He spent only 2 1/2 seasons wearing the Tigers' Olde English "D", but I won't forget Richie Hebner, the line-drive hitting gravedigger from Massachusetts.
My favorite memory of Richie was watching his trying to get comfortable at the plate. As he waited for each pitch, he would tug determinedly at the collar of his uniform, trying desperately (it seemed) to pull his jersey up over his head like a hooded sweatshirt. Consequently, the collar would be bunched and twisted at the nape of his neck as he lashed another drive to right. It was peculiar.
Richie had an amazing year in 1980. It was a pretty ordinary year for the Tigers, but Hebner drove in 82 runs in just 341 at-bats! You may think, "Oh that short porch in Tiger Stadium's right field was no match for the lefty swinging Hebner." But Richie hit only 12 HR that season. I recall most of his RBI coming on sharp, two-out singles to right. He was clutch!
I remember clipping a news wire photo of Richie the following year during the player strike, standing shirtless and smiling in a cemetery, shoveling a burial plot for his family's gravedigging business. My money says you won't see a similar photo in the papers during the next strike.
» Mark Nowlin is a lifelong Detroit Tigers' fan and a student of the game as it was played in baseball's "other" troubled era, the 1960s.
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Posted July 12, 2002.
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