Top 106 Baseball Players: #50 - Al Kaline

Al Kaline

Al Kaline was a perennial MVP contender who played for the Detroit Tigers for 22 seasons, and is one of the greatest players in that franchise's history.

Kaline joined the Tigers in 1953 straight out of high school, never having played a game in the minor leagues. In his third season, he led the league with 200 hits and a .340 average, becoming the youngest player ever to win a batting title at 20 years of age. That season he also became the 4th player ever to hit 2 home runs in the same inning and the youngest ever to hit 3 in a game.

That started a streak of 7 straight seasons of at least 150 hits and 13 straight selections to the All-Star team. Through all that time, he never played a playoff game, but in 1968, his first season not on the All-Star roster since he was a teenager, the Tigers won the pennant and faced the Cardinals in the World Series. Kaline had a great World Series, batting .379 with 8 RBI as the Tigers won in 7 games.

Kaline nearly died on the baseball field in 1970, when he had a collision with a teammate in the outfield chasing down a fly ball. He collapsed on the warning track after he collision, and teammate Willie Horton rushed over to check on him and realized that his airway was blocked and he was turning blue, so he reached in and cleared it out and saved his life.

In 1974, Kaline reached the 3000 hit plateau, the 12th player to reach that mark, and retired just weeks later at the conclusion of the season. He ended up with 399 home runs, having reached 25 in a season 7 times without ever reaching 30, which goes to show how consistent he was for so long. He finished with a .297 batting average, having surpassed .300 nine times, stretching from ages 20 to 37.

Kaline was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, the 10th player so honored. He is the Tigers all-time leader in games played, walks, and home runs, and played extremely well in his only World Series appearance. He was a model of consistency for over 2 decades, and as a result is the player opening up the top 50 on the all-time greatest players list.