DETROIT — Forty-one years ago Thursday, Randy O’Neal was a 24-year-old rookie pitcher getting ready for his first Major League start, just called up by the Tigers from Triple-A Evansville. He’d made his MLB debut for the Tigers in relief in Baltimore, where his first two batters were Cal Ripken Jr. and Eddie Murray. Now, he was preparing to start against a Brewers lineup featuring a leadoff hitter named Robin Yount. And O’Neal was starting for a Tigers team that was one win away from clinching its first division title since 1972 and finally putting away a Blue Jays team that had lingered in the rearview mirror for much of the summer.
“I walked the hall for three hours,” O’Neal recalled. “I’m so nervous. But when you had the players we did back then, with Lance [Parrish] behind the plate instilling confidence, and then Robin Yount struck out, I’m like, ‘Whew, I can do this.’”
Forty-one years later, almost to the day, the Tigers delivered for O’Neal. As he slipped the World Series ring onto his finger, presented by Ilitch Sports + Entertainment president Ryan Gustafson, the 65-year-old O’Neal closed one of the great mysteries of the incredible 1984 Tigers: How did O’Neal not get a ring?
“Obviously, it’s from a long time ago, [and it] should’ve been righted a long time ago,” said Hall of Famer Alan Trammell, who joined fellow ‘84 Tigers Lance Parrish and Dan Petry in a quiet ring presentation ceremony in the Champions Club before Wednesday’s game. “But it’s done.”
O’Neal was a September callup for the Tigers. He pitched in two more games down the stretch and then spent the postseason on the taxi squad, ready to be called up in case of injury. He was in uniform and in the bullpen for the World Series run. Among the photos from that October is a snapshot of right fielder Kirk Gibson chasing a Kurt Bevacqua double into the visiting bullpen in foul territory at Jack Murphy Stadium, and O’Neal getting out of the way.
These days, virtually everyone who plays at some point during the season for a World Series champion gets a ring. Back then, it was not guaranteed. Still, other Tigers who were not on the playoff roster received rings. It could’ve been a business decision, or a simple slight.
O’Neal spent two more seasons as a swingman on the Tigers’ staff, including 122 2/3 innings in 1986. He enjoyed a seven-year Major League career that included a stop with the 1987 National League champion St. Louis Cardinals, for which he and his mom got rings. After retirement, O’Neal and some friends purchased a bat company in Florida, which he ran for four years before selling it to Easton. He later got into teaching and coaching, and reconnected with the Tigers as a part of their fantasy camps. But whenever anyone asked if they could see his World Series ring, he’d have to say that he never got one.
Every October, O’Neal would hear about the quest for a ring, and it was a reminder. He wrote a letter to the team a few years ago. Parrish and longtime Tigers beat writer Tom Gage mentioned the omission in the book they co-authored on the 1984 champs, “The Enchanted Season.”
Word got around to Tigers senior vice president of communications Ron Colangelo, director of player and alumni affairs Jordan Field and eventually chairman and CEO Christopher Ilitch. Petry, Trammell and other ex-teammates agreed: O’Neal deserved a ring. What followed was a two-year quest to get a new ring made, a more complicated process than replacing one.
When a player who got a ring loses it, there’s almost always a mold somewhere to remake it. To make a new ring altogether, the Tigers had to find the original manufacturer of the 1984 rings, Balfour, work off an old mold and create something new.
Originally, the Tigers hoped to give O’Neal his ring at the team’s 40-year reunion last season, but it wasn’t ready. When they finally got it earlier this season, Field arranged for a presentation ceremony around the anniversary of his big win.
O’Neal hopes this year’s team has a chance to experience getting that ring. Now that he has his, he said, “It means a lot to me. It’s like a validation. I earned it, and I’m glad I received it.”