The Detroit Tigers will start a three-game series tonight against the defending World Series Champion Texas Rangers and the first game is expected to be a pitcher’s dual with Tarik Skubal taking the ball for Detroit and going up against Nathan Eovaldi for the Rangers. Today they announced that their former manager Jim Leyland will have his number ten retired on August 3rd when the Tigers take on the Kansas City Royals. Leyland will also be inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 21st after he received 15 votes from the Contemporary Baseball Committee, that ballot was announced on October 19, 2023, and Leyland is the only representative from that ballot that got enough of the vote to be inducted. Managers and umpires with ten or more major league seasons who have been retired for at least five years are eligible, and executives who have retired for at least five years are eligible for the Contemporary Baseball Era. All candidates cannot be on the Baseball’s Ineligible List. The other seven names on the list were managers Lou Pinella, Cito Gaston, and Davey Johnson, executives Bill White, and Hank Peters, umpires Ed Montague, and Joe West. Leyland will join Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton, Joe Mauer, and Joe Castiglione who will all be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 21st.
Jim Leyland Tigers Tenure
Leyland joined the Tigers in 2006 after spending time as a manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and also managed with the Florida Marlins, and Colorado Rockies; he won a World Series in 1997 with the Florida Marlins. In his first season as the Tigers skipper, he went 95-67 finishing second in the American League Central and the Tigers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in that World Series. He would finish his Tigers tenure managing 1,297 games going 700-597, he was in the playoffs four times including that 2006 season, in 2011 he lost in the ALCS, 2012 he lost in the World Series to the San Francisco Giants, and in 2013 he lost in the ALCS. He has managed 3,497 games in his career going 1,769-1,728. With the Pirates he finished 851-863, with the Marlins in two seasons he went 146-178 in 324 games, and in 1999 for the Rockies, he went 72-90.
