This is part of an occasional series looking back on the 1968 World Series champion Detroit Tigers.
Norm Cash wasn't just the most popular player among his 1968 Detroit Tigers teammates, he was one of the most beloved players in franchise history inside the clubhouse.
Teammates loved the free-spirited first baseman, who always kept the mood light during 15 seasons in Detroit.
Cash,one of the top 24 players in team history according tobaseball-reference.com,never took himself too seriously and didn't hesitate to have some fun when the opportunity presented itself.
In his 1997 book, "The '68 Tigers: Baseball's Last Real Champions," former beat writer George Cantor of The Detroit News described Cash as "the most popular man on the team" and claimed Cash knew "all the best watering holes" in American League cities.
When Cash drowned in 1986 at age 51, obituaries around the country played up the fun-loving personality of the native Texan, who was such a good high school running back that the Chicago Bears selected him in the 13thround of the 1955 NFL draft before he passed on football to sign with the Chicago White Sox.
"I've got to enjoy myself no matter what I'm doing," Cash was quoted as saying in a United Press International obit. "I get a kick out of playing the game. People see me this way when I'm going bad and think I don't take the game seriously. I can't help that. It's just my way."
Some of the stunts pulled by Cash -- who was dubbed "Stormin' Norman" by Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell -- remain legendary.
One of the most famous was in 1973, when Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan was in the midst of hurling the second of his record seven no-hitters. Ryan had struck out 17 when Cash stepped to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the California Angels leading 6-0.
But instead of carrying a bat, Cash had a table leg in his hands. When umpire Ron Luciano told Cash he couldn't use a table leg to bat in a Major League Baseball game, Cash quipped, "But Ron, I've got as much chance with this as I do with a bat."
Cash wasn't allowed to use the table leg, of course, and after retrieving a standard bat -- and some laughs -- he popped out to end the game.
There was also the time Cash was on second base when rain delayed the game. When play resumed, Cash trotted out to third base. Asked by the umpire what he was doing, Cash responded that he had stolen third during the delay.
Another time, he was picked off base and tried to call time out -- after he had been tagged out.
And during the 1968 World Series, when manger Mayo Smith told his team that St. Louis ace Bob Gibson wasn't Superman -- Gibson had won the NL Cy Young and MVP Awards that season -- Cash countered by saying he had seen Gibson changing clothes in a phone booth.
Jim Campbell, the former general manager who built the 1968 Tigers, called Cash a "free spirit" in the UPI obit.
"I've never known a ballplayer who got as much fun out of playing baseball," Campbell said. "He was one of the more entertaining guys I've ever been around. He got along with the fans, the media, with everybody. He was one of the great ball players in Tiger history."
Not surprisingly, many teammates were devastated when they heard about Cash's death.
"Whenever you mention Norm Cash, I just smile," Al Kaline said ina story by the American Society for Baseball Research. "He was just a fun guy to be around and a great teammate. He always came ready to play. People don't know this, but he often played injured, like the time he had a broken finger."
Cash was acquired by the Tigers in a trade with the Cleveland Indians for Steve Demeter in spring training of 1960. Demeter batted just five more times in his two-year MLB career while Cash made the trade one of the best in Tigers history.
In 1961, Cash led the American League with a .361 batting average while belting 41 home runs and knocking 132 runs. He also led the league with a .487 on-base percentage and 1.148 OPS.
Yet he finished fourth in the MVP race after Roger Maris (61) and Mickey Mantle (54) dominated headlines around the country by combining for 115 home runs.
Cash's average dropped to .243 in 1962 -- the 118-point decline remains the largest ever by the previous season's batting champion -- but he hit 39 homers during a stretch that saw him hit at least 22 round-trippers in nine straight seasons.
In 1971, his 32 home runs were second behind the AL-leading 33 hit by Bill Melton of the White Sox.
Although Cash was popular among many fans, he was often the target of boo birds at Tiger Stadium when he couldn't come close to duplicating that fabulous 1961 campaign. Some fans, perhaps spoiled by that one-of-a-kind season, didn't like the fact that he struck out so often even if he did reach 100 Ks in only one season.
Cash was also benched frequently -- including the stretch run of 1967, when the Tigers finished one game behind AL champion Boston -- and that magical 1968 season often saw him riding the pine in favor of Kaline, catcher Bill Freehan, Eddie Mathews and even centerfielder Mickey Stanley.
But it's hard to blame Smith for benching Cash early in '68 season given his start.
Cash was batting .196 with 14 homers and 30 RBIs in 209 at-bats before heating up with a four-hit game July 27 against Baltimore. He finished the season on a 67-for-210 tear (.319) to end the regular season with a .263 average, 25 homers and 63 RBIs in 127 games.
In the World Series, Cash appeared in all seven games of the victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, batting a team-leading .385 with five RBIs and three walks while scoring five runs.
Released by the Tigers in 1974 after hitting .228 with seven homers in 53 games, Cash still ranks as one of the most productive hitters in team history.
He's among the top 10 all-time Tigers in nine offensive categories, ranking second in home runs (373) behind Kaline's 399 and eighth in RBIs (1,087). He's also third in strikeouts (1,081).
Cash finished among the AL's top 10 nine times in home runs, five times in walks, and four times in RBIs. As a fielder, he was among the AL's top 10 first basem*n 12 times in assists, 11 times in fielding percentage and six times in errors.
Cash was named to five All-Star Games.
In typical form, this is how Cash jokingly summed up his career, according to his Baseball Almanac obituary: "I owe my success to expansion pitching, a short right-field fence, and my hollow bats."
After baseball, Cash played for the Detroit Caesars professional softball team owned by Mike Ilitch, worked in the automotive industry and served as an analyst for Tigers games on local TV in addition to one season on Monday Night Baseball.
He suffered a massive stroke in 1979 and a few months later was hit in the head by an easy throw from across the infield while playing in Tigers' old-timers game, an incident that embarrassed him greatly.
In 1986, after having dinner on Beaver Island in Northern Michigan with his wife and some friends, Cash returned alone to his 33-foot cabin cruiser -- the "Stormin' Norman" -- but slipped on a wet dock, hit his head anddrowned in 15 feet of water.
"For most of the Tigers, an entire era ended seemed to end when their center of laughter, Norm Cash, fell off the end of a dock in Lake Michigan," Cantor wrote in his book about the '68 Tigers.
"It was 18 years and two days after the final game of the 1968 World Series."
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