It’s a big year for former MLB pitcher and Tigers fan favorite Mickey Lolich, who will be among the members of the 1968 World Series championship squad honored at Comerica Park later this season. The 77-year-old also recently released a new book with longtime Detroit scribe Tom Gage titled Joy in Tigertown: A Determined Team, A Resilient City and Our Magical Run to the 1968 World Series.
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We caught up with Lolich, who won three games in that World Series and earned MVP honors, for a conversation about a range of topics covered in his book, including the 1967 riots in Detroit, his time spent on active duty in the National Guard, and his memories from that storied Game 7 in 1968, when the Tigers clinched a championship.
[Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.]
Katie Strang: I want to first ask you about the book. One of my favorite things was that it only took you until Page 3 to use the word “horsesh*t,” which I think is one of the most underrated curse words.
Mickey Lolich: (Laughing) Well, some days, that’s how you are when you’re pitching. You’re not very good out there.
KS: What inspired you to write this book?
Lolich: I’ve been out of baseball for a few years and from talking to people, I’d start telling people baseball stories, and I’d get “You ought to write a book,” and I didn’t think much about it. … Then all of a sudden, I realized that I had three daughters who grew up when I was playing professional baseball, and when I retired, their ages were 8, 9 and 11 years old. And they actually didn’t know much about the game of baseball. And then I realized my grandchildren knew nothing about me whatsoever, so I just wanted to write a book for their [posterity] so they could know more about their dad and grandfather.
KS: One of the things I really like about this book is that it’s not just about baseball; it explains what was going on in the country at the time, and in Detroit, especially as it related to the 1967 riots. I wanted to take you back to that day. There was a doubleheader that day …
Lolich: I pitched the first game of it, and I was done, and the manager at the time [Mayo Smith] said you can go home. You don’t have to pitch anymore, so I drove home. When I got home, I watched the conclusion of the second game on TV. I didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on in downtown Detroit at the time.
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Where I lived, when I left the ballpark, I headed over to the East, to catch a freeway to go home, so everything that was happening was behind me. I never saw any smoke whatsoever. I didn’t know what was going on.
KS: When did you get the sense that this was something pretty serious?
Lolich: Well, I got to the ballpark the next morning, because the team was going to be on the road going to Baltimore, and I had my suitcase on the bus to go to the airport where our charter sat, and one of the guards came over to me and said “You’ve got a phone call.” So I went over to the guard’s house, and I figured it was my wife telling me I forgot something. All the sudden, when I said hello, I heard “This is Sergeant Zinker,” and I went “Uh-oh.”
He was my Sergeant when I was in the National Guard, so I said “What’s up?” And he said there was a disturbance in Detroit, and the National Guard has been activated. He says go home, put your uniform on and get out to the air base as soon as you can. And that’s exactly what I did.
There I was. I was a soldier?
KS: And what was that like? Going from a professional baseball player to active duty in such a short time?
Lolich: I did not know, and nobody knew how long this would last. I was a starting pitcher, and I pitched every four days, and I had just pitched the previous day. So who knows, maybe I’d miss one or two days, and then I’d catch an airplane to fly to Baltimore and be ready to pitch again. It didn’t actually work out that way. I was on active duty for 10 days, so I missed two starts during that time.
KS: When you look back at what you saw and experienced during those riots, what sticks out to you?
Lolich: To be honest, the National Guard was just a backup for the police department in Detroit. That night I reported, they loaded up different troops and took us to different places to drop us off. I ended up someplace in southwest Detroit — I don’t even know where I was at to this day — but when we got off, there were 12 of us guys that got off, and I was in charge of the squad, and all I saw was garbage trucks. I said, “We’re guarding garbage trucks.” There was an officer there that said “No, No, No.” He said up on the roof there was a police relay station where there was radio transmitting, and “That’s what you’re guarding. You’re guarding the radio tower. You’re not guarding the garbage trucks.”
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The next day, I got sent down to downtown Detroit. I was in a motor pool; I was the driver. I got assigned to a major in the downtown area. I was at the Beaubien police station. I was out of harm’s way there, too, because there really wasn’t much going on in downtown Detroit, because they had a 6 [p.m.] curfew.
KS: You got dispatched to drive, even though your rifle accuracy marks were so strong; they did not want you having to shoot at anyone or risk anyone shooting at you, correct?
Lolich: Correct. That was the reason they sent me downtown. They were trying to protect me both ways. One, as a guy who as pretty good with a rifle. And they didn’t want a major-league pitcher being shot at, either.
KS: In the aftermath of the riots, what was the feeling in the city?
Lolich: Well, everyone was worried it could break out again. And then there was worry about it breaking out again in ’68. Except I was talking to one of the local police officers who worked at Tiger Stadium at that time. He said in ’67, there would be three or four guys on a street corner, and they’d be looking for trouble. There was a lot of uneasiness going on. And he said that in ’68, when [the Tigers] were in a pennant race, you’d see the same guys standing on the street corner but they had a transistor radio, and they were listening to Tigers ballgames.
KS: When you came back from active duty, I’ve read that there were death threats made against you. Is that true?
Lolich: Yes, there was.
KS: Who made those threats?
Lolich: Eh … I don’t know if I want to say. They may still be looking for me. Ah, OK, it was the Black Panthers who made the death threat against me. They told me I was going to be assassinated the next night game I pitched. I had to go out there and pitch. Everyone in the ballclub knew I was under a threat, because there was a lot of FBI guys around the ballpark, up on the roof and things like that. Finally, as I threw my last warm-up pitch before the first inning, Norm Cash came over to me on the mound, and he said “Mick, I wish you a lot of luck in this game, and I’ll never talk to you again, because two targets are [harder] to hit than one.” And he went back to first base.
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KS: That’s quite the attempt to lighten the mood. I can’t imagine what it was like to pitch that game.
Lolich: I just had to shake it off the best I could do. I ended up pitching good, and several times throughout the game, I mentioned to Norm Cash to come over, and he just kept his arms crossed, stayed at first base and said “No, I’m not coming over there.” And he never did.
KS: That following year in ’68, how did you get the feeling that the city of Detroit was so invested in the team’s success?
Lolich: I just know a lot of people said because we were having success, and we were drawing a lot of people down to the ballpark, which was near where the disturbance took place, and everybody was excited about ballgames and just everybody was feeling good.
KS: What do you remember about that ’68 season. What stands out in your mind?
Lolich: [After losing out on the pennant in ’67], the next year, when we were in spring training, we’d be playing American League clubs, and when our guys were batting in batting practice, a lot of the visiting players would come up to the batting cage. … A lot of them were saying “You guys have one hell of a ballclub. You’re going to win it this year.” That really made us feel good that we were the team to beat, that we were gonna do it.
KS: So, thinking about the World Series, can you take me back to how you felt after Game 1, after Bob Gibson had such a superlative performance, how was the club feeling collectively after that first game?
Lolich: We were actually the underdogs, that we’d be out of it by five games. Our thought was,let’s just make a good showing against them. Bob Gibson struck out 17 of us the first game, and I was thinking “Uh-oh. Here we go.”
KS: Fast forward to Game 7. Can you describe the feeling, for you, pitching on only two days rest, pitching your third game of the series, going up against Gibson — what did that feel like?
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Lolich: I was asked to pitch five innings. I thought nothing of that, because I usually would go down to bullpen and throw 100-135 pitches getting a workout. I said “That will be easy; that will be nothing.” I pitched five innings, walked off the mound and said, “Well, I did my job.” My manager was asking for me and said, “Could you pitch one more?” And I felt pretty good, so I pitched one more and walked off, and he says “Can you pitch one more?” We ended up scoring three runs in that inning. I walked up and tapped him on the shoulder, and I said “Well, now I’ll finish this thing for you,” and he said, “That was just what I wanted to hear.” And I finished it for him.
KS: How did your arm feel the next day?
Lolich: Who cares? I had all winter to rest!
KS: In all seriousness, what was it like to win that Game 7?
Lolich: We had a 4-0 lead in the ninth inning, and I just knew when I walked out in the ninth inning that I was a winner, that we were going to win the game. There was no way I was going to give up four runs and lose the game. Fact is, I had two outs, and I had Mike Shannon come to bat. He’s a dead-fastball hitter, and I told myself I’m not going to walk him no matter what. I’m going to throw him nothing but fastballs. If he gets a base hit, fine, if he hits one out out, I don’t care. He hits one out and makes it 4-1. And I sort of shrugged my shoulders and got the ball from the umpire and said, “OK, let’s get the next guy out.” Which I did, and we were now world champions.
KS: Can you describe what Detroit is like when it’s got winning baseball to support?
Lolich: Detroit has some of the greatest fans in baseball. They support their ballclubs. When we used to play around the country we’d have 2,000-3,000 people cheering for us. They were transplants who never forget their Tigers. And you know, it’s just a great feeling when you go into enemy territory and you have people cheering for ya.
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I believe in Tigers fans. I know they’re going through a tough time right now but, hey, I played on some teams that went through some tough times, too.
KS: The Tigers are planning to honor the 50-year anniversary of that ’68 championship team. What do you expect that reunion to be like?
Lolich: You have 25 players, five coaches, and you have your clubhouse man, and traveling secretary, you’re looking at 35-40 people that make up a team. And there’s only 13 of us left, ya know? This is a very, very big reunion for us, because if they do another one for us in five years, I know the numbers are going to be lower, because we’re getting old!
I think this is going to be a good jubilee for us there. “Hey, we made it!” “We made it to another one!” “Hopefully we make the next one!”
I’m looking forward to it tremendously.
(Top photo from 2012 ALDS by Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
