Growing up in the small town of Britton, Mich., Duane Below was the little brother with big dreams.
The youngest of seven with four brothers and two sisters, Below was the baby of the family who was seldom indoors growing up, an active child who frequently played on the fields and stayed in the gym until they kicked him out when it was time to lock up. He managed his brother’s junior high basketball team as a third-grader and always talked about wanting to pitch in the big leagues.
On July 20, 2011, Below wasn’t so little anymore; it was the day the baby brother made his big league dream come true, taking the mound as the starting pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, his favorite baseball team growing up.
“As soon as I took the mound the first time, I felt like I belonged,” Below told Toledo Free Press from spring training in Lakeland, Fla., recounting his major league debut against the Oakland Athletics.
“But my mind said as I threw my first pitch, I was like, ‘Just don’t throw it to the backstop.’”
Though the Tigers lost 7-5 that night, Below didn’t throw his first pitch to the backstop. Instead, he recorded a no-decision in a solid outing against Oakland. In five-plus innings,
Below threw 51 strikes in 77 pitches, allowing three runs (one earned) and five hits as he struck out two batters and walked another for an ERA of 1.80.
When Lester Oliveros came in to relieve Below in the sixth inning after he surrendered a homer to Hideki Matsui, the Detroit crowd — which included many family members and friends — gave him a standing ovation as he left the field.
“It was exciting. I’ll never forget it,” Below said.
While that day marked the culmination of a lifelong journey to play in the majors, Below is not content to let it be his only day in the sun. Not after how hard he’s worked to have the chance to be a mainstay on the Tigers roster. Below was a three-sport athlete back home in Britton, a town of approximately 700 people that sits off M-50 between Tecumseh and Dundee.
But the 6-foot-3, 220-pound lefty was not heavily recruited out of Britton-Macon High School in 2004 and did not have any college offers. He ended up playing for Blissfield American Legion, where he was discovered by Lake Michigan College (LMC), which offered him a scholarship.
“I liked it out there, so I ended up going out there and having two good years,” Below said of the school in southwest Michigan. “It was my freshman year when I realized that there’s a possibility [of going pro].”
Following his freshman year at LMC, Below signed to Central Michigan University in the early signing period. After reaching the regionals in a solid sophomore campaign at LMC, however, his big league dreams started to come to fruition and, by June 2006, CMU was in the rearview mirror.
“In June, my brother [and I] went to Chicago for the Tigers-White Sox game because that was the second day of the draft,” Below said. “We knew I was going to get drafted, we just didn’t know what round and what [pick]. But my brother was like, ‘You’re not going to go in the first day, so let’s go to the Tigers game on the second day.’
“We were just driving in downtown Chicago, and I got the call while we were in the car.”
Detroit drafted Below in the 19th round of the 2006 amateur draft. By 2007, he was the team’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year and Single-A West Michigan’s Pitcher of the Year after he tied for a Midwest League-best 13 wins and led the league with 160 strikeouts.
As he was working his way up the ranks of the Tigers organization, however, Below’s progress came to a halt in 2009.
Just 10 days after being assigned to Double-A Erie from Single-A Lakeland on May 15 of that season, Below landed on the disabled list for the rest of the year. He tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing arm and required Tommy John surgery.
“That was actually the first time I’ve ever been hurt to miss a game,” Below said. “The only time I missed a game was [because of] my mom’s rules for the grades, and I missed one week; that was during football season. But I never missed a game due to injury.”
Before he left to have the procedure done, Below received some words of encouragement from teammate Mike Hollimon.
Hollimon told Below to make the best of it and work his tail off. That way, if he didn’t come back at least he would know he tried, and if he did, he’d be that much better.
“I’ll never forget it,” Below said of Hollimon’s words. “I’ve got to give him credit as well.”
Comeback
Below came back strong in 2010, finishing second on the Erie roster with 103 strikeouts. His big break came last season, when he started 18 games with the Mud Hens before Detroit called him up in late July.
At the time of his callup, Below had a 3.13 ERA and was tied for second place in the International League with nine wins.
“It was great,” Below said of his time with Toledo. “The fan base is unbelievable there. They come out and support you. Just being able to have a park of that caliber and the fans that support you no matter what, and being able to be that close to home and having support in my family.”
Below credited the combination of that atmosphere along with the tutelage of Mud Hens pitching coach A.J. Sager for helping prepare him for the majors, where he started two games for the Tigers in 2011 and spent the rest of the regular season as a reliever.
Since December, Below has been in Lakeland preparing for the upcoming season, where he is competing for the fifth starter spot in the rotation with the Tigers. It just wouldn’t be like Below to not get a head start on spring training.
Below made it to the big leagues, but he’ll always be the active little brother from Britton.
“I just figured getting down here early, giving myself the best opportunity to make the team, I felt it was to be here in Lakeland and working with the staff that’s here,” Below said.
“It’s mainly from my rehab. When I was here, I was working out and I was in the best shape, and [the] arm’s ready to go to start the year.”
