Chet Lemon (Photo: Roger DeWitt )
Outfielder Chet Lemon played for the Detroit Tigers in 1984 when the team won the World Series. His lifetime batting average for 16 years with the Tigers and White Sox was .273. He had 250 home runs and 884 RBIs.
But these days that athleticism, as Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell would have said, is long gone. He retired from the Tigers in 1990.
Lemon, 69, is in a rehab facility in Clermont, Fla., reports Jeff Seidel of the Detroit Free Press:
He wears a yellow wrist band that reads “fall risk.”
Up on the wall, a TV is tuned to ESPN and it’s showing baseball highlights. Forty years ago, he was the star center fielder for the Detroit Tigers — a gifted athlete and an All-Star on a team that won the 1984 World Series.
But 13 strokes have left him unable to speak more than a couple simple words. The rest is gibberish.
On Saturday, he's expected to be a Comerica Park as the Tigers celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1984 World Series. His wife tells the Freep the family wanted to talk about Chet's condition so the fans know why he's in a wheel chair and can't really speak.
