DETROIT -- 56 years ago today, on June 25, 1953 against the Philadelphia A's, 18-year-old Baltimore Southern High School grad Al Kaline made his major league debut for the Detroit Tigers. He was a late-inning defensive replacement for outfielder Jim Delsing and was wearing an over-sized uniform that didn't fit.
Kaline was wearing No. 25. The Tigers lost, 5-2, which presented backwards would read 2-5, or 25.
If this comes as a surprise, it ought to. Kaline's famous No. 6 is so prominently associated with the Hall-Of-Fame rightfielder, the smaller, more innocuous details are easily swept away. In fact, Kaline is most often compared with St. Louis Cardinal legend Stan 'The Man' Musial, who also wore No. 6. The Tigers and Cardinals, two of the proudest franchises in all of baseball history, also compare with striking similarity.
Rick Thompson, the Tigers' media director, acknowledged the fact but also noted that there's no known date of switching with Tiger outfielder Pat Mullin for the No. 6. Baseball Almanac lists Kaline wearing No. 25 in 1953 and No. 6 in 1954, but other web sites go as far as 1955 until the switch. Most likely the switch took place before the 1954 season, because the Almanac website doesn't list Mullin as a Tiger in 1954 while listing Kaline wearing No. 6 in '54.
"Dad did wear No. 25 that first season, and not many people know it, " son Michael Kaline explained on the phone today. "I can't remember when he switched, but it was after that first season."
The No. 25 is notable to me because I wear No. 25 in baseball and lacrosse games I officiate. My father, who passed away almost 15 years ago, never got to see me officiate a game and never saw me run a single race as a collegiate athlete. He missed the final game at Tiger Stadium, our mutual favorite place to spend a few hours, when Rob Fick, wearing No. 25, hit an eighth-inning grand slam that will live on in Detroit sports lore. Because 'Stormin' Norman Cash was the player most-associated with No. 25 and one of Dad's favorite Tigers to boot, I wear the number as a simple, silent way to keep my father with me in spirit in the years since his passing.
However, No. 25 is notable in Kaline family history, not nearly as much as his No. 6 the Tigers retired on August 17, 1980 as the first uniform number retired in team history, but nonetheless notable. I've known the Kalines for nearly 10 years since I accompanied their family to Cooperstown in June of 2001 with Head Coach Mark Sackett and the Birmingham Red Sox. Sackett is the son of longtime Birmingham Seaholm coach Don Sackett, who guided the 1988 Seaholm baseball team to one of the most improbable state championships in Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) history.
Michael's son, Colin, was just under 12 years old then for the team's trip to Cooperstown Dreams Park wearing No. 6 for the Red Sox. Today Colin Kaline is a strapping 180-pound infielder for Florida Southern, a Division-II university that plays its' home games at Lakeland, Florida's Henley Field, where the Detroit Tigers used to train before relocating across town to the team's current Tiger Town complex nearly 60 years ago.
During that trip to Cooperstown Michael explained the pressure of wearing No. 6 as the son of the hall-of-famer during his playing days at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He talked openly of the mean-spirited comments opposing players and fans screamed at him and soon switched away from No. 6, as did his son Colin, who wore No. 5 as a varsity player at Groves.
But while No. 6 doesn't follow the younger Kalines, No. 25 does. Besides Al Kaline wearing No. 25 while debuting 56 years ago on June 25th, the Tigers drafted Colin two years ago in the 25th round of the amateur player draft when Colin completed an All-State season as a senior at Birmingham Groves High School with Cooperstown teammate Jay Sackett, now playing for the Alma College Scots. Alma is where Kaline's 1968 teammate, Jim Northrup, played collegiately.
Finally, there's the Cash connection to the Kalines and the No. 25. The power-hitting first baseman played nearly 15 seasons with the Tigers after being plucked from the Cleveland Indians in 1960 for Steve Demeter, one of the most-sided trades in Tiger history. Cash's on-field exploits, including his four roof-clearing homeruns and an at-bat with a table leg, managed to overshadow his off-field antics, including the barbeque parties he offered his suburban neighbors and the common-man mentality he approached nearly every facet of his life with, including the tears he shed when the Tigers released him on August 7, 1974.
Cash was a God parent to the son of Kaline. Cash's God son? Michael Kaline.
~ T.C. Cameron is a Detroiter en route to a new life in Baltimore, where Al Kaline was born and raised until being signed by scout Ed Katalinas and gifted to metro Detroiters and Tiger fans everywhere in 1953.
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