William Ashley Freehan (November 29, 1941 – August 19, 2021)
Played for: Detroit Tigers (1961, 1963–1976)
Bill Freehan: Baseball Reference [Player] — Catcher (C)
1,591 hits, 200 home runs, 758 RBI, .262/.340/.412 slashline in 1,774 games, 44.7 WAR
11× All-Star (1964–1973, 1975)
World Series champion (1968)
5× Gold Glove Award (1965–1969)
The Tigers signed him after his sophomore year, where he had batted .585 (he was no slouch in college, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in history in 1966). He broke in that year with four hits in 10 at-bats before spending 1962 in the minors. He played 100 games in 1963 and batted .243 with 9 home runs that saw him play 72 games as catcher and 20 at first base. He would play over 100 games at catcher in each of the next nine seasons. Coincidentally, his All-Star run started with the following season. The 1964 season saw him bat near .300 by the time of July and saw him selected as a reserve to Elston Howard at catcher for the All-Star Game (played on July 7). In 144 games, he batted a career-high .300 and had 80 RBIs with 18 home runs while leading for the first time in hit-by-pitch (8). He received MVP votes, finishing 7th for the 85-win team. Sure, he was in a slump by the time of July in the 1965 season, but that didn't stop him being picked as an All-Star reserve. Amidst a .996 fielding percentage and a few highs in games for the position (129), he was named a Gold Glover for the first of five straight years; on the batting side, he had 10 home runs with a .234 batting average.
In a season that saw two managers die in the same year (Chuck Dressen in August and interim manager Bob Swift in October), Freehan had his most strikeouts in a season with 72 in 136 games. Things would change with new Tigers manager Mayo Smith in 1967. With a career high in games (catching 147 of his 155 games played), he batted .282 while walking more times than striking out (73-71) with new highs in RBIs (74) and home runs (20). He led the league in hit by pitch (20) and intentional walks (15). There was enough respect for him that he finished third place in MVP voting behind Carl Yastremski and Harmon Killibrew; Detroit finished one game back of the pennant to Boston. Considered the "heart and soul" of the team when he played, Freehan got one shot at the World Series with the 1968 season, the very last time that the World Series was the only playoff series. In 155 games (138 at catcher), he was in the top ten for home runs (25, 5th), RBIs (84, 6th) and total bases (245, 8th) while batting .263 and leading the league one more time in hit by pitch with 24. In the "Year of the Pitcher", the only .300 hitter in Yastremski didn't even get in the top 5 for MVP voting, as Denny McLain and his 31-6 record beat out his teammate Freehan and Ken Harrelson of the Sox to win the MVP Award.
Sure, McLain struggled in the Series, and sure, Freehan didn't have a hit in the first five games, but Mickey Lolich didn't struggle which saw him start three of the seven games, including Game 5 and 7 and Freehan showed up. In the fifth inning of Game 5, trailing 3-2, the Tigers nearly saw the game pass them by when the Cards had Lou Brock on second base and saw him try to advance all the way to home on a base hit by Julian Javier to left. However, left fielder Willie Horton's throw was on the money and Freehan held onto the ball to block a charging Brock while having his foot on the base to deny a run (the Tigers subsequently scored three runs in the seventh after loading the base). He contributed a run in Game 6 and 7 with RBI hits; in the final game, his line drive double in the 7th inning off Bob Gibson increased the lead to 3-0 in a game the Tigers won 4-1, with Freehan catching a pop-fly in foul territory for the final out as the Tigers won the Series. Freehan was 27 and a World Series champion. The next couple of years saw him actually walk more than strikeout (289 to 276 from 1969-1974) and make a few more All-Star Game appearances (with one experiment in 1974 to have him more at first base [65] than catcher [63]). He even wrote a diary of his experiences with the 1969 team. He had one more postseason with the 1972 team, where he recovered from a hairline fracture on his thumb to play in Game 3 of the ALCS versus Oakland. He batted 3-for-12 with a home run as Detroit won Game 3 and 4 to force a decisive Game 5, which Oakland won 2-1 for the first of three straight ALCS victories (as for Detroit, they didn't return until 1984). After eleven 10-HR seasons (which included three 20-HR years in 1967, 1968, 1971), Freehan played in just 71 games in 1976 and had five home runs, with his final one coming on August 24 for his 200th as a major league player. He was released after the season ended in October, just shy of his 35th birthday and never played again. Freehan had ten 10-HR seasons as a primary catcher - still a franchise record, with Lance Parrish being the only one to pass him in HR for a primary catcher as a Tiger (okay not all of his 212 HR were at the position, but I think you get it). Freehan and his 324 games spent as a catcher with Lolich on the mound was the most by a duo until the battery of Adam Wainwright-Yadier Molina passed them in 2022.
Did you know that when he retired, only six players who played 75% of their games in the position of catcher had 200 home runs? Yes, there was Berra, Campanella, Bench, Hartnett, Dickey...and Freehan. A half-century since his retirement has only seen the list go to 19 (Gary Sanchez recently joined the club, while J.T. Realmuto sits at 190 and Cal Raleigh sits at 173 for active players). You might wonder how many times Freehan went up for the BBWAA vote, and it was one time in 1982, where he received 0.5 percent of the vote (16 of the 42 names up for the vote eventually made the Hall of Fame, incidentally*). In his years after playing baseball, he became a businessman (in between stints as a broadcaster) in retirement for Freehan-Bocci & Co. Inc., a manufacturers' representative agency but stumbled into becoming coach at Michigan after being hired to give the team honest footing in 1989. He managed six years and did a few stints in coaching with the Tigers in the 2000s and lived in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan for many years. Detroit has failed its players by not giving them the proper honors they deserve. A team hall of fame would've given Freehan the recognition he deserved, particularly since his Hall of Fame chances weren't the highest in any sense. I end with a quote from Freehan himself:
"Most of us did better financially after baseball. Detroit has been good to us. We made our homes here, stayed loyal to the community. That's the way it should be."
On behalf of the Unsung Hall of Fame, it is my privilege to welcome Bill Freehan to the Hall.
N O T E S
Photo source: https://www.tcdb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/58532/cid/3096294/1971-Detroit-Tigers-Color-Picture-Pack-(Set-B)-NNO-Bill-Freehan
*Garvey is an interesting case. Not for the Baseball Hall of Fame, which has rejected him many, many, many times, but the Unsung Hall of Fame, well, sure, I'll talk.
*This includes various people who made it through the Veterans Committee such as Mazeroski. Yes, there were in fact people who voted more for Don Larsen (!) than Mazeroski on a ballot.
Working on a side project that I will update at the end of the regular season for MLB: OmniBase (7,000 batters in total bases, at least 100 TB). For example, Freehan had 24 stolen bases, 626 walks, and 114 hit by pitches. Alongside his 2,502 total bases, this adds up to 3,266 OMNIs, or 557th alltime. Naturally, there's also an alternative OMNI that takes into account caught stealing (21), strikeouts (753), ground into double plays (138) and sacrifice hit/flies (38, 48) that results in 2,268, or 413rd all-time. Have fun.
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