Baseball in the 1960's: January 2021

Monday, January 25, 2021

Aaron vs. Sutton - The Hammer Strikes

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Johnny Phillips of Killen, AL, who correctly identified Chuck Hinton as the player Cleveland got in return for Bob Chance and Woody Held in a trade with Washington. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

NEW TRIVIA CONTEST: IF YOU ANSWER THE TRIVIA QUESTION CORRECTLY YOU WILL BE ENTERED INTO A WEEKLY DRAWING FOR A Starbucks Gift Card. YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN. DON'T FORGET TO PUT YOUR MAILING ADDRESS IN WITH THE ANSWER SO WE CAN SEND YOUR GIFT IF YOU WIN.

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TRIVIA QUESTION: How many times did Hank Aaron lay down a sacrifice bunt in his major league career of 23 seasons?

ANSWER TO TRIVIA QUESTION IN THE PREVIOUS COLUMN: Chuck Hinton was the player in the deal with sent Bob Chance and Woody Held to Washington.

Don Sutton and Hank Aaron, a pair of Hall of Famers and two of the best of all time, both passed away recently. The sadness of the moment brought to mind the time the two first met. And the question of who would win that first contest, or would it be a draw?

It was on a typical April 27th night in Los Angeles when the highly touted rookie Sutton made his fourth start of the year, 1966. He entered the game with a record of 1-2, set for a two game stand with Atlanta. His opponent; the veteran Hank Fischer. Before the night was over one Hank was long gone but the other Hank would leave an indelible memory for Sutton to live with.

For Henry Aaron he would still be years away from challenging Babe Ruth for the all-time home run title. He was coming off a typical Aaron season. His 32 home runs was a little low but his .318 BA was right up there with his best averages. Eight times in his career the Hammer would hit at least 40 homers in a single season, three times he banged 44. He would do it again in 1966.

Sutton would break even in his rookie campaign at 12-12 but with a 2.99 ERA and 209 K's in 225 innings, he would prove he was in the big leagues to stay. This story however is about what would work out to be an even break.

The very first time Aaron came to bat he welcomed Sutton to the big leagues with a double. The next time he got Hamerin' Hank to fly out followed in a third at bat with a strike out. However, leading off the ninth and with Sutton pitching a shutout leading 4-0, Aaron was not going to let this youngster say he kept the Braves down.

Aaron took Sutton deep to left center field for a solo home run, making it 4-1. The blast must have shaken Sutton because two batters later he hit journeyman Lee Thomas. He did settle down and got the final outs to complete a 5-hitter, but no shutout.

Sutton would face just 34 batters in the game and allowed two of those five hits to no. 44. The Hammer was not to be denied and while his teammates may have been over-matched that night, Aaron wasn't. Both men won in their first meeting and both could claim a solid game. In the final analysis the Dodgers would win the pennant followed by losing in a four game sweep to Baltimore. The Braves finished in fifth place, 10 games back but eight games over .500.

Aaron would lead the NL in home runs with the 44 and the big leagues in RBI with 127. It wasn't until four years later that Sutton would be better than a .500 pitcher, but when he did, it was nine years in a row and 14 out of 15 seasons. He would end up with 324 wins in the modern era which was pretty amazing. Aaron did break Ruth's record in 1974 and finished with 755 home runs and an all-time record of 2297 RBI and 6856 Total Bases. A total of 38 times he led the league in a positive category at the plate. Ironically, Sutton would close his career as a broadcaster for the Atlanta Braves.

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Tuesday, January 19, 2021

The Winter Trades Which Backfired

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Mike Bresina of Menomonie, WI., who correctly identified Jay Hook as the pitcher who posted the first ever New York Mets win. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

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TRIVIA QUESTION: In December, 1964 Bob Chance (seen pictured with Tommy John below) was also traded, along with Woody Held to Washington. Who did Cleveland get in return?

ANSWER TO TRIVIA QUESTION IN THE PREVIOUS COLUMN: Jay Hook was the first pitcher to ever be credited with a win in a New York Mets uniform.

The past week or so a number of key players changed hands as teams who feel they are close to the Playoffs and teams trying to rebuild, scurry to get that right player to put them over the top, or lay the foundation for future winners. The Winter Meetings are always a time of excitement for baseball fans hoping their team will make just the right move, putting them in the next World Series. Cue to Covid the Meetings are on quite a different scale, but it doesn't stop us from taking a look back at some of those hopes which did not pan out in the 1960s.

(Jim Bunning leaves Philly for Pittsburgh)
The 1967 Pirates could hit despite the fall off from the Lumber Company of 1966. The club still needed pitching and thought one great pitcher would put them over the top. They set their eyes on one of the all-time greats; Jim Bunning, a future HOFer. The Phillies needed youth, the Bucs needed a Horse and Bunning was coming off another amazing season with a 2.29 ERA and a 17-15 recording while leading the league with 40 starts, 302 innings and 253 strike outs. He also led the league in shutouts with six. The perfect fit.

In return the Pirates send starting pitcher Woody Fryman to the Phils in a multi-player deal which included future all-star second baseman, Don Money. It totally backfired for Pittsburgh, totally was a winner for Philadelphia.

Bunning had the worst year of his career in Pittsburgh in 1968, ending 4-14 with an 3.88 ERA, was traded to the Dodgers the following season and while coming back at 13-10 in 1969, was released. Fryman went onto pitch into the 1980s and won 141 games, Money (a four time all-star) had a 16 year career, batting .261 with 176 homers.

The 1964 Cleveland Indians finished fourth in the AL and needed some power to compete, so they went after a real slugger; Rocky Colavito. In what turned out to be a massive three team trade in January 1965, the Indians got Colavito from Kansas City. They gave up, to the White Sox, future stars Tommie Agee, Tommy John and slugging catcher John Romano.

Colavito did slug 56 homers and drive in 180 runs in the following two seasons but the club only improved to fifth place both years. What the Indians had hoped for, didn't work. Evidently they figured they could finish in the second division with the Rock, they could finish in the second division without him. They shipped him to the White Sox for Jim King. Colavito never regained his form and hit 32 homers the rest of his career which ended at age 33 in 1968 with the Yankees.

Giving up Colavito proved to be a good thing but the return didn't improve the A's by much. The players they got, Mike Hershberger, Jim Landis and Fred Talbot were average players at best during their time in Kansas City.

A third trade involved a couple of minor league players and is the "who would have thunk it?" trade. The White Sox had a super minor leaguer who had been in their system for some time and he ended up in the Angels organization during the year of expansion. Joe Hicks was a pretty good slugger which the new Washington Senators liked. The Angels liked a young pitcher the Sens had signed by the name of Dean Chance. In December of 1960, they swapped the two players.

In two minor league seasons Chance went 22-12 with ERA's at 2.94 and 3.13. What the Angels saw in Chance and what the Senators saw in Hicks, only somebody in the stratosphere would know. Chance went on to become one of the best pitchers of the era. Twice he won 20 games and finished with 128 wins. Hicks came to bat only 455 times in his big league career, batting .221 with 12 homers. He was out of the big leagues by 1964 but continued to play in the minors through 1966. He did however hit 107 minor league homers over 11 seasons.

Monday, January 11, 2021

A Third Major League Brings the NY Mets

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to David Rolfes of Las Vegas, NV, who correctly identified Lou Brock as the base stealing leader of the 1963 Chicago Cubs with 24. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

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TRIVIA QUESTION: Who was the winning pitcher in the New York Mets very first win? Hint; He pitched a five hit, complete game against Pittsburgh.

ANSWER TO TRIVIA QUESTION IN THE PREVIOUS COLUMN: Lou Brock led the 1963 Chicago Cubs with 24 stolen bases.

The name Branch Rickey rings many baseball bells but as seen in the video below, there may be something you never knew about Mr. Rickey, and it was all the brainchild of someone else you may never have heard of; William Shea.

(Branch Rickey, President of the Continental League on "What's My Line")
The Continental League - the third Major League - was scheduled to start play in eight cities beginning in 1961. It was already to go with some heavy duty backers, but then suddenly, it did not. And you can blame William Shea for that. If the name sounds familiar it should. His name was later on Shea Stadium, the home of the New York Mets. In fact, the Mets came into existence because of what he started and stopped with the Continental League.

With the Dodgers and Giants fleeing New York for the sunny confines of California and the Kansas City A's about to do the same several years later, Shea and his friends figured to start their own major league to bring baseball back. Initially the first cities which locked in were
Denver, Houston, Minneapolis–St. Paul, New York City, and Toronto, with Atlanta, Buffalo and Dallas-Ft. Worth added before the first pitch in April, 1961.

Now if those cities seem familiar today, they should. All but one eventually got a Major League franchise, which was the actual goal in the first place; expansion. Only Buffalo remains a city without MLB, but continues to have minor league baseball. Shea's dream would ultimately come to pass.

A shrewd lawyer, each of the owners would pay $50,000 for their franchise and put up another $2.5 million to get the games going. Stadiums would have a minimum seating capacity of 35,000. A far cry from the $2 billion-plus a team might go for today. Owners included Jack Kent Cooke (Toronto) and yes the same JK Cooke who owned the Los Angeles Lakers. They had a big name League President too; Branch Rickey. Rickey of course was the architect of the Brooklyn Dodgers who brought Jackie Robinson to the big leagues and who later GM'd Pittsburgh. Rickey appeared on the popular TV show, "What's My Line" as the head of the Continental League. He stated "it was as inevitable as tomorrow morning."

How did MLB owners react? They didn't like it even though the new league wanted to come in with the permission of MLB Commissioner Ford Frick, who did his best to be non committal. So what did they do? They expanded the NL and AL, and they did it in cities where the new league had teams planned. The first four expansion teams were the Houston Colt 45's, Washington Senators, Los Angeles Angels and yes, the New York Mets. The old Senators had moved on to Minnesota, leaving the nation's capitol without a part of the American pastime.

Oh, and who did they offer the New York Mets franchise to? The owner of the Continental League franchise in New York, Joan Whitney Payson . It effectively killed the Continental League on the spot. On August 2, 1960, the Continental League formally disbanded.

The goal of the Continental League owners was to expand and compete. By the end of the decade they got their wish to fully expand. Washington moved to Dallas-Ft. Worth (another Continental League city), the Montreal Expos came into existence and eventually moved to Washington, Kansas City got the Royals after Charlie Finley took his A's to Oakland, and while Seattle had a team for one year the Pilots moved to Milwaukee (replacing the Braves who moved to Atlanta (another Continental League city) and became the Brewers. Denver would eventually complete the disbanded CL city list except for Buffalo.

For his part William Shea was honored with the new Met's stadium named after him — Shea Stadium. In 2008, the New York Mets retired the name "Shea" on the outfield wall next to the other great Mets Tom Seaver, Mike Piazza, Gil Hodges, Casey Stengel, and Jackie Robinson. Although Robinson was not a Met (a Dodger traded to the Giants but retired before ever playing for them) he was added at the request of Major League Baseball. That wasn't all. Shea was instrumental in both the NFL and the NBA as well as the NHL in handling league mergers and team movement. William Shea died in New York in 1991 at the age of 84.

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