October 7, 1969: The Trade That Changed Everything

October 7, 1969: The St. Louis Cardinals trade Curt Flood, Byron Browne, Joe Hoerner and Tim McCarver to the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for Richie Allen, Jerry Johnson and Cookie Rojas.

Essentially, this was a "my headache for your headache" trade. Flood and McCarver had been complaining about how they were being treated by Cardinal owner Gussie Busch. And Allen was a lightning rod, who stayed out late, arrived to games late, drank too much, bet on horse races, and (however unintentionally) stirred up the racial resentments of "the City of Brotherly Love."

He had also begun to insist upon being called "Dick," saying that "Richie" was "a little boy's name." On this, Phillies broadcaster and center field legend Richie Ashburn (who usually preferred "Rich," and, unlike many white men in this uneasy time, didn't mind being called "Whitey") backed him up on it.

As could be expected, Allen, who so badly wanted out of Philadelphia, is involved in a trade that also becomes controversial -- except, ironically, his part in it isn't the controversial part. He reports to St. Louis without complaint; is received warmly by teammates, management and fans; has a good 1970 season for the Cards; and, on his return to Philadelphia with his new team, is cheered by the Philly fans, and hits a home run.

The controversial part involves Flood: Like Allen, he believes (with some reason) that Philadelphia is a racist city, and refuses to report to the Phillies. He writes to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, telling him he has the right to ply his trade wherever he likes under American labor laws, and that the reserve clause, which binds a player to a single team in perpetuity unless he is released, or traded (in which case, he becomes the property of the new team, as was the case here), is unconstitutional.

Since Kuhn is a lawyer, he should respect that. Since he is essentially employed by the 24 MLB team owners, he doesn't respect it. Flood sues, and the case will go all the way to the Supreme Court, where Flood will lose in 1972. A later case gets the reserve clause struck down, but that comes too late to help Flood, or any other previous challenger, none of whom even got as close as Flood did. Still, this trade, which Flood did not ask for, ended up changing everything in baseball.

The Cardinals sent Willie Montañez and a minor leaguer to complete the trade, but Flood's courageous challenge to the reserve clause had a dramatic impact on the game. Flood died in 1997, just past his 59th birthday, his health compromised by years of drinking.

The Phillies eventually got Dick Allen back, and, having been transplanted across town to Veterans Stadium, faced cheers as in 1964 instead of boos as in 1965 to 1969, and helped the Phils win the National League Eastern Division title in 1976. He later beat his own drinking problem, was hired in the Phils' front office, and was thoroughly cheered whenever he was introduced at Citizens Bank Park. He died in 2020, at age 78.

Montañez is another interesting story. One of the first players to be called a "hot dog," he was one of those players whom teams kept trying to acquire, and eventually kept trying to dump. From 1966 to 1982, he batted .275 with 139 home runs, was a fine fielder at 1st base, and was an All-Star in 1977, as an Atlanta Brave. He was a New York Met in 1978 and '79. He never reached the postseason, though. 

He's now 74. I once saw an entire starting lineup, complete with designated hitter, of players who were traded for him. And it was a decent lineup:

1B John Milner

2B Tony Phillips

SS Marty Perez

3B Darrell Evans

LF Al Oliver

CF Garry Maddox

RF Ken Henderson

C Tim McCarver

DH Dick Allen

P Gaylord Perry or Bert Blyleven

*

October 7, 1969 was a Tuesday. Baseball's Pennants were won the day before, by the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles. The World Series started 4 days later. So did the NHL season. The NBA and the ABA both started their seasons 3 days after that. And football was in midweek. So there were no scores on this historic day. 

June 19, 1970: "Ball Four" Is Published

June 19, 1970: "I'm 30 years old, and I have these dreams." With those words, Jim Bouton, once a star pitcher on the New York Yankees, but now a marginal major leaguer due to injury and a reputation as an oddball, began his diary of the 1969 baseball season, which was published in book form on this day, with the title of Ball Four: My Life and Hard Times Throwing the Knuckleball in the Big Leagues.

Nobody, not even Jim himself, had any idea of the impact that this book would have. It's almost as if the Major League Baseball pitching career that he had already had was becoming secondary. But then, as much as he loved baseball, Bouton was not all about it. He understood that it is often (Cliché Alert) a microcosm of life, but it is not life and death.

Bouton was born on March 8, 1939 in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby suburban Rochelle Park, Bergen County, and then in suburban Chicago Heights, Illinois. He got a baseball scholarship to Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo. He was signed by the New York Yankees for $30,000.

When he reached the major leagues in 1962, he was given uniform Number 56, a very high number for the time. Later that season, clubhouse manager Pete Sheehy said he could now receive a smaller number, recommending 29. Jim said that he would rather keep 56, to remind him of just how difficult it is to stay in the major leagues.

Jim went 7-7 that year. The Yankees won the World Series, and he got a ring, but he did not appear in the Series. In 1963, just 24 years old, he went 21-7 with a 2.53 ERA, and made the All-Star Game for what turned out to be the only time. His fastball and gruff demeanor on the mound earned him the alliterative nickname "Bulldog" Bouton. Fans also loved that his unusual pitching motion caused his hat to frequently fly off his head.

In 1964, he went 18-13, helping the Yankees win a tight Pennant race, and won Games 3 and 6 of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, but the Yankees lost Game 7. As Spring Training 1965 began, Jim was about to turn 26, and had a good fastball, legendary teammates, postseason experience, a career record of 46-27 -- and a salary of $26,500, an increase of $8,000 over the previous season. (A salary of $26,500 in 1965 would be about $254,000 in 2022 money.)

But he hurt his elbow that year, one of many injuries that seemed to strike the old Yankee Dynasty at once. The Yankees finished 6th, and, for reasons that were almost entirely not his fault, Jim went 4-15. That was when the nastier side of the old Yankee organization reared its head. When Jim was winning, his class clown antics got him labeled "colorful." His teammates didn't mind his intellectualism, his lefty politics, his outspokenness, or his impersonation of comedian Frank Fontaine in his "Crazy Guggenheim" role on The Jackie Gleason Show. But when he was losing, they acted like those things did bother him, and they didn't want to know him.

By 1968, the Dynasty was dead. The Seattle Pilots, an expansion team that was going to begin play the next season, bought him from the Yankees, and assigned him to their top farm team, so that he could get work. As Spring Training came in 1969, he was about to turn 30, and he didn't know if he had enough left to make even a brand-new expansion team.

Another way that Jim was different was that he was friends with Leonard Shecter of the New York Post, one of the new breed of sportswriters nicknamed "The Chipmunks." Most Yankees hated him, because he was critical of them. Bouton and Shecter agreed that most books "written by ballplayers" (always dictated to a sportswriter, who would arrange it so that it only made the player look good) were sappy, sanitized stories, usually about the big names, and that it would be more interesting if a marginal player wrote a book about just how hard it was to make a living in baseball.

This was not a new idea: Jim Brosnan, a decent but not great pitcher, kept a diary in 1959, a season which saw him get traded from the Cardinals to the Cincinnati Reds. It was published as The Long Season, and got praise from some sources, and disdain from the baseball establishment, which presaged what Bouton would later go through. So there was precedent.

Jim began writing notes at the Pilots' training camp in Tucson, Arizona. Just as he started writing, 2 things happened that would shape public perception of the book. One was that he negotiated his contract for the season, at a time when players were bound by baseball's reserve clause, which (as the owners defined it) bound them to a team for life, unless traded or released. Jim used the opportunity to describe his struggles to get what he thought he was worth from the Yankees. Given his current status, and the Pilots' financial struggles, Jim knew he couldn't get a big salary, and when they offered him $22,000, he took it without haggling.

The other big thing that happened was that Mickey Mantle retired, after 18 years of heroics and injuries. Jim told about how well Mickey had treated him. He also told about how Mickey could be juvenile and drunk, and not nice to young autograph seekers. (I wonder if he ever told any of them to "Take a hike, son.")

He also told about how ballplayers were womanizers and Peeping Toms (engaging in "beaver shooting"), about their drinking, about their use of pep pills (a.k.a. "greenies"), and how they could do all kinds of things that were in poor taste.

be

Jim Bouton in a Seattle Pilots away uniform,

at Tiger Stadium in Detroit

He began to suspect that manager Joe Schultz, pitching coach Sal Maglie, and general manager Marvin Milkes didn't trust him, because he was an oddball throwing an oddball pitch (the knuckleball -- not the screwball).

Maglie had a legitimate case: He was once not just a great pitcher, with one of the best curveballs of his time. He was also a former New York Giant, and one of Jim's heroes. But Milkes was out of his depth as a baseball executive.

And Schultz should have understood marginal players better, as he was one, a backup catcher in the 1940s. He was a coach on the St. Louis Cardinals' 1960s Pennant winners, but he seemed to forget that he was no longer working for Cardinals owner and beer baron Gussie Busch. He was always telling his players, "Zitz 'em, and go pound some Budweiser!" He was a company man even after leaving the company. (Jim said, "I've never zitzed anybody before. It sounds like fun.")

 

Jim would plead his case for more appearances, even starts, and Joe would nod, munch on a liverwurst sandwich, and tell Jim what he wanted to hear, and then not do it. Schultz was fired after that season, and remained a coach in the majors through 1976, but never managed again except on an interim basis with the 1973 Detroit Tigers.

"Establishment" players on the Pilots, like shortstop Ray Oyler and pitcher Fred Talbot (a former Yankee teammate) tended to stay away from Jim. Other oddballs, like pitcher Mike Marshall and outfielder Steve Hovley, gravitated toward him.

The Pilots had talent. Oyler was an exceptional fielder, though he couldn't hit a lick. Outfielder and former National League batting champion Tommy Davis, had helped the Los Angeles Dodgers win the 1963 World Series, before an ankle injury curtailed his career and made him unavailable for their runs to the 1965 and '66 Series. 1st baseman Don Mincher had helped the Twins win the 1965 Pennant. Pitchers Bouton, Talbot, Marshall and Steve Barber, who had helped the Baltimore Orioles win the 1966 World Series, had all had their days in the Sun -- and Marshall, once away from this team, and converted to a reliever, would have many more

But injuries (including Barber's remark, "My arm's not sore, it's just a little stiff"), Schultz's bad managing, and Milkes' penny-pinching doomed the team to a 64-98 finish, 6th and last place in the AL West, in that 1st season of Divisional Play.

Apparently, it wasn't just Milkes being a typical baseball GM of the time, cheap as hell for the sake of greed. Owners Max and Dewey Soriano, brothers, really couldn't afford to buy the team and keep it going. At the end of Spring Training 1970, they finally gave up, and sold the team to Milwaukee car dealer Bud Selig, who quickly got permission to move them, and a week later, they debuted in the regular season as the Milwaukee Brewers.

The fact that the team's operation was so ridiculous, that they only existed for that 1 season, makes the Pilots seem more like a team in a rebel league, like the American Basketball Association of 1967-76, the World Hockey Association of 1972-79, or the World Football League of 1974-75. Those facts, and the fact that the current Seattle team, debuting in 1977, is named the Mariners, not the Pilots, makes Ball Four seem like a novel, played up for laughs and absurdity, as if the Pilots never actually existed. But they did.

In a 2000 interview with baseball historian Rob Neyer for ESPN.com, Jim, unaware of my assessment, backed it up:

The Pilots existed for only one year. It's almost a magical story. They're like "Brigadoon." It's a Major League Baseball team that, in many respects, exists only within the pages of a book. It's like a fictional baseball team, so the characters in the book have almost become like fictional characters.

And they were perfect for the book. It was gold. Everyone one of those players was an interesting story, in one way or another. You had rookies, and you had grizzled veterans...

It was a perfect cast of characters, almost as if somebody had said, "This team's not going to win any games, but if someone writes a book, this'll be a great ballclub."

By the time that they moved, Jim was long gone. On August 24, the Pilots traded him to the Houston Astros. The difference was huge: Jim went from a dysfunctional 1st-year expansion team trying and failing to stay out of last place, in a 30-year-old but already antiquated ballpark, in front of an average of 8,400 fans a night; to an 8th-year team in its 1st Pennant race (but they tailed off in September, finishing 81-81), in the then-modern Astrodome, in front of 18,000 much more enthusiastic fans a night.

Jim began the 1970 season on the Astros' big-league roster, and things seemed to be going, if not especially well, then at least smoothly. Then came May, and Look magazine published an excerpt from Ball Four. The excerpt included the sensational "Mantle wasn't such a great guy" part. (The magazine went out of business the next year. No, I'm not blaming Bouton for that.)

The public reaction was horrible. Jim was booed in every ballpark. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn summoned Jim to his Midtown Manhattan office. They met on June 1. Kuhn told Jim to disavow the book before it could be published in full form: Say that he'd made a lot of it up, or that Shecter had made a lot of it up, or that Shecter had manipulated into saying it.

Jim refused to lie, and wouldn't back down. He said it was all true. He said that any player whose marriage was now on the rocks because of what he wrote was probably not in a particularly strong marriage anyway. He said that he didn't name names when it came to actually cheating on wives.

He went further than simply defending himself and his work: He struck back, and said that he purposely left a lot of things out, like certain players going for underage girls, or spouting racist and anti-Semitic remarks, and that he was actually trying to protect the sport from what would have happened had he named names with such things.

Like Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith and Curt Flood

at the time, and like Colin Kaepernick many years later,

Jim was willing to stand for something,

even if it meant sacrificing everything.

That a player they were trying to push around fought back at least as hard just deepened the baseball establishment's anger toward him. He had just gone even further in violating what had become known as "the sanctity of the clubhouse." That was why the players were angry at him.

The team owners were angry at him because he depicted them as greedy and petty, revealing their secrets to keeping salaries low -- in his words, because, "I was showing just how hard it was to make a living in baseball." Bouton testified in Curt Flood's trial, which unsuccessfully challenged the reserve clause, by reading passages from Ball Four.

America had decided that it couldn't handle the truth, and Jim Bouton was telling it. He recalled a game in Cincinnati, with the Reds' Pete Rose, who had become a part of the baseball establishment, yelling at him, "Fuck you, Shakespeare!" When Mantle was asked about him, instead of getting nasty, he stayed in character, and took the funny road out, saying, "Jim Who?"

Bouton said the backlash wasn't getting to him. But on July 29, with a record of 4-6 and an ERA of 5.40, despite having pitched decently in 9 of his last 11 outings, he was sent down to the minor leagues. The knuckleball didn't work there, either.

Bouton left baseball at the height of the controversy, to become a sportscaster, but made a comeback, and returned to the major leagues at age 39, as a September callup with the 1978 Atlanta Braves, even winning a game.

Bouton closed the book with these words: "You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time." I've felt the same way about the book itself.

In 1994, after getting out of rehab for his alcoholism, Mantle called Bouton. He wasn't home, but Mantle left a message on his answering machine, saying he was never angry at him for having written the book, or saying what he said in it.

There was a rumor that Mantle was the reason that Bouton was never invited back to Yankee Stadium for Old-Timers Day. Mantle told him that it wasn't him. In 1998, after the deaths of Mantle due to liver failure and Jim's daughter, Laurie Bouton, in a car crash, Jim's son, Michael, wrote an open letter to the Yankees, appearing in The New York Times, asking the Yankees to invite Jim to Old-Timers Day, to make amends, and to comfort him in his time of need.

They did. He was introduced, and got a standing ovation from a crowd of 55,638, including myself. He also pitched in the Old-Timers Game, presumably throwing a knuckleball, and losing his hat on purpose.

Jim Bouton died on July 10, 2019, during the 50th Anniversary of the season portrayed in the book.

*

June 19, 1970 was a Friday. Rahul Gandhi, the son, grandson and great-grandson of Prime Ministers of India, and later the Leader of their political party, was born on this day.

The World Cup was between its Semifinals and its Final, in which Brazil beat Italy, 4-1 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.

These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 7-4 at Fenway Park in Boston. Sonny Siebert outpitched Stan Bahnsen. Carl Yastrzemski, Reggie Smith and Mike Andrews hit home runs for the BoSox, Roy White for the Yankees.

* The New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 13-3 at Shea Stadium. Tom Seaver went the distance, striking out 11 and walking none. Jim Bunning didn't get out of the 1st inning, allowing 7 runs.. Ken Boswell and Wayne Garrett hit home runs for the Mets. This was the Phils' last season at Connie Mack Stadium, formerly Shibe Park. The next season, they moved into Veterans Stadium.

* The Baltimore Orioles swept a doubleheader from the Washington Senators, 12-10 and 3-2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Over the 2 games, Brooks Robinson went 1-for-9 with a walk and 2 RBIs, and Frank Robinson went 3-for-8 with a home run, 2 walks and 2 RBIs. Merv Rettenmund won the 2nd game by singling home Davey Johnson in the bottom of the 13th inning.

* The Atlanta Braves swept a doubleheader from the Houston Astros, 7-6 and 4-2 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Hank Aaron went 2-for-8 with 2 RBIs, including his 573rd career home run. Doug Rader hit 2 home runs for the Astros in the nightcap, which suggests that he hadn't read what Bouton wrote about him. Bouton did not get into either game.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Montreal Expos, 8-4 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Neither Roberto Clemente nor Willie Stargell played, and Bill Mazeroski only appeared as a pinch-hitter (not, as you might think, as a defensive replacement), although he did get a hit. Just 10 days later, the Pirates played their last game at Forbes Field. Just 17 days after that, they played their 1st game at Three Rivers Stadium.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Al Kaline went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-1 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Reds' only run came on a solo home run by Johnny Bench, who went on to win the National League's Most Valuable Player award. Pete Rose went 1-for-4 with a walk. Just 5 days later, the Reds played their last game at Crosley Field. Just 6 days after that, they played their 1st game at Riverfront Stadium.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 5-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The Cards led 3-1 going into the bottom of the 8th, but the Cubs got a run in the 8th and another in the 9th, to send the game to extra innings. The game went 17 innings, in a ballpark that didn't have lights. Fortunately, they were 3 days short of the longest day of the year. In the top of the 17th, with the bases loaded and 2 out, Ted Simmons singled home Lou Brock and Dick Allen (in his only season with St. Louis).

Al Hrabosky, "the Mad Hungarian," was the winning pitcher. The losing pitcher for the Cubs was former Pilot Steve Barber. His arm must have been sore, or at least a little stiff. (Ball Four reference.)

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 5-1 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-4, but Rod Carew went 3-for-4 with an RBI.

* The San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-3 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Willie Mays went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The former Pilots, the Milwaukee Brewers, beat the California Angels, 5-2 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* And the Chicago White Sox beat the Oakland Athletics, 4-2 at the Oakland Coliseum. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-3 with a walk.

June 18, 1976: Charlie Finley's Fire Sale Is Canceled

June 18, 1976: Charlie Finley's attempt to hold a "fire sale" so that he could rebuild his Oakland Athletics is canceled by Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

Charles Oscar Finley built a team that won 5 straight American League Western Division titles, 1971 to '75. And 3 straight World Series, 1972 to '74. But their attendance was never all that high. In only 2 of the 21 seasons that he owned the team in Kansas City and Oakland, 1960 to '80, did the A's get over 1 million in official attendance, '73 and '75. And the '73 figure of 1,000,763 is in dispute, because some people think Charlie O tinkered with it.

He discovered what Connie Mack, known for building up winners and then breaking them up with the earlier A's in Philadelphia, discovered: It brings in more fans if you have a good team that stays in the race most of the way and doesn't win, than if you have one that runs away with the Pennant. And then, when the players don't win, you don't have to give them big raises.

Pitcher Jim "Catfish" Hunter had it written into his contract that Finley had to pay toward an annuity -- and when Finley didn't, Hunter took Finley to an arbitrator, and Catfish was declared a free agent. Finley didn't lift a finger to re-sign him, and lots of other teams did. Of course, the fingers that George Steinbrenner of the Yankees lifted were clutching a lot of money.

Without Catfish, the A's still won the West in 1975, but got swept by the Red Sox in the AL Championship Series. At the dawn of the '76 season, Reggie Jackson (who liked to say that Finley gave him his chance in baseball, "Lord, but the man was cheap, though") and Ken Holtzman were traded to Baltimore for Don Baylor and Mike Torrez. Within a year, none of them was on either of the teams involved in this trade.

On June 15, then the trading deadline, Finley sold Vida Blue to the Yankees for $1.5 million, and Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers to the Red Sox for $1 million each. Finley had players and the lust for money. Steinbrenner of the Yankees and Tom Yawkey of the Red Sox had money and the desire for a championship. These sounded like good deals for all 3 owners.

Rollie Fingers, a Red Sock for 3 days

Kuhn didn't think so. He usually bent over backwards to help the owners and screw the players, and, certainly, Blue could make more money with the Yanks, and Rudi and Fingers with the Sox, than anyone was making with the A's. But Kuhn hated Finley (and the feeling was mutual), and ordered the Yanks and Sox not to play their new acquisitions until he could straighten everything out.

Kuhn thought about it for 3 days, then canceled the deals, citing "the best interest of baseball." He said he didn't want Pennants to be bought outright.

Well, what the hell did he think the Yankees were doing all through the 1920s, '30s, '40s, '50s and into the '60s? What did he think Steinbrenner had been doing the last 3 years? What did he think Yawkey, who was then dying of leukemia, had been trying to do for over 40 years?

It's professional baseball. The players are paid for their services. Every championship has been bought, since the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings.

Clearly, Kuhn put the kibosh on the deals for one reason, and one reason only: He hated Finley. Whether this was the best thing for baseball is a debate for another time; whether the Yankees, or the Red Sox, or both, would have been better off if the deals had gone through, is still another debate.

So let's have that debate:

* The Red Sox needed a better bullpen. It's why they signed Bill Campbell in the following off-season. Fingers would have helped. But they were loaded with outfielders. They didn't need Rudi. And with the dissension they already had, things could have gotten worse. The fact that Yawkey had leukemia, and died on July 9, didn't help: His wife, Jean, inherited the team, and the guys she let run the team made a lot of mistakes over the next few years.

* But the Yankees would have had a bigger problem: Blue's drug problem. George Steinbrenner would have had to get rid of him. And who would have taken him, knowing he had that problem? Having Blue would have made no difference in the 1976 World Series, and might have prevented them from winning the Pennant over the Kansas City Royals in 1976, '77 and '78.

* So who would have benefited the most from the sales, if they had gone through? The Orioles would both have been able to take advantage of the Yanks' and Sox' problems. The Royals did take advantage of the A's' problems. And, if the Yankees or the Red Sox had managed to get past the Orioles, as the Yankees did in '76, '77, '78 and '80 (but not '79, when the California Angels beat the Royals out for the AL West title), the Royals would have faced a more troubled and possibly weaker New York or Boston team.

So, after the '76 season that we know, in which the weakened A's won 87 games, and finished 2nd in the AL West behind the Royals, came the first off-season in which free agency came into play in more than the infrequent example, such as Hunter in '74 and Ken Harrelson in '67 -- both let go by Finley, interestingly enough.

Fingers and Gene Tenace signed with the San Diego Padres, owned by Ray Kroc, the man who built McDonald's. Rudi signed with the team then known as the California Angels, owned by Gene Autry, the movies' former "Singing Cowboy" who had made millions buying and operation radio stations.

Like Steinbrenner and Yawkey, Kroc and Autry had no issue with spending big bucks, if they thought it would bring them big results. They both ended up doing better than Jean Yawkey did after Tom died. But neither did as well as Steinbrenner. A's team captain Sal Bando signed with the Milwaukee Brewers, and Bert Campaneris signed with the Texas Rangers.

In 1977, with only Blue and Bill North left from the '74 World Champs, the A's lost 98 games, and finished dead last, half a game behind the expansion Seattle Mariners.

In '78, having finally dumped off Blue (to the San Francisco Giants) and North (to the Los Angeles Dodgers), it was 93 losses.  In '79, 108 losses -- the most by an AL team since the 1939 St. Louis Browns lost 111. Even the AL expansion teams of 1961, 1969 and 1977 hadn't lost that many. Attendance at the Oakland Coliseum was 306,763. That's not for a weeklong homestand, that's for an entire season, 81 home games. That's 3,787 per game. I've been to a high school basketball game with a better attendance than that. The place became known as the Mausoleum.

In the 1977-78 off-season, fed up with baseball, Finley came very close to selling the A's to Marvin Davis, who wanted to move the team to Denver and Mile High Stadium, but the deal fell through. A year later, he tried to sell them to a group that would have moved them to the Superdome in New Orleans. In 1979-80, again, he tried to sell the team to Davis, but it didn't happen.

Finally, in 1980, having hired Billy Martin as manager, the A's fortunes turned around, and Charlie O found a buyer, Levi Strauss heir Walter Haas, who kept the team in Oakland, saving the team for the East Bay for the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.

UPDATE: In 2024, A's owner John Fisher, unwilling to do what it took to get a new ballpark in or around Oakland, announced he was moving the team to Las Vegas. The new domed stadium there is on schedule to open for the 2028 season. In the interim, they're playing in the Class AAA ballpark in West Sacramento, California.

*

June 18, 1976 was a Friday. Country singer Blake Shelton and FBI actress Alana de la Garza were born.

These games were played in Major League Baseball that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Roy White won the game with a sacrifice fly in the top of the 14th inning. making a winning pitcher of Grant Jackson, in relief of Holtzman. No home runs, but Mickey Rivers went 3-for-7. Bucky Dent, who would be a Yankee 10 months later, went 2-for-5 with an RBI for the South Siders. This was the only extra-inning game of the day.

* The New York Mets beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-2 at Shea Stadium. John Milner and Ed Kranepool hit home runs in support of Tom Seaver.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Montreal Expos, 6-5 at Jarry Park in Montreal.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-5 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Dick Allen and Mike Schmidt hit home runs. George Foster hit 2 homers for the Reds, Pete Rose went 2-for-3 with 2 walks, but Johnny Bench went 0-for-5. Joe Morgan only appeared as a pinch-runner.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Atlanta Braves, 6-4 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Texas Rangers, 9-4 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. The O's got home runs from Reggie Jackson, Lee May and Andres Mora. Brooks Robinson did not play.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Houston Astros, 7-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Willie Stargell hit a home run off J.R. Richard.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. They did this despite George Brett going 0-for-4. Manager Frank Robinson did not put 41-year-old veteran outfielder Frank Robinson in the game.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-2 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Rod Carew went 1-for-4.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Diego Padres, 8-4 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Lou Brock and Dave Winfield hit home runs. Randy Jones, who came in 12-2 and, as Sports Illustrated put it a "Threat to Win 30," was outpitched by future Met Pete Falcone.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the California Angels, 3-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). They didn't need either Rollie Fingers or Joe Rudi, because, in the top of the 9th inning, they got a single from Carl Yastrzemski, an RBI double from Jim Rice, and a single by Rico Petrocelli.

* And the Oakland Athletics? They lost to the Milwaukee Brewers, 3-2 at the Oakland Coliseum. All 3 Brewer runs came on solo home runs: By George Scott, Bernie Carbo and Hank Aaron. It was the 750th round-tripper of Hammerin' Hank's career. There would be 5 more.

June 12, 1981: The Strike of '81 Begins

June 12, 1981: The Major League Baseball Players Association goes on strike. They had done so before, in 1972, leading to the cancellation of, depending on the team, 6 to 9 games. This time, there would be more.

Marvin Miller, Director of the Players' Association since 1966, announced that negotiations with Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and the 26 team owners had failed: "We have accomplished nothing. The strike is on."

The owners, angry that free agency had been ordered at all in 1975, demanded compensation: A player signed as a free agent by a team should mean that the signing team should give a player not on a protected list to the team losing the preceding player. The MLBPA said no, because that would undermine the value of free agency.

Marvin Miller

So the strike was on. A Summer without baseball might have been the worst thing that could have happened to me, age 11. I was more worried during the Strike of '81 that baseball as I knew it would never return than I was during the Strike of '94, which was both longer and nastier.

On July 31, the players and the owners reached a compromise, negotiated in part by Raymond J. Donovan, Secretary of Labor under President Ronald Reagan. Teams that lost a "premium" free agent could be compensated by drawing from a pool of players left unprotected from all of the clubs, rather than just the signing club. The players agreed to restricting free agency to players with 6 or more years of major league service, instead of the previous 5.

It was a minor victory for the owners, and there would be strikes again in 1985 and 1994. But baseball would resume, with the All-Star Game, originally scheduled for Cleveland Municipal Stadium on Tuesday night, July 14, moved to Sunday night, August 9, with the National League winning, 5-4. Regular-season games restarted the next day.

Since every MLB team stopped on June 12, and no other sports were running at the time -- the NBA season ended on May 14, and the NHL season on May 21, and the NFL season didn't start until September 6 -- there were no scores on that historic day.

But there was a major sporting event: Larry Holmes successfully defended the Heavyweight Championship of the World, defeating former Champion Leon Spinks, by a technical knockout in the 3rd round, at a venue named for another former Champion, the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

This was also the day that the film Raiders of the Lost Ark premiered. I have a separate entry for that.

And Brazilian supermodel Adriana Lima was born.

April 1, 1972: Baseball's 1st Strike

Players Association executive director Marvin Miller

and players' representative Joe Torre. Behind them, Andy Messersmith,

who would end up becoming the player who broke the reserve clause.

April 1, 1972: The first Major League Baseball strike begins. It ends on April 13, when the team owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association -- represented, respectively, by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, and Director Marvin Miller -- agreed on a $500,000 increase in pension fund payments, and the addition of salary arbitration to the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The pushback of the start of the regular season resulting in (depending on the team) 6 to 9 games being canceled, and never being rescheduled. This would not matter in the National League, as both Division races were easily won: The East by the Pittsburgh Pirates' "Lumber Company," and the West by the Cincinnati Reds' "Big Red Machine."

But both American League races would be close: The West was won by 5½ games, the Oakland Athletics (A's) over the Chicago White Sox; and the East by the Detroit Tigers by only a half-game over the Boston Red Sox, with the Baltimore Orioles and the Yankees also within 6½. If just one canceled Red Sox game had been rescheduled, and they'd won it... But it wasn't, and Boston fans would have to wait.

*

April 1, 1972 was a Saturday. Hockey star Darren McCarty was born.

Baseball, as said, was on strike. Football was out of season. Only 1 game was played in the NBA: The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Golden State Warriors, 122-94 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

There were 4 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Kentucky Colonels, 122-108 at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. Rick Barry scored 50 points for the Nets, and John Roche scored 31. For the Colonels, Artis Gilmore scored 30, and Dan Issel 28.

* The Virginia Squires beat the Miami Floridians, 125-100 at the Hampton Coliseum, outside Norfolk in Hampton, Virginia.

* The Denver Rockets beat the Indiana Pacers, 106-105 at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

* And the Utah Stars beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 106-96 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.

There were 5 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. These other 4 games could each, at the time, be considered a geographic rivalry, if not remaining an arch-rivalry:

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 6-2 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins play to a tie, 4-4 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the St. Louis Blues, 2-0 at the St. Louis Arena.

* And the Los Angeles Kings beat the California Golden Seals, 9-4 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And in English soccer, Arsenal defeated East Midlands team Nottingham Forest, 3-0 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.