Frank Tanana

His father, also named Frank, had played professional baseball in the 1950s and was on the 1955 Eastern League championship team, the Reading Indians, before he left baseball and joined the Detroit Police Department to support his family.

After young Frank got done with homework, he and his friends would spend the rest of the afternoon playing various sports.

He rooted for the hometown Detroit Tigers growing up, listing Al Kaline, Mickey Lolich, Willie Horton, and Mickey Stanley among his favorite players.

Tanana attended Detroit Catholic Central High School, an all-boys school; though it was seven miles from his home, he was attracted to it after seeing their basketball team featured on the front page of a newspaper sports section.

He made all-state twice in basketball, but it was in baseball he excelled, as he had a 32–1 record in his high school career.

In a cocky moment his senior year, he threw sidearm to a hitter and injured his shoulder.

He pitched through the injury for the rest of the year until leaving the mound after the fourth inning of the championship game, when the pain got to be too much for him.

Frank Daryl Tanana (born July 3, 1953) is an American former professional baseball left-handed pitcher.

This was the fifth Opening Day start of Tanana's career, as he had made four for the Angels in the 1970s.

Raised in northwest Detroit, Tanana was a first-round draft pick by the Angels in 1971.

Thinking the injury would hurt his baseball chances, he had just about decided to attend Duke University on a basketball scholarship when the California Angels made him their first-round draft pick in 1971.

Tanana was assigned to the Idaho Falls Angels of the rookie-level Pioneer League in 1971, but tendinitis in his shoulder prevented him from pitching.

Instead, he received cortisone treatments.

"I tell you, I didn't have many friends on that team," Tanana said.

"Here were guys being cut off the team, and I, who couldn't throw, was staying because I had this bonus."

Arm feeling better in 1972, he pitched for the Single-A Quad Cities Angels, posting a 7–2 record.

In a Major League Baseball career that stretched from 1973 to 1993, he pitched for the California Angels, Boston Red Sox, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, New York Mets, and New York Yankees.

He made his debut with the team in 1973 and won 14 games his rookie year.

Tanana and fellow starter Nolan Ryan formed one of the toughest pairs of starting pitchers to hit against in baseball.

In 1973, he spent most of the season with the Double-A El Paso Sun Kings.

"He struck out 14 in his first game for us," El Paso (and later Angel) manager Norm Sherry said.

"Right then, I knew he could pitch."

Tanana led the American League (AL) in strikeouts in 1975, then made the AL All-Star team three years in a row.

He won 19 games in 1976 and led the AL with a 2.54 earned run average (ERA) in 1977.

He struck out 2,773 batters in his career and twice won playoff-clinching games for the teams he was on, the 1979 Angels and the 1987 Tigers.

In 1979, he won the game that clinched the Angels' first-ever playoff appearance.

Injuries began to take their toll on him by the end of his tenure with the Angels, and he changed his style from relying on a hard fastball to throwing a repertoire of slower pitches, using deception to get hitters out instead.

Tanana was traded to Boston for the 1981 season; he went 4–10 with the Red Sox before becoming a free agent and signing with the Rangers.

He tied for the AL lead in losses his first year with Texas, then failed to make their starting rotation at the beginning of the 1983 season, though he returned to it in June.

After becoming a born-again Christian in November 1983, Tanana became a leader among baseball's Christian community.

He has continued to serve in the ministry following his retirement, serving as an elder in his church, assisting the Tigers' chaplain, and performing Bible studies and marriage counselling.

He lives in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

Tanana grew up in the northwest part of Detroit, Michigan.

In 1984, he had a 15–15 record for the team, his most wins since 1978.

After getting off to a poor start with Texas in 1985, he was traded to Detroit, the team he rooted for growing up.

He threw a shutout in the final game of the 1987 season to clinch a playoff spot for the team, winning 15 games that year.

In 1988, he won 14 games; in 1989, he posted a 3.58 ERA.

He was removed from the rotation for a time in 1990, only winning nine games that year, but the next season, he became the Tigers' first pitcher besides Jack Morris to start on Opening Day since 1979.

He won 13 games apiece in 1991 and 1992 before pitching one more season with the Mets and the Yankees in 1993.

Tanana would stay with the Tigers through 1992, pitching eight seasons with the club.