DETROIT (6/25/2020) -- What are the odds of a kid playing in a cold-weather region and getting cut from his high school team earning a Division I scholarship? Probably pretty low. Now throw in the odds of that kid one day standing on a mound and getting Mickey Mantle to ground out in the big leagues. Even lower.

Except if you're University of Detroit alum Pete Craig. 

Hailing from Windsor, Ontario, and Assumption High School, back then getting in, at best, a 20-game schedule was tough with the cold and wet spring weather and most teams needed just two pitchers and Craig did not make his high school team. 

"I was not a big star in high school and never made the team," said Craig. "I went to an All-Catholic boy's high school and we had a couple of good pitchers and the coach didn't think he needed a third with such a short schedule. They were much better then I was at the stage in my life. Both of those guys ended up signing professional contracts, but neither made the big leagues." 

The journey to U-D for the tall, 6-foot-5 right-hander, was still far away. He had thought about giving up baseball and just going to school in the states, but was not accepted out of high school and ended up playing amateur baseball and that changed everything. 

"I played in a good county league in the summer and I had a friend who had played professionally and he told me that the Detroit amateur baseball team is looking for a pitcher," said Craig. "They were one of the best in the country back then and I ended up playing in the sandlot league. After a game I pitched, I will never forget it, some old Irish guy who was a scout for the team came up to me and said how would you like to pitch for the University of Detroit. Now I had tried to go to U-D a year before, not for baseball, just for school and they had turned me down."

"I said 'whatever' and he told me he would call me in a couple of weeks. Two weeks later, he called me and said, if you can get into the school, you will have a baseball scholarship and I was like you have to be kidding. I went to the registrar and said I think I need to take another written test and they said, no you don't, you're good now. I was like, well how come I wasn't good enough the last time and they said they didn't think I was mature enough. I was so elated that I sprinted to the baseball office and to coach (Lloyd) Brazil and said I am in."

Freshmen were not allowed to participate in varsity sports, so the first year was just practicing with the team. When he finally got his chance on the mound, he made a lasting impression, throwing a seven-inning no-hitter against Olivet in a 7-0 victory. 

"The first game I ever pitched for U-D, I threw a no-hitter. It was just a seven-inning game and it was a cold game, I remember snow flurries when we started the game, but it was pretty amazing," said Craig. 

The Titans were a dominant team during Craig's tenure, being ranked in the top 15 as a junior and making the NCAA Tournament twice. As a sophomore in his first year, he was part of a staff with Dave DeBusschere and the team posted a school-record 19-3 record with a NCAA appearance. Craig was 6-1 with a 1.96 ERA.

As a junior, he tallied a school-record 8-1 mark with a 2.22 ERA as the team upped its record for wins to 23 games and made another NCAA Tournament, and then he ended his career with a 7-2 tally and a 2.87 ERA as a senior, where he struck out a U-D record 103 batters. When he graduated, he was first all-time with 21 wins - against just four losses - and 219 punchouts. He not only pitched, but was a threat in the box too, sporting a .319 lifetime average, including .437 as a senior. 

Graduation day in 1963 was special for Craig. Not only did he obtain his degree in Foreign Trade, he also signed a professional baseball contract with the Detroit Tigers as they offered up the most money ahead of the Chicago White Sox and the Washington Senators, the two other teams interested in him the most. 

"I signed the day I graduated from college, the same day. Imagine that, I went from not getting into school to graduating and signing a contract," added Craig. 

Craig -- who threw a sinking fastball, slider and change-up with good control -- found himself in the minors with a staff that included Denny McLain, Jim Rooker, Joe Sparma and Pat Jarvis. He was impressive in his first year recording a 7-5 mark with a 2.51 ERA, throwing 10 complete games with two shutouts in 14 starts at Duluth.  

At the end of the season, he along with McLain were sent to pitch briefly at Double A with the Knoxville Smokies of the South Atlantic League, where he was 1-1 with a complete game shutout and a gaudy 0.64 ERA in three games. The following season in spring training, the Tigers had a decision to make on three young pitchers in himself, Sparma and Fritz Fisher and chose to keep Sparma, therefore he went on waivers. 

"The three of us were what they called bonus babies, which meant since we were signed for more than $15,000, we had to be protected on the major league roster. When we were in spring training, they told us that they were only going to take one of us, they were not going to have three young guys on its 25-man roster, so whoever pitched the best, they were going to keep. Well none of us did too good, we were rookies and nervous, but they kept Sparma probably because they signed him to the most money."

He was claimed by the Washington Senators and was sent to Class A Rocky Mount Senators of the Carolina League, where he once again showcased his skill going 14-13 with a 3.07 ERA, tossing 20 complete games in his 26 starts. In August, he was called up to pitch for Washington in the Hall Of Fame exhibition game against the New York Mets, throwing three scoreless innings. A few weeks later, he got the call from Senators' general manager George Selkirk -- a former major leaguer who took over for Babe Ruth with the New York Yankees -- that he was being called up to the majors.

"It was a boyhood dream come true," said Craig. "When I came to the Senators, I really became their top prospect and I had a good year in the Carolina League and that appearance in the Hall of Fame game boosted my stock," added Craig. 

He made his MLB debut on Sept. 6, 1964, against the Tigers, and then his first start came in the final game of the year versus the Boston Red Sox. 

"A great story I have is with Al Kaline," said Craig. "When I was in spring training with the Tigers, he came up to me, he had heard I had great control, and said do you mind throwing batting practice to me the next morning. At 7 a.m., I was there and he told me where to throw the pitches, first low and inside, high, just wherever he wanted them. We did that a few mornings in a row. Well, when I got to the big leagues with Washington, we are playing the Tigers and I am sitting quietly in the dugout at home because when you're a rookie, you don't say anything, and Kaline sees me from his dugout and walks all the way across and into our dugout and walks up to me and sticks out his hand and says, 'welcome to the big leagues'.'"

The next year he started at Triple A, which for Washington at the time was in Hawaii, as he was 14-11 with a 3.76 ERA, striking out 154 hitters in 218 innings, earning another call up to the majors in September. 

"We were treated great, like rock stars in Hawaii," said Craig. "We as players had a joke, don't play too well or the Senators will call you up."

He made three starts, losing all three to the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees and the Kansas City Royals. He recorded his first hit with a single against the Indians off starter Sonny Siebert. His best start came against the Yankees going seven innings, scattering seven hits and allowing just three earned runs with two strikeouts. His first strikeout was Roger Repoz and in the seventh inning, he got Mantle, who was pinch-hitting, to ground to first base and he also had a hit off New York starter Mel Stottlemyre in the contest. 

"Clete Boyer hit a home run off me, but I threw Mantle a changeup and he grounded out to first," said Craig in an interview with Bruce Harris with the Society for American Baseball Research. "I just missed hitting a home run off Stottlemyre. It went off the top of the right-field wall."

In 1966, he pitched mostly in Hawaii again racking up 14 wins and earned another September call-up. On September 24, he threw two innings against the White Sox in what would be his only MLB appearance on the season as well as his final one in the big leagues.

"You're in a different league when you make it to the majors," said Craig. "These are really good players. I played with some good players in Frank Howard and Don Zimmer was with us. The Boston team I pitched against was really good, they had Carl Yastrzemski."

"In my last year in Hawaii, I started to have a pain in my shoulder and when I got to Washington, the manager was Gil Hodges and he said he heard I was having some arm trouble. I told him no and he told me the plan was to have me start the next year so they weren't really going to pitch me. That winter, my arm got worse, and it was my rotator cuff and when I got to spring training in 1967, I could hardly break a paint of glass. I got cortisone shots, but it wasn't working out and I didn't want to go back to Hawaii, I was married and had a child, I wanted to be closer to home so I was picked up by Chicago."

He played in 1967 in the minors with Indianapolis before going back to the Washington organization and Hawaii before calling it a career. 

"I knew that was going to be my last year. My arm was hurting and I just couldn't pitch like I did before, I couldn't throw it like I wanted to," said Craig. "No regrets when I decided to call it quits. I didn't want to just hang around and hope my arm would get better. I was 27 and I had a college degree and just didn't want to be riding the bus, wondering about my future."

After baseball, he moved into a career in banking and then the commercial furniture and finance business before just working as an independent leasing contractor. He currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he still watches his two favorite sports, baseball and hockey. 

"I had a wonderful time at U-D," said Craig. "I had a lot of good friends and the baseball team was very successful and a lot of people knew about us. We also had the best parties on campus, better than the fraternities, and it was just a great time. I went to mass all the time on campus and it was just an amazing time I had at U-D."