Fred Earl Gladding (June 28, 1936 – May 21, 2015) was an American

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and ski ...

baseball player Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding te ...

and

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Co ...

. He was a right-handed

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

over all or parts of 13 seasons (1961–1973) with the Detroit Tigers and Houston Astros. He was born in

Flat Rock, Michigan Flat Rock is a city mostly in Wayne County of the U.S. state of Michigan. A very small portion of the city extends into Monroe County. At the 2010 census, the city population was 9,878. History Flat Rock began as a Wyandot settlement. It was l ...

, and attended Flat Rock Community High School. He was listed as tall and . For his career, he compiled a 48–34 record and 109 saves in 450 appearances, all but one as a

relief pitcher In baseball and softball, a relief pitcher or reliever is a pitcher who enters the game after the starting pitcher is removed because of fatigue, ineffectiveness, injury, or ejection, or for other strategic reasons, such as inclement weat ...

, with a 3.13

earned run average In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...

and 394 strikeouts in 601 innings pitched. Gladding led the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

in saves with

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

in 1969, the first season the statistic was recognized. In seven seasons with the Tigers, Gladding compiled a record of 26–11 and a 2.70 ERA in 217 games. His .703 winning percentage with the Tigers is the highest in the franchise's history for a pitcher appearing in at least 200 games for the team. He returned to Detroit in 1976 as pitching coach and served three seasons on the staff of

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

Ralph Houk Ralph George Houk (; August 9, 1919 – July 21, 2010), nicknamed The Major, was an American catcher, coach, manager, and front office executive in Major League Baseball. He is best known as the successor of Casey Stengel as manager of the New Y ...

. Gladding also has the distinction of having the lowest non-zero lifetime batting average in major league history. For his career he batted .016 (1 for 63). Gladding died May 21, 2015, in Columbia, South Carolina.

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1936 births 2015 deaths Augusta Tigers players Baseball players from Michigan Birmingham Barons players Charleston Senators players Denver Bears players Detroit Tigers coaches Detroit Tigers players Houston Astros players Knoxville Smokies players Major League Baseball pitchers Major League Baseball pitching coaches National League saves champions People from Flat Rock, Michigan Syracuse Chiefs players Valdosta Tigers players {{US-baseball-pitcher-1930s-stub

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