971). He won TSN Comeback Player of the Year honors in 1965, finishing second in the AL in HR (30) and third in slugging (.512), then won the award again in 1971 when he hit 32 HR and slugged .531. Cash was a good fielder and at various times led the AL in putouts (1961), fielding average (1964, 1967), and assists (tied 1965, led 1966-67).

Cash was famous for his after-hours activity, and his sense of humor was legendary. On July 15, 1973, as California's Nolan Ryan was working on his second career no-hitter, Cash went to the plate in the bottom of the ninth (after striking out his previous three at bats) with two outs with a table leg instead of a bat. The stunt drew immediate action by the umpire, who ordered Cash to use a legal bat, but the fans loved it. Cash popped out using a regulation bat to end the game (avoiding the golden sombrero but ensuring Ryan's no hitter). After his playing career ended, Cash admitted that it was an illegal bat that helped him to his amazing 1961 season. He demonstrated how he had drilled a hole in his bats and filled it with a mixture of sawdust, cork and glue.

Although never on the disabled list, his durability was hampered by his life style. He didn't take very good care of himself, and he always missed 15-20 games a year due to minor injuries. The only exceptions were 1961, 1966 and 1967. 

In 1960, Norm Cash grounded into no double plays, the first American League player to accomplish that since league records on this stat were started in 1940.  

On June 27, 1963, he played an entire game at 1B without a chance, as the Twins won 10­6.  

In the third inning of game six of the 1968 World Series, he had two hits. (He batted .385 for the Series, with five RBI and five runs, and hit a homer in Game Two. He also started the Series-winning rally in Game Seven with a two-out, seventh-inning single, and scored the first run of the game). 

Cash drowned in a terrible boating accident off an island in northern Lake Michigan in 1986. He was 51 years old and on April 23rd of this year (2005), the home baseball field of the high school ball team and Little League teams in Post, Texas was dedicated in loving memory to Post, Texas' most famous athlete, Norman Dalton Cash.