Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 112

The Tiger Reader mJ ImJXJ LJ LJ LJ LJ Dick Mayer: "Bill Freehan said that during a doubleheader in muggy weather he will use as many as jour uniforms, three changes during games." Freehan: The Tough Leader Looks At His Pitchers Every team needs a leader, and when it comes to the Tigers, Arnold Hano found him in the person of Catcher Bill Freehan. In an article in Sport Magazine, Hano wrote this description of the man he believes to be the key to the Tiger drive toward the American League pennant. NDed CANADIAN WH By ARNOLD HANO From Sport Magazine The best catcher I ever saw and maybe the best that ever played was Mickey Cochrane. Black Mike. A thick shag of black hair.

Glittering black eyes. A sweat-slick beard of black bristles. White teeth in a startling snarl. That was how he looked on the field, a man burning up with a black flame inside. You always heard Cochrane on the field, no matter where you sat You could almost feel him.

Invisible wires stretched between Cochrane and his teammates; he pulled those wires, and the mates responded. He barked, and they heard. He led, and they followed. More than a great player, he was a leader, and unfortunately for Detroit the last great Tiger leader. Until now.

You'd never call Bill Freehan "Black BilL" Freehan's eyes are the blue-grey of battleships. His hair is brown. But like that last great Tiger catcher and field leader, Freehan burns. He burns brightly, not darkly, and no one is likely to lead Freehan into a hospital because of frayed nerves, the way doctors had to take care of Cochrane in 1936. SO THERE ARE differences.

Freehan is as neurotic as a concrete block. But there are more similarities. You sit 82 feet above the field of Tiger Stadium, in the third-deck pressbox, and you can hear Bill Freehan's The Detroit Free Press, September 15, 1968 THE IMPORTED CANADIAN WHISKY WITH THE ROYAL TASTE i For 12-month period ending July 30, 1968 Royal Canadian showed the largest percentage of sales increase of any of the top brands of Canadian whisky sold in Michigan. BLENDED CANADIAN WH1SKY-80 PROOF IMPORTED BY JAS. BARCLAY IMPORTERS, DETROIT, MICHIGAN 20.