After 18 seasons with the Detroit Tigers \u2013 most of which were spent as the team\u2019s starting shortstop \u2013 Alan Trammell didn\u2019t have anything left to prove.<\/p>\n
But his love for the game and the Motor City still burned bright.<\/p>\n
\nThe 1995 season marked a year of transition in Detroit as Alan Trammell moved to a bench role, longtime double play partner Lou Whitaker announced his retirement and Sparky Anderson managed his final games. (Brad Mangin\/National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum)<\/p>\n
On April 8, 1995, Trammell re-signed with the Tigers as baseball got back to business following a seven-month work stoppage. The move came simultaneously with another signing as Kirk Gibson also returned to the Tigers.<\/p>\n
Both Trammell and Gibson, who were entering what would be their 12th-and-final season as Tigers teammates, agreed to one-year deals worth $1.3 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce Gibson signed, I knew Tram would be a cinch,\u201d Tigers manager Sparky Anderson told the\u00a0Detroit Free Press. \u201cThey\u2019re pretty close.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trammell debuted with the Tigers in 1977 and became the team\u2019s starting shortstop the following year. Gibson joined the Tigers in 1979, and in 1984 the duo was part of a core that led Detroit to the World Series title \u2013 with Trammell winning the Most Valuable Player Award.<\/p>\n
Gibson, however, left the Tigers via free agency following the 1987 season before returning in 1993. Trammell, meanwhile, remained in Detroit and accumulated six All-Star Game selections, four Gold Glove Awards and three Silver Slugger Awards in his first 13 full seasons.<\/p>\n
After playing for a contract worth $3 million in 1994, however, Trammell was asked to take a pay cut. The Tigers\u2019 first offer was one year for $1 million, something Trammell said was \u201ccertainly something I didn\u2019t want to sign right away.\u201d<\/p>\n
But when the Tigers sweetened the offer, Trammell returned to the only\u00a0big league\u00a0team he had known.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy deal is fair,\u201d said Trammell, who turned 37 years old that February. \u201cWill it be my final year? It could be. Very well could be.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Alan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Trammell_Alan_7834-94_Bat_MLBPilling.jpg\"\/)
\nAlan Trammell is one of three players in Tigers franchise history to play 20-or-more seasons in Detroit, joining Hall of Famers Ty Cobb and Al Kaline. (Rich Pilling\/Major League Baseball)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chris Gomez had displaced Trammell as Detroit\u2019s starting shortstop in May 1994, but Trammell remained valuable as a bench bat. In 74 games in 1995, Trammell batted .269 with a .345 on-base percentage while hitting 12 doubles and driving home 23 runs.<\/p>\n
He returned to the Tigers for one final season in 1996, ending his career with 2,365 hits, a .285 batting average, 412 doubles, 185 home runs and 1,003 RBI.<\/p>\n
Trammell\u2019s 70.7 Wins Above Replacement figure ranks seventh all-time among players who appeared in at least 75 percent of their games at shortstop.<\/p>\n
He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that I was great in any one area, but I was good in a lot of them,\u201d Trammell said after his final\u00a0big league\u00a0game. \u201cI knew I could play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Craig Muder is the director of communications for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 18 seasons with the Detroit Tigers \u2013 most of which were spent as the team\u2019s starting shortstop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-574905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}