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!
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