Willie Horton (baseball)

Willie Horton
Horton with the Detroit Tigers in 2010
Left fielder / Designated hitter
Born: (1942-10-18) October 18, 1942 (age 74) Arno, Virginia
Batted: Right Threw: Right
MLB debut
September 10, 1963, for the Detroit Tigers
Last MLB appearance
October 5, 1980, for the Seattle Mariners
MLB statistics
Batting average	.273
Home runs	325
Runs batted in	1,163
Teams
Detroit Tigers (1963–1977) Texas Rangers (1977) Cleveland Indians (1978) Oakland Athletics (1978) Toronto Blue Jays (1978) Seattle Mariners (1979–1980)
Career highlights and awards
4× All-Star (1965, 1968, 1970, 1973) World Series champion (1968) Detroit Tigers #23 retired

Willie Wattison Horton (born October 18, 1942) is a former left fielder and designated hitter in Major League Baseball who played for six American League teams, primarily the Detroit Tigers. He hit 20 or more home runs seven times, and his 325 career home runs ranked sixth among AL right-handed hitters when he retired. He enjoyed his best season in 1968 with the world champion Tigers, finishing second in the AL with 36 homers, a .543 slugging average and 278 total bases. In the later years of his career, he was twice named the AL's top designated hitter.

Horton is the youngest of twenty-one children of James Horton and his wife Lillian (Wattison) Horton. He was born in Arno, Virginia, a small community in the corporate limits of Appalachia. Willie Horton hit a home run at Tiger Stadium when he was 16 years old during an all-city high school game. After winning a city championship with Detroit Northwestern High School in 1959, he signed with the Tigers in 1961, playing for the Tigers' farm team, the Duluth Dukes, on the shores of Lake Superior, and made his debut with the Tigers on September 10, 1963. He had a pinch-hit home run off Robin Roberts in his second at bat.

He saw limited playing time in his first two years before a 1965 rookie campaign in which he was second in the AL with 104 runs batted in (RBIs) and third with 29 home runs. He was named to the All-Star team, and placed eighth in the MVP balloting. Becoming known for his tremendous strength, often hitting home runs with a one-handed swing, he again collected 100 RBIs in the 1966 season. During the 1967 Detroit 12th Street riot, he tried bravely to restore peace. He stood in his Tiger uniform on a car in the middle of the chaos, pleading for calm. However, despite his impassioned pleas, the city burned for five more days.