Welcome to the Freep's Detroit Tigers Newsletter! Thanks for subscribing!

Hello, and welcome to the Detroit Free Press’ Tigers Newsletter!

Thanks for subscribing to, in our humble opinion, the best source of Detroit Tigers news and analysis delivered for free to email inboxes every Monday morning (and a few special occasions) from March through September. (It’s a narrow niche, but it’s all ours.)

For more than 120seasons, the Tigers have occupied a special spot in Detroiters’ hearts during spring, summer and — in rare years — deep into the fall. And the Free Press has been here for all of those seasons, from the World Series titles of 1935, ’68 and ’84, to the cellar-dweller years of 2003 and ’19 to the most recent AL pennant years of 2006 and ’12. The Freep’s Tigers Newsletter hasn’t been around QUITE that long — but we can feel the free agency approaching! (If our editor is reading this, we’re just kidding…)

Back to the newsletter: Every week, we’ll recap the previous few days’ most interesting stories, featuring award-winning coverage from Freep writers such as Evan Petzold, Jeff Seidel, Shawn Windsor and many others. We’ll also try to put the hits and misses all in perspective to get you ready for another week of Tigers baseball. (Granted, there’ve been more misses than hits at Comerica Park the past few seasons, but we’re assured that’ll change any day now. Honest.)

But enough about us; you subscribed to learn more about the Tigers (we think), and since we’re leading off with this edition of the newsletter, here are three Tigers leadoff hitters to know…

1. No player in franchise history has more games in the leadoff spot than shortstop Donie Bush, an Indianapolis native who started 958 games for the Tigers from 1909-21. Bush hit .242 with 94 doubles, 201 steals and three home runs atop the order. (The bulk of Bush’s era came before Babe Ruth and a tighter-wound ball changed the game for good.) Those numbers might not seem that impressive, but Bush was an on-base machine, with five seasons leasing the AL in walks and 608 walks while hitting first. He finished in the top 15 in AL MVP voting three times, including a top-three finish in 1914, when he led the majors with 112 walks in 157 games.

2. The BEST leadoff hitter in franchise history? It’s tough to argue with second baseman Lou Whitaker, who led off in 911 games, No. 2 all-time for the Tigers, from 1978-95. (His 3,764 at-bats in the top spot is actually No. 1.) “Sweet Lou” hit .284 with 191 doubles and 103 homers with 622 runs scored. The 1978 AL Rookie of the year, he also made five All-Star teams and won four Silver Slugger Awards and three Gold Gloves. He’s still waiting for his recognition from the Baseball Hall of Fame — though he’ll likely be on the “Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee” ballot when it’s voted on this December — but the Tigers are finally retiring his No. 1 jersey in a ceremony on Aug. 6.

3. A close second behind Whitaker is outfielder Curtis Granderson, whose 541 games as leadoff hitter from 2005-09 rank eighth in franchise history. Whitaker and Granderson are actually tied in one big stat: Both hit 24 homers to open a game for the Tigers. Granderson stands alone in OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage), however; his .831 mark is tops among the 20 players with at least 300 games leading off for the Tigers, spiked by his epic 2007 season, in which he became the fourth player in MLB history with at least 20 doubles, triples, homers and steals in the same year.

Who will be the next Tiger to click in the leadoff spot? Whoever it is, we at the Freep will be here to cover it, and we hope you’ll stick with us all the way to October and beyond.

Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @theford.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Welcome to the Freep's Detroit Tigers Newsletter!