The Mysterious Enos Cabell

I love “where-are-they-now” pieces as much — and probably more — than the next guy.

cabell_enosSo, when I saw Tom Gage’s piece about Enos Cabell over the weekend, I was interested to read why Cabell, who hit .311 for the 1983 Tigers, moved on after that season.

He wanted to stay a Tiger, and they weren’t averse to him staying.

“But they wouldn’t give me a raise,” Cabell said Saturday. “I hit .311, played with a knee brace the last two months of that year, and they wouldn’t give me a penny more.

“So I said bye-bye. I was pretty sure the Astros wanted me back, anyway.”

As Rob Neyer might say, well, maybe. I remember there was talk about Cabell having a drug problem and that Sparky Anderson wanted none of that in his clubhouse. Then, in 1986:

Commissioner Peter Ueberroth gives seven players who were admitted drug users a choice of a year’s suspension without pay or heavy fines and career-long drug testing, along with 100 hours of drug-related community service. Joaquin Andújar, Dale Berra, Enos Cabell, Keith Hernandez, Jeffrey Leonard, Dave Parker, and Lonnie Smith will be fined 10 percent of their annual salaries to drug abuse programs. The commissioner also doles out lesser penalties to 14 other players for their use of drugs.

Somewhere in the middle is the truth, right?

Author: Mike McClary

Upbeat guy.

One thought on “The Mysterious Enos Cabell”

  1. Very interesting piece on Enos Cabell, who was, according to my proprietary analytics system, the 43rd best Detroit Tiger player of all-time. Now, what you likely don’t know is that Enos Cabell and his cousin Ken Landreaux used to play baseball in parks in the Gardena area of California where one day in June of 1962 they met former Pirate big leaguer Dock Ellis. Of course Ellis was older than both the boys by a few years. They told Dock about a house down the street where an old Japanese man lived who claimed a former ball player from the Tokyo big 6 baseball league . Dock went back to the house with Cabell and Landreaux.

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