Al Kaline

• Born: December 19, 1934
• Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
• Died: April 6, 2020
• Place of death: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Sport: Baseball

Early Life

Albert William Kaline was born December 19, 1934, in Baltimore, Maryland, the youngest child of Nicholas and Naomi Kaline. The Kaline family, which included Al’s two sisters, lived modestly on Nicholas’s earnings as a worker in a broom factory. Kaline’s father, two of his uncles, and his paternal grandfather had been catchers on semiprofessional baseball teams. Kaline’s baseball goals were temporarily halted, when he was eight years old, by osteomyelitis, a bone disease that required surgically removing two inches of bone from his left foot. When he recovered from his surgery, hr decided to become a pitcher, and his father taught him how to throw different pitches.

The Road to Excellence

By the time Kaline reached Southern High School in Baltimore, the slender boy was considered too small to pitch and too fragile for the infield, so coach Bill Anderson converted him to a center fielder. Kaline quickly excelled as a hitter and was named to the all-Maryland high school team four times.

Kaline's family encouraged his passionate interest in baseball, and he refined his skills by playing in as many as four games a day on weekends, with his father and uncles driving him from one game to the next as he changed uniforms in the car. As an adult, he regretted missing out on most of the other activities teenagers enjoy, but he realized his dedication to baseball got him where he wanted to be.

Every major-league team expressed an interest in Kaline, but Detroit Tiger scout Ed Katalinas cultivated a friendship with the Kaline family, saw all of Kaline’s high school games, and signed him to a three-year contract for $35,000, including a $15,000 bonus, as soon as he graduated from high school in 1953. Under the rules of Major League Baseball at that time, anyone receiving a bonus of more than $6,000 had to stay with the parent team for two years before playing in the minor leagues. Kaline knew that sitting on the Detroit bench for two years would hamper his development, but he needed the money to pay off the family’s mortgage and to finance an operation to save his mother’s eyesight.

Fred Hutchinson, the Detroit manager, planned to use Kaline as a pinch hitter and pinch runner and as an outfielder in late innings for two seasons and then send him to the Tigers’ Buffalo farm team for two or three years of seasoning. In 1953, Kaline played in only thirty games and unexpectedly became the starting right fielder the next year because of an injury to Steve Souchock. He was a mediocre hitter that season but stayed in the lineup because of his excellent fielding ability. Following the 1954 season, he married his high school sweetheart, Louise Hamilton. They reared two sons, Mark and Michael.

The Emerging Champion

The 6-foot 2-inch Kaline had weighed only 150 pounds when he joined the Tigers. By 1955, he had added another 25 pounds and had studied the hitting techniques of such stars as Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox. Williams advised the youngster to increase his strength by swinging a weighted bat and to squeeze balls to improve his wrists. Williams’s teachings paid off. On April 17, 1955, Kaline hit 3 home runs in one game, including two in 1 inning, after hitting only four in all of the previous season.

Kaline lived up to his potential that year, becoming, at twenty, the youngest player ever to lead the major leagues in batting average. He was one day younger than Tiger great Ty Cobb had been in winning the 1907 batting title. Kaline finished second to Yogi Berra of the New York Yankees in the voting for most valuable player in the American League (AL).

Continuing the Story

Kaline proved that the 1955 season was no fluke by consistently finishing among the league leaders in batting average, hits, and RBI over the next decade. He compiled impressive statistics despite frequent injuries. On his way to his best season in 1962, he broke a collarbone while making a spectacular catch and missed sixty games. He had another excellent season in 1963, despite a knee injury, finishing second to the Yankees’ Elston Howard in the most valuable player voting.

As a boy, Kaline had learned to run on the side of his disabled foot, but years of punishment necessitated corrective surgery following the 1965 season. He remained one of the best outfielders in baseball through all the injuries, winning ten Gold Glove Awards for his defensive skills.

Kaline’s statistics were no consolation for Detroit’s lack of postseason success—the Tigers had not won a championship since 1945. After the Tigers lost the AL pennant on the final day of the 1967 season, Kaline blamed himself because he had missed thirty-one games after breaking a finger when he uncharacteristically slammed a bat in anger after striking out. The Tigers finished first the next year, ironically, when injuries severely limited Kaline’s playing time. He asked manager Mayo Smith to leave him out of the lineup because he felt he did not deserve to play, but Smith shifted center fielder Mickey Stanley to shortstop to make room for the aging star.

Kaline was one of the heroes of the 1968 World Series. With his team trailing the St. Louis Cardinals three games to one, he drove in two runs to give the Tigers a 4–3 win, providing Detroit with the impetus to win the series. Kaline retired following the 1974 season, finishing one home run short of becoming the first American Leaguer to total 400 home runs and more than 3,000 hits. He then became one of the Tigers’ broadcasters.

In 2006, when the Tigers reached the World Series for the first time in twenty-two years, Kaline threw out the honorary first pitch of the series. In the meantime, he held a position as an assistant as part of the team's front office staff, working in this capacity until the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Kaline died at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, on April 6, 2020, at the age of eighty-five.

Summary

Despite frequent injuries, Al Kaline was one of baseball’s brightest stars for twenty years while earning a reputation as one of the game’s true gentlemen for his behavior both on and off the field. When fans honored him with Al Kaline Day in 1970, the money they gave went to buy baseball equipment for underprivileged children in the Detroit area. When Detroit management attempted to raise his salary to a Tiger record of $100,000, Al refused until he felt he had had a season justifying such an honor. Perhaps his greatest honor was election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1980, in his first year of eligibility.

Bibliography

Cantor, George. Tigers Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Real Fan! Chicago: Triumph Books, 2006.

Cantor, George. The Tigers of ’68: The Last Real Champions. Dallas, Tex.: Taylor, 1997.

Goldstein, Richard. "Al Kaline, Tigers' Perennial All-Around All-Star, Is Dead at 85." The New York Times, 6 Apr. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/sports/baseball/al-kaline-tigers-perennial-all-around-all-star-is-dead-at-85.html. Accessed 29 Oct. 2020.

James, Bill. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. New York: Free Press, 2003.

Roberts, Russell. One Hundred Baseball Legends Who Shaped Sports History. San Mateo, Calif.: Bluewood Books, 2003.