Overlooked and forgotten

Here's a trivia question that will win you any amount of money or any number of drinks at the bar:

What pitcher has the most wins in Detroit Tigers history?

Jack Morris? Nope. Hall of Famer "Prince" Hal Newhouser? Good guess, but wrong. Mickey Lolich? Sorry.

It's George "Hooks" Dauss, who won 222 games for the Tigers from 1912-1926. Entering this season, Dauss, whose career record was 222-182 with a 3.30 ERA, ranked 68th in baseball history for wins. And no one knows it. (For the record, Dauss also had 40 saves in his career.)

Rob Neyer, who wrote the terrific "Big Book of Baseball Lineups," admits in the book that he had no idea Dauss was the Tigers all-time leader. And Neyer is generally regarded as a pretty sharp baseball historian.

But this is not a surprise. Even in reading books about the history of the Tigers, Dauss usually gets only a passing mention. To me, this is stunning.

Dauss never pitched for a championship team, so that's probably part of the reason. He also played for many mediocre Tiger teams, which finished better than fourth only five times in his career. But, still, this is an injustice.

Called "Hooks" because of his wonderful curve, Dauss ranked among the league's top eight pitchers in wins seven seasons and won more than 20 games three times. Nine times he ranked in the top eight for complete games. Four times he was among the top nine in win percentage.

In 1917, Dauss went 17-14 with a 2.43 ERA and six shutouts. He lost three times when the Tigers were blanked and dropped six more games in which Detroit scored two or fewer runs. (Thanks to the Baseball Page.)

Granted, he probably wasn't as good a pitcher as Morris or Newhouser or Lolich, but it's time for Hooks to get his due.