Future baseball All-Star Lou Whitaker grew up playing in this Martinsville park. Now it’s named after him.

Long before he was Martinsville’s favorite son and one of the greatest second basemen in Major League Baseball, Lou Whitaker was the second-oldest of Arlene Whitaker’s five children.

And when he went outside to play with his friends, his front yard was English Field.

The old ballpark on the east side of town was built in the 1930s and was named for local benefactor Jim English until the 1980s, when adjacent Hooker Furniture Co. helped revamp the aging facility and reinvented it as Hooker Field.

The park was mostly in its original condition in 1967 when a 10-year-old Whitaker and his neighborhood pals were returning from a lawn care job on the other side of town, only to encounter a Little League tryout in progress.

The Martinsville youngster hadn’t signed up for Little League as a 9-year-old, and was about to head up to his house over the hill from the ballpark and miss out on another chance, until a local man stopped him, insisting that he grab a glove and take the field.

“We were just over on the Mulberry [Road] side [of town], raking leaves, coming home,” Whitaker said. “It was a guy, Henry Clay Eggleston. He called me ‘Lou Whit.’ He said, ‘Go out there and show them how to do it.’ So I go out there. I get down on my knees, making plays, and throw the ball across the field.”

When that first throw made a beeline and hit leather across the diamond, it was the start of a baseball career that saw Whitaker, for 19 seasons, play more games for the Detroit Tigers than anyone not named Al Kaline or Ty Cobb.

On Saturday, the Martinsville native recalled that first tryout at age 10 — which landed him a spot on the roster of a team sponsored by Rives Theatre — as he stood in the sparkling Lou Whitaker Suite overlooking Hooker Field, which now has another addition to its name.

The infield dirt might have been replaced by artificial turf, but nearly six decades after he first showed them “how to do it,” the old facility was christened “Hooker Field at Lou Whitaker Park” in a ceremony Saturday hosted by the Martinsville Mustangs of the amateur Coastal Plain League.

The facility once housed the Martinsville Phillies of the Appalachian League. Now it serves as the home of the Mustangs, the Patrick & Henry Community College Patriots, the Martinsville High School Bulldogs and American Legion Post 42.

But 57 years ago, it was home to the kids who grew up in the neighborhood Whitaker calls “Standpipe.”

Time melted away as Whitaker watched college players from the Mustangs and the High Point-Thomasville Hi-Toms warm up for their summer league game on a 95-degree evening.

“This is where we spent all of our childhood,” Whitaker said. “We lived in this ballpark.”

* * *

Louis Rodman Whitaker Jr. was a year old when his mother moved from Brooklyn to Martinsville with his 2-year-old sister, Sheree, and another daughter, Matilda, on the way.

Arlene Whitaker worked as a server at Stone’s Drive-In on Fayette Street, handling the late shift from 4 or 5 p.m. to midnight.

“She made quarters and nickels and dimes,” he recalled. “That was the tips from the people of then.”

Whitaker said his mother, who died in 2008, eventually was able to buy a house on what is now Joya Street with government assistance, but until he was 12, he lived with his grandmother and free time was plentiful.

“We could do what we wanted to,” he said. “I could have gone wherever, but the only thing I did was [play] at the ballpark and the street. We played ball in the street.

“I didn’t rip and run.”

Whitaker said he did not know his father, Louis Sr., until he was in his sixth full season with the Tigers at age 26 in 1983. Whitaker’s father was unaware he had a son playing in the Major Leagues.

Whitaker said he eventually left tickets for “a bunch of Whitakers” at Yankee Stadium for a 1983 game against the Tigers. He finally met his father for the first time at a restaurant in Harlem.

“We sat down, ate and talked,” he said. “I didn’t put a lot on that back in that day, just tried to show respect, just tried to be a respectful young man.”

* * *

Whitaker played in the Majors at 5 feet, 11 inches and 170 pounds. As a young athlete, he was tiny, always the smallest kid on the field.

Whitaker’s size hardly stopped Harold Chambers from picking him to play on his Connie Mack League team, the Martinsville-Henry County Oilers.

“They’d talk about how small I was, and Harold would say, ‘Look at his forearms. Look at his hands. Look at his wrists,'” Whitaker recalled. “That’s how I got the ball through the infield.”

He also played third base and pitched for Martinsville High School before he was selected by Detroit 99th overall in the fifth round of the 1975 amateur draft. He had signed to play at Ferrum Junior College, but had no interest in going to school.

That bargaining chip earned him a few extra dollars toward his signing bonus. Two weeks later, it was off at age 18 to play for the Tigers’ Appalachian League franchise in Bristol.

The homesick Whitaker immediately found himself in an unfamiliar place: the bench.

“I probably sat on the bench and watched about a week,” he said. “We got rained out a game and had a doubleheader. The guy who signed me said, ‘Lou, get ready, you’re playing the second game.'”

Whitaker played 42 games and batted .237 in 114 at bats.

“I didn’t do good at all. I only had so many at bats. Nothing spectacular about anything I did.”

Whitaker returned to Martinsville questioning his future. He had a ticket to report to the Tigers’ spring training facility in Lakeland, Florida, in 1976. The plan was for Whitaker to remain in Florida and work out from March until June, after which he would go back to Bristol for a second half-season in June.

But plans have a way of changing. Bristol was in Whitaker’s rearview mirror.

Jim Leyland made the same climb to the Major Leagues as Whitaker, but he did it as a manager, eventually winning a World Series title with the Florida Marlins between stints running the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Tigers.

Leyland’s managerial career began in 1971 with none other than the Bristol Tigers. In the spring of 1976, he had been promoted within the organization to manage Detroit’s High-A franchise in Lakeland, where a small third baseman from Virginia caught his eye.

“It was probably my baseball ethics,” Whitaker said. “I hustled when I called as a third baseman to line my shortstop up as a cutoff on relays. I’m giving directions, and Jim Leyland, he’s looking for a leader.”

However, it took a literal push from Leyland to get Whitaker off and running.

The Tigers’ candidates for the Lakeland roster were in a base-stealing drill when Whitaker took a lead off first base and felt a shove in the back. It was Leyland.

“He pushes me,” Whitaker said. “But that push, I didn’t stop after that.”

Whitaker stole 48 bases, including three steals of home in one game, batted .297 with 62 RBIs and was named the Florida State League’s most valuable player at age 19. The Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals tried to acquire him in a trade.

The Tigers said no thanks, but not without a different surprise for Whitaker. The club told him to report to its instructional league to learn the ropes of playing second base.

“I go home and I’m in tears because, you know, I’m comfortable at third base,” he said.

Baseball history was about to change.

* * *

Whitaker honed his skills and, along with shortstop Alan Trammell, sailed through the Class AA Southern League season in Montgomery, Alabama. Whitaker, 20, and Trammell, 19, were called up to the Big Leagues at the end of the 1977 season.

They debuted together in Boston against the Red Sox. Whitaker went 3 for 5 with an RBI and a stolen base. Trammell had two hits.

Halfway through the 1978 season, Whitaker and Trammell were firmly in the starting lineup. Whitaker was named American League Rookie of the Year in ’78, beating out Hall of Famer Paul Molitor for the honor.

Whitaker and Trammell established an American League record for most games played as teammates and set an MLB fielding record for most double plays (751) as a shortstop-second baseman duo. They led Detroit to the 1984 World Series championship in five games against the San Diego Padres.

Whitaker finished his career in 1995 with 2,369 hits, 1,385 runs scored, 244 home runs, 1,084 RBIs. He was a five-time All-Star and won four Silver Slugger Awards and three Gold Gloves.

He achieved career highs in hits (206) and batting average (.320) in 1983 when he made the first of his five consecutive All-Star appearances.

When he retired, he was one of just three second basemen in MLB history with at least 2,000 hits and 200 home runs. His final hit was a walk-off home run in Tiger Stadium against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sept. 13, 1995.

After hitting just 12 home runs total in his first four seasons in Detroit, Whitaker reached double figures in HRs 11 years in a row, with a career high of 28 in 1989. His batting averages in his final five seasons were higher than his career average of .276.

On Aug. 6, 2022, the Tigers retired his jersey No. 1 during a ceremony at Comerica Park in Detroit attended by numerous family members.

Whitaker’s career numbers compare favorably to those of Trammell, who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018.

Will Whitaker ever get the call?

With his 15 years of eligibility on the Baseball Writers of America ballot expired, his only path is through the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, which considers contributions made by players since 1980. The committee’s next vote is in December 2025 for inclusion in the hall in 2026.

Whitaker might not have a plaque in Cooperstown, but he has a jersey in the Smithsonian.

His career All-Star Game highlight was a home run off New York Mets pitcher Doc Gooden in the 1986 Summer Classic in Houston, but he will long be remembered for forgetting to bring his white Tigers home jersey to the 1985 game in Minneapolis.

A replica jersey was purchased at the Metrodome, and for a time it was believed that a clubhouse attendant colored in a blue “1” on the back.

No, it was Whitaker who wielded the Sharpie.

“I was the one that put the number on, because the guy who was putting the number on was putting the number on the left side,” Whitaker said. “I said, ‘No, no, down the middle.'”

Whitaker, who doesn’t wear his World Series ring because he said it is too flashy, was surprised when the Smithsonian requested the jersey for its archives, where it remains.

“I was getting ready to throw it away,” he said.

If Whitaker has a chance, it is largely courtesy of the advent of modern analytics in computing baseball statistics. That includes formulas like Wins Above Replacement (WAR), which tries to calculate a player’s worth above a replacement-level player at each position on the field.

Babe Ruth ranks No. 1 in WAR at 182.6. Whitaker is tied with Hall of Famer Johnny Bench at No. 84, two spots ahead of another Hall of Famer, Reggie Jackson.

“After 2020 came around and I got below the voting to even go to the next year, I thought [the opportunity] was over then. I never thought about it anymore,” Whitaker said.

“But these college kids, Princeton and Yale and Harvard … whoever it was, they’re looking at players in a different way. They’re crunching these numbers and I’m in between Reggie Jackson and Johnny Bench. Every time they crunch them they say, ‘What’s Lou Whitaker doing in here?'”

* * *

Who in the world was that opening the gates at Hooker Field on Saturday?

Why, it was Lou Whitaker, welcoming a slew of family members and friends to the pregame ceremony in which he was the guest of honor.

After greeting fans and signing autographs for youngsters, Whitaker was signing jerseys and other memorabilia that he had donated to be given out during drawings between innings.

Mustangs team president Jason Davis highlighted Whitaker’s career achievements during the ceremony on the field as college-age players from the Mustangs and Hi-Toms sat on the turf below the grandstand and took videos of the Tigers legend.

Davis not only praised Whitaker, but he touted the Mustangs’ work in the Martinsville and Henry County schools, stating that the club has brought in 4,000 children under the age of 12 into the park to watch a baseball game.

Whitaker now lives an hour away in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Dianne Fleming Whitaker.

Occasionally, he makes his way to Martinsville, where years ago he was one of those kids who happened to stop by the ballpark on his way home from raking leaves and a gentleman said, “Go out there and show them how to do it.”

Whitaker took the microphone and thanked his friends and family for joining the party. He also thanked everyone else who helped him reach the top:

“I want to thank all of you, because you never know … maybe it’s your parents, your uncles, your aunts, your cousins that probably had an effect on my career. I’m so proud of everything that everyone has ever done for me.

“Sometimes I look back and think, a little small kid from Martinsville, Virginia … wow.”

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