December 9, 1982: The New York Yankees trade 1st baseman Fred McGriff, young pitcher Mike Morgan and outfielder Dave Collins to the Toronto Blue Jays for pitcher Dale Murray and 3rd baseman Tom Dodd.
Dodd did play 1 year in the majors, but for the Baltimore Orioles. Murray got hurt, and never contributed to the Yankees, either. Collins, once a star with the Cincinnati Reds, was pretty much finished.
In contrast, in 2001, 19 years after the trade, Morgan pitched against the Yankees in the World Series for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and McGriff was also still active. By trading him, the Yankees essentially traded 493 home runs for nothing. It was a horrible trade.
Or was it? McGriff was 19 at the time, and did not reach the majors for another 4 years. Had he done so with the Yankees, he would have smacked right into Don Mattingly at his peak. And the Yankees seemed to be loaded with designated hitters and pinch-hitters at that time. They may not have had any place to put him.
McGriff was involved in some other big trades: The Jays traded him to the San Diego Padres in 1990, a trade which brought them Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar, key figures in their 1992 and '93 World Champions; and the Padres sent him to the Atlanta Braves as part of their 1993 "fire sale," a pure "salary dump."
McGriff hit the 1st home run at the Rogers Centre (then called the SkyDome) in 1989. With the Jays that season and the Padres in 1992, McGriff became the 1st player in the post-1920 Lively Ball Era to have led both leagues in home runs. He helped the Braves win the World Series in 1995, and later played for his hometown Tampa Bay Rays. He served as the head baseball coach at Jesuit High School in Tampa, Lou Piniella's alma mater, and now works in the Braves' front office and hosts a sports-themed radio show in Tampa. (UPDATE: He finally got elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2023.)
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Another trade was made in baseball that day: The Philadelphia Phillies traded 2nd basemen Manny Trillo and Julio Franco, right fielder George Vukovich, catcher Jerry Willard and pitcher Jay Baller to the Cleveland Indians for outfielder Von Hayes.
With 2nd base prospect Juan Samuel about to arrive in the major leagues, Trillo and Franco had become surplus to requirements, while the Phils needed a good hitter who could play all 3 outfield positions, and Hayes could.
Phils fans, who remembered Trillo as the 2nd baseman who made the difference for them in winning the 1980 World Series, hated this trade. They called Hayes "Five-for-One." He received Trillo's uniform number, 9, but they said it should be 541: Five-Four-One.
In 1983, his 1st season with the team, the Phillies won the National League Pennant. But he had little to do with it, batting .265 with 6 home runs and 32 RBIs. He got better: In 1986, he batted .305, led the NL with 46 doubles and 107 runs scored, and had a career-high 98 RBIs; made the NL All-Star Team in 1989; and hit 124 homers for the Phils in 9 seasons.
The Phils quasi-dynasty of 1976-83 got old before he hit his peak, and he never got into another Pennant race, but it wasn't his fault, and Phils fans began to accept him. A broken arm from being hit by a pitch by Tom Browning of the Cincinnati Reds in 1991 forced him to retire after 1 more season, with the California Angels. He went on to manage several teams in U.S. minor and Latin American leagues. (Ironically, Browning's own career was cut short due to a broken pitching arm.)
As with the McGriff trade, there was an unexpected long-term postscript. Just as Mike Morgan hung around a lot longer than people expected, so did Julio Franco. He and Hayes were born a few days apart in August 1958 (a month that also saw the births of hockey star Darryl Sutter; singers Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden and Belinda Carlisle of The Go-Go's; director Tim Burton; actors Colm Feore and Steve Guttenberg; actresses Angela Bassett and Madeleine Stowe; America Online chairman Steve Case; and Governors Rick Snyder of Michigan, Bill Haslam of Tennessee and Kathy Hochul of New York), but while Hayes was done at 34, Franco reached 7 postseasons, was still a regular player at age 46, and played his last game at 49, in 2007.
But Phillies fans who still lament this trade tend to be unhappy that it was Trillo that was given up, not Franco.
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December 9, 1982 was a Thursday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 2 games in the NBA. The Washington Bullets beat the Denver Nuggets, 98-90 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Golden State Warriors, 107-98 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Calvin Natt led the Blazers with 30 points. Joe Barry Carroll, considered lazy enough as a player to earn the unflattering nickname "Joe Barely Cares," led all scorers on the night with 36.
And there were 6 games in the NHL:
* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Washington Capitals, 6-4 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.
* In an "Original Six" game, the Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 8-5 at the Boston Garden. Bruce Crowder and Barry Pederson each scored 2 goals for the Bruins.
* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Quebec Nordiques, 4-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.
* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Vancouver Canucks, 9-6 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Patrick Sundström scored a hat trick in a losing effort for the Canucks.
* The St. Louis Blues beat the Calgary Flames, 7-2 at the Stampede Corral in Calgary.
* And the Edmonton Oilers and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 3-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.
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