Sightless in the Forest City

Did you know Cleveland's nickname is "The Forest City"? An apt monicker it was for the Tribe in the 1960s and '70s, when management couldn't see the forest for the trees when it came to building a team.

Well, they did build a team: a team with (for a while) great pitching and nothing else. After I wrote those posts about the Cardinals, I couldn't help but feel blue for the boy I was in Cleveland in the 1960s, naively rooting for a team that had no chance of winning the pennant. The Cards were able to grow and groom youngsters as a foundation for a pennant winner (McCarver, Boyer, Javier, Flood, Shannon, Maxvill, Gibson, Carlton, Washburn, Sadecki, Briles, Hoerner, Carlton) while trading astutely for just the right pieces (Brock, White, Cepeda, Maris, Groat) when they needed them. Cleveland could spot good pitchers, but the position players they signed mostly stunk, and their trades became ever more pathetic as they had less and less to offer in trades.

Consider the pitching talent the team had in the 1960s: Jim Perry, Mudcat Grant, Gary Bell, augmented by wiley vets like Cal McLish, Jack Harshman and Dick Donovan initially. Then, as this staff aged, up came Sam McDowell, Luis Tiant, Mike Hargan, Sonny Siebert. Wow! (By the way, the Ron Taylor pictured on the Rookie Card with McDowell was traded in '62 to St. Louis for Fred Whitfield. As a relief ace, he helped both the Cards ('64) and Mets ('69) to pennants. Whitfield helped The Tribe put a lock on fifth place.)

But the Tribe did not use its pitching talent wisely. Since pitching was the team's strength, they needed to trade one or two of them to get some hitting. But the one big guy they traded--Jim Perry--was traded for another pitcher! Perry won 145 games for other teams. The guy they got for him--Jack Kralick--won 20 for The Tribe--over 4 years!

For the decade 1958 to 1968, Cleveland's pitching ranked anywhere from solid to awesome. The Tribe had a Dodgers-type staff. That's a good thing. But then you look at the other side of the coin: the position players of the '60s. Just simply awful. Once the team of Rocky Colavito/Vic Power/Minoso/Piersall/Billy Martin was destroyed through poor trades, the downhill slide was inevitable. Here's a list of "players" I grew up trying to root for in the 1960s:

Jerry Kindall, Larry Brown, Bob "Fat" Chance, Willie Kirkland, Vic Davalillo, Vern Fuller (oy!), Al Luplow (double oy!), Pedro Gonzalez, George Banks, Jack Heideman, Jack Kubiszyn, Richie Scheinblum and Tony Martinez. It makes me weep to see them all together like that. My youth! Undermined by probably the poorest crop of farmhands in the history of the game!

Oh, there were a few decent players in that era, guys like Fred "Wingy" Whitfield, Max Alvis, The Immortal Joe Azcue, Johnny Romano, Chuck Hinton, Chico Salmon and Tito Francona who would have made for a great BENCH if Cleveland had any position players of real value. Leon Wagner was probably the only true above-average player of that period. "Get Your Rags from Daddy Wags" read the sign above his mod fashion store. Had to love him! But the rest? OY!!!!!!!!

This is why I don't spend much time analyzing Cleveland's personnel decisions. It's simple: good pitching, rarely traded for anyone of value; lousy position players who couldn't be traded for anyone of value; and a bad farm system that rarely produced anyone of value. There just wasn't much talent outside of the pitchers for management to misjudge in those days. Colavito-for-Kuenn shot a fatal hole in the underside of an already aging ship, and the poor players produced by the farm system finally sank the ship. Not until 1987 was there even the glimmer of hope for us Tribe fans, and then that's about all it was--a glimmer.

Thome not a HOF shoo-in? gimme a break!

Jack Curry, a New York Times Sports writer, clearly wants attention. As Jim Thome soared past more home run kings this year (513 as of 4/27), Curry decided to become Mr. Controversial by penning a piece suggesting that Thome is not a clear choice for the Hall.

That is bullshit, Jack.

But his piece gives me a chance to say one thing about Thome that has always amazed me. When the guy puts the bat on the ball, he hits over .570. That's correct. If you add up his walks and strikeouts over his career, and subtract those from his ABs, and then calculate his BA, it's amazing. Right up there with the guy who I think Thome is truly similar to, Ted Williams. You see, Thome, like The Splinter, is extremely picky at the plate. As a Tribe fan, I saw him take many a called strike. I truly believe his batting eye is just about as good as Teddy's, but that Teddy actually had the umps convinced that his version of the strike zone was better than theirs. So Ted would get the ball call, Thome gets a called strike.

Nonetheless, when you have a large, slow slugger, it is far better to have him walking a lot and striking out a lot than hitting into double plays. Only one year did Thome even appear on a leader board for GIDP. Compare this to Killebrew, who was on it five times and led the league one year; Ernie Banks (6 times on the GIDP leader board); and Jim Rice (led league 4X, on the board 11 times). (Even Ted Williams was on the GIDP leader board twice.)

I love Thome for many reasons, but I have always found his unique ability to get a clean hit more than half the time when he hits the ball into play uncanny. Here's some more support for his claim to a spot in the Hall: he'[s #44 career in Runs Created; #18 in walks; #16 in slugging; #17 in OPS; #4 in home runs per AB. Why wait, just vote him in now!

Why Gussie Busch Gave Roger Maris a beer distributorship in Florida

Fun Fact: did you know that Roger Maris and Bob Dylan have the same hometown, Hibbing, Minn.? Home runs and harmonicas are Hibbing's trademark.

Collapse was the theme of the Cardinal's 1964 pennant chase. Internally, the management team was melting down. Anger and in-fighting over the controversial reports from consultant Branch Rickey had all the bosses at each other's throats. Rickey even went so far as to declare the Cards out of the race early in '64, and when the team "struggled" in late summer, Gussie Busch fired the man who built the juggernaut, Bing Devine. An outraged field boss, Johnny Keane, threatened to quit.

And then it happened: The Phillies collapsed. Despite the management chaos surrounding them, the Cards' players just kept putting one run in front of another, and snatched the pennant at the end of a bitter five-team fight. After knocking off the Yankees in the WS, Keane followed through on his threat to quit. To underscore his loathing for Busch, he took the managerial job in New York. Now, Busch had to find a g.m. and a manager.

He found two good ones: Bob Howsam replaced Devine, and Red Schoendienst came on as field boss. Together, they would finish the work Devine and Keane had begun, and build a true pennant winner. It took a couple of bad seasons to reveal the hidden holes in the Cards' lineup. The pitching basically collapsed in 1965, Boyer lost another two steps, as did Groat. But young-uns like Maxvill, Briles, Joe Hoerner and Carlton were ready to step in. And ol' Red finally let 'em.

Meantime, Howsam was wheeling and dealing. In a monumentally bad trade, he shipped Bill White and Groat to Philly after the '65 season for basically nothing. But it did clear the way for a new crowd to take over, and of course Mauch couldn't find a way to utilize the remaining good years that White and Groat enjoyed at Philly, so there was no fallout. Howsam sent the aging Boyer to the Mets for Charlie Smith, a third sacker, and lefty Al Jackson. The brilliance of this trade would only be revealed prior to the 1967 season, when Howsam would put the finishing touches on the pennant club by swapping Smith to the Yankees for the disgruntled Roger Maris. More on this later...

Then in May of '66, Howsam swapped Ray Sadecki, on the downside of his career as a starter, to the Giants for Cepeda. (Why did the Giants keep sending great first basemen to St. Louis?) All the pieces were falling into place. Briles, Hoerner and Carlton were about to join Gibson and a resurgent Ray Washburn on the pitching staff. Javier and Maxvill were solid in in the middle of the infield. Flood and Brock formed two-thirds of a great outfield. But that third OF spot was held by Mike Shannon, who couldn't quite cut it. And third base remained a puzzle. That's when Howsam pulled off the Maris-for-Smith trade. Maris had always been a terrific fielder and smooth hitter. St. Louis was perfect for him. He'd never have to play in Yankee stadium again, and he didn't have to be the big star of the team. His acquisition allowed ol' Red to move Shannon to 3B, a much better fit for him, and the team was set.

The trade, made in December of 1966, was Howsam's last hurrah. He resigned six weeks later, but the table was lavishly set. The 1967 and 1968 pennant races weren't even close. The Cards won by 10 games in '67 and by 9 in '68, each time pursued at a distance by an increasingly shaky Giants squad. Bing Devine was lured back as g.m. just in time to enjoy the 1968 campaign; he would remain at the helm for another decade. When Maris retired at the end of the 1968 WS (which saw the Cards blow a 3-1 edge to the Tigers), Gussie Busch was so grateful he bestowed a Busch beer distributorship on Maris. The reigning single season home run king probably made more money from Gussie's beer than he ever made hitting baseballs.

St. Louis was so much better than anyone else at the time that many scribes foresaw a Yankees-type dominance ahead for the Cards. Although the team, reinvigorated by such trades as Cepeda-for-Joe Torre in 1969, finished second three times in the next six years, St. L fans would have to wait for The White Rat to come to town in 1981 to celebrate another pennant. But that's another tale. The point is, Devine and Howsam recognized young talent, were patient with it, and were not patient with aging stars. They made astute trades for the most part, but they avoided trading away young talent. Their field bosses didn't panic and were also patient with the kids. And the big boss, Gussie Busch, liked winning. When you have a Steinbrenner or a Busch screaming for a pennant, it just sort of gives you that extra incentive to get up a little earlier and stay a little later at the office to put that winning team together.

Nothing beats a bunch of career years

When it comes to evaluating talent, some of it has to do with luck. But in baseball, I'm beginning to believe that certain organizations are better at judging young players than others. The Cardinals in the 1950s and 1960s were one of those organizations. As the pennant year of 1964 approached, with '67 and '68 not far off, the Cards had three outstanding young pitchers in their system--Bob Gibson, Nelson Briles and Steve Carlton--who they did not let get away. They also seemed to see something in Lou Brock that the Cubs talent scouts didn't see. They saw a role for Mike Shannon that others might not have seen. They groomed Dal Maxvill for short and told him not to worry about the hitting, the big guys would handle it. And this knack for picking the right young prospects made all the difference to the Cards in the 1960s.

Signed out of Creighton College, Gibson joined the big squad at age 23. He hung around for a few years. In Koufax-like tradition, he didn't start to hit his stride till he was 26 (1962). The Cardinals were patient with him. And oh did it pay off.

I said something about the 1964 flag being a bit of a fluke, compared to the next two pennants. That's because the Cards' lineup and rotation was lousy with guys having career years. Brock, obtained early in the season from the Cubs for Ernie Broglio, had something to prove. (Poor Ernie just had a sore arm. did the Cards know? No one's talking.) He hit .348. Boyer, in one last attempt to recapture his youth, led the league in RBIs. White hit .303. Flood hit .311. McCarver hit .288. Simmons, Sadecki, and aging reliever Barney Schultz had career years, and Gibson went 19-12, k-ing 245 in 287 innings.

It was an extremely close race, with the top five teams separated by just five games. This was the year of the Phillies infamous collapse, the 10 losses in a row that would haunt Gene Mauch to the end of his days. As the Phils self-destructed, the Cards were hitting on all cylinders, Schultz and bullpen buddy Ron Taylor slamming the door in the late innings. Meanwhile, the off seasons by a few rival stars (Ed Mathews, Felipe Alou, Frank Howard, Junior Gilliam, McCovey, Joey Jay,most of the Giants pitching staff) gave the Cards just enough room to sneak in and take the flag. In a wild and closely matched World Series, Gibson brought the world championship home to St. L with his second series win in the 7th game.

Yet the team was not yet at its peak. Boyer was aging quickly. Groat, who had a fine season, was nearing the end of the line too. The pitching staff was just a bit too old. Meantime, the entire franchise, which should have been celebrating its first championship in nearly 20 years, was in disarray. The brilliant Bing Devine didn't even make it to the end of the season, with manager Johnny Keane hanging on by a thread. But of this we will speak no more until tomorrow.

Talkin Baseball, Talkin Cards

OK, I am ready to talk about the Cardinals. Got the turntable cranked up with
Fever Tree's "Another time, another place" (cir. 1968), great psychedelic stuff. Glass of cheap Spanish red at my left.

First, let me mention sources. When I do these posts, I use some or all of the following:
Baseball Digest (I have every issue from 1959-1995)
The MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia (ninth edition)
The Bill James Abstracts
My own personal baseball scrapbooks from the 1950s and 1960s
Various sports magazines from the 1960s
baseball-reference.com
Baseball trading cards (1956-1973)(I don't care about the later cards)

All these sources have unique information to impart, different perspectives and statistics. You could look em up.

Back to the St. Louis Cardinals. What fascinates me about this franchise is its phoenix-like quality, its ability to rise from the ashes of defeat to the top of the heap time after time. In this decade, under Tony LaRussa, the Cards have put it all together, defying and debunking the "small market" theory. Gotta love 'em!

But back in the 1950s, things looked bleak for the Cards. They'd fattened up in the WWII period; Musial didn't get the call from Uncle Sam till '45,which helped immensely. After the 1946 season, the Cards entered what was for them a prolonged pennant drought. The club had good position players like Enos Slaughter, Musial and Red Schoendienst. But the pitching just didn't jell. Certainly not sufficiently for the Cards to catch the Dodgers and Giants and Braves.

The Busch family does not like not winning. There's a difference between doing well and not winning and winning. If you like doing well and don't care about winning...then stay away from competitive sports. (The Texas Rangers should just go away and stop bothering everyone.) You don't belong.

Augie Busch liked winning.

First he tried with the man whose heart I would have loved to have ripped out through his anus: Frank "Trader" Lane. He took over as G.M. in the mid-'50s, but guess what? Busch could see he was an idiot! And he replaced him with home-grown Bing Devine, a man who would leave an indelible impression on this franchise for decades to come.

Devine looked down upon his Cardinals and was displeased. The team, by sheer luck, had finished 2nd in '57, Lane's last year. Under Devine, the Cards went 5-7-3-5-6. But he was not standing pat. Neither the infield nor the outfield quite worked. The pitching staff was still a muddle. Devine went to work. He acquired Bill White, then 26, for an aging but still effective Sad Sam Jones for the 1959 season. He installed Curt Flood in center, and moved Julian Javier to second base fulltime in 1960. Meantime, Ernie Broglio was helping to set the stage for Devine's most brilliant (and luckiest) trade by winning 21 games in 1960.

But still the team sputtered. One suspects that Devine, by 1962, was disturbed by the aging of Cards' stars like Musial, Schoendienst, Simmons, Boyer and Larry Jackson. Especially Musial. So Devine turned to Branch Rickey for advice.
Rickey, the old Mahatma, immediately ruffled every feather in sight. He recommended a complete overhaul of the team, including a demand that Stan the Man retire after the 1962 season. Although many of his suggestions were ludicrous (he wanted to replace Javier with someone named Ed Pacheco), he also advocated the immediate calling up of youngsters Nelson Briles and Steve Carlton. Now that was brilliant. But Devine didn't bite. (They both joined the squad in 1965, following the tumultuous departure of Devine and Johnny Keane.) Rickey was basically run out of town for this radical call to action. But Devine realized Rickey was right about the team needing a shake-up.

And tomorrow, we'll talk about that shake-up, and why the 1964 team was a bit of an illusion as pennant winners go.

Untouchables: What's the cost of keeping them?

I'm not quite ready to dump what I've learned about the Cardinals and their ability to win pennants despite their small market status. But having just looked at the Cubs, it strikes me that Untouchables, as much as fans love them, can hold a good team back. The Cards won a couple of pennants with a very young Musial in the lineup in the 1940s. Then the team struggled until Stan the Man retired in 1963. Ted Williams played in just one World Series--the 1946 Series, which was Musial's last. The Cubs never won with Banks, Santo and Williams on the Untouchables list. The Tigers went to the WS just once (1968) during Kaline's career (they did win their division in '72 just before Kaline retired).

Mantle and Ford were in that category, but with a difference: Casey Stengel constantly berated Mantle, something people tend to forget today, which kept Mickey hungry for Casey's approval. He never achieved "star status" till after Casey was gone and he had become an aging and hobbled legend. And Whitey never had the star quality about him. Surrounded by so much talent, it was only later in his career that people began to notice how awesome he truly was.

Coming up: The Cards and (Oakland) A's: How small market teams remain competitive

If you followed the last few posts on this ridiculously nerdy site, you know I've been analyzing why the Braves and Cubs failed to make optimal use of the talent they had during the 1960s and early '70s. Now it's time to look at two franchises that understood and ruthlessly exploited talent--much to the delight of their fans, which is what it's all about at the end of the day.

First I'll dissect, in that way that I have, the Cardinals. This is probably my favorite baseball franchise, given that this relatively small-market team is consistently a winner. Then we'll have some fun with the A's, another lovable bunch. I'm knee-deep in the research now, but stay tuned: I will disgorge the truth about the Cards and A's soon!

Brock for Broglio revisited

Over the years, the Chicago Cubs have been roundly criticized for their 1964 trade of future HOF outfielder Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio. In fact, the trade has gone down as one of the worst trades in baseball history. And of course Cubs fans, who feel sorry for themselves when they go to bed at night, feel sorry for themselves when they rise in the morning, feel sorry for themselves when they drink beer at the neighborhood tavern, feel sorry for themselves in the shower (deservedly so) and feel sorry for themselves during Mass when they should be feeling sorry for the guy on the cross--Cubs fans moan and weep about that franchise-shattering trade.

You'd almost think it was as bad as Colavito for Kuenn. I always feel sorry for myself when I think of that trade. But in fact, the trade was 100% rational at the time (unlike Kuenn for Colavito), and I would argue that it was not a franchise breaker at all.

This from a guy who has long considered Brock-for-Broglio one of the worst trades ever. But I have been forced to reconsider my position.

The trade did turn the St. Louis Cardinals into a juggernaut. Brock was exactly what St. Louis needed. They didn't need pitching, jeeeee-zus did they have pitching in the '60s. Gibson, Simmons and Sadecki were all having killer years in 1964 when the Cards slipped Broglio to the Cubs. The Cards also had excellent relief pitching during this period from the likes of McDaniel (through '62, then traded to the Cubs) and Hoerner. Once the Cubs dealt McDaniel in '65 for Bill Hands and Randy Hundley, they weren't able to find a suitable replacement, another factor in the failure to grab a flag in those days.

(Note: The McDaniel trade thread is a fascinating one, which I'll pursue when I review the Cardinals' successful post-Musial rebuilding strategy. Suffice to say the Cards made it work to their advantage after apparently being one-upped by the Cubs.)

When they traded Broglio, the Cards assumed they were making an up-and-up deal. He'd gotten off to a bad start, but who knew it was the beginning of the end? They perhaps suspected they were giving the Cubs the missing piece to their pennant puzzle, but were willing to bet the Cubs wouldn't pull it off.

The Cards must have figured with Brock's speed on the bases and in the outfield, he would create, with Curt Flood, one of the fastest outfield combos ever to play the game. They could not have dreamed he would become one of the game's finest hitters. That was the bonus that neither team counted on. Least of all the Cubs, who had decided Brock was a mediocre hitter.

The Cubs, too, had pitching that year. Larry Jackson, Dick Ellsworth and Bob Buhl were wind-em-up-and-send-em-out hurlers, just like Gibson, Simmons and Sadecki. But while the Cards gambled that they could get by with a Big 3 plus relief pitchers, the Cubs were going for Four of a Kind. Had Broglio returned to his 1963 form of 18 wins, they would have been in the thick of the race. The Cards took it with 93 wins; with 18 wins from Broglio instead of 4, the Cubs have a 90+ season.

Didn't work out that way. But you just can't blame the Brock/Bloglio swap for the Cubs' failure to win a pennant. The team's problems went deeper than that.

During the period of Glenn Beckert's career with the Cubs (1965-73), when the Tribe was finishing 5th and 6th and never higher than 3rd place, the Cubs were in it practically every year. Once Durocher took over, they were 3-3-2-2-3-2 from '67-72. They had five Untouchables in the field: Banks, Williams, Beckert, Kessinger and Santo. (For some reason Gentleman Jim Hickman was a mainstay on that team from '68-'73.) All these excellent ballplayers had lifetime job security with the Cubs, a luxury in those days. A great infield, yes--but a sketchy outfield, with Williams surrounded by a shifting cast of ... well, not Lou Brocks. And no relief pitching for most of that period. The catching was pretty decent. Once Hundley took over in '66, he gave them stability there (except for two disastrous years when he was injured and the lack of depth at catcher became painfully clear.) Again, the Cubs' inability to identify a solid #2 catcher during the 1965-73 period was another sign of the organization's poor talent sense. This team had a serious lack of depth behind the Untouchables.

The Cubs could have dealt one of their marquee players (Banks, Williams or Santo), who doubtless would have netted a couple of fine pitchers. They refused to do so. The team's failure to produce one more outstanding outfielder and one or two more top pitchers did more to hold them back than Brock/Broglio. Oh, they came up with some fine pitchers during that period: Jenkins, Hands, Reuschel, Niekro, Nye, Holtzman--but they either gave up on them too soon or they suffered career-ending injuries.

But by 1968, Brock/Broglio was not a major factor. Yes, they could have used Brock in the outfield, no shit! But that '68 team was stoked. Great starting pitching, Phil "The Vulture" Reagan snagging 25 saves out of the pen. Hundley behind the plate. Excellent hitting off the bench, career years at the plate by Billy Williams and Beckert. What killed their chances in '68 were the off seasons by those Chicago icons, Banks and Santo. Don't blame Brock/Broglio.

Sorry, but the truth must be told. The Cubs hung on to Ernie and Ronnie too long. St. Louis loved Ken Boyer. But when he had an off year at age 34, it was bye-bye Kenny. (They got Al Jackson, who had 2 good seasons for the Cards, and Charley Smith, who was traded the next year for Roger Maris, who helped bring 2 pennants to St. Louis before he retired. Boyer was done in two years. Another great Cards' trading thread.) You couldn't trade Stan the Man inSt. Louis. But by god anyone else was fair game to Augie Busch. He wanted to win pennants.

The Cubs, meanwhile, would stick with Banks till the bitter end, till he could barely field, barely run, and had lost a lot of his batting pop. By 1971, Banks was through, but he'd been in decline much earlier. He finally retired, having failed to muscle the Cubs to a pennant despite 512 home runs and a sure ticket to the HOF. Santo, Williams, Beckert and Kessinger were never to taste the World Series bubbly either.

The Cubs at last traded Santo to the White Sox in '73 for Steve Stone. Santo had one dismal year for the Pale Hose and retired to the broadcast booth. (Maybe the move across town was too much for him.) Stone had one good year and one bad one for the Cubs, who granted him free agency-just before he had four outstanding years as the starter the Cubs had so desperately needed.

Go ahead, Cubs fans, feel sorry for yourselves about that one.

I have a hard time as a Cleveland fan feeling sorry for Cubs fans of the 1960s and 1970s. At least they were in the thick of it many times. They had bankable stars who played most of their careers with the team. The Cubs' farm system, and its bosses, simply failed to identify the elusive replacement for Brock in the outfield. Nor could they identify the two or three pitchers they actually developed who would complement Ferguson Jenkins, Hands and Holtzman in the starting rotation and out of the pen.

Had they hung on to some combination of starters Joe Niekro, Jim Colburn, Fred Norman, Larry Gura and Bill Stoneman, and reliever Lindy McDaniel (traded for Hundley and Hands in '65), who knows what might have been? In the 1960-1975 era, they were oh so close to becoming a dominant team. You can't just blame Brock/Broglio. The Cubs blew the player personnel decisions far too often.

The Dodgers and Cardinals, meanwhile, enjoyed the fruits of a more productive farm system, and they made some trades that were either sagacious or lucky. Looking at the three clubs objectively, you can only conclude that St. Louis and the Dodgers did a better job of identifying and developing talent than the Cubs. A sentimental team at heart, the Cubs could not bring themselves to part with the position players other teams truly coveted in their prime: Williams, Banks and Santo. If anything, Brock-for-Broglio made the Cubs more cautious when it came to trading valuable players. And cautious teams do not win the World Series.

In case you missed it ...

For the three newcomers to this site since it was launched earlier this year, here's the post explaining why I felt the need to create this nerdy baseball blog:

The summer of 1959 marked the beginning of my life. The Cleveland Indians' desperate battle for the pennant, led by the charismatic Rocky Colavito and the enigmatic Tito Francona, shook me awake. At the age of 9, I experienced euphoria and torment, discovering, through a mere game, the full range of human emotions.

Of course, 1959 marked the beginning of, not quite a death, but a long decline for our beloved Tribe. The Indians' failure to win the pennant in the final days of the season sent egomaniac general manager Frank "Trader" Lane on a quixotic trading spree designed to push Cleveland over the top in 1960. The Colavito-for-Kuenn trade may have been the worst in Tribe history. But other deals, like shipping budding star Gordy Coleman to Cincy for aging tippler Johnny Temple, were also disasters. (Coleman's 26 HRs in '61 helped propel Cincy to first place in the N.L.)

But I was hooked. Baseball had brought me to life, just as directly as Dr. Frankenstein's machine jump-started his monster. Before that summer, my memories are mostly vague ones. But I can still recall vivid details of that summer, that pennant race, and the men who fought so hard but fell short in the end. Pitcher Jack Harshman, an aging Baltimore cast-off, winning a key game late in the season with timely hitting as well as gutsy pitching. All of it brought to me by the voices of Jimmy Dudley and Bob Neal, pouring the flow of the game into my ear, pressed against my transistor radio. "Colavito swings, and there it goes! That ball is going, going--it's gone, for a home run!" Dudley's signature home run call, sweet music to my ears.

So, while my date of birth says I am 58 years old, my conscious life age is 49. Many times I have tried to break baseball's grip on my life. Impossible. I remember my grandmother Dowding, in her nineties, leaning into the radio,listening to the Tribe, praying to her god for one more pennant. She died at 99 without one. (Pennant, not a god.) With any luck (I don't have a god except baseball), I will only have to wait until October to see another Tribe pennant fluttering in the breeze.

Or will I? This is The Tribe, after all. I'm sure Trader Lane's ghost is haunting us still--and giggling hysterically at our misery.

Hope out of tragedy & all that crap

Came across a fascinating story today about the 14-year-old daughter of the late Padres infielder Alan Wiggins. He had serious substance abuse problems that eventually cut short first his career and then his life. But his widow and children are doing well, particularly his youngest daughter. I was a fan of Wiggins' when he played; Bill James was among those who felt his bosses looked the other way at the drug use as long as he was doing well, and then cut him lose without any help once his game slipped.

I'm not much into redemption, but in this case, the kid could fulfill the old man's promise, which would be cool.

You'll find the story at this URL: http://www.frontpagenews.us/2008/04/hoopgurlz_14.html.

Card Availability

Note to readers: Please let me know via email if you are interested in purchasing any of the cards you see on this site. We may or may not decide to sell them. The email address is:
notfedup@hotmail.com
Thanks!
Frank "Trader" Lane

The Braves: Turner crafts a turner-around

I was just reading an article in a 1967 issue of Baseball Digest. It listed what the author considered to be the worst baseball trades of all time. Typical of most fan analyses of trades, this simply looked at the who-for-who and what happened that year. As a result, several monumentally bad trades involving The Tribe and The Braves (Colavito for Kuenn and Pizarro/Jay for McMillan) were overlooked. Why? Because Colavito/Kuenn appeared to be even steven on the surface. Never mind that it wrecked the franchise for years and was just one of many poor deals cut by Frank "Trader" Lane. Same with Pizarro+Jay=McMillan. Not horrible that year on the surface, but over time, a killer, and just one of many ill-advised moves by the Braves bosses.

And there was this: Because the Braves had been so anonymous for so long, no one really paid them much attention. In their Boston years, they were so far eclipsed by the Red Sox that they were virtually invisible. A move to Milwaukee, then a minor league town somewhere in the Upper Midwest, didn't help. The move to Atlanta was similar, in that the Braves were the first franchise to go deep South, not on the sports writer/fan radar.

Then, in 1976, Ted Turner bought them.

Now, if you recall, Turner only bought them because he'd purchased a TV network and had no content. The Braves desperately needed the money. Deal made in heaven. Soon, anyone who cared to watch a completely pathetic baseball team could do so any day of the week. Since the Braves did play good teams from time to time, they began to get some recognition over the years.

Not that there was much to recognize. The pre-Turner bosses had continued to make astoundingly poor trades, including the afore-mentioned 68 trade of Joe Torre for The Baby Bull, and the even worse trade of Felix Millan after the 72 season for Gary Gentry and Danny Frisella.

Fun fact time: You thought Felix was a funny name, right? Felix the Cat. Felix from The Odd Couple. Well, 17 major league ballplayers have had Felix as a first or last name. (You could look it up.) But the Braves, in their mishandling of their two Felixes (Feli?) (Millan and Mantilla), lead the league in misjudging athletes named Felix.

By the time Turner took over, this was a last-place team that deserved to be last. The Braves 1977 rosters has to be one of the poorest ever assembled. The pitching staff was so bad that 38-year-old Phil Niekro had to pitch 330 innings, finishing with a 16-20 W-L record and an ERA over 4.00. No regular hit over .300 and the only player to lead the league in anything was Niekro--in IP and losses.

As Turner exploited the team for various promotions and gimmicks, it floundered. There was one bright moment, when, in 1982, Joe Torre returned--as manager. Why he would want to help out the Braves is still a mystery. I guess it was as good a place to start over as any. (He'd just been dumped by the Mets.) In any case, he lashed it into a division crown. Torre's leadership provided a brief relief from incompetence; the team finished second in 83 and 84. But then Torre left, and mediocrity returned (under managers Chuck Tanner and Russ Nixon) until ...

Bobby Cox returned. Cox, a marginal major leaguer himself, had cut his big league managing teeth with the horrible Braves teams of 1978-81. Cox moved on to the Blue Jays, where he took over a struggling squad and, in two years, completely turned it around. After guiding the Jays to a pennant in 1985, the Braves lured him back. It only took Cox one season to whip the Braves into shape. And the rest has been history.

Ironically, the Braves and Indians would meet in the 1995 World Series, two franchises that, after 30-plus years of frustration, rose to prove that good management can recognize and retain top talent, regardless of the market size or the franchise's history. Today, Cleveland and Atlanta are the envy of many a franchise, as they carefully husband their talent to stay competitive year after year. Too bad the fans of Milwaukee couldn't have been part of this turnaround. There's no reason they couldn't have enjoyed it. Except that the Braves' bosses, from 1960 to 1990, were stupid, unlucky, and probably prejudiced--at least against Hispanic guys named Felix.

The Horror! The Horror! Braves episode 3

We're discussing how disastrous player personnel decisions by the Boston/ Milwaukee/ Atlanta Braves beginning in 1960 sent the team into a 30-year tailspin, eerily similar to that suffered by the Cleveland Indians at the very same time.

You'll have to read the last couple of posts for the details, but essentially, here's what happened: The Braves freaked out after the team finished second in 1959 and 1960. They made stupid, panic-driven trades that robbed the team of top-quality veterans and about-to-blossom young players. They made poor decisions about playing time for key players, especially Joe Adcock and Felix Mantilla. The farm system, which had been doing well for a decade, stopped, for the most part, producing talent to replace what was traded away. The players obtained in the trades for the most part were flops.

Following a series of fifth and sixth place finishes, the Braves moved the team to Atlanta, which had been their top minor league town. Poor Milwaukee attendance was cited as the reason, of course. But had the team stuck with the talent the gods of baseball had bestowed up it in the late 50s, the Braves certainly would have finished first and second at least twice in those four fateful years. (See yesterday's post for details.)

At first, it appeared the Braves had suddenly gotten smart. They obtained Felipe Alou, in the prime of his career, for virtually nothing from the Giants in 1964. The same year, the farm system actually popped out a rare star: Rico Carty. Young pitchers who were counted on to replace Joey Jay, Bob Buhl and Juan Pizarro, showed promise. (George Stone, Pat Jarvis and Ron Reed.) Lemaster and Cloninger were looking like studs on the mound. As the team relocated to Atlanta in 1966, things seemed to be looking up.

Note: They weren't.

After several seasons of disappointment, the Braves finally got a break. Divisional play began in 1969. Now there weren't so many teams to beat. The Atlanta fans must have thought they had really pulled a fast one on Beertown, as the Braves eaked out a first-place West division finish in '69.

It was a fluke. Oh yeah.

The entire staff of starting pitchers had career years. In some cases, it would be those hurlers' last decent year in the majors. Led by Phil Niekro's 23 wins, the Braves's four primary starters won 67 games among them. And they did it without a great bullpen. Meantime, the oft-injured Rico Carty hit .342. Felix Millan led the second sackers in fielding and hit well. Retreads Tony Gonzalez and Clete Boyer cobbled together solid seasons, while Tito Francona and Mike Lum came off the bench to provide late-inning heroics.

But the divisional playoffs offered a clearer insight into the Braves' future. The Mets clobbered them, scoring 27 runs in sweeping the five-game playoff 3-0. The Braves hit .255 compared to the Mets' .327, while Braves hurlers recorded an ERA of just under 7.

Ouch!

The very next year, the pitching staff imploded. The questionable 1969 trade of in-his-prime slugging catcher Joe Torre for fading star Orlando Cepeda began to stink to high heaven, as the Braves failed to identify a decent backstop. Boyer and Gonzalez declined as age took its toll. How desperate were the Braves? Desperate enough to pick up 47-year-old Hoyt Wilhelm to try to shore up the bullpen.

Joe Torre, by the way, hit ,325 with 21 HRs and 100 RBIs for St. Louis. He would rack up 8 solid years for the Cards and Mets before deciding to become one of the greatest managers in the history of the game. Cepeda did well in 1970 but fell off the face of the earth in 71 and was traded to Oakland for--are you ready?--DENNY MCLAIN!@!$# in 1972.

Fun facts for you Atlanta fans who are too young to remember the horror.

Tomorrow: the Braves wander in the desert for 20 years until a flambouyant billionaire who got to schtup Jane Fonda rescues them, and his own reputation into the bargain.

The Braves Were Stupid, Episode 2 (all new!)

I just got back from setting up a digital recording studio in Tom's basement. Who says two guys who are over 100 years old together can't figure this stuff out? (We pushed enough buttons until it worked, then grilled steaks to celebrate.) Listening to Kaleidoscope, courtesy of my bro Chris. Thanks, Bro. Yashigmadah indeed!

OK, back to our analysis of the collapse of the Braves. In yesterday's exciting episode, we had a bit of history lesson in the Boston/ Milwaukee/ Atlanta Braves. (For first-person insight into this era, see "My 15 Years with the Braves" by Ed Mathews in the August 1966 edition of Sport Magazine.) We left you hanging on the edge of the cliff: The Braves had won two pennants (57-58) and narrowly missed a 4-peat, finishing second in 59-60. And then ...

Just like The Tribe panicked when the team fell short in 1959, trading Colavito and destroying the team, the Braves freaked out after the 1960 season. Management embarked on a series of desperate trades designed to put them back on top. Instead, save for a completely inexplicable division title in 1969, the Braves would suffer through three decades of incompetence. The town of Milwaukee would be stripped of its beloved team, and an entire generation of fine players would never be permitted to sip of the championship Champagne.

Here are the key elements to the collapse:
1) 1960, Braves traded Juan Pizarro (one of two Hispanics on the club) and Joey Jay for Roy McMillan. Since those who executed the trades are dead, we can only surmise that they were convinced a good fielding, poor hitting,aging shortstop would put the Braves back in the thick of things. Joey Jay enjoyed TWO 21-win seasons with Cincinnati, leading them to the Series in 1961. He would win 75 games post-Braves before he retires. Juan Pizarro would play for 14 MORE seasons in the majors as a starter and reliever, winning more than 100 games. McMillan had 2-plus mediocre seasons and was soon out of the game. The Braves had an excellent shortstop on the team at the time--Felix Mantilla--but refused to start him and let him go the Mets in the '62 draft. Mantilla would have four outstanding seasons as the Braves entered their nosedive. Hispanic prejudice? Maybe. How else do you explain it? (I always loved his 1960 baseball card and still own it.)
2) 1960: Billy Bruton and Terry Fox are traded for Tigers second sacker Frank Bolling. Bruton has four more excellent years with the Tigers. Fox becomes the premier relief pitcher in the majors over the next 5 years as the Braves search for relief help. Bolling does OK, but again, Felix Mantilla could also play second. Why give up four outstanding regulars for two middling infielders, when you had a young stud infielder right on the roster? At least one of these trades was superfluous. STUPID!

(it gets worse)

3) As the Braves slump further, more trades follow. The team's one solid relief ace, Don McMahon, is sold. He enjoys 12 more years of slamming the door in close games. Meantime, Joe Adcock, so sorely abused as a platoon hitter by the Braves, is traded to Cleveland for--are you ready?--TY CLINE, DON DILLARD AND FRANK FUNK! Adcock will hit more than 60 homers in the next four years. Funk is gone from the game in one year, and Cline and Dillard shine the regulars shoes for a couple of years before opening a dry goods store in Crampton, AK. Gene Oliver plays first base for the Braves. Need we say more?

(seat belt time for Braves fans)

4) in 1961, the unforgivable happens: The Braves WAIVE Wes Covington! One of the finest left-handed hitting sluggers of his day or any day, The Cov was a hitting machine along the lines of Jerry Lynch, Claudell Washington and Ellis Valentine. And the Braves get NOTHING for him. Covington will rack up a slugging percentage of .450 in the next 4 years with 54 homers as a platoon player. Meantime, the Braves feature Mack Jones in his place. Who is basically Wes Covington once he gets in the groove by 1965. But by then, the Braves have blown four years when they could have been contending.

(we're not done yet. Barf bags suggested for Braves fans)

5)In a final insult to the senses, Lee Maye, another solid hitter and Aaron's new outfield counterpart, is traded during the 1965 season to Houston for Ken Johnson and Jim Beauchamp (one of those eternal prospects who never got it together). Of course, Johnson hangs in there for 3 years and retires, while Maye enjoys another 6 years in the show.

What does all this mean? Simply this: Braves management could not judge baseball talent. How could they? They did not see the talent they already had on the roster in 1960. Think about it: The club was loaded! This team in 1960 had pitching: McMahon in the bullpen, with Terry Fox coming up. Instead, these guys were dumped in favor of Ron Piche, Frank Funk, Billy frickin O'Dell, and (I'm not making this up), Bobby Tiefenauer.

Starters: Jay, Pizarro and Buhl were good for an average of 16 wins apiece in the 61-64 period when the Braves should have been contending. But those wins were for someone else.

Hitters and fielders: The bosses completely undervalued Bruton, Covington, Mantilla, Adcock and Lee Maye. Yet these riches were squandered in an ill-advised campaign to shuffle the deck and create a winner through trades.

This team should have been in first and second place every year from 1961 to 1964. Attendence in Milwaukee would have been through the roof. Instead, just as the Braves fled Boston for Milwaukee a decade earlier, management would blame the town and seek success in a new place. What Atlantans witnessed by 1968 was a Braves team that featured the likes of an aging Tito Francona, Milt Pappas (did he kill his wife or not? Should he be in the HOF or not??), Clete Boyer, Tommy Aaron and Mike Lum.

Would you pay to see this team?

Tomorrow: Atlanta inherits Milwaukee's suffering, enjoys a brief yee-Ha! in 1969, then watches as the team goes into the toilet for 21 years. Only this franchise could have made Ted Turner a respectable human being!

Yes, the Braves were that stupid

Growing up in the 50s and 60s as an Indians fan, I suppose I was too self-absorbed to realize that, in a land far to the northwest, another group of fans was suffering at the hands of the team's management. Now that I study it, the fate of the Milwaukee Braves was eerily similar to Cleveland's. The chief difference was that Cleveland's Tribe was disarticulated by one insane man, Frank "Trader" Lane. The Braves were ruined by a thoroughly stupid management staff that was completely clueless when it came to evaluating talent.
And they were unlucky.
And probably racist.
And, at some point, they got tired of tired old dirty, boring Milwaukee. But that's another story.
I like baseball stats. Always have. Even as a kid, I looked for new ways to interpret existing data. But what I love even more than stats are player personnel decisions. And that's what really killed the once-proud Milwaukee Braves.
This analysis is gonna take some time. Too much for one blog post, certainly.
So let's start with some basics.
1) After the development of the farm system, but before the era of free agency, baseball trades flourished. It was how many teams tried to build winners.
2) Today, free agent strategies have replaced most trades. These strategies are just as fascinating as trades used to be, but I don't want to talk about them on this blog.
3) In most cases, I believe, most teams in the trading era would have been better served by not trading players than by trading them. This is the non-trade trade. There are exceptions all over the place, but essentially, teams that traded a lot were run by people (Frank "Trader" Lane, for ex) who thought they were smarter than the next guy. Lane wasn't. The Yankees were smarter than the A's during this era. The Braves and Cubs were not smarter than anyone. (We won't go into the Cubs here, except to mention Brock for Broglio later on.)
4) You can't judge most trades by "Who they got for who." You have to follow the thread a little further--in most cases. But the Braves' trades were so bad that you really don't need to follow the thread, because it just gets worse as you follow it.

Basic premise of this treatise: The Milwaukee fans were robbed of their team by a management that made stupid trades beginning in 1959. The Braves could have continued to contend, and doubtless would have won at least one pennant, from 1961 through 1966, if they had done nothing at all besides use the considerable talent they had at the end of the 1959 season. The squandering of the in-house talent in that period caused the team to collapse, attendance to dwindle in the small Milwaukee market, and paved the way for the move to Atlanta.
At least Cleveland didn't lose its team during this era. Almost, but not quite. But Milwaukee fans lost not only what should have been an exciting contending team, they lost the whole franchise.

What I intend to do is demonstrate how the Braves team of 1948, just like the Cleveland team of 1948, was poised for greatness. But because the owners panicked a decade later, Milwaukee (and Cleveland) were destroyed from within.

Today, in Milwaukee Disaster Blog 1, we will start with some history.

1948: Spahn and Sain and pray for rain. Team wins the NL pennant, loses to Cleveland in WS, but nontheless is a fine squad. Scrappy guys like Eddie Stanky, Al Dark, Tommy Holmes and slugging Bob Elliott.
The team slumps, and by 1952, finishes 7th. But who's showing up in the lineup? Eddie Mathews, Johnny Logan, Lew Burdette. The future has arrived.
1953: Joe Adcock, Billy Bruton, Del Crandall and Bob Buhl arrive. WOW!
1954: The Home Run King appears: Hank Aaron. Gene Conley, all 6-foot-8 of him (also a pro basketball player) joins the pitching staff. This team is stoked. Moves up to 3rd place, then second in 55, second by one game in 56, and then, POW! Two consecutive pennants, including a world championship, in 57-58.

To understand the significance of this, you need to know that the NL was extremely competitive in those years. It was right before expansion, but right after the collapse of the Negro leagues. Hispanics were being signed left and right (but not by Milwaukee). There was a glut of talent on a small number of teams. And the Braves just snared two pennants in a row.

Consider who they had: Pitching: Spahn, Burdette, Joey Jay and Juan Pizarro, with Don frickin McMahon in the bullpen. Hitting: Mathews, Aaron, Bruton, Crandall (one of the top hitting catchers ever in his prime), and Wes Covington. A forgotten player today, but then, Cov was one of the most feared left-handed platoon hitters in the game. In 58, his slugging average was .622! And Joe Adcock, the George Scott of his day (think Hafner), was being PLATOONED with the singles hitter Frank Torre, even though Adcock had proven he could hit righties and lefties earlier in his career. With the outfield dominated by the fleet Bruton and the quick, lithe Aaron, the infield anchored by Johnny Logan and various good fielding second basemen, this was a solid team from top to bottom.

Then.... they finished second by TWO GAMES to the Dodgers in 59, and second again in 1960. SECOND!!!!!!!!!
Stay tuned and find out tomorrow just how stupid the Braves bosses would be....