Sports
Tommy Bridges
1906–1968 · baseball pitcher
Curveball pitcher who spent his entire career with the Tigers (1930–1946) and won two games in the 1935 World Series.
- Born
Gordonsville, Tennessee- Died
Nashville, Tennessee
aged 61- Birth name
- Thomas Jefferson Davis Bridges
- Detroit years
- 1930–1946
- Field
- Sports
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Bridges, a slightly built Tennessean, joined the Tigers in 1930 and never pitched for another major-league team. His sharp curveball made him a mainstay of the rotation through the 1930s; he won 20 or more games three seasons in a row and helped pitch Detroit to the 1934 and 1935 pennants. In the 1935 World Series he beat the Chicago Cubs twice, including the decisive Game 6 at Navin Field, where he escaped a leadoff triple in the ninth inning before Goose Goslin's winning hit. He retired with 1,674 strikeouts, then the Tigers' career record, and he and Hank Greenberg are the only Tigers to play in four World Series for the club (1934, 1935, 1940 and 1945). A Detroit-area youngster named Billy Pierce later said he became a pitcher to copy his hero Bridges.
Highlights
- Pitched his whole major-league career for Detroit, 1930–1946
- Three straight 20-win seasons in the 1930s
- Won two games, including the clincher, in the 1935 World Series
- Played in four World Series for the Tigers
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Played here · 1930–1946
Tiger Stadium site (Navin Field / Briggs Stadium), now The Corner Ballpark
Demolished · 1912–1999
His home mound for seventeen seasons; demolished in 2008–2009.