MICKEY LOLICHBy Jessia Quiroli
Stats from www.baseball-reference.com
I'm talkin' baseball In sports there are flashy names of the past, names that immediately garner an awed reaction when they are mentioned. It's easy to forget the guys who did extraordinary things in their career, if they never rose to a kind of national superstar status. Let us be reminded of Mickey Lolich, the great southpaw who pitched his way into Detroit Tiger folklore in 1968. Lolich played almost his entire career with the Tigers and is still one of the most beloved in team history. Quite simply, he is one of the best left-handed pitchers in baseball history.
Lolich was born in Portland, Oregon in 1940, the son of a parks-director. This directly influenced Mickey's life, as it kept him active outdoors. Lolich admitted he used to hit "birds, squirrels, and anything else," with rocks... guess it paid off. It was a freak accident that actually turned him into a Southpaw; as a child a motorcycle fell on him, damaging his left shoulder and arm. The cast was removed and a lefty was born. As a teenager, Lolich played Babe Ruth baseball and American Legion ball; setting records that remain unbroken today. In 1959 he joined the Sally League, and went back and forth between Knoxville and the Carolina League with Durham, as well as Portland, Denver and Syracuse, all affiliated with Detroit. He posted a 2.55 ERA his first season with D ball Knoxville. At Durham in 1960, he struck out 135. Finally at the age of twenty-two, the Tigers brought him up, and in his first season at the major league level he posted a 3.55 ERA in 144 IP out of the bullpen. The following year, he pitched 232 innings and struck-out 192. Known for how low his leg drive was upon delivery, Lolich earned the nickname "Lo Lo." He was also known for the "lost art": pitching complete games. In 1964 he had twelve, in 1969 he threw fifteen, and in 1971 he pitched an all-time high CG's with twenty-nine. Lolich consistently stayed ahead of hitters; he methodically approached the batter, and knew exactly what he was going to do. "I tried to throw two of my first three pitches for strikes." He had a highly effective mid-90's fastball (he was strongest in locating his four-seamer) and relied mostly on his curveball pitch, which usually clocked at 88-90 mph. Lolich's fastball however, was virtually unhittable; he struck out more hitters than any other lefty in American League history. Former Tigers writer George Cantor and the author of the book, "The Tigers of '68: Baseball's Last Real Champions (Honoring a Detroit Legend)," says that the key to Lolich's success was, "tremendous movement on his fastball; he was able to overpower hitters." Cantor recalled a game the Tigers played against Boston in "old Tiger stadium", in which Lolich was spectacular. No one could get a hit off him that day. "Lolich would always say, 'You've got to score me a lot of runs. I'm not a strike out pitcher." But what Lolich could do was all in his ability to overpower. From 1964-1975 he had a dozen to twenty five wins per season and Cantor says, "always got his 200 innings in." He was also infamous for some of his off-field hobbies, and was known as something of a daredevil. He loved riding his motorcycle to Tiger Stadium. He bow hunted and loved slot car racing. But he was also a thoughtful sort of fellow, playing guitar and chord organ in his down time. Lolich was an every-man type of person, and Tigers fans loved him for it. In the world of baseball, for every team there is a year in which fans wax poetic and for long-time Tigers fans 1968 is one such year when they won the World Series; the deciding game of the '68 World Series is what Lolich is best known for in his career. Lolich pitched three complete games in the World Series of 1968, giving up only five hits. Though Denny McLain lost Game One, Lolich came back to win Game Two tying the series against the Cardinals. The Cards, however, would go on to win the next two games. That year under Mayo Smith, the Cards went 103-59. They had no reason to believe they wouldn't put up a fight, and the two straight losses to the Cards would not deter them now. RBI leaders Norm Cash, All-Star Willie Horton, and Jim Northrup were tremendous thus far in the postseason; the team ERA collectively was 2.71 to finish the season. They had a shot... a definite shot. Lolich would have to win Game Five or the Series was over. At one point during the game Smith was close to pulling Lolich. Lolich was kept in, and in his next at-bat he got a base hit; that hit led to a Tigers rally and finally a victory. After winning Game Six, the series was tied. Lolich rested only two days before going up against Bob Gibson in Game Seven and this was no small detail. Gibson was one of the most intimidating pitchers of his time, and some say, of all-time. To beat him was to beat a superstar of the game. Mayo Smith closely monitored Lolich throughout that game, and asked him before the fifth and seventh innings if Lolich could go one more. Lolich just kept saying yes. In the seventh the team scored seven runs and it was all Lolich needed. The Tigers had come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the World Series. When I asked Cantor what made the team so successful that year, he explains they may have had initiative. "The thing was '67 - the pennant they should have won and they knew they should have won it. But there was a degree of mental toughness that the '67 team didn't have, and they went about developing it. That's what the team in '68 had." He also points to the fact that many of the young guys on that team, including Lolich, had come up through the Tigers farm system together and, "they felt closeness with each other." The following season he started forty-five games and finished twenty-nine of them, as well as striking out 308. Lolich once talked about the method he used to keep his arm in top shape. "I never iced it. I would stand in a hot shower and soak it for thirty minutes in hot water. I never had a sore arm." And as Cantor says, "he never really injured anything." 1975 would mark the end of Lolich's career with the Tigers, and it was a painful break-up for him. Against his wishes he was traded to the Mets, and never felt comfortable with the club. At the end of that season, Lolich's plan was to retire just to get out of his two year contract. Guess practices are older than we realize in the world of sports. He stood his ground and once a free agent, he signed with the San Diego Padres. He pitched decently there, but after an unsatisfactory 1979 season he finally retired from the game. Lolich went where he felt he belonged, to Detroit where he became a business man. After a few years, he sold the donut shop he owned and moved to his actual home, Oregon. Back in 2003, Lolich was one of the players on the final ballot for the Hall of Fame. Though he fell short, getting only thirteen votes, Cantor believes he should be there some day. "To me he's on the level of Don Drysdale and Jim Bunning. I think combining his stats over his career and the '68 season gives him the credentials." Cantor says he was loved not just for that season, but because he was "an everyman; No airs about him." Mickey Lolich: never forget his name. 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