John Hiller
John Frederick Hiller is a Canadian former baseball relief pitcher who played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Detroit Tigers between 1965 and 1980. A native of Toronto, he joined the Tigers in 1965 and was a member of the 1968 Detroit Tigers team that won the World Series. He set a major league record by starting a game with six consecutive strikeouts in 1968.
In January 1971, Hiller suffered a heart attack and underwent intestinal surgery to control his body's absorption of cholesterol. After missing the 1971 season, Hiller returned in 1972, helping the Tigers win the American League East title and winning Game 4 of the 1972 AL Championship Series. In 1973, he compiled a 1.44 earned run average and broke the major league single-season saves record with 38. The Sporting News awarded Hiller its 1973 Comeback Player of the Year and Fireman of the Year awards.
In 1974, Hiller set an AL record with 17 relief wins and was selected as a member of the All-Star team. He continued to rank among the AL's elite relief pitchers through the 1978 season. He retired from playing in May 1980 with a career win–loss record of 87–76, a 2.83 career ERA, and 1,036 strikeouts. He continues to hold the Tigers' club record with 545 career games pitched. Hiller returned to professional baseball in the mid-1980s as a minor league pitching coach for the Tigers. He was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame, and Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
Early years
Hiller was born in Toronto in 1943. He grew up in Scarborough, the son of an auto body repairman. He was a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs while growing up and played ice hockey as a goaltender. He attended David-Mary Thomson Public School and West Hill Collegiate Institute, but dropped out after the 11th grade. He competed as a sprinter in the 220- and 440-yard dashes while in high school. He excelled in baseball as a pitcher, and reportedly once struck out 22 batters in a seven-inning game, including one batter who got on base due to a wild pitch.Detroit Tigers
Minor leagues (1962–1965)
In June 1962, Hiller, at age 19, signed a contract with the Detroit Tigers for $400 a month, a pair of spikes, and an old glove. Detroit scout Edwin "Cy" Williams discovered Hiller playing for the Scarborough Selects, an All-Star team composed of local sandlot players.Hiller played for the Tigers' Jamestown, New York, club in the New York-Pennsylvania League during the 1963 season. He appeared in 29 games, 22 as a starter, and compiled a 14–9 record with a 4.03 ERA, 11 complete games, and 172 strikeouts in 181 innings pitched.
Hiller spent most of the 1964 season with the Duluth-Superior Dukes of the Northern League. He appeared in 30 games for the Dukes, 19 as a starter, and compiled a 10–13 record with a 3.45 ERA.
In 1965, Hiller was assigned to the Montgomery Rebels in the Southern League where he was converted to a relief pitcher. In 47 games for Montgomery, he compiled a 5–7 record with a 2.53 ERA. Hiller noted in early 1966 that he initially viewed the assignment to the bullpen as a demotion, but became accustomed to the role: "You don't have to worry about pacing yourself. You just come in and throw hard all the time. It's more exciting, too, once you accustom yourself to pitching with men on base."
1965–1967
On September 5, 1965, the Tigers purchased Hiller from Montgomery. He made five relief appearances for the 1965 Tigers and did not allow a run in six innings pitched.Hiller began the 1966 season with the Tigers, but appeared in only one game, pitching two innings in relief against Washington on April 17, giving up two hits and two earned runs. Three days later, Hiller flew back to Detroit where he was hospitalized at Detroit Osteopathic Hospital with pneumonia and pleurisy. On May 11, he was sent down to the Syracuse Chiefs of the International League. He compiled a 4.45 ERA in 54 relief appearances for Syracuse in 1966.
Hiller started the 1967 season with the Toledo Mud Hens of the International League, compiling a 5–1 record with a 3.00 ERA. He was called up by the Tigers in late June for his third stint with the club. Farm director Don Lund noted at the time that Hiller had recently mastered his control on breaking pitches to balance his excellent fastball. Over the last three months of the 1967 season, Hiller appeared in 11 games, eight as a starter, and compiled a 4–2 record with a 2.50 ERA.
1968 and 1969 seasons
Hiller spent his first full season in the majors as a reliever and spot starter for the 1968 Tigers team that won the American League pennant and the 1968 World Series. Hiller appeared in 39 games, 12 as a starter, and compiled a 9–6 record with a 2.39 ERA and 78 strikeouts in 128 innings pitched. On August 6, he set a major league record when he struck out six consecutive batters against Cleveland to start a game. On August 20, he pitched a one-hit complete game shutout against the Chicago White Sox; the one hit came in the eighth inning on a ball that just missed Hiller's glove.Hiller also had two relief appearances in the 1968 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, pitching the last two innings in the 7–3 Game 3 loss, and facing five batters without recording an out in Game 4, a 10–1 loss. He allowed six hits and three walks, posting a 13.50 ERA, but the Tigers recovered to win the Series in seven games.
Following a players' strike in the spring of 1969, Hiller returned to the Tigers. He appeared in 40 games for the 1969 Tigers, but his ERA increased by more than a point-and-a-half to 3.99. During the 1969 season, Hiller acquired the nickname "Ratso" after he went with teammates to see the movie Midnight Cowboy. The character "Ratso" Rizzo, played by Dustin Hoffman, had a limp, as did Hiller at the time.
Hiller returned to form in 1970, appearing in 47 games, 42 in relief, and compiling a 6–6 record with a 3.03 ERA. On October 1, in the final game of the season, he pitched a two-hit, complete-game shutout and struck out 11 batters, including seven in a row. With Hiller pitching quickly, the game was played in only one hour and 41 minutes – the fastest game of the year at Tiger Stadium.
Heart attack
On January 11, 1971, Hiller, at the age of 27, suffered a heart attack at his home in Duluth, Minnesota. Hiller described the attack as follows: "I had just gotten up and was having a cup of coffee. I lit up a cigarette. It was strange – a heaviness in my chest. It felt like the pneumonia I had in 1966 so I put the cigarette out. Later I had another cigarette and had the same feeling. So I didn't smoke the rest of the day." He went to the hospital when the pain returned that night. He was hospitalized for three weeks and notified the Tigers of his heart attack in mid-February. Hiller was placed on a strict diet, quit smoking cigarettes, and lost 20 pounds in the month after his heart attack.By late March, he weighed 180 pounds, 30 pounds lighter than he had been during the 1970 season. By the time of his 28th birthday, Hiller had lost 40 pounds and four pant sizes in the waist. He reported at the time: "The doctors have never even hinted that I'd be able to pitch again." Despite the pessimism of doctors, Hiller made a birthday promise to himself that he would pitch again. In April, Hiller underwent an ileo-bypass, a surgery in which about the doctors removed seven feet of his small intestines – the portions that are responsible for absorbing cholesterol. The Tigers announced in May that Hiller would not return to the team during the 1971 season. In August 1971, Hiller reported that he had lost 50 pounds and was selling furniture in Duluth and playing golf and paddleball.
The comeback begins in 1972
In February 1972, the Tigers invited Hiller to training camp as a minor league coach for the Lakeland Tigers. After spending the first half of the 1972 season as a pitching coach for Lakeland, Hiller announced in late June that he was running two miles a day, in top shape at 170 pounds, and ready to return to pitching. He said: "I'm ready to go. I'm just waiting for that call from Detroit. It's up to them now if they want me." Hiller suspected that the Tigers' willingness to take a chance on him was impacted by the sudden heart attack and death of Detroit Lions receiver Chuck Hughes during a game at Tiger Stadium in October 1971.On July 7, 1972, the Tigers reinstated Hiller to their roster. He returned to the mound the next day, having had no rehab games in the minors and after not facing a batter in 18 months. He gave up a two-run home run to the first batter, Dick Allen, but Detroit manager Billy Martin opined that Hiller had pitched well, and Hiller confirmed after the game "this is what I want. I really want it." Two days later, Hiller returned to the mound and retired the side in a victory that gave the Tigers sole possession of first place in the American League East. On October 1, Hiller pitched a complete-game, five-hit victory over Milwaukee Brewers that Jim Hawkins of the Detroit Free Press called the "biggest win of the season". After the game, which was Hiller's first win since October 1, 1970, he told reporters: "I go at this game with a little different attitude than I used to. Before my sickness, I was more uptight every time I pitched. I used to get nervous warming up. Now I don't worry about tomorrow. If I do well, I do well. If I don't – well, there'll aways be another day."
In the last half of the 1972 season, Hiller helped the Tigers win the American League East pennant, appearing in 23 games with a strong 2.03 ERA. He also pitched in three games in the 1972 American League Championship Series against the Oakland Athletics, winning Game 4 when Detroit scored three times in the bottom of the 10th inning.
The comeback peaks in 1973
Hiller's comeback peaked in 1973 with what baseball historian Bill James rated as the most valuable season by a relief pitcher in baseball history. Hiller appeared in 65 games, all in relief, and compiled a 10–5 record. He broke Clay Carroll's Major League Baseball record with 38 saves. His single-season saves record stood for 10 years until Dan Quisenberry tallied 45 saves in 1983, and remained a Tigers team record until broken by Todd Jones in 2000.Hiller also accumulated a career-low 1.44 ERA in 125 innings to win the American League ERA title; Rollie Fingers ranked second at 1.92. Demonstrating how dominant Hiller was during the 1973 season, his Adjusted ERA+, which adjusts a pitcher's ERA according to the pitcher's ballpark and the average ERA of the pitcher's league in a given year, was 285. Only two pitchers in major league history are known to have recorded a higher rating: Hall of Famers Tim Keefe in 1880 and Pedro Martinez in 2000.
Hiller also led the American League's pitchers with 65 appearances and 60 games finished.
On September 30, Hiller became the last man to win a game and the last to throw a pitch in the original Yankee Stadium, getting Yankees' first baseman Mike Hegan to fly out to center field in an 8–5 Detroit win.
As the first major league player to suffer a heart attack and then return an active competitor, Hiller's comeback was rated as "one of the most heartwarming sagas in sports." Slugger Frank Howard called it "the kind of thing you see once in a lifetime." After the 1973 season, Hiller won numerous awards for his remarkable accomplishments, including the following:
- The Sporting News Comeback Player of the Year Award for the American League.
- The Sporting News Fireman of the Year Award for the American League.
- The Hutch Award as the player who "best exemplified the fighting spirit" of Fred Hutchinson.
- Detroit baseball writers selected him as the "Tiger of the Year". Hiller received 32 votes for the award, more than any other player in the history of the award to that time.
- Detroit sports writers and broadcasters also selected him as Detroit's "Sportsman of the Year" for 1973.
- In May 1974, the American Heart Association presented Hiller with its Heart of the Year Award which had not previously been awarded to an athlete and which been presented to President Richard Nixon the previous year. The Heart Association cited Hiller "for his courage in meeting the personal challenge of heart attack... and for his inspiring example to other heart attack victims."
In January 1976, he was honored in Philadelphia with a Most Courageous Athlete award and acknowledged that, prior to the heart attack, he smoked too much, drank too much and ate too much. He described the broader life lesson that he hoped would be drawn from his comeback: "I hope I've helped a lot of people by talking to them. I hope they understand when you have a heart attack you haven't come to the end of your life or the end of your career."