Longtime Free Press sportswriter John Lowe — who covered the Detroit Tigers for 29 seasons before retiring in 2014 — received the 2023 BBWAA Career Excellence Award in a Saturday afternoon ceremony on the outskirts of Cooperstown, New York.
He will receive additional recognition for his award — which includes a plaque and picture in the writers and announcers wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame — during Sunday’s induction ceremony for first baseman Fred McGriff and third baseman Scott Rolen.
Lowe, 63, thanked a plethora of people in baseball, in press boxes and in newsrooms who played key roles in his career. Such as Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog, who was in the audience, for teaching him so much about baseball. Such as the late Gene Guidi, his partner on the Tigers beat for two decades. Such as his coworkers at the Free Press, which included a dozen who traveled to Cooperstown for the weekend.
WE SAID IT: Ex-Free Press writer John Lowe joins Baseball Hall of Fame: His colleagues tell us why
And he praised a most special group.
“Thank you to each fan who read what I wrote,” Lowe said in a 10-minute speech at the Alice Busch Opera Theater. “Your interest in baseball made my career possible.”
He started with a story to illustrate his 57-year journey from a second-grade fan in St. Louis to a place in Cooperstown. He asked his mother to pick him up from school so that he would not miss the first pitch of the 1966 World Series. She did because she thought it was important for her son. He concluded his speech by circling back to that story.
“I’ve made it 57 years in my journey of baseball enthusiasm — the journey that began 57 years ago in my mom’s Oldsmobile. The whole ride has been … OUTSTANDING.”
Lowe is the 74th recipient of the Career Excellence Award, conveyed by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He became the fourth Detroit writer to receive the award, following H.G. Salsinger (1968) and Tom Gage (2015) of the Detroit News and Joe Falls (2001) of the Free Press and then the News. Gage traveled to Cooperstown for the weekend’s festivities.
A sample of his work
Excerpts from two important games John Lowe covered during his 29 seasons as the Tigers beat reporter for the Detroit Free Press — his first and his last:
May 17, 1986
If Sparky Anderson held more team meetings, Lou Whitaker might be right up there with Wally Joyner and Kirby Puckett in the home run race.
Anderson doesn’t like team meetings. But he also didn’t like the way the 1986 season was going. So he spoke to the Tigers (2-8 in their last 10 games) before Saturday’s game with California.
And Whitaker responded decisively to Anderson’s 10-minute message. His two-run homer in the fifth put the Tigers in front, and they finished with a 10-4 victory before 28,709 at Tiger Stadium. …
It was the second homer of the season for Whitaker, who had 21 last year. Perhaps the most memorable of those was the roof-cleared off Texas’ Burt Hooton on May 13.
That drive led off the game, and it — like Saturday’s — came after a pregame speech by Anderson.
Anderson said Whitaker looked more emotional than usual Saturday, but he pointed out that the big hit was not out of character.
“When he’s swinging well, he’s very aggressive,” Anderson said. “He’ll get the big hits.”
Whitaker said, “We had just been talking on the bench about what (Jim) Slaton might throw me, and so I was looking for the curve.”
Whitaker is not usually outwardly emotional. But as if to confirm that Anderson had roused him to rare anger, he threw his bat after striking out on a close pitch in the seventh.
Oct. 5, 2014
With a spirited but unsuccessful ninth-inning uprising Sunday night, the Tigers completed a winless foray in the postseason for the second time in their history.
The first such instance came in their first postseason experience, in 1907, when they lost four straight in the World Series to the mighty Cubs after Game 1 ended in a tie called by darkness. In that World Series, which occurred in the thick of the Dead Ball Era, there wasn’t one home run.
There was no one like Nelson Cruz.
Cruz hit his eighth postseason homer off the Tigers with one out in the sixth Sunday. The two-run drive off otherwise untouchable David Price provided the runs that gave Baltimore a 2-1 victory that completed a three-game sweep in the division series. …
It felt like winter was at the door in the bottom of the sixth when Orioles starter Bud Norris retired Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez and J.D. Martinez in order after Cruz had struck in the top of the inning. It was a classic shutdown inning and meant the Tigers would have to beat the Orioles’ tremendous bullpen.
Norris pitched his best game of the season: 6⅓ innings, two hits, no runs, although in one instance he needed a call upheld by replay. Former Tiger Andrew Miller followed him and retired all five batters he faced.
Zach Britton succeeded Miller for the ninth and yielded back-to-back doubles with a two-strike count to his first two hitters, Victor Martinez and J.D. Martinez. So the potential tying run was at second base with none out, and the crowd was on its feet.