RIP Tom Veryzer

Former major league SS Tom Veryzer dies

Tom Veryzer, who played a dozen years in the major leagues and was Detroit's shortstop before Alan Trammell took over in the late 1970s, has died. He was 61.

The Tigers confirmed Veryzer died this week, as did the Overton Funeral Home in Islip, N.Y. A viewing is scheduled for Thursday at the home.

Veryzer played for the Tigers from 1973-77, then spent four years with Cleveland. He played one season with the New York Mets and two with the Chicago Cubs to finish his career.

He played 996 games and batted .241 for his career. In his final season, he was part of the Chicago team that won the NL East in 1984.

He is survived by his wife, Vivian, and three children, Thomas, William and Jennifer.

 

I seemed to have a lot of his cards during his Indians days.

 

I had heard but wanted to wait until we had confirmation from The Tigers. Veryzer was one of those classic middle infielders of the 60's and 70's. Mostly good field no hit but fundamentally sound for the game of that era. Ed Brinkman was the consummate middle
infielder of that era who Veryzer actually played with for a while in Detroit.

 

Veryzer actually replaced Brinkman (who also died fairly young, 66) in the lineup as the regular shortstop for the Tigers.

For most of the 1960s/70s the Tigers seemed fixated on an early form of anti-sabermetric player selection strategy -- from the era of Don Wert through Brinkman through Veryzer and even into the tenure of Trammell, they seemed focused on guys who were both no-hit and no-field -- in terms of range, anyway.

Wert and Brinkman had very good fielding percentages but wayyyy below-average range. (Brinkman seemed like his shoes were bolted to the ground and his lack of speed was a common topic of humor for the radio/TV commentators, even the guys paid to make the team sound good. )

Trammell fit the same general profile although his general level of athletic ability was much better and he eventually developed into a hitter.

Veryzer seemed like a nice guy but was your typical replacement-level player. When he was your starter, you figured you had a "decent major leaguer" in the position, but you also figured you needed to be looking for somebody better.

 

The Tigers specialized in that genre of player when you add in Ray Oyler, Tom Matchick and Dick Tracewski.

 

Yep. I think Jim Campbell's entire defensive scouting checklist consisted of the fielding percentage column.

On the other hand, a lot of teams were thinking like that in the olden days.

 

True - The Yankees had Stick Micheal, Ruben Amaro and Horace Clark in that
good field no hit category. The Orioles had Mark Belanger. I think that whole thinking changed with players like Robin Yout came
along and you could have both.

 

I don't remember him from the 1984 Cubs. He must've played very sparingly.

 

RIP to one of the members of the Indians in my youth.

 

I remember him being a bench guy in 84 with Jay Johnstone, Richie Hebner and Gary Woods. But, yeah, he didn't play much behind Bowa and Dave Owen at shortstop.

 

I remember him with the Mets in 1982. They had a ton of no-hit shortstops in those days --- Veryzer, Ron Gardenhire, Bob Bailor.