Jim Northrup Pivotal to Tigers' '68 World Series Championship: He'll Be Missed

When I think of the 1968 world champion Detroit Tigers, I think of Denny McLain, who won 31 games that year. I think of future Hall of Famer Al Kaline, who was my boyhood idol, roaming right field making catches and daring runners, with that strong and accurate cannon of an arm, to advance that extra base, and hitting for average. 

I think of Jim Northrup, too. 

Northrup, affectionately known as the Silver Fox with his premature gray hair, never made it to the Hall of Fame. He didn’t hit a lot of home runs or for high average. He had good speed and played a steady, but not great, center field. 

Yet when I heard the news this week that he’d passed away while living in an assisted living facility north of Detroit, I stopped a moment to offer a silent prayer. 

The city of Detroit was in turmoil in the mid-'60s. There were race riots and the 1968 Tigers managed to single-handedly quell tensions by playing a kid’s game and playing it better than any other team in the American League. 

It was the year of sock it to ‘em, Tigers. 

They had one superstar on the team—the aforementioned Al Kaline. They also had a superstar in the making—Denny McLain—who could throw a baseball for a strike whenever he wanted to and make hitters miss it, and in between starts he’d play the organ up in the stands at old Tiger Stadium. 

They also had a band of brothers who were colorful: Norm Cash (who’d won the batting title in 1961 and became the first Tiger to clear the left field roof in Tiger Stadium—a feat he would accomplish four times), Mickey Lolich (whose spare tire might’ve been the inspiration for him to open a donut shop in Lake Orion after he retired), Dick MacAuliffe (with the strangest batting stance I think I’ve ever seen), Bill Freehan, Mickey Stanley, Willie Horton, among others. 

None of them are Hall of Famers; none of them are household names in the baseball fraternity, unless you’re from Detroit. 

But they did something special in 1968: They helped heal a bleeding city by winning the 1968 World Series in grand fashion, becoming only the third team in major league history to come from a 3-1 game deficit to win a championship. 

In losing three of the first four games to the St. Louis Cardinals, they looked to be boys playing against men, as if they didn’t belong; but when their backs were up against the wall they played their hearts out. 

Before the series started, much of the press went to Mickey Stanley. Kaline was coming off an injury and manager Mayo Smith had to make room for him in the outfield, so he replaced shortstop Ray Oyler, who was hitting his weight, with Stanley, who’d never played an infield position in his life. 

Sadly, Oyler would become the first of the 1968 Tigers to die. He passed away of a heart attack in 1981 at the age of 42. 

Mickey Lolich would grab the press when the series went to a seventh game, starting his third game in the Fall Classic after winning his first two starts and hitting his first and only career home run in Game 2. Lolich would clinch the World Series MVP award. 

Lolich was forced to become a left-hander after injuring his right arm in a freak tricycle accident in his youth. 

Kaline hit a blistering .379 for the series and Cash .385. 

And all Northrup did was hit a grand slam in a 10-run third inning of Game 6; and if that heroic feat wasn’t enough, he hit a two-run triple in Game 7 to help clinch the championship. 

Northrup wasn’t colorful in the way McLain and Cash were—McLain would ruin his career over gambling and Cash once walked up to the plate with a table leg to face Nolan Ryan, who was that afternoon working on his second career no-no.

The plate umpire, Ron Luciano, told Cash, “You can’t use that up here,” to which Cash replied, “Why not? I won’t hit him anyway.” After he struck out on three pitches, Cash turned to Luciano and said, “See, I told ya.” 

Northrup went about his job in workmanlike fashion which, in a blue collar town like Detroit, only endeared him. 

I was 11 years old in 1968, but those are memories I’ve carried with me a lifetime. 

Thanks, Jim, for being a part of my youth.