What do you want for Sparky Lyle?

Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering | 03/22/2002 | Mike Fieschko

[Mike Fieschko]

Thirty years ago today, the Boston Red Sox sent relief pitcher Sparky Lyle to the New York Yankees for first baseman-outfielder Danny Cater.

Lyle went on to save 141 games in a seven-year career, winning the Cy Young award in 1977, when the Yanks won their first World Championship since 1962. Some also credit Lyle for teaching Ron Guidry how to throw the slider.

Cater played three years for Boston, batting .262 and hitting 14 homers.

The Sox needed a first baseman, because the previous October, they had traded George Scott (and Ken Brett) to Milwaukee.

[Mike Fieschko]

Now, if Duquette had been the GM back in '72 ...

[Dales]

Who was the GM when they traded Bagwell for Larry Andersen? That was a beaut too.

[b4its2late]

Ahhhhh.... reminiscing.

[Dales]

God, I feel like I am spamming, but... for any of the sports fans here, two things I found with the Beta Free Republic that are pretty cool is that you can put the latest few sports stories on your sidebar by clicking here after you log in. And the view of the forum you get when you click here is pretty cool too- we could set up one hell of a sports section to FR this way. Sort of like turning to the sports section in the world's best newspaper.

[Mike Fieschko]

Who was the GM when they traded Bagwell for Larry Andersen? That was a beaut too.

Lou Gorman.

BTW, the best line out of the 2001 Series: 'Byung-Hyun Kim is Korean for Calvin Schiraldi.'

That was by one of the Boston Globe writers (Dan Shaughnessy?)

[Dales]

Heh.

There is a difference though. Schiraldi pitched all of four innings in the 1986 WS. Kim was used a lot more, and in a way he was unaccustomed to. His runs were given up when he was dog tired. Brenly tried really hard to give that World Series away.

Schiraldi just got the deer in the headlights look after pitching well in game one.

[Whitebread]

GO Yankees

[Mike Fieschko]

Brenly tried really hard to give that World Series away.

Yeah. Brenly's favorite movie? Groundhog Day.

[Mike Fieschko]

GO Yankees

I'm just worried about how well the senior citizen starting pitchers will hold up.

[petuniasevan]

What about 1971 when the Mets just HAD to have that fabulous Jim Fregosi...[snort]

So they traded that young strikeout artist to the California Angels; you know the one I mean...yeah, that's his name! Nolan Ryan!

[BluesDuke]

Brenly tried really hard to give that World Series away.

He merely tried. Joe Torre did give away the World Series. I mean, how dumb can you get pulling the infield in in the bottom of the ninth in Game Seven? You might as well just tell your pitcher to groove one to the hitter if you're going to do that. If the infield had been playing back proper, it would have been Gonzalez lining out.

By the way, there's one thing separating Byung-Hyun Kim from Calvin Schiraldi: guts. Kim has them. The only guts Schiraldi had were those hanging over his belt before very long and, anyway, the real goat of the 1986 World Series was John McNamara. (I mean, who told him to a) leave Bill Buckner in the game for the bottom of the tenth in Game Six, and b) to keep his only reliable lefthanded relief pitcher - Sammy Stewart - in the doghouse all year long for nothing more heinous than standing up for a teammate outside the team bus at the beginning of the season? Bright move, Johnny Mac, especially against a club whose only known weakness in 1986 was lefthanded pitching, at least until Bruce Hurst finally ran out of gas...)

[BluesDuke]

I wouldn't exactly rate Lyle for Cater as the worst trade in Red Sox history. (Hel-loooo, Babe Ruth and a mortgage on Fenway Park for some Broadway musicals; hel-looooo, Dennis Eckersley for Bill Buckner.) As it turned out, Lyle didn't last all that long afterward, and at least when he retired it made the clubhouse safe for birthday and other cakes again...

[BluesDuke]

You wouldn't really call Ryan for Fregosi worse than Tom Seaver for three no-names, would you?

[BluesDuke]

Stupid Baseball Trade Tricks:

Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio (and the Cubs had actually been warned that Broglio might be through: earlier that season, they'd gotten Lew Burdette from the Cardinals in another deal, and Burdette had tipped off the Cubs' coaching staff that Broglio was taking shots routinely for elbow trouble. Phil Wrigley wanted him anyway and the rest is misery...)

Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas: "He's an old 30," said Cincinnati Reds GM Dick Wagner. I'd like to be that old a 30, too. Milt Pappas? He was a whining clubhouse lawyer who never let himself finish a ball game or throw more than eighty pitches in any game until Leo Durocher got in his face about it when he ended up on the Cubs in the early 1970s - and Pappas has the nerve to think he belongs in the Hall of Fame?

[Dales]

BD- I agree with you on Kim. I think he is going to be fine.

I also agree with you on the goat in 1986.

However, I don't agree with you on Gonzo's hit. That looked up the middle enough to me that even if they are playing back I doubt Soriano can get over and snag it.

But hey, even if Torre did make a mistake there, he has won enough and handled that team well enough that it doesn't do a thing to tarnish his standing in my eyes.

God, I can't wait for opening day. I don't know what it is. I enjoy watching a football game more, but I look forward to baseball season much more and I get into talking about it and remembering and all that much more with the grand old game...

[Dales]

And as I mentioned above, while not in the Ruth category, in recent years it is hard to beat Jeff Bagwell for a quarter of a year of Larry Andersen.

[BluesDuke]

However, I don't agree with you on Gonzo's hit. That looked up the middle enough to me that even if they are playing back I doubt Soriano can get over and snag it.

The ball was hit just enough to Soriano's side of the base that, if the Yankee infield had been playing normal depth, he'd have had the liner. Remember: he leaped to try making a play. At normal depth, he brings it in with a little bit of stretch, but Soriano isn't exactly of the non-stretch variety. The Yankees got burned in the infield the way only too many people normally get burned when they bring the outfield in to choke the potential winning run - that play only works maybe two out of ten times and even that's, er, a stretch.

As for me, when baseball season begins the winter of my malcontent ends. Every proper American knows the final eight words of our National Anthem are "...and the home of the brave play ball." (Thank you, Mr. Will.)

[BluesDuke]

Bagwell-for-Anderson was a pretty dumb trade. Some other dumb trades I can think of...

Practically every deal between the Kansas City Athletics and the Yankees in the 1950s - Must be nice to have a bona fide major league club as your personal farm team, but that's what you get when you help a business buddy of the Yankee owners buy the Athletics after the Mack family goes busterino. Put it this way: The anonymous Cleveland Indian official who moaned about it wasn't just whistling Dixie Cups when, after the Indians' notorious general manager Trader Frank Lane sent Roger Maris to the A's, he said, "Maris isn't going to the A's. He'll be a Yankee within a year."

Rocky Colavito for Harvey Kuenn: Trader Lane just didn't get it. For the crime of calling Lane on his broken promises and his little white lies concerning contract time, Rocky Colavito got exiled to Detroit for a guy who wasn't that far from devolving into a spare part, and the Cleveland Indians got cashiered as a serious pennant contender for over two decades. Harvey Kuenn was a good ballplayer and an ex-batting titlist, but he was also over his prime and beginning to show the wear of former injuries.

Harry Chiti for himself: You guessed it - this one really happened. The Indians traded him to the Mets for a player to be named later in 1962. The Mets got a good enough look and named Chiti himself as the player to be named later.

Bob Ojeda for Calvin Schiraldi: Why did the Red Sox trade a dearly-needed lefthander who could be effective in Fenway Park for a kid with a live arm but a dead man's attitude? And boy did this trade hit where it hurt, as anyone who remembers Schiraldi's performance in the 1986 World Series could tell you. Ojeda, needless to say, became a critical element in the pitching scenario for those solid Met teams of the late 1980s.

Lee Smith for Calvin Schiraldi and Al Nipper: Frank Robinson said it best about this deal: The Cubs traded a horse and got two ponies. Cub general manager Jim Frey on why they were shopping Smith at the peak of his career: You get tired of hearing him say "motherf---er" everytime you walk into the clubhouse."

Dennis Eckersley for David Wilder, Brian Guinn and Mark Leonette: Boy did the Athletics hose the Cubs in this deal!

Ron Perranoski for Don Zimmer: Tell me the Dodgers weren't horse traders here. No wonder Zimmer grew up to make Boston safe for Bucky (Bleeping) Dent! Perranoski only spent the bulk of the 1960s as the best reliever in the National League with those pitching-rich Dodger teams of the early-to-mid 1960s. Zimmer lasted with the Cubs only long enough to become an Original Met, fall to an 0-for-34 slump in early 1962, then break out of it with a base hit - and get traded immediately to Cincinnati so the Mets, the wags said, could get value for him while he was hot.

Sammy Sosa for George Bell: The White Sox definitely got the short end of this deal. Bell was about to lose his power stroke while Sosa rebounded from an injury-shortened 1992 to do...well, if you don't know I can't explain it. (Put it this way: in three out of four seasons he hits 60 or more homers and doesn't lead his league, but in the fourth of those he hits exactly fifty - and leads his league. Does that say Cubs all over, or what?)

Ivan DeJesus for Ryne Sandberg: Slammin' Sammy wasn't the only time the Cubs got the better end of a lopsided deal. Unless you think that's DeJesus and not the only Ryno whom a FREEP should ever love who's going to Cooperstown, that is...

Marilyn Peterson for Suzanne Kekich: Actually, they were the wives of Yankee pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich. The two pitchers had actually swapped their wives. The deal ended up getting nullified in a way not long thereafter, when Marilyn Peterson realised Mike Kekich was no more her type than Fritz was, while Fritz Peterson and Suzanne Kekich ended up marrying - and remain so to this day. Go figure. It's got to rank as the most bizarre deal in Yankee history.

[tallhappy]

Practically every deal between the Kansas City Athletics and the Yankees in the 1950s

Yeah, but those weren't really trades. KC was more like a farm club for NY.

Who'd the Yanks get for Willie McGee?

[BluesDuke]

Who'd the Yanks get for Willie McGee?

The same player(s) they got for Fred McGriff. I believe the name is usually No Name. Come to think of it, that's also who they got, way back when, for a fellow who came back to haunt them in the 1957 World Series - Lew Burdette.

And what on earth possessed the San Diego Padres to take the then-troublesome Garry Templeton off the St. Louis Cardinals' hands in exchange for a kid named Ozzie Smith? (Templeton got his act together in San Diego and was useful enough for them for awhile, but he was sure as hell no Wizard...)