Elden Auker

Born in Norcatur in 1910, submarine-style pitcher Elden Auker developed his delivery after being injured in football at Kansas State University.  Auker was All-Big Six in football, basketball and baseball.  Named second-team All-American quarterback by Grantland Rice, Auker turned down a $6000 offer by the Chicago Bears in 1932.  The Bears sent Bronko Nagurski to Manhattan to convince him to join the team.

Former KSU President James McCain called him “the greatest all-around athlete in Kansas State history.”

Auker chose to sign with the Detroit Tigers and joined the Tigers in 1933, pitching to Hall of Fame catcher Mickey Cochrane.

In 1934, he joined the rotation, won 15 games and started two games in the World Series against the “Gashouse Gang” St. Louis Cardinals.  Auker won Game 4 but gave up four runs in Game 7 as the Tigers lost to Dizzy Dean, 11-0.

The 1935 season was Auker’s best, going 18-7 with a 3.83 earned run average.  The Tigers won the World Series, defeating the Chicago Cubs.  Auker started Game 3 but did not factor in the decision.  During the World Series, Auker was interviewed by Cubs’ broadcaster Ronald Reagan.

Auker won 13, 17 and 11 his next four seasons, respectively.  Detoit traded him to Boston in a deal that also involved Kansas Hall of Fame member Archie McKain.  Auker won nine for the Red Sox in 1939 and was sent to the St. Louis Browns.

Auker regained his form with the Browns and was 16-11 with a 3.96 ERA in 1940.  He won 16 in 1941.  During that season, he gave up hits to Joe DiMaggio during two games of his record 56-game hitting streak.

Auker was a 14-game winner in his final season of 1942.  He worked on airplane and naval guns.  In 1946, he joined Bay State Abrasives, an armament company in Massachusetts, and retired as president in 1975.

At the final game in Tiger Stadium in 1999, Auker told the crowd: “Never forget us, for we live on by those that carry on the Tiger tradition and who so proudly wear the olde English D.”

He died age 95 in Vero Beach, Florida in 2006.

For more, read Elden Auker’s Society for American Baseball Research bio.