December 11, 1959: The Yankees Trade for Roger Maris

December 11, 1959: The New York Yankees trade right fielder Hank Bauer, pitcher Don Larsen, outfielder Norm Siebern, and 1st baseman Marv Throneberry to the Kansas City Athletics. In exchange, the Yankees get right fielder Roger Maris, infielder Joe DeMaestri and 1st baseman Kent Hadley.

This was one of several trades the Yankees made with the A's from their 1955 arrival in Kansas City until 1960, when team owner Arnold Johnson died and the team was bought by Charles O. Finley, who stopped the original Yankee "shuttle." Anytime the A's got a player the Yankees thought was good, the Yankees would send the A's a veteran player they didn't need anymore, and get the prospect. Some players would go back and forth between the teams, including pitcher Ralph Terry and outfielder Bob Cerv.

It got to the point where people, remembering that the Kansas City Blues had been the Yankees' top farm team before the A's left Philadelphia, said that Kansas City was still a Yankee farm team.

Bauer helped the Yankees win 9 Pennants in 11 years, played 2 more years for the A's, and retired. Siebern became an All-Star for the A's, and then again for the Baltimore Orioles, where Bauer was his manager. (Bauer managed the Orioles to their 1st Pennant and World Series win in 1966, but, by then, Siebern was gone.) Larsen, the man who pitched a perfect game in the 1956 World Series, got to the San Francisco Giants, and helped them win the 1962 National League Pennant, even pitching against the Yankees in the World Series.

Throneberry was the Yankees' top prospect. But he didn't do much in Kansas City, and then not much in Baltimore. Early in the 1962 season, the Orioles traded him to the New York Mets. While the short right field fence at the Polo Grounds allowed him to hit 17 home runs, showing what used to be known as "oafish clout," his fielding at 1st base was legendarily bad, on the same level (if not as a slugger) with that of Dick "Dr. Strangeglove" Stuart.

Hadley played the 1960 season with the Yankees, got sent down to the minors, and then played a few seasons in Japan. DeMaestri was a decent reserve infielder on the early 1960s Pennant winners. But those 5 Pennants, including the 1961 and '62 World Series, wouldn't have been won without Maris.

He became the American League's Most Valuable Player in 1960. He won the MVP again the next year, setting a new single-season home run record, the famous "61 in '61," despite seemingly everybody hoping that he wouldn't break Ruth's record of 60 in 1927, and that teammate Mickey Mantle would. In addition, Maris might have been the best-fielding right fielder in Yankee history. Perhaps no player in Yankee history was treated worse, by fans, by team management, and by the sportswriters. And few deserved it less. He didn't have Hall of Fame career statistics, but he was a Hall of Fame person.

Would Brian Cashman, general manager of the Yankees since 1998, make this trade? Never in a million years. Maris was a lefty, and Throneberry was the crown jewel of the Yankee farm system, having already made a bit of a contribution to their 1958 World Championship season. Who knew his name would become a byword for baseball ineptitude?

*

December 11, 1959 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. No games were scheduled in the NHL.

There were 2 games in the NBA. The New York Knicks beat the Syracuse Nationals, 152-121 at the old Madison Square Garden. Richie Guerin scored 57 points for the Knicks. This would be a team record until Christmas Day 1984, when Bernard King scored 60. That record lasted for 29 years and 1 month, before Carmelo Anthony scored 62 in a 2014 game. (UPDATE: Julius Randle scored 57 in a 2023 game.)

And the Boston Celtics beat the St. Louis Hawks, 122-99 at the Boston Garden.

May 16, 1957: The Yankees' Copacabana Incident

May 16, 1957: The Copacabana Incident occurs, scandalizing the New York Yankees.

The original Copacabana, a Latin-themed nightclub named for a neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was at 10 East 60th Street in Manhattan. It operated as such from 1940 to 1973, when original owned Jules Podell died. In 1976, it reopened, as the Barry Manilow song said, as a disco. That lasted until 1992, when it was moved across town, and reopened under the old Latin theme.

In 1947, a film titled Copacabana was released, starring Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda, who had performed there. It also starred Groucho Marx, in his 1st film without any of his brothers. While the story is set around the famous nightclub, around the time mentioned in Manilow’s song, the story is completely different.

In 1990, the movie Goodfellas used the original location in one of the most famous single-camera scenes in movie history. I really wish somebody had done that with the old Yankee Stadium.

A recent photo of the original location

On May 16, 1957, a group of New York Yankees decided to cheer up 2nd baseman Billy Martin, who was depressed over his recent divorce. Together, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Hank Bauer and Johnny Kucks, and their wives, decided to make it a dual birthday celebration: May 16 was Billy's birthday, and May 12 was Yogi's. They went out dancing, and then went to the Copa to see the great actor-singer Sammy Davis Jr., then at the top of his game.

A group of men at another table started yelling racial slurs at Sammy, who'd heard it all before and bantered back at them, bringing the rest of the crowd to laughter. Instead of taking the hint, the leader (in groups of bastards like that, there's always a leader) kept going, and the racist remarks got worse. And louder.

The Yankees, recently integrated with Elston Howard, were enraged, and Bauer, a Marine veteran of World War II and perhaps the toughest man in baseball at this point, stood up and told the leader to put a sock in it. (I'm presuming he didn't use that exact expression.) The leader challenged Bauer (they were already quite drunk), and the two men went off to the bathroom, presumably with the intention of settling it.

We'll never know what really happened. Every Yankee stuck by his story to the end -- between the players and the wives, Ford turned out to be the last survivor, living until 2020 -- which is that no Yankee hit anybody, and it was Copa bouncers who not only held Bauer back, but worked the leader over. The club's manager found out about it, and hustled the Yankees out the back door, to prevent anyone else from finding out.

It didn't work: A New York Daily News reporter was outside the back door, possibly waiting for Sammy so he could get a quote on the show, and somehow he got enough to give his paper a banner headline: "BAUER IN BRAWL AT COPA." (I couldn't find a picture of that front page. The one shown above might be the next day's.)

General manager George Weiss, who liked to keep a tight lid on stories of the Yankees' carousing -- embarrassing yourself in public was not "the Yankee way" -- was furious, and blamed Martin. And Martin knew Weiss would: Martin was sure the incident would be the excuse that Weiss finally needed to trade him, after manager Casey Stengel had continually stood up for him.

Kucks, since he was a younger guy and a first-time "offender" (I'll say it again: Each of the 6 Yankees insisted that none of them hit anybody), was fined $500. The rest of them, all seasoned veterans (Mickey, the next-youngest, was in his 7th season), were fined $1,000. That's about $10,400 in today's money, so Kucks' fine came to about $5,200.

On June 15, the trading deadline at the time, Martin told Mantle he was going to hide in the bullpen, figuring, if they couldn't find him by Midnight, the trade couldn't happen. It didn't work that way, and Martin was traded to the Kansas City Athletics. Stengel tried to talk Weiss out of it, but couldn't.

He was bitter about it until the end of his life: "The one fight I wasn't involved in, and I got blamed!" Actually, he was traded because, A, he wasn't hitting; B, the Yankees had Bobby Richardson ready to take over at 2nd base; and, C, Martin was a bad influence on Mantle.

Or was he? Martin liked to tell people, "I roomed with Rizzuto, Berra and Mantle, and they each won the MVP. How bad an influence could I have been?" Mantle later joked, "Turned out, it was Whitey who was the bad influence on me."

Today, a club operates under the Copacabana name at 625 West 51st Street. No one involved in the original 1940-73 club, or descendants thereof, is involved in it. A woman resembling Carmen Miranda remains its logo.

*

May 16, 1957 was a Thursday. Two American Olympic Gold Medalists, Bob Suter (ice hockey, 1980) and Joan Benoit (women's marathon, 1984) were born.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* With retroactive irony, the team the Yankees played that night, before going out on the town, was the Kansas City Athletics, the team Billy Martin would end up traded to. The Yankees won, 3-0. Bob Turley pitched a 4-hit shutout. Mantle hit a home run, Bauer had an RBI single, and none of the other players involved at the Copa later on got into the game. (Elston Howard was the Yankees' catcher that night.)

* The New York Giants lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Frank Robinson singled Wally Post home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning. Willie Mays went 1-for-2 with 2 walks and an RBI.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Sandy Koufax, not yet the legend he would become, went the distance, and struck out 13 batters, but also walked 7. Duke Snider hit a home run. Ernie Banks went 1-for-4 with a walk.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 2-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Al Kaline went 0-for-4. Ted Williams went 1-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Al Smith singled Jim Busby home off former Brooklyn Dodger pitcher Billy Loes in the top of the 10th inning, making a winning pitcher of Early Wynn.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Washington Senators, 8-3 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Milwaukee Braves, 2-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Roberto Clemente hit a home run for the Pirates, and Eddie Mathews hit one for the Braves. Hank Aaron went 1-for-4.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-0 at the 1st Busch Stadium (formerly the last Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. Lindy McDaniel pitched a 4-hit shutout, outpitching Harvey Haddix. Stan Musial went 1-for-3 with a walk.