December 2, 1971: The Yankees' Worst Trade Ever

Note the airbrush job that Topps did on this 1972 card,
typically terrible for them in that era.
Remember: The Yankees don't have green bills on their caps,
or names on the backs of their uniforms.

December 2, 1971: The New York Yankees trade pitcher Stan Bahnsen to the Chicago White Sox for infielder Rich McKinney.

Bahnsen was the 1968 American League Rookie of the Year, and had won 14 games in '70 and '71. The Yankees sure could have used the 21 he won for the White Sox in '72, as they finished just 6 1/2 games out of 1st place in the American League Eastern Division. Bahnsen also won 18 games in '73, although the ChiSox fell apart and he also lost 21; the Yankees finished 17 back that season.

Stan Bahnsen

In contrast, McKinney, the man the Yankees hoped would be better at playing 3rd base and hitting than incumbent Jerry Kenney, proved even more inept: He batted .215 and made 8 errors in 33 games before manager Ralph Houk had enough and sent him down to the minors at the end of May.

They dumped him off to the World Champion Oakland Athletics after the season, for an aging Matty Alou. In Oakland, McKinney probably felt out of place among Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, Catfish Hunter and Vida Blue. He only played another 147 games in the majors, last appeared at age 30, and had a lifetime OPS+ of 48 -- meaning he was 52 percent beneath the average hitter of that time.

If the Yankees hadn't made the trade, and kept Bahnsen and continued to trust Kenney as their 3rd baseman, and won the AL East, they probably would have lost the AL Championship Series to the A's. But at least their postseason drought wouldn't have seemed so long by the time Chris Chambliss hit that Pennant-winning home run in 1976, and team president Mike Burke, about to talk CBS into selling the team to George Steinbrenner's group, would have salvaged his baseball reputation before George came in and wrote the myth that he saved the team.

So was Bahnsen for McKinney the dumbest trade in Yankee history? Maybe not: Still needing a 3rd baseman, on November 27, 1972, 6 weeks before George & Co. bought the team -- and with Indians president Gabe Paul probably making this trade knowing that he'd be Yankee president under Steinbrenner -- the Yankees sent Kenney, John Ellis, Charlie Spikes and Rusty Torres to the Cleveland Indians for Jerry Moses and Graig Nettles.

Trading Bahnsen for McKinney was stupid. But trading Kenney, Ellis, Spikes and Torres -- and, effectively, Bahnsen -- for Nettles was good. So maybe it all worked out for the best.

And it wasn't even the worst New York baseball trade of the month: Eight days later, the Mets traded Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi.

Sure, I can say that. Because I wasn't old enough to root for the Yankees in 1972! I wasn't born until 1969. I have very little idea of what it was to see the team collapse after 1964 and go through the Vietnam and Watergate years, struggling to regain not just prominence but, in light of the Mets' 1969 title and 1973 Pennant, relevance.

But by the time I was ready for the Yankees, they were ready for me.

*

December 2, 1971 was a Thursday. This was also the day the United Arab Emirates was formed. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were no games played in the American Basketball Association. There was 1 game played in the NBA: The Buffalo Braves beat the Baltimore Bullets, 109-105, a "home game" for the Braves at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

There were 2 games played in the NHL. The Philadelphia Flyers and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 1-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. And the Buffalo Sabres beat the Los Angeles Kings, 2-0 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Which doesn't explain why it was the Braves who had to move, since they and the Sabres both began play in the Autumn of 1970. Although the Braves could play "home games" at the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, while the Sabres couldn't, seeing the Leafs as a geographical rival.