Replacing a legend

He was a darling of the front office and the fans, a man who in Detroit could do no wrong.

HALL OF FAME Charlie Gehringer of the Detroit Tigers was considered the greatest second baseman of all time.

BASEBALL MEMORIES

Stories of the early days of Major League Baseball by Murray Franklin as told to Dell Franklin.

Next to Rogers Hornsby, Charlie Gehringer of the Detroit Tigers was considered the greatest second baseman of all time. He was a home-grown Michigan native who’d been holding down second base since 1926 and was going to the Hall of Fame, and there was no more popular player in the history of the franchise. He was a darling of the front office and the fans, a man who in Detroit could do no wrong. He was a better fielder than Hornsby and a more all-around player, probably the most fundamentally sound ballplayer in the game, a guy who went about his business as a total professional, and a master of every phase of the game — running the bases, sliding, bunting, going out on pop flies, going to either hole, making the double-play, hitting behind the runner, moving runners, stealing a base, getting a sacrifice fly, stealing a sign, anything you needed to win a ballgame.
He was a quiet reliable guy who, like DiMaggio, never made a mental error, but since he led by example he could freeze you with a look if YOU made a mental error, because you were hurting the club and taking food out of his mouth; he was the kind of leader you didn’t want to disappoint, all business, respecting the game like religion, a guy who could make your life miserable if you didn’t show the same respect, and since he was who he was you were gone if you disappointed him or disrespected the game.
He hardly said boo to me when I came up, never went out of his way to help me or give me advice, and he knew who I was, knew I’d been the top infield prospect in the organization and was being groomed to take over his position, and he knew he was just about finished as a ballplayer, but he wasn’t about to give up his position to some interloper written about in the papers as his replacement. Gehringer knew that helping me would help the ballclub, and the ballclub for years had been his life’s blood, and it was obvious he wasn’t helping the club anymore, because he could no longer hit or cover any ground. The team knew it, he knew it, everybody in the league know it, and finally, in ‘42, when he was no longer able to do anything but hang on as a pinch hitter, they kept him on the roster for the fans, and one of the writers wrote a column in the Detroit paper with a headline: “Franklin takes over for Gehringer today.”
He didn’t say a word to me that morning in the clubhouse. When I took batting practice there was already a crowd around the dugout and along the lines booing my every swing, my every move, and during infield it was the same: boos, boos and more boos, filthy insults, and when the game started and the public address announcer boomed my name to the crowd that I was the starting second baseman, well, the entire packed house booed me, and they kept on booing when I ran onto the field, and when I ran off the field at the end of the first inning the boos were so loud I couldn’t hear myself think and a bunch of wolves near the dugout dumped bags of garbage on me, coat hangers, corn cobs, filthy rancid stuff, and they cussed me and insulted me like I’d murdered Gehringer, telling me I’d never be able to hold his jockstrap, and Gehringer sat in the dugout and never said a word or looked at me, and I had to wipe that shit off me and clean my face at the water fountain, and later, up at the plate, the booing got worse, Jesus Christ, it didn’t stop until I pulled a single into left field.
But it started all over again. God forbid I booted one in the field. Every eye in the stadium was on me, hoping I’d boot one, so they could run me out of town, and every morning in the papers another writer compared me to Gehringer, and they kept right on booing me in Detroit, so that I was happy to get on the road and away from those Detroit fans, real animals. As for Gehringer, he sat on the bench with his arms folded and never said a word, never offered me one word of encouragement, and I never held it against him. He was a proud man. A legend. He’d been so good, so great, and it couldn’t have been a very good feeling to look out there and see somebody else playing a position he held down for 20 years. §

Dell Franklin is publisher of The Rogue Voice. He can be reached at publisher@roguevoice.com.