Johnny B. Wockenfuss, a super-utility player and fan favorite among the early 1980s Detroit Tigers teams whose unique batting stance was mimicked on sandlots all over the state of Michigan, has died. He was 73.
Wockenfuss, a Tiger for 10 years before he was traded away on the eve of the 1984 World Series-championship season, died Friday surrounded by family, according to his obituary.
Wockenfuss suffered from dementia for the past four years, something he considered a result of so many collisions at home plate during his time as a catcher.
He supported the rule change that finally outlawed those hits last decade.
“My only problem, you’ve got to slide into second; you can’t just bowl him over, you can’t just lower your shoulder and crush him,” Wockenfuss, a Delaware native who lived in New York state in recent years, told The News during an interview in 2011. “Why is it you can do it with the catcher? … “There’s gotta be a line drawn somewhere. Why is it the catcher is dead meat?”
Wockenfuss played 12 seasons in the major leagues, mostly with the Tigers — who he followed closely most of his life, even after the trade that he essentially requested, but later broke his heart.
He was a star pitcher in high school in Delaware, but didn’t want to pitch in the pros because he wanted to play every day. The Washington Senators drafted him, sent him to the St. Louis Cardinals, who traded him to the Detroit Tigers in December 1973. In 1974, he made his major-league debut, and was a backup catcher for his first three seasons, mostly backing up Bill Freehan, who died last year after a lengthy bout with Alzheimer’s disease.
By 1977, he was playing the outfield, too, and by 1978, he was playing first base, as well.
Sparky Anderson, after being hired as Tigers manager in 1979, took a liking to Wockenfuss’ potential to contribute, because of his versatility, and in 1979 and 1980, he hit 15 and 16 home runs, respectively. In 1980, he played a career-high 126 games and had 65 RBIs to go with a .390 on-base percentage. He attributed his increased production to the unique batting stance he picked up in winter ball in Puerto Rico in the 1970s. With a closed stance, Wockenfuss, a right-handed hitter, kept his feet close together near the back of the batter’s box, held his hands low, and turned his had his back to the pitcher.
Kids throughout Michigan loved it, and copied it. Everywhere. A video of his stance on YouTube has more than 80,000 views.
“Sometimes some people are different,” Wockenfuss told the Watertown Daily Times for a profile in 2019. “You go monkeying around sometimes, and I said, ‘Well, this is pretty good.'”
Wockenfuss, an exceptional hit-and-run batter and a formidable pinch-hitter, hit a career-best .301 in 1982 and was solid again in 1983, before he showed up at Tigers’ spring training in Lakeland, Florida, in 1984, asking for a raise.
He was making about $200,000 in salary, less than the team average. He wasn’t happy about it, floated a trade to the Philadelphia Phillies so he could be closer to home, and he let the team know it — but Wockenfuss did so through the press, which didn’t sit well with ownership.
On March 24, 1984, the Tigers traded Wockenfuss and outfielder Glenn Wilson to the Phillies for a reliever named Willie Hernandez and a utility man named Dave Bergman.
Few knew that day, that would be the trade that finally put the Tigers over the top. Hernandez, a closer, went on to win the Cy Young and MVP awards in 1984, and Bergman had a career-best seven home runs (none bigger than in the 13-pitch at-bat to walk it off against the hard-charging Toronto Blue Jays on the Monday night game of the week) and 44 RBIs.
The Tigers went wire-to-wire to win the World Series in 1984.
“That hurt, because I had been with them for so many years,” Wockenfuss told the Watertown Daily Times. “We were getting better and better and better and Sparky and I were good friends. I couldn’t believe it.”
Wockenfuss played just two seasons with the Phillies; the first one was solid, the second was not, and he was out of Major League Baseball after the 1985 season. He tried to get traded to an American League team so he could be a designated hitter, but the Phillies didn’t oblige. Attempted tryouts to catch on again with the Tigers and the Boston Red Sox went nowhere.
In October 1986, officially retired as a player, the Tigers hired him to manage their Single-A team in Lakeland. For the 1988 season, he was promoted to manage the Double-A team in Glen Falls, New York. And for the 1989 season, he was promoted to manage the Triple-A team in Toledo.
The Tigers fired him in 1990, and he caught on managing in the Pittsburgh Pirates system for a few years, and worked in independent ball for a bit, before he left organized baseball in the 1990s.
Later in life, he ran baseball and softball academies in Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia, and coached high-school baseball until 2002. He’s inducted in the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame.
In 2011, talking to The News seven years before his dementia diagnosis (he had undergone multiple back surgeries), he became a strong advocate for the rule change banning home-plate collisions, which went into effect in 2014. Wockenfuss recalled the hardest hit he ever took, in September 1975, when the Tigers were visited Cleveland. Buddy Bell, a mountain of a man and a future Tigers manager, rung Wockenfuss’ bell.
“I stretched out just trying to catch the ball, then it was lights out. I don’t even know if I caught it,” Wockenfuss told The News. “Basically, I don’t really remember anything till I was sitting in a wheelchair at the hospital.”
Away from baseball, Wockenfuss liked to hunt and fish.
Wockenfuss is survived by sons Brad and Jeremy, daughters Caitlin and Jessica, and four grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family is suggesting donations to the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center.
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tpaul@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @tonypaul1984