Sports Illustrated, as it sometimes does, has gone overboard. On the cover of a recent issue, it carried the streamer “Trade of the Century,” followed with a massive regurgitation of the original Mike Piazza deal. An All-Star catcher, Piazza was the centerpiece of a seven-player swap that sent him and third baseman Todd Zeile to the forlorn Florida Marlins.
In the exchange, the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired outfielders Gary Sheffield and Jim Eisenreich, catcher Charles Johnson, aging infielder Bobby Bonilla and Manuel Barrios, a minor-league pitcher. It was a big-money deal–four of the players have multimillion-dollar contracts, but nonetheless small stuff in terms of players switching clubs.
The all-time champ was the cattle drive involving a herd of 17 players. Nine players went to Baltimore, eight to the Yankees. The deal was consummated Nov. 18, 1954, the handiwork of the general managers–Paul Richards, then also field manager of the Orioles, and George Weiss of the Yankees. It was so big it was anounced in two stages.
Baltimore unloaded its two best pitchers, Bob Turley and Don Larsen, and starting shortstop Billy Hunter along with pitcher Mike Blyzka, catcher Darrell Johnson, first baseman Dick Kryhoski and outfielders Ted DelGuercio and Jim Fridley.
The Yankees gave up pitchers Harry Byrd, Jim McDonald and Bill Miller, infielders Don Leppert and Kal Segrist, outfielder Gene Woodling, shortstop Willie Miranda and catchers Gus Triandos and Hal Smith.
It had mixed results and brings to mind one of Jim Frey’s favorite banquet stories. Frey, who later became a winning field manager and general manager of the Cubs, enjoyed telling of the time he was a minor-league outfielder in the Cardinals’ system.
“The manager told me I was traded,” Frey recalled. “I asked him, `How many players did you get for me? And did it help the club?’
“He said, `We didn’t get any players for you. And, yes, it helped the club.’ “
So far as I can ascertain there probably have been more than a half-dozen major-league trades involving 10 or more players. There were two 12-player swaps in the last half-century: in November 1957, between Kansas City and Detroit, and more recently, a similar 1994 exchange between the Houston Astros and the San Diego Padres.
The Houston-San Diego deal was between father and son and may have been made on the kitchen table. Tal Smith was general manager of the Astros. His son, Randy, the front-office boss of the Padres, got the better of the deal and walked away with Ken Caminiti, the 1996 National League’s Most Valuable Player, and center-fielder Steve Finley, both of whom are in midcareer.
Fathers have traded sons. Al Campanis, when he ran the Dodgers, gave up on his son, Jim, a light-hitting catcher, and sent him to Kansas City in 1969. The late Clark Griffith, when he owned the Washington Senators, traded Joe Cronin, his son-in-law, to the Boston Red Sox.
Players have played for two teams on the same day. In 1922, after the first game of a Wrigley Field double-header, the Cubs traded Max Flack to the opposing St. Louis Cardinals for Cliff Heathcote. On Aug. 4, 1982, Joel Youngblood, who was with the Mets, played a day game here against the Cubs, was traded to Montreal, jumped on a plane, and arrived in time for a night game against the Phillies. He’s believed the first man to play with two different teams in different cities on the same day.
There have been hundreds of best and worst trades. The most one-sided wasn’t Brock for Broglio but was when the great Christy Mathewson, in 1900, went from Cincinnati to the New York Giants for Amos Rusie, who had won 243 games. Rusie never won again, whereas Mathewson finished with a league-record 373 victories, all for the Giants.
Frank Lane, known as Trader Lane, made more than 250 deals, most of them when he was the general manager of the White Sox. Lane obtained Billy Pierce, who won 211 games, from Detroit in 1948 for Aaron Robinson, an obscure catcher. The next year, he acquired future Hall-of-Fame second baseman Nellie Fox from the Philadelphia A’s in an another swindle, giving up backup catcher Joe Tipton.
Catcher Harry Chiti, a footnote in Cubs history, was traded for himself. Outfielder Gail Hendley, who appeared in only 14 major-league games, was traded four times in 48 hours and catcher Ron Hassey three times, by the same two teams, within eight months. Trader Lane, when he was with Cleveland in 1960, wanted to trade his entire 25-man roster to Detroit, but settled for swapping managers: Jimmy Dykes to Cleveland for Joe Gordon.