Charlie Gehringer — one of the greatest baseball players of all time — will be honored with a mural in his hometown of Fowlerville after the village won the $25,000 first place prize in the 2025 Consumers Energy Foundation’s “Put Your Town on the Map” competition.
Gerhinger led the Fowlerville High School baseball team to the state championship in 1921. A year later, he was a star baseball player at the University of Michigan. And then, a couple seasons later, he was playing second base for the Detroit Tigers. He started at second base for the American League for the first six All-Star games with players like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in the lineup.
Nicknamed “The Mechanical Man” for the effortless way in which he scooped up grounders at second base, Gehringer finished with a .320 career batting average, and was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Baseball historians generally agree that Gerhinger and Rogers Hornsby were the two greatest second basement ever. And Sports Illustrated ranked Gehringer as the third-best athlete Michigan ever produced, coming in behind Joe Louis and Magic Johnson.
The competition — open to Michigan communities with populations under 10,000 — is part of the Consumers Energy Foundation’s efforts to support Michigan communities by funding projects to attract visitors; advance housing, education, or employment; and cultivate community pride.
