MLB history: Forgotten stars of the current AL Central teams

Pete Fox, Tigers

For Detroit’s forgotten star, we need to go back to a loaded Tigers squad, their first World Series champion, and the year 1935. As an original AL team, the Striped Cats fans waited 35 years for that title, but a great team did the trick in the middle of the Great Depression.

Those Tigers included the great Hank Greenberg, Mickey Cochrane, and Charlie Gehringer, who all hit at least .319 that season. Greenberg drove in a ridiculous 168 runs. The pitchers were led by Schoolboy Rowe and Tommy Bridges, who won 40 games between them.

Lost in the shuffle, then, was the right fielder, Pete Fox.

Fox was a lifetime .298 hitter and surpassed .300 five times in his career, but the winter between the Tigers’ loss to the Cardinals in the ’34 World Series and the opening of the ’35 season was one of discontent for the outfielder.

A teammate, Goose Goslin, had made cutting remarks about him to a reporter from his hometown, Evansville, IN. The reporter informed the locals, of course, and Fox became determined to better Detroit’s leftfielder in every category possible when the season started.

At 5-foot-11, 165, he apparently made up for his size with intensity. He didn’t speak to Goslin for the entire season, and in fact, the Fox did pass the Goose in most offensive and defensive categories by the end of the year.

Fox then led the Tigers in hitting in the World Series, posting a .385 average and driving in four runs on 10 hits, including three doubles and a triple.

The ’35 campaign was the first of three in a row in which he hit over .300. However, his only All-Star year came after his trade to the Red Sox, at the age of 35.

A .327 hitter in three World Series for Detroit, though, Fox should be honored in the collective memory of Tigers fans primarily as the guy Goose Goslin annoyed at just the right time.