Ivory Hunters: History of the Detroit Tigers Scouting and Development (pt.1) Billy Doyle - Ep 110

What if one year could define an entire city's sports legacy? Travel back with us to 1935, a year when Detroit was crowned the "City of Champions," and discover how the Lions, Tigers, Red Wings, and boxing phenom Joe Louis made an indelible mark on sports history. We'll unpack the rich interconnections between Detroit and Portsmouth, and delve into the cultural phenomenon of Opening Day in Detroit, a citywide celebration that still resonates with fans today.

Ever heard of the Detroit Diamonds? This early NBA team, which would later become the renowned Los Angeles Lakers, has a fascinating origin story. From their humble beginnings, through a transformative draft pick in George Mikan, to their eventual rise as a basketball powerhouse, we'll map out their incredible journey. We also spotlight the Fort Wayne Pistons' relocation to Detroit, their championship successes, and draw parallels to the potential-packed current roster.

Baseball scouting and development have a storied history, and we unveil how pioneers like Branch Rickey and scouts like Billy Doyle revolutionized the game. Explore the evolution of the minor league system, the Yankees and Tigers' integration of this structure, and the meticulous talent-spotting methods that have shaped baseball. With personal anecdotes and rare discoveries, we'll paint a vivid picture of how scouting has transformed from an intuitive art to a sophisticated science, forever in pursuit of the next major league star. Join us for an episode filled with rich history, legendary sports figures, and the enduring spirit of Detroit.

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Transcript

Announcer: 0:02

1935, the lions win the nfl championship, the detroit tigers take the world series, the red wings bring home lord stanley's cup. Joe lewis begins his rise to world domination. This transforms the motor city into detroit, city of champions.

Jamie Flanagan: 0:21

Oh, the crack of the bat is coming full circle. We are back to the crack of the bat is coming full circle. We are back to the crack of the bat. We are.

Charles Avison: 0:28

It feels like it's like a nostalgia. We're going back to the beginning.

Jamie Flanagan: 0:31

It's Detroit City of Champions podcast. I'm Jamie Flanagan, Charles Avison and we are just into the 1935 story, swimming around looking at all the different pieces and parts, and there's a lot more to talk. We've gone through the books and we've talked about the individual champions and the teams, Although what we didn't do because we said, oh, we're going to save them- we haven't done the championships yet we haven't done the championship games. I'm kind of waiting. Those are coming.

Charles Avison: 0:58

They're coming at some point. I'm looking for like a I don't know. I'm looking for an event or something Go to.

Jamie Flanagan: 1:06

Portsmouth and do it, live there.

Charles Avison: 1:08

But it's not a Portsmouth thing.

Jamie Flanagan: 1:11

Today ties to Portsmouth.

Charles Avison: 1:14

We're going to be talking about the Tigers. It's crazy how Portsmouth is like our sister city. It's not just the Lions, there's so much stuff that ties back into it.

Jamie Flanagan: 1:24

It's interesting. When you sent the materials for today, I was like, oh, our friends from Portsmouth once again.

Charles Avison: 1:30

That's what I mean. It's crazy. I'm excited.

Jamie Flanagan: 1:33

It's not the Lions, or the Spartans and the Lions. This time it's on the baseball, ilk Of things. But, charles, we're here. They've reported to spring training yeah tigers, the tigers. This year they're gathering up the new players which is kind of plays into what we're talking about. He's an opener, you know today, uh, and then, yeah, just a big drink fest, that uh it's opening day it's like there's people who like baseball and there's people who go downtown to drink.

Charles Avison: 2:05

Yeah, no, I did. When I was first. It was one of the. I think it was like the third. I think it was 2014, because I was just about to release the third book and I just released a magazine. I called it Detroit Sports Consumer and I only did one. Technically, I did two issues. I only published one Right and the. I only did one. I technically I did two issues. I only published one right, um, but the uh, because the magazine's a totally different beast as far as publishing and cost and all this and uh. Anyways, I went down to the uh, to the. I wanted to sell issues of the magazine, so I did us. I had a table for opening day. Oh, in this little, in this little uh, basically like what amounts to a giant beer tent type area. I learned so much from that. It was opening day again.

Jamie Flanagan: 2:53

That's a drug fest.

Charles Avison: 2:55

What I'm trying to get at is when I went into this, when the game started, I thought that the traffic was going to die down, and it didn't. There was nobody. Nobody there cared about the game. The game was like maybe it was on the radio. Or something like a sound speech.

Charles Avison: 3:12

And the traffic only increased and it was just crazy busy In this like. Beer tent area, like they pay people to get in. You have to kind of pay to get in a little bit, but anyways, I ended up for the second issue, which never got published.

Charles Avison: 3:28

I had a friend of mine do the illustrations of some of the things that I saw right for that opening day, and he did comic illustrations and it was like it was crazy, like there was like one, like one girl, like she was looking at my magazine and she turned around like threw up on the ground oh nice there was a guy who was like dancing and fell over and landed in some table or something like it was talks a little bit about your writing style yeah, it's like it is.

Charles Avison: 3:53

It was, uh, I mean, it was crazy. It was that they don't. It's like I say they, I was like so, and it was like a walk-off win too, or something it was like some really exciting and nobody in there gave a crap. No, they didn't give a crap. They were all wearing Tigers gear. Everybody was all there for the Tigers. It was just a party, yeah.

Jamie Flanagan: 4:14

But the city needs a few good parties here and there because, they need something to celebrate.

Charles Avison: 4:19

Yeah, because the city hasn't been rich with champions the way it was in 35 since and there's another story from 1935, which kind of matches up with that concept, yeah, which was. There was a I forgot who reported the story. It was a reporter. It was like Bud Shaver, Bob Murphy, one of these guys and he was telling the story of coming out of the stadium and there was a guy that was like passed out on the ground it was like just like waking up he was just like kind of kind of coming out of a stupor right, I missed the game exactly.

Charles Avison: 4:57

The guy had missed the game in the and he was like hey, man, you all right. Like the reporter was like hey, are you all right? And the the guy in the ground, was like am I at the Tiger game?

Jamie Flanagan: 5:06

Am I at?

Charles Avison: 5:06

the Tiger game and the guy and he was like, yeah, you're outside. He's like I made it. That was the report, that was the article. Yeah, we're not going to, obviously we wouldn't cover that on the show as a full-on story, but what I'm saying is that's like one of these little, like little nuance that happened to the guy. Same concept back then. Like the tight, it was tiger mania, but it didn't necessarily mean that it was like people wanted to go watch every second of the Tigers.

Charles Avison: 5:29

This guy didn't have any clue whether they won or lost. He was just happy that he, you know, made it to Detroit and at the ball.

Jamie Flanagan: 5:35

He was like I was at that I was at, I swear. I was there. Yeah, it's opening day coming up on April 5 there. Friday, I'll probably go down.

Charles Avison: 5:53

Really.

Jamie Flanagan: 5:53

Yeah, probably I'm a tourist, yeah do that touristy. I'm a tourist. Yeah, why not Do it? I'm going to do it. And then just about two weeks after that's gonna be uh champions day, coming up right away, coming up straight away, right around the the corner. Big champions day uh thing at the detroit historical museum are they putting some on the?

Jamie Flanagan: 6:14

20th, not on 18th champions day proper, but on the saturday the 20th, because it's you know, it's easier on a on the weekend to draw a crowd. Uh, they're gonna be. Uh, mickey Redmond is going to be there and they have like a walk of fame that celebrities put their hands in.

Charles Avison: 6:30

I was there for the first one of those walk of fames. I was there when Tommy Hearns put his hands in there, that was the day that they announced that the city that Dave Bing had signed the proclamation bringing back champions, don't call to come back, yeah.

Jamie Flanagan: 6:44

Mickey Redmond bringing back champions. That was cool. Don't call to come back. Yeah, so, uh, so, yeah, so it's uh, the Mickey Redmond will be there doing that and uh, I'll be there, uh, sporting my, my, uh city of champions.

Charles Avison: 6:55

Nice, I don't know, I know we'll see what else happens but I'm going to see if anybody else is going. I don't know. Sounds like a cool event. I don't know if I might make it or not. We'll see.

Jamie Flanagan: 7:05

I said if you were in town you'd go.

Charles Avison: 7:07

Yeah right, We'll see. I got my own little. We got some stories behind the scenes. There you are, We'll see.

Jamie Flanagan: 7:14

Yeah, but my plan is there. I'll be there waving the flag Representing you know. You know me. If one of us is there, that's cool as long as one of us is representing I'll be there waving the flag, as I said. As long as I get, I get on the mic yeah, that's it get me on the mic for five minutes yeah, what do you say?

Charles Avison: 7:32

like is he doing his own little radio thing there no, no, no, no no.

Jamie Flanagan: 7:37

I know I thought he did a radio. There's another podcast gonna happen too.

Charles Avison: 7:40

Oh, is there. Yeah, so they're broadcasting him putting his hands in cement.

Jamie Flanagan: 7:44

No, I mean that's just the thing that's happening. Oh, and then there's another. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not exactly sure of the itinerary.

Charles Avison: 7:50

What's the other podcast?

Jamie Flanagan: 7:51

I'm not sure of the itinerary. It's in the email somewhere. Okay, reddit's, I mean, we're welcome to record an episode there, live that day as well, if we want to, if we want to dig something up and do something if you're in town and you're available? Uh, there's no, no pressure, you know you're out of town this is we'll see. So anyhow, uh, but I'm going. I was going to tell you that earlier, but I forgot to save it on the show save it on the save it on the save it for the show.

Jamie Flanagan: 8:22

jackie, it's a solid plan that you got there. I like it. So we were talking Mickey Redman and the Red Wings nothing to do with the Tigers.

Charles Avison: 8:32

But it's still the City of Champions. They're a beneficiary of it, probably the biggest beneficiary of the City of Champions.

Jamie Flanagan: 8:39

Yeah, and the other thing is about City of Champions Day. The Detroit Pistons are really getting on board with the whole City of Champions Day. The Detroit Pistons are really getting on board with the whole City of Champions and they're using that as a marketing thing for the next season. It's going to be a City of Champions as part of their marketing slogans, from what I understand. But they weren't part of it because the NBA didn't exist yet and the Pistons didn't exist. The Pistons didn't exist. The Pistons I found. The Pistons started in Illinois.

Charles Avison: 9:09

It started in Minnesota.

Jamie Flanagan: 9:12

Somewhere.

Charles Avison: 9:13

No, the Pistons. No, I'm sorry, no, I'm thinking. No, it's.

Jamie Flanagan: 9:18

Wayne, indiana. Yeah, yes, they were the Pistons. Yes, wayne, but they were Pistons in Indiana.

Charles Avison: 9:22

Yes, what I'm thinking of is the Detroit Diamonds because the Detroit Diamonds were the team that were the forerunners of the Los Angeles Lakers. Right, right, which is crazy to think of, but that's the case.

Charles Avison: 9:35

They had the Diamonds and this is going off the cuff for my recollections, right, right, but this is the domino for that story was that you yes, you had the fort wayne pistons right, and then you also the nba, of course, was in its extreme infancy, but what you had was the detroit diamonds who were like one of the worst teams in nba history. They were, they won like one game, yeah, and so that team, they were kind of like our guys now very much, yes, but different because, but different in a lot of ways but the pistons.

Charles Avison: 10:07

But this is snarky no, no, but this, because the pistons of today are like all first round draft picks, whereas this team was just like made up of whoever they could kind of stack up, but that. But what's interesting is is that the diamonds, that the diamonds, um, they were so bad that they got the first overall pick in the draft and then the team relocated before the pick was made Right and they went to Minnesota, where the and again, this is me off the top of my cup.

Charles Avison: 10:33

I'm not trying to be perfect here but from my record, from my understanding, my recollections, is that once they got to Minnesota the team was renamed the Lakers because, like Minnesota, is a land of a thousand lakes.

Jamie Flanagan: 10:43

Okay Okay, renamed the Lakers because, like Minnesota, is a land of a thousand lakes, right, okay, okay.

Charles Avison: 10:45

So that's why they were called the Lakers and in that draft they use that number one pick that they got from the from the diamonds being so terrible to draft George Mikan. Okay.

Charles Avison: 10:54

George Mikan came in and then, like by the time, so he came in and had, I think he had one year, I think the team lasted for like one year in Minnesota, for like one year in minnesota, maybe two, I forgot exactly, yeah, but then and and then that team was trans from there, from there transplanted to los angeles where they retained the name lakers, and then george mikan was like the first, like superstar of the nba, okay, and so that's where, like built that laker dynasty was george mikan. Who was that originally was the you know the, the result of that detroit diamonds terrible draft oh wow, terrible year so, but yeah, then that wayne team moved to detroit.

Charles Avison: 11:30

And then they the rest is history.

Jamie Flanagan: 11:31

They became the pistons yeah, well, they were the piston, what I thought that was interesting. Yeah, they became the detroit, pistons they yeah, they were pistons and the other thing, and he they were doing okay, uh, but and and the nba was starting to grow and he's like, well, it was a small town. He's like this needs to be in a bigger city to be successful yeah and so he brought him to port wayne to detroit yeah yeah, and so it was.

Jamie Flanagan: 11:54

Uh. So I'm trying to scare up a nba professional historian to come and talk and tell the story right.

Charles Avison: 12:02

Yeah, I'm pretty well versed in myself. Yeah, I'd love to talk with somebody that's really deep into it.

Jamie Flanagan: 12:06

But so, yeah, I was trying to get somebody who wrote a book on it to come in. Yeah, I've got a couple feelers on. Yeah, but that's the the city of champions a day, april 20th. How we digressed. Uh, coming up april 20th, uh, celebrating the 18th on the 20th, uh, at the detroit historical museum. Uh, we'll be focused on the Pistons and their two chunks of championships.

Charles Avison: 12:28

Well, the thing about the modern-day Pistons. If I can digress on a little modern sports for a moment, the thing that gets me is that the entire Pistons team are all first-round draft picks.

Charles Avison: 12:38

They have all these guys. But the thing is about it is the template for the Pistons' success has already been laid. You had the Pistons, the bad boy Pistons of the late 80s, and then you had the 2004 Pistons team and especially the 2004 Pistons team. Like leading up to that year, for like five or six years straight, I watched every single game from like 2000 through, probably from like 1999 through 2004. I watched every single Pistons game. I was the biggest Pistons fan. Like if you would have called me at that time.

Charles Avison: 13:06

I would have been like if you would have said I'm gonna write a business book if you would have asked me what my favorite sport was, I would have set my favorite team in detroit. I would have said the pistons like I love the. I was a diehard pistons fan and so um, and I watched the entire development of the team, like I was watching when grant hill was here, I was watching when jerry stack, when they got jerry stackhouse and when they went to the playoffs a little bit yeah and then that, that and then, and then grant hill left the pistons and they got, uh, ben wallace and trade.

Charles Avison: 13:30

I remember I was on mackinac island opening the newspaper and looking at grant hill's thank you. You know he had like paid an ad for a full page like thank you, detroit, I'll never forget you, and I was like we're gonna win a championship before you do like. I was, like I was there for all that. I mean, I watched, I watched the whole thing unfold and what I'm saying is what I'm trying to get at is is that the, is that that the template for that's, for success, for a successful team in detroit has already been laid? Yeah, it's like I'm not talking about like one team that like was good and then we should do the same thing as that team.

Charles Avison: 14:03

I'm talking about two separate, two separate eras which were very similar to each other, where you had this like tough, defensive minded team of both that the bad boys and the 2004 team were both like die hard, like defensive trend setting team, where they were like the most dominant defensive team in the entire nba, and they also had this like timely perimeter shooting, like that literal was. It was like almost like a carbon copy of both teams. They're both the same concept and so then, like, what that's what's so crazy is, is that, um, that like that, that model was. It worked twice in Detroit and now they've got like a bunch of first round draft picks that just are. They're just trying to like, oh we're this guy's good, that guy's good, that's good. Let's just put them all together and see and be good, like, why not like, actually have a blueprint for a team plan?

Jamie Flanagan: 14:55

having a plan.

Charles Avison: 14:56

Having a plan, that's crazy yes, yeah, we'll have a plan based on what's already worked in detroit and go back to that, and so that's what I'm saying.

Jamie Flanagan: 15:03

Like it's not, I would I wouldn't seem like that much of a crazy thing to me. I'd love to see another round of championships. I'd love to see the pistons. I love the piss right in the middle of the mix.

Charles Avison: 15:13

I love to watch, I love the pistons, but this team's unwatchable and the other thing too is.

Charles Avison: 15:17

But the other thing too is that the for this first round, these, these guys, like every single guy, and they're starting to roster is all like former first round picks, like they're all for it and like that's not what detroit, what these detroit teams are made of, usually, like the pissons, have always been teams of like guys that were like either cast offs I mean you have a couple first rounds makes like isaiah thomas and stuff but a lot of these teams were like cast off players from other organizations or guys who are just like you know, guys that nobody really liked and whatever.

Jamie Flanagan: 15:43

Just a ragtag fugitive, Basically yeah.

Charles Avison: 15:45

Yeah, like Ben Wallace was a cast-off.

Jamie Flanagan: 15:47

That'll start galactic.

Charles Avison: 15:48

Well, Ben Wallace was an undrafted free agent when he first came to the NBA and then when he was a throw-in for the Grant Hill deal, and he ended up becoming the most central figure of the entire Pistons team, Sure yeah.

Charles Avison: 15:59

And so I mean you have a bunch of these under. I mean just how the lions are currently constructed, their whole team is cast offs. You have jared goff, their quarterback, who was a cast off. He's a throw-in, is in the guy for just as a salary dump, the salary match-up trade with the rams you had, you know. You have aman rasain brown, who's a fifth round draft pick. You have all these guys which are just cast offs. I mean, um, even guys that are first round picks, like jay, like, uh, jamison williams, like he, like he couldn't get on the field barely for ohio state. I mean he got, you know, he got, he had to transfer over to alabama just to get one year, one starting year, in yeah, and then he's been sort of like having to work his way into the lineup with the lions.

Charles Avison: 16:37

You know, since he got into the team it's like every guy is like had to be a workhorse guy I love that, that the piece of magic that Amin Ross St Brown turned out to be, yeah. But it's. But the thing is, it's not a. I don't think it's a coincidence Magical.

Jamie Flanagan: 16:53

He is, but I. But good on him, it goes back to 35.

Charles Avison: 16:57

What what Patsy Clark said, the coach of the lions, in 1935,? He used to say that money ruins players. In essence, the best players out there are guys that have something to prove. They're guys that will crawl through glass to make a play. They've got something to prove. And when you have an entire team of those guys, a team of junkyard dogs- those are the Ironmen. Exactly those are the tough. Those are the guys that are the worst. Nobody wants to play them because they're a bunch of guys with a chip on their shoulder.

Jamie Flanagan: 17:26

I'm curious how much of this will come up on Champions Day when we're talking Pistons down at the Detroit Historical Museum. I'm curious what the conversation will be down there. So yeah, if you hear this before April 20th of 2024, detroit Historical Museum, come on down. Mickey Redmond will be there putting his hands in cement and I'll be there cementing something I don't know.

Charles Avison: 17:56

Cementing it? Yeah, we'll see.

Jamie Flanagan: 17:58

But today we were talking tigers and we were talking foundational. Yes. And you were talking about building and blueprints and foundations with with the pistons, uh, and those were incredible blueprints, um, and so we're talking about the history of scouting and team development for the taggers was that the plan for today, yeah it's a little bit of baseball history in general, but a tie and you know, for anybody listening right now, you know this is what we're what we're talking about is.

Charles Avison: 18:23

You know, for anybody listening right now, you know this is what we're what we're talking about is um, well, you know that this, you know the. The center point of that story today is me talking about a guy named Billy Doyle. But, uh, and this and so like what you're what you're about to hear on this show, maybe we should have let off with this.

Charles Avison: 18:36

But the what you're about to hear on this show is for like literally the first time, I dare you to go on youtube, I dare you to go and look up on the internet anywhere you see. I dare you to look up a history of the detroit tiger scouting and development system. It is, it's not to understand. Like that's what's kind of interesting is people like talk about like baseball, like scouting and stuff like this, yeah, but the thing is, there's baseball. I, I stand by this concept. Baseball is actually a relatively sports.

Charles Avison: 19:08

History is relatively a new subject matter. I know that sports are huge in this country. Yeah, I know it's 2023 and like you can go, oh, sports and baseball like 100 years old. Yeah, well, think about it like this. It takes 50 years of time before you can begin to start saying, hey, let's look back at the past. Right, sure, so you actually have to have a history built up long enough before you can actually start to go back and consider like, oh, back 50 years ago, you know when, when we were studying baseball history, you can't say back in the day until there was a back in the day.

Charles Avison: 19:40

Yeah, 50 years ago. If you're talking about now, 50 years ago was, you know, 1975. You know what I mean. So from 1975 before that's 1925.

Charles Avison: 19:51

So you're talking about you know it's actually a relatively um, new field of study and like, again, cursory topics like mickey mannell, babe, ruth hank, eric, like the biggest name stars, those things have been covered to death, there's no doubt about it. You know, the major subjects of sport, of baseball and sports history, have been covered to death. But but like more, a little bit more nuanced things like the history of the minor leagues, the history of the scouting and development system, the history of scouting. These are topics that are like the, the. Now is the time when these subjects are starting to be just barely scratched the surface. And today we're going to start scratching at the, at the history, at of the detroit tigers, minor league scouting development, and and I would actually like um, I you know we're gonna do I plan at least three or four episodes talking about the history of tigers, minor league scouting, development. But I might, we did, just dependent on what I mean, if we have any viewers that are interested in hearing more. I kind of want to go through the 80s like all the way through, like the 80s and 90s in that, because that's unknown too, and then we might pick up some people that are interested in hearing about the full spectrum of, you know, not just up to the thirties, because a heck of a lot more happened after the thirties. So just depend. If anybody's interested, comment in and let us know if you want to see it, cause we I mean, we are definitely 1930s centric, but you know the thirties were the, you know the, you know there was a lot more that happened afterwards and, um, you know, if we're on that topic, we're on that track of time, um, you know, if anybody wants to hear more that, uh, you know that kind of continued the story up through the modern day.

Charles Avison: 21:22

I got, you know it's, that's what I'm saying, it's like it's so there's, there's nothing out there on this topic and I've been studying it as part of my other, as part of my other research topic, which is, you know the history, you know study in baseball and baseball analytics. So, um, I've got much more on the detroit, in the history of detroit tigers. Uh, you know minor league system, although really all the way up through today, and um, so, if anybody, you know if people are interested in jamie, if you want to talk more about it, if it's a subject that's interesting or whatever. If you want to hear more, um, it's actually something I'd like to talk more about, so all right. Um, you know, like I say, it does expand a little bit outside our, our, you know, our normally topic line of the 1930s. But, um, in essence, so we'll, we'll, so we'll just we'll dive in now and see where it goes from there. So, but I'm saying it's a new, I give you full permission.

Jamie Flanagan: 22:12

Oh all right, cool, cool but well.

Charles Avison: 22:13

But you get the idea though is that what the long and short of it is, that what we're about to cover on this show you're not going to find anywhere else. You're not going to find anywhere else. It's just because nobody taught it's not a field of study that is, I mean that people dive that deep into talking about. Now is the, the, the tiger, the you know this. The detroit tiger franchise, the infrastructure, you know what, what made up. You know the, the. You know the, the foundational, and that. You know the, the, the interior of what built the detroit tigers. You know leading up through 1935, and so, just so.

Charles Avison: 22:52

So to start at the beginning, you know the early baseball history and I have this other show, the baseball, my, you know the baseball revolution, where I talk about this, I talk about this, and I think the last episode I did like three months ago, but which is a while ago, but you know, right before Christmas, but, but, but in my opinion, the, the way that baseball was done in the late 1800s and early 1900s, is my favorite. Baseball in the late 1800s and early 1900s is my favorite baseball. I think that baseball has. This is my, this is my opinion, but I think that baseball has in many ways regressed since the early, since the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Jamie Flanagan: 23:25

That is your premise.

Charles Avison: 23:25

Yes, it's been sanitized to death. It used to be this freewheeling city versus city, team versus team, like it was like a like teams, like teams. You know teams used to uh, like it was like a reflection of your teams, of your city's success, by what level of team that you were able to field and the caliber of team and the competition you fielded. It was like it was almost like created this.

Charles Avison: 23:50

Like you know, people use the word nationalistic, but I don't know what the word for the state version of that is, like a, you know, statalistic or whatever yeah you know, it was like it was like a pride in your city, like it was a community spirit to like to represent, like how good of a team that your city could field against other cities. And that's what. Like like every city, america had to have a baseball team. If you'd have a baseball team, that you were nobody right and but if you had it like, the better your, your team was, the more, the more like, like, the more on the map of america your city was, and that's why I kind of love that era more. As far as the baseball, because it wasn't as sanitized it is now where it's like.

Charles Avison: 24:29

Now, like team, there hasn't been a major league expansion where they've added another team like major league controls everything, they control the minor leagues, they control everything.

Charles Avison: 24:36

But back then there was no, there was, there was no control and so and so in the early night, the late 1800s, early 1900s, the way that players were discovered was it was just a pure capitalistic system, purely capitalistic. So you had all these cities and they were all had baseball teams and so they're all always looking for like the next guy you know, whatever like level they were at. So if they were like a small team. They were looking for a guy and their local that was like in high school or whatever, their local nine guys that run the sandlot, and they would hear about some guy that was just tearing the cover off the ball or pitching really well, and so that local team would bring that, get that kid in, and then he would be like the star of their team. And then there'd be like the next city up the road who was bigger than them, who would buy that player from that team, and so the kid would start out getting paid, like you know, five bucks a week or something.

Jamie Flanagan: 25:26

So farm teams were literally teams playing on farms, you are exactly 100% correct. Is that where that term came?

Charles Avison: 25:34

from it was exactly that concept, jamie. From it was exactly that concept, jamie, and it was that was you. You actually had like that whole, um, the, you know, the field of dreams concept, where you might have somebody that's just running a team off of their backyard. Who knows? You have entire families. You have guys that were on the tigers that came from a family of brothers but you get a shining star in there and they would get plucked out and exactly, they would get plucked out by a city, the next city over that would had more money to spend and they could.

Charles Avison: 26:00

And they saw that one guy was like the star of that team and the you know, just wrecking other guys in that team and then, and then so on and so forth, and so they would go from like they would play one more year in this other city and then the next city up would hear about this guy that was tearing up this other league. Right, and they would like, I want that guy, and they would. And so each time the, the, the minor league team, they'd be making money by, in essence, by selling their local talent to the next level up. They would be selling them because they'd each, because they would have these kids under their own control and say it would be selling to the higher level and higher level until they got to, in essence, the biggest cities in this country, and then they would just get literally sold to that.

Charles Avison: 26:43

The next, you know, the next big city up was in the major leagues, was the Detroit team or whatever. And so there's a very, very famous story about Ty Cobb, in which I think it was the Augusta team he was playing for in Georgia and he actually wrote like a, like a. He submitted like a fictional report to a newspaper writer that said like there's this, there's this Georgia kid in Augusta who's just killing the minor leagues. He was a great player but he wanted to put himself on the map to. You know, he actually wanted to like, get his to raise his star faster than normal, and so he like, basically from the stories it's like a sort of an apocryphal story. I don't know if you ever admitted to this, but like, basically like, wrote into the local reporter and said oh, this kid in georgia is unbelievable. And then so like, that was like one of the aspects that went into the tigers. Like, signing this kid from like, because that was supposedly like the team he was on was kind of like one like. There was like one more team he would have had to play for in order to like make that next level jump up to the tigers. There would have been like one more team he would have had to play for in order to make that next level jump up to the Tigers. There would have been one more team up that he would have been sold to, but instead the Tigers plucked him from the one league lesser, because there was a little bit of hype on him. And then the story is that the hype came from this report that he had written about himself. But in any case, in essence, that's like how these players made their way to the majors.

Charles Avison: 27:58

And what's interesting is is that, um, back then, like, imagine you're a team and you have, like one of the best shortstop of the time was a guy named honus wagner, right, so you have a guy, so you have the like one of the this, like elite shortstop on your team named honus wagner, and then a team below you says, oh, we've got this elite, this elite shortstop. That's just like great player. Do you want to buy him for like a hundred, you know like 10 grand or something like that, whatever it was at the time. But the thing about it is you'd be saying, no, we already have a guy, right, so you would. So so what it would do is is that that player then would not get sold to that team, because they already that needs the shortstop. They would pay big money for him from another team.

Charles Avison: 28:36

And so what? Because one of the reasons I point that out is is because now nowadays, what happens is you have guys that get stacked up in the minor leagues at the same position, but there is a star in the majors and they have no, there's a ceiling. They can't reach up to the higher level and then they might get traded to another team. But the next team over that picks him up doesn't have the same. He doesn't have the same sort of luster for them because he just like they just it's almost like they got him off the scrap heap because they like if he was good he would have made it to the with the other team right and so he loses luster by being traded to it, I mean, unless he's like a top prospect guy and there's a ton of luster on him.

Charles Avison: 29:10

But what I'm saying is is that it was that's why I call like a capitalistic system because, like, like, it was like a. You know it was a, it was a. Uh, you know it was a supply and demand model from the bottom to the top. If you were a guy that can help the next team up, they were going to make a play for you. And it was like, literally, it led to. It led to a system which was ad hoc sure, I mean it was, it was organic, as you could be but what it led to was is that, literally, the best flow of talent that could possibly be made was actually a, an actual talent pyramid was, was was evolving and that's where and that's like you know this was actually, you know that's what built the original major leagues was this flow of teams that were just reaching for the next best guy they could find to come up to the system. And it led to like a literal, like king of the mountain, type of a, of a talent flow. And and to me, that's to me, like I say that was the baseball in its purest aspect, was like, like that was the American capitalist system employed in the in the rise of the national game and so anyways, as I talked about in the Baseball Revolution show that all got screwed up. It all got screwed up and people can see like, oh well, and the screw up, of course, is the story of Branch Rickey. It's like I always like Branch Rickey. I have nothing negative to say about the guy. I mean he was an innovator, there's no doubt about it. But a lot of times they talk about Branch Rickey that, oh, he had this epiphany. Where he was going to be like a light bulb went off. He's like, if I can't buy my talent for the St Louis Cardinals, then I'm going to grow my own talent. He had this epiphany. And that's not the case at all.

Charles Avison: 31:04

If you read that there's a, there's a st louis cardinals book, a history book by um, uh, what's his name? His name eludes me. He's like the dean of uh, of early baseball writers. Um, I'll remember his name, but um, oh, fred lieb, fred lieb. All right, fred lieb's book in the car. It's a rare book, but if you, if you ever want to read any book by fred lieb is like the greatest baseball history book you've ever read, because he was there. He was there. He knew Branch Rickey, he was there in the early 1900s. He knew Ty Cobb. He was a baseball writer, he wrote, I think, the Sporting News, but he wrote the history of baseball. His history of baseball is the most definitive guide to baseball history. There's not even a shadow of a doubt on that score.

Charles Avison: 31:34

And so Fred Lieb in his book on the Cardinals again, it's a rare book, if you find it it's worth every dollar you can get it for and Fred Lieb talks about in the book with the Cardinals that the Branch Rickey system with the minor league development. First of all, he was only as he was, like everyone. Branch Rickey gets all the credit. When there was a second guy named Sam Breeden who was, he was the owner of the team and he was as important, if not more important, than Branch Rickey. And that in Branch Rickey States, as a matter of fact, that the reason why they, they were buying up their own minor league team and this was the seismic shift is when the owners of the major league team started buying the minor league teams and then and then when they brought a player in, then they the player would go to directly to their own team, so they would own the player before they had to buy them. And that was the, the seismic leap and the reason why that that they actually did. That was not because of the heat. Branch trigger had this, this epiphany where he's like, if I can't buy my own because the cardinals were not one of the most the richest teams in the league, but everybody says like, oh, it's because branch riggy said, well, if I can't buy my own players, then I'm going to grow my own players. And that wasn't the case. The he even says in the book that the reason why that he they started doing that system was because they would have a deal with another, with another team.

Charles Avison: 32:52

In essence, what they would do is they would hear about a guy that was coming through the ranks but he was just too young for him to make their major league team. They would hear about a guy coming up, so they would basically put a claimant on the guy. They would say, hey, we're going to give you $5,000. Or what they would do is they would buy the player from this lower level team and then he would go to another team and they would basically lay a lay, a claim, him saying, hey, we're gonna pay. You know, we just bought this guy's contract for five thousand dollars and we're gonna give you, you know, the next level up team. We're gonna give you a thousand dollars just to like. You know he's gonna play for you for free. We're gonna give you a thousand dollars just to like, give him a roster spot. You know, we just want you to like, you know, help him continue to develop, because we want to use them on our major league roster at some point in a couple years maybe.

Charles Avison: 33:37

So they were like, trying to like, basically, you know, like, uh, you know, buy these players. They would identify talent younger than they, than they had, you know, than these previous teams. And so, in essence, the long and short of it was they were trying to they, they, these minor league teams that they would. They, they would identify a player, send them to this team that they didn't own, and then that team would sell him to up for a higher bid to another team, and they'd lost numerous players like that, and so they got sick of it, and so what they did was they ended up buying the teams that they can then stash those players that in order to protect their own that guys that they considered their guys. So it was more of a in at the beginning. It was more of a defensive posture to protect the players at an earlier age. That's how they was for them, they, they.

Charles Avison: 34:22

Eventually it got to the point where they were just bringing in piles of guys and saying, oh, we're going to grow our own players out of out of you know, out of just you know, out of many we'll find like one you know diamond in the rough right. But the initial concept was just out of pure necessity. It was that they were trying to protect their own guys. But in essence, what ended up happening this is in the in the early to mid 20s and so what ended up happening was is that the cardinals actually became you know, became a, you know, a you know, a great team. I mean they had. They were a consistent winner.

Charles Avison: 34:52

And so the in the in the branch, ricky, sam breeden, were buying up all these minor league teams because they're like well, if it worked to having like one team at the highest level, well, let's get a team at the next level down and let's get a team at the next level down and teams were seeing that the Cardinals and baseball is 100% a copycat business. And so when they started seeing the Cardinals who were like one of the weaker financial teams succeeding, they saw them buying up these minor league teams and were like, well, hey, we got to do the same thing in order for us to win. And so all these other teams just started doing it. They were just copycatting the concept from Ed Barrow from the New York Yankees, where he doesn't want to be part of that system. I wish I didn't have it here. I wish I had it here. It's on another file.

Charles Avison: 35:45

I can dig it up if I wanted to but I don't want to dig it up right now. I read it on the Baseball Revolution show but the concept was that Ed Barrow is my favorite GM of all time. He was a GM that won a world series with the red sox with babe ruth, and then he came to the yankees, brought ruth with them and made him into into a, an outfielder, uh, full time. And ed barrow ed barrow um was like one of the most successful gms in history. Like the guy went to the. I forgot how many times he went to the um, the uh, to the world series, but it was like. I think they won like like 14 pennants or something like this. I mean it was some insane number. I might have been like 21 I forgot off the time I had, but ed barrel was one like he was in it. He was insanely successful. He had babe ruth with them. They won a ton of world series and he and in the in the in their early 30s. I think it was.

Charles Avison: 36:30

I forgot what year, it's like 1931 or something. He came he says it in the book. I can read the quote if you want to get exact. But long short of it was the colonel rupert for the new york yankees went to ed barrow and said, hey, we're gonna buy our own minor league team because they're doing everybody else is doing it. Yeah, and ed barrow's like what are you talking about? We, we're the most dominant team in all of baseball. What do we need to get a minor league team for?

Charles Avison: 36:54

what do we need to do all this for if we don't do it now colonel ruper was saying well, that's everybody else, and he said, and he, ed barrel, was like no, we like he actually actually says in his autobiography we specifically went into colonel ruper's office and like made every case in the world why we should not do this. And but despite our effort, and the colonel was like okay, you're right, I'm not going to get a team.

Charles Avison: 37:17

And then, like a week later, he bought the newport team and then and then so, and then the yankees went to the minor league system just like everybody else, and so, anyways, I just that's just a basic introduction to the, you know, to the rise of the minor, of the of the. What we know today is the minor league system and, um, and again, it wasn't because and it's not like all these other teams that did the minor league system all had success. You have the same teams that were successful then as our successful have been successful ever since. There has like it's, it's not. You can say like, oh well, maintain the balance of power. Well then, what was the advantage for all the teams that did it? That never really generated that much of it? That really, if the I mean you look at the teams that were successful in the 1930s and they're gonna look a lot like the teams that are successful now.

Charles Avison: 38:02

Right, the tigers, every once in a while come up and are good. You know you have the yankees are the dominant power. You know that you have this like the same concept, where you have like I mean it's, it's basically the same same thing. So nothing has really nothing changed then. Nothing changed in the 40s and 50s. The same sort of power dynamics just continued, and that's what I'm trying to say is is that you know before that it wasn't the case. It wasn't. I mean, you could say, well, yankees were down or whatever, but um, but I'm just saying that they're that, that the system, it was just every. If everybody's doing it, there's no advantage, right, there's no advantage. So, anyways.

Charles Avison: 38:39

So the tigers, of course, had to be part of the system, right? So the tigers had part of the system and what we're gonna, what I'm gonna talk about right now, is like what the time the framework for that initial um, initial minor league system, looked like. I'm not gonna list all the teams, I'm gonna be a little more general. Uh, just because I want to get into billy doyle before the end of the show um, but the, the longest short of it was that the, that the tigers, the teams that the tigers did own it was divided. So there's a, so there's um. There was really three teams. There's a.

Jamie Flanagan: 39:10

It was a, b and c rather than well, we gotta do this and we should give this time we can get to Billy next episode. Well, if you want, I mean whatever.

Charles Avison: 39:19

Well, so the constant, you're the one with the notes You're the one with the knowledge, I'm just okay.

Jamie Flanagan: 39:24

Well, don't skim If we don't have to.

Charles Avison: 39:26

No, no, we're not skimming but I'm just, the basic premise was that the tigers, so that you had three different levels of of of teams. So nowadays we have like triple a, not like we have triple a, we have double a, we have in high a, which is they call it a plus, and so then there's other a couple of lower level teams too, but, um, the top three teams in minor league baseball that are designated by triple a, which is the highest level next to the major leagues, double a, which is the level below that in a plus, which is below that, and then below that single a right.

Charles Avison: 40:01

So yeah, back then the highest level was a and then the low, the next level was b and then c was the lower level below that okay and then you would actually probably have some d and all this stuff too, but the but as far as the affiliates were concerned, it was a, b and c and so um, but, and then the.

Charles Avison: 40:18

So the teams that the tigers had, uh, they fluctuated and you know, regularly, fairly regularly, but um, but the but as far as the scouting system was, the way that the scouting system worked was literally just scouts that were traversing the country looking for talent. They had a, they had a network of friends and all these different and these different teams, and it was kind of actually it was somewhat similar to the way that it was run before, where, you know, you would these like if a player was going to get signed or if a team was interested in a player, they would have a scout that would go and take a look at the player at that minor league team before they bought it based on that, in order to kind of verify the reports that they were getting from their friends.

Charles Avison: 40:56

But it was like this was like the nostalgia era, if ever anybody's ever seen league of their own, where the scouts like watching the girls play softball or you know in the, yeah, in the gym, or or like watching the girls and these, um, you know, watching, like the whatever they call it, the milk ladies or whatever he's calling them, that you know, watching them on their softball field and actually literally scouting with a stogie in his mouth. This is that, like you know, this is that, that folklore era of scouting, where they're just traversing the country and just looking with their eyes at players and trying to sign them to their uh, you know, to their, to their team, so, but so, in that regard, you couldn't have a scout that just went from, you know, new York to California. That's not, that's not, it's a waste of time and space. And so, for the Tigers, their system was divided there. They divided the country in half. Their system was based on dividing the country in half, and so what they had was east of the mississippi and west of the mississippi, the, so the mississippi river was their line of demarcation for their scouting system.

Charles Avison: 41:56

And so, uh, one of the scouts that we're going to talk about today, as we mentioned, is billy doyle, who was one of these scouts, um, that was part of their uh, for their um, and he was, and he was part of the east. He was part of their uh for their um and he was and he was part of the East. He was part of, he was East of the Mississippi, was one of the scouts for for the tigers and his name was Billy Doyle. And so the what's interesting is is we kind of alluded to at the beginning of the show is on the flood wall of Portsmouth, like when I did, for when I did this book, the picture I got of Billy Doyle is rough.

Charles Avison: 42:26

Okay, when I did this book, the picture I got of Billy Doyle is rough. He is rough. I'll show this to the camera. This is the picture I have. You don't have to show the other picture, but this is the picture I have in my book of Billy Doyle. I'll hold it up. See that little ragged. It almost looks like something off of a wanted poster from the 1800s.

Charles Avison: 42:40

Sure, yeah, you can't even see what he looks like. That was the only picture I had of Billy Doyle Little did I know? I mean, I said it in the book right here, although photos and information on Billy Doyle are exceptionally scarce. I mean I didn't even have a picture, I didn't even know what Billy Doyle looked like.

Charles Avison: 42:54

But, then, after I saw the pit like it was after I published this book, of course I didn't even know it, but Billy Doyle is on the flood wall of Portsmouth, ohio. There's a painting of him on the wall of the. You can show this. Yeah, he's there. Yeah, he's wearing this derby. And so I was like I saw this a few years ago and I was like, oh my god, that's the first I've ever seen a picture of billy doyle, because in my book he's a he's a pencil drawing of something like you see in a cave, drawing of a crow magnet. You know like 2000 bc or something. But this picture here he's got a top hat, he's on a flood wall.

Charles Avison: 43:30

He's like because, and the reason why is he was born in portsmouth. Oh I didn't have his. I didn't have that in my book either. I have his date of birth which is november 4th 1881 and if you look him up on baseball reference, there's like scant information on him.

Charles Avison: 43:45

Um, as I'm saying, like the information, I'm going to read an article about him here soon in a second, this is like the only known information about billy doyle, but he was a major, he was a he. This guy discovered a lot of guys for the tigers man he discovered. I'll just go off a list of the guys. So a brief bio. He's born november 4th 1881 in portsmouth and then he died in 1939. So he only lived a few years after the Tigers first championship and he and he died in Pennsylvania.

Charles Avison: 44:11

And uh, but anyways, uh, he so he played in the minor leagues, never made the majors, but he played in the minors from 1903 to 1910. And then from 1910 to 1918, he was a scout for four different teams, so four different teams to scout for during that time is, uh, four different teams, so four different teams he scouted for during that time. So the Dallas, so he scouted for the Dallas Giants. I have here St Louis Browns that might be a title, I don't know Dallas Giants, I don't think. I don't know if that was. Or the Dallas Giants, maybe it was New York, I don't know. But St Louis Browns 1911 to 1912, cleveland Indians 1913 to 15, and then Milwaukee Brewers 1916 to 17, and Philadelphia Phillies in 1918. And then so from 1919 is when he found stability in his profession.

Charles Avison: 44:59

So from 1919 to 1939, as of his death, he was a scout for the Tigers and then. So his territory was in the east and so, uh, his, his, more more specific, he was focused primarily on the southeastern seaboard and mid-atlantic regions and his, in the, the top finds he had were a guy named george sissler, who's a hall of famer, one of the best hitters of early baseball history. So he discovered george sissler, uh, rick farrell, who I also believe is a hall of famer, dickie kerr, who I believe was he was a white socks pitcher I think I can't remember if he was one of the the guys from the black socks scandal or not, but he discovered tommy bridges, who's a stud for the tigers.

Charles Avison: 45:38

when you know tommy bridges, we call him lionheart here on the show yeah jojo white, flea, clifton, vick, sorrell, ray hayworth, all these guys on the Tigers and another guy, john Stone. But this guy is discovering major leaguers left and right in his era and so he's just this. He's a main aspect, but what's crazy is that until I saw him on the Spartans' flood wall, I'm like holy cow man. Somebody somewhere remembered Billy Doyle and made sure to include him on this huge flood.

Jamie Flanagan: 46:09

You know one of their baseball flood walls.

Charles Avison: 46:11

That's yeah. So anyways, there's one more picture we have of billy dole before we read this article on him, okay, and this right here. I found this. This is the first time I've actually seen a photo of him, okay, and somebody was selling this on an auction. This was a somebody's like dad, this is like from their dad's personal collection or something, but this was an auction and there there's this picture.

Charles Avison: 46:30

The guy in the left in the derby is billy doyle and he's with trist speaker. Nobody, nobody knows who the kid is, but the guy with him is trist speaker, who was a center fielder for the red sox, just a hall of famer and let, just total legend from the early 1900s, the hall of famers, one of the most famous major leaguers in early baseball history. But they're saying that the guy in the auction thinks that he met trist speaker when billy doyle was a scout for the indians in 1913 to 1915. Um, because I think that was the year that trist speaker played for them. But so they must have been friends at that point because they're posing with this photo together.

Charles Avison: 47:04

But that's, bill, it's written on the photo that that's Billy Doyle, scout for the for the Indian Cleveland team. So, uh, so anyway. So that's a photo of Billy Doyle. This is for the first time like on YouTube or whatever, on a podcast or any baseball channel ever that there's been a picture of Billy Doyle shown. You know, in addition to the, the portion of floodwall and he's, you know, the, the thing is like the correspondent. You know, the thing that kind of backs up that that's Billy Doyle is that he's got the derby hat, just like he does on the. Portsmouth flood wall.

Charles Avison: 47:31

Yeah, yeah, so that was like his style, that was his look. You know he's like he's got the derby yeah, you know this was a little more of a top hat derby, but it's the same concept. He looks a little skin, um, and that, yeah, so, but that's him, that's billy doyle and so. So this is like a little so the story. I'm going to read real quick. Um is the only known information really. That's like straight up about billy doyle. Um, you know, that's like that dives into his him. You know, talking about billy doyle and stuff.

Charles Avison: 48:01

So so this article is written by Bud Shaver in the Detroit Times, april 11th 1935. So, right here. So Billy Doyle, silver-haired florid scout of the Detroit Tigers, is one of the oldest of the ivory hunters. That's what they call the scout. That's what Bud Shaver, that's why we call these episodes the ivory hunters, because that's how Bud Shaver is describing these scouts. So Billy Doyle, silver-haired florid scout of the Detroit Tigers, one of the oldest of the ivory hunters.

Charles Avison: 48:32

Charlie Baird of the St Louis Cardinals is the only one who ranks him in points of service. For 25 years Doyle has been riding trains, buckboards and even mules into the bushes on the hunt for baseball talent. To give you some idea of how long he has been tailing bushers, he had Sad Sam Jones, veteran right-hander of the White Sox, in one of his rookie camps, and Sad Sam has been chucking baseballs in the big leagues for more than 20 years. Doyle even signed Branch Rickey, so he was the original signer of Branch Rickey, when that pious gentleman was a catcher who wouldn't play on Sunday, instead become a financial genius of the biggest rookie farm system in the country, the Cardinals. So he is the. This is. I actually have this written down right here too.

Charles Avison: 49:14

Billy Doyle is the original guy that signed Branch Rickey himself. That's crazy man. That's how big this guy is. Few rookies survived, though, so conditions have changed a lot from the time when Doyle first started searching for ballplayers as scout of the Cleveland Club. He has been with Detroit 16 years and has come up with such beauties as Tommy Bridges, johnny Stone and many others. Baseball scouting today is far more intricate and competitive than it was in the day when one looked over some country boy and signed him to a contract with nothing but the promise of his first pair of shoes. Hundreds of raw ivory specimens go through the mill of major league clubs nowadays a full four-year course is highly specialized and systematized as any training school. Only a small percentage of them emerge to wear big league uniforms. But ivory is getting scarcer and the demand even more consistent.

Jamie Flanagan: 49:59

So in the in 1935 they're talking like scouting is like next level up sophistication and we look at the 30s and scouting is like being like primitive, like this and in their day he's like stay to the old yeah he's like back in their day.

Charles Avison: 50:14

You know, like you know now we're in the highest levels. So that's what I'm saying. So it's all about perspective where you're at. Yeah, so doyle, with eddie goose tree, another tiger scout, we're gonna get to him on another show. Eddie goose tree, another tiger scout, has all the district east of the mississippi river. Steve o'rourke and marty krug have that vast territory which stretches from the mississippi to the pacific ocean. They operate in similar fashion. One man or two can't look at all the possible baseball material hidden in the dark corners of a vast continent. Each has his regiment of agents. Doyle admits that there are at least 200 on his list keen-eyed threshers of the bushes, as secretive as a government detective. So he's got like two. Billy doyle himself had like 200, you know small fries that all looked for players for him. Then he would go and he was the main guy that would go in there and really scout him out if there was somebody worth looking into.

Charles Avison: 51:01

Doyle gets some of his most interesting mail. Doyle gets some of the most interesting mail of any man in the united states letters from ambitious kids in every part of the country who yearn to play baseball. Doyle answers them all receives them into schooling camps, unless the kid is handpicked by one of the tiger scouts or his agents. The kid pays his own expenses to the camp because the because the tigers won the pennant last season, doyle got more letters this spring than ever before, some of them from as far west as Idaho. One of Doyle's camps is in Fieldsdale, virginia. He had 70 players there this spring. Fieldsdale is the kindergarten of the Tigers, a Class D club in the bi-state league, the lowest class of organized baseball. To this camp come all the kids who aspire to wear the Tiger uniform and there Doyle and his helpers decide their fate. How does he tell whether a boy is worth keeping training and teaching? Doyle has the answer for that A system which, while not infallible, is both sensible and efficient.

Charles Avison: 51:53

The first thing we look at, look for, is whether they can run, hit and throw. If they can't, there isn't much monkey and use for with them. The next is age, weight and size. They've got to have youth strengths and some size. We weed them out on that basis. First those that stick our card index name, age, weight, height, position, whether they can throw or bat, right-handed or left-handed disposition, it all goes on the records there is a place for remarks too. So it says control most important. We not only look them over in practice, but we lecture them after practice.

Charles Avison: 52:24

The boys are told how to live and how to train what to eat, and when we start with the catchers, show them how to catch and work with pitchers. Next we start on the pitchers. The first thing he is told is that he must have control, and he is taught how to acquire it. He is made to throw at the catcher as if he were a target First one knee, then the other, the shoulders, the stomach. It is impressed upon each one.

Charles Avison: 52:43

That is only chance of being a big league pitcher is to acquire control. If the pitcher hasn't, hasn't that high, hard one he has scratched off, we can teach him how to. We can teach him how to throw a curve or change of pace, but we can't give him speed, hold on. So we but what? We can't give them speed unless it's something they're doing wrong in their delivery. So he says they can teach speed only if there's something wrong with their delivery, but otherwise they want speed. So anyways, that's Billy Doyle. That's like the only information like I've ever seen on Billy Doyle If you look him up on the Internet. If you find something on Billy Doyle, let us know, because I mean, like I say, a lot of the stuff I put in this book and all this was as a foundation point that when other people like actually looked into him people like Chris that are like bloodhounds of fine stuff that I never thought I'd ever find.

Charles Avison: 53:33

But you know, chris, if you're out there and you see something or anybody's out there, you see more information on billy doyle, whatever, let me know because, like, because it's like I say, this is a guy that was, you know, he's one of these, one of these you know early baseball foundational guys that was beating the bushes looking for players and, um, you know good thing, he was working for the tigers. So, um, you know that's, that's that's. You know one aspect of the uh of the tigers, uh, ivory hunters that we're going to go into oh yeah, we're gonna.

Jamie Flanagan: 53:59

We'll talk a little bit more about the, uh, the, the scouting, and and more in in the episodes. There's again the story is so. There's so, much, much to it, and that article there is in which Book number two.

Charles Avison: 54:10

Book number two. Okay, so this is book number two, but it's volume one. The players Joe Lewis and the 1935 Detroit Tigers All right, so good information in there.

Jamie Flanagan: 54:21

I made a joke earlier. We were talking about the Pistons and how they put together those teams, and I called them a ragtag fugitive fleet. It's a. Battlestar Galactica. And then Chris made the little crap.

Charles Avison: 54:33

Oh my god, that's awesome, chris, that's awesome.

Jamie Flanagan: 54:37

Yeah, there you go, it's like that's awesome. Still my favorite one is the Doctor Strange and the One. There's only one podcast talking about these things, so anyway what that's for is that they might mean about us.

Charles Avison: 54:52

Yeah, there's only one. I haven't seen it?

Jamie Flanagan: 54:54

no, we played it. We played it. I showed it. I don't know. I think it's gone now well, thanks yeah, it is, I was distracted talking about how many sports warrants 70 oh man, I've never seen that.

Charles Avison: 55:05

That's awesome, yeah, you know, just one, just one so yeah, I, it might have been one of those things like while you and I were talking but that is like a headline, chris chris.

Jamie Flanagan: 55:15

Uh, chris, like throws these things up there and then I might, I probably I might have put it up and like not told you that's all.

Charles Avison: 55:21

You never showed me that. I love that and it's just I want that to be like our headline our cover, but now we can move it from 70 to a hundred plus, Cause we're at one 10 episode 110.

Jamie Flanagan: 55:33

And uh, thank you for everybody who's uh besides not just Chris, uh, but everybody listening.

Charles Avison: 55:39

I dream of a day that we were like doing live streams and stuff and we've got like like people are like sending us all kinds of money for subscribing and stuff whatever, like the live chats. And then Chris you know Chris chimes and we're like Chris like he gets, like he doesn't have to donate anything and he's always like they're like cause. I watch these podcasts where we are just just getting like $200 donations left and right or whatever. But like, Chris is our, our diehard original man. He's been there for everything.

Jamie Flanagan: 56:04

But no, everybody. Everybody, chris, and everybody who's listening and participating. Thank you Like, subscribe, leave a comment. All those podcast things and all the podcast places, do it, Do it, do it now and tell a couple of friends about the amazing stories that we're trying to share. Come on and then we'll do, we'll do more. Absolutely, I think. That's it, we'll do more, we'll do more. Absolutely, I think that's it We'll do more. We'll do it again.

Charles Avison: 56:28

We'll do another show at some point, all right.

Jamie Flanagan: 56:30

DetroitCityOfChampionscom. You can get the books there and all your favorite places to buy books there's like two places.

Charles Avison: 56:40

There's a lot, but it depends on your definition of a lot. There's like three places.

Jamie Flanagan: 56:44

Fair enough, all right.