January 5 in Tigers and mlb history:
1915: The Federal League sues organized baseball, claiming it to be an illegal trust and asking that it be dissolved and all contracts voided. The case is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, before Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. He will stall his decision, and peace is declared at the end of the year, but another suit, brought by the owners of the Baltimore Terrapins franchise, will result in baseball receiving an exemption from antitrust laws.
In the meantime, the FL shifts players to strengthen teams in key cities. Benny Kauff, the league's answer to Ty Cobb, is moved from the Indianapolis Hoosiers to the Brooklyn Tip-Tops.
1920 - Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee defends selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees for cash by calling his former player "one of the most selfish and inconsiderate men ever to put on a baseball uniform".
1927 - Judge Landis begins a three-day public hearing to investigate the allegation the Detroit Tigers threw a four-game series to the Chicago White Sox in 1917. The White Sox, Swede Risberg contends, returned the favor for two games in 1919. Near the end of the 1917 season, some Chicago players contributed about $45 each to reward Detroit pitchers for winning their last series against the Boston Red Sox, helping Chicago clinch the pennant. No witnesses confirm any part of the story, although Tigers pitcher Bill James denies ever receiving any money, and the others named deny all charges. A week after the hearing opens, Landis clears all the accused, ruling lack of evidence of anything except the practice of players paying another team for winning.
1943 - Teams agree to start the season later than usual and prepare to train in northern areas because of World War II. Resorts, armories, and university facilities are chosen for training sites. The Boston Red Sox go to Tufts University; the Brooklyn Dodgers will train at Bear Mountain, NY, and the New York Yankees try Atlantic City, NJ. In Chicago, the Cubs and White Sox agree to start the season later than usual and prepare to train in areas north of the so-called Eastman-Landis Line, named after Joseph Bartlett Eastman, head of the United States Department of Transportation, and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis - an area East of the Mississippi river and North of the Ohio and Potomac rivers. Meanwhile, the St. Louis teams, the Browns and Cardinals are excluded, though they will train in Cape Girardeau, MO.
1989 - Three weeks after signing a record four-year, $1.1 billion network television contract with CBS, Major League Baseball signs a $400 million contract with ESPN. The deal will put 175 games per year on cable television beginning in 1990.
1995 - According to players' union chief Donald Fehr, all 835 unsigned major league players are free agents since the owners unilaterally changed the uniform contract.
Tigers players birthdays:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/laxtobi01.shtml
Bill Laxton 1976.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Mark_Redman
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/redmama01.shtml
Mark Redman 2001-2002.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wittke01.shtml
Kevin Witt 2003.
from Baseball Reference
