should I waste my best pitcher?" Lary also was known by the nickname "Taters" after a teammate noticed him write "Taters" for potatoes on a dining car order during a 1955 road trip. "He has been 'Taters' around the clubhouse and in the dugout ever since." In a 1961 profile of Lary, Sports Illustrated wrote:"Frank Lary is a classic kind of ballplayer—the type, alas, you don't see much of these days. He is a throwback to the Cardinals of the 30s, a cotton pickin', gee-tar strummin', red clay Alabama farm boy, unspoiled by a little college or a lot of success. He is mean on the mound and a joker off it. To strangers he is quiet, but to the Tigers he is the Jonathan Winters of the dugout, keeping them loose and laughing. Sometimes he is a Casey Stengel, his legs bowed, his pants rolled above his knees. Then he is the trainer, complete in white shirt, white trousers and with a Turkish towel wrapped around his head." In , Lary was selected for the first time as an All-Star. He led the American League that year in games started (36), complete games (15), innings pitched (279.1) and hit batsmen (19). In , Lary had the best season of his career. With a record of 23–9, he was the top pitcher on a 1961 Detroit Tigers team that compiled a record of 101–61. Lary's 23 wins were a career-high and second in the American League to Ford. Lary also threw a career-high and league-leading 22 complete games in 1961. Lary was also selected for the American League All-Star team and won the Gold Glove Award in 1961. He finished third in the 1961 Cy Young Award behind Ford and Warren Spahn. Lary was a workhorse for the Tigers from 1955 to 1961. During that seven-year span, Lary led the American League in wins (117), complete games (115), innings pitched (), games started (242), and batters faced (7,569). He started more than 30 games in each of those seven season and led the American League in complete games three times in four years from 1958 to 1961. In , the workload caught up with Lary, as he began having shoulder problems. He began the season with a 2–6 record and had only two complete games in 13 starts. He was placed on the disabled list in August 1962. Lary started