Norman Dalton Cash (November 10, 1933 – October 11, 1986) was an American Major League Baseball first baseman who spent almost his entire career with the Detroit Tigers.

A power hitter, his 377 career home runs were the fourth most by an American League left-handed hitter when he retired, behind Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig; his 373 home runs with the Tigers is tied for second in franchise history with Miguel Cabrera, behind Al Kaline (399).

Cash was born in Justiceburg, Garza County, Texas, and attended (what was then) Sul Ross State Teachers College, where he was All-Lone Star Conference in football as well as playing baseball; he was drafted by the Chicago Bears as a running back in 1955, but declined to play pro football.

[1] Detroit Tigers After signing with the Chicago White Sox in 1955, he spent 1957 in the military[2] and made his debut with the team in 1958, seeing limited play as an outfielder and pinch hitter.

He appeared in 58 games for the 1959 AL pennant-winners; the August 25 acquisition of Ted Kluszewski left him on the White Sox bench.

In December of that year, he was traded to the Cleveland Indians in an eight-player deal that brought Minnie Miñoso back to Chicago,[2] but the Indians general manager Frank Lane traded Cash to Detroit for Steve Demeter, who would play only four more games; both Chicago and Cleveland were haunted by Cash for the next 15 years, as he won a batting title in 1961 and a World Series ring in 1968 wearing a Detroit uniform.

He drilled a hole in his bats and filled it with a mixture of sawdust, cork and glue, an art that was taught to him in the minor leagues.

(Studies done many years later concluded that corked bats provided little-to-no benefit except to serve as a significant psychological boost for their users.

[3][4]) His 1961 statistics turned out to be career highs which he did not come close to approaching again — in later years, he never reached 100 runs or 100 RBI, and never batted above .283.

"He told me, 'Jim Campbell pays me to hit home runs,'" said Lolich, referring to the team's general manager in those years.

With two out in the seventh inning of Game 7, Cash singled off Bob Gibson to start a three-run rally that broke a scoreless tie and propelled the team to its first title since 1945.

[2] Teammate Jim Northrup told the story as follows: "In his last at-bat, Norm walked up to the plate with a table leg from the locker room.

He holds Tigers career defensive records at first base in games (1912), putouts (14,926), assists (1303), and double plays (1328), having broken the marks set by Hank Greenberg and Rudy York.

Cash is one of eight players in Tigers history (with Sam Crawford, Ty Cobb, Charlie Gehringer, Al Kaline, Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell and Miguel Cabrera) to have played at least 2,000 regular season games with the team.

The Caesars had extensive talent from the amateur softball leagues and both Cash and fellow former-Tiger Jim Northrup played part-time and promotional roles.

In October 1986, Cash drowned in an accident off Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan when he slipped off a dock and struck his head.