January 22, 1918: The Urban Shocker Trade

Urban Shocker

January 22, 1918: The New York Yankees trade Urban Shocker, Fritz Maisel, Les Nunamaker, Nick Cullop, Joe Gedeon and $15,000 to the St. Louis Browns for Eddie Plank and Del Pratt.

Today, a man with a name like "Urban Shocker" would be welcomed with open arms in New York sports.

He was born on September 22, 1890, in Cleveland, as Urbain Jacques Shockcor, of French-Canadian descent. After the 1917 season, Shocker, a righthanded pitcher, was 12-8 for his career, and didn't look like anything special.

Well, from 1918 to 1924, he went 126-80 for the Browns -- an average of 18-11. He won 27 games in 1921 and 24 in 1922. The Browns nearly beat the Yankees out for the Pennant in 1922, having probably the franchise's best team until they became the Baltimore Orioles and won their 1st World Series in 1966.

Shocker's absence nearly cost the Yankees the Pennant in '22, may have cost them the Pennant in '20 (20-10) and '24 (16-13), and may have been a reason why they lost the World Series in '21 and '22. Never mind the other players the Yankees gave up: Getting rid of Shocker was a mistake.

What about what they got in return? Plank was a genuine Hall-of-Fame pitcher, with a career record of 326-194 before the trade. But he was 42 and never threw another professional pitch, retiring because the stress of the game had given him stomach problems. (The stress must have gotten worse: He died of a stroke in 1926, just 8 years after the trade.)

Eddie Plank

Pratt was a good 2nd baseman, and led the AL in RBIs in 1916. In 1920, he attained career highs for the Yankees in batting .314 with 108 RBIs. But the Yankees traded him, anyway -- to the Red Sox for pitcher Waite Hoyt and catcher Wally Schang. That was a great trade.

In This Date In New York Yankees History, Nathan Salant called trading Shocker away the worst trade in Yankee history up until the book's publication in 1979. But there are 2 reasons it isn't that bad: The fact that it was, essentially, Shocker for Hoyt (a Hall-of-Famer) and Schang (an All-Star-caliber player, had there been an All-Star Game back then); and the fact that the Yankees did get Shocker back from the Browns, sending them another star pitcher, Bullet Joe Bush, and 2 other guys.

Shocker helped them win the 1926 Pennant and the 1927 World Series, but had a bad heart, and died on September 9, 1928. He was only 38.

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January 22, 1918 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. Pro basketball barely existed. And it was an off-day in the schedule for the 1st season of the NHL. So there were no games on this historic day.