Recalling Hall of Famer's Frankenstein-induced injury

For 20 seasons, the Tigers and Alan Trammell were synonymous. He led the team to important victories, putting him on a path that led to his eventual induction into the Hall of Fame in 2018.

Behind all of the successes in the Tigers' 1984 World Series run, Trammell fought injuries and still finished fifth in the AL batting race (.314) and eighth in on-base percentage (.382). The Tigers went 104-58 to win the AL pennant and the World Series. Going 9-for-20 with two homers and six RBIs, Trammell was named World Series MVP.

The Tigers' second-round pick in the 1976 Draft, Trammell sustained his first knee injury ahead of the ‘84 season. It happened during Halloween – and the culprit was not baseball.

It was a Frankenstein costume.

“I had borrowed a costume from my brother-in-law, and he had a makeshift outfit that he had put some wood blocks on the bottom of some army boots,” Trammell told Jon Paul Morosi on The Road to Cooperstown Podcast. "Basically why he did that is because he wanted Frankenstein to look like he was seven feet tall.”

The Hall of Fame’s podcast, which airs weekly, focuses on the challenges and obstacles some of the game’s greatest players overcame on their way to reaching baseball’s highest peak.

While not as frequent as on-field mishaps, freak injuries are a part of baseball history – and Trammell had quite a story to tell.

Trammell's wife wanted to show the costume to the couple's neighbors, and as they were making their way next door, one of the wood blocks fell off. Trammell lost his balance, falling into the bushes, and it was there that the shortstop hurt his knee.

“There lies the first meniscus tear,” Trammell recalled. “They tried to fix it. The following year, went to get it, it didn’t just quite mend together. They did that surgery along with the labrum. But that’s kind of the start of the multiple knee surgeries that I had over the course of my career.”

The Frankenstein story traveled quickly. In today’s world, it would be considered a viral moment.

“It’s a funny story, and I’ve got to look back on it and just kind of laugh,” Trammell said in the podcast. “Even though when I think about it, I think about my knee and it hurt, to be honest with you.”

Trammell said he’s had four surgeries on the knee he initially hurt and one on the other. He also battled shoulder tendinitis that same season.

Three years after the Frankenstein incident, in 1987, then-Tigers manager Sparky Anderson moved Trammell to cleanup from the No. 2 spot. The shortstop took advantage of the move and became the first Tiger since 1955 with 200 hits and 100 RBIs in a season, finishing in the top 10 in the AL in batting average (.343), RBIs (105), hits (205), runs (109), total bases (329), on-base percentage (.402) and slugging percentage (.551).

Trammell finished second in AL MVP voting that year and also became the first player in big league history to hit at least .340 with 28 home runs and 100 RBIs in a season while playing at least half his games at shortstop.

Trammell was just one half of a legendary double-play team. Lou Whitaker, who has not been elected to the Hall of Fame, was the other half. They played in 1,918 games together – the most by any double-play combination in history.

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“He was a great teammate and a great player, and I'm going to make the plug right now that I believe, along with myself, that he should be in the Hall of Fame,” Trammell said.

“Lou Whitaker is just being overlooked, and it's not right. I'm entitled to my opinion, and obviously I played 19 years with this young man, and he was a heck of a player. I think it's a great story, first of all, a double-play combination that played 19 years together, that played with one team their whole career, and nobody has matched that. And I hate to say never because you never say never, but it's highly unlikely that two players will play in the middle of the field as long as Lou and I did.”

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Trammell retired in 1996 with six All-Star Game selections, three Silver Slugger Awards and four Gold Glove Awards. He finished in the top 10 in AL MVP voting three times.

“The highlight at the top of the list, and there were so many, was that Monday morning when they gave you that half-hour slot to go over to the Hall and see your plaque up there,” Trammell said. “To go there with your family and actually see your plaque on the wall, it was just number one on my list. There were a lot of things that were close, but that was number one. I will never forget that day.”

Visit baseballhall.org/podcast to hear this and all of the episodes of The Road to Cooperstown, a podcast from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and SiriusXM.