Reserve clause ceases to exist

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI - Do you think Alex Rodriguez knows who Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith are? He and every other ballplayer of today should tip their hats to the two pitchers who haven't played in thirty years. On this date in 1976 a federal judge in Kansas City upheld a decision allowing McNally and Messersmith to hawk their wares to the highest bitter. They could bargain with whichever team they chose. They were free-agents.

With rare exceptions, major league baseball players hadn't been free agents since the late 1800s. When owners started raking in profits they realized that if players could sell their talents to the highest bidder salaries would skyrocket. Well over a hundred years ago the owners began putting a "reserve clause" in contracts. Even after a contract ended a player's fate remained with that team. The only recourse a dissatisfied player had was not to play. The only way he played for a different team is if he got traded.

In the mid 1970's Dave McNally of the Montreal Expos (today's Washington Nationals) and Andy Messersmith of the Los Angeles Dodgers, with Players' Union President Marvin Miller directing, decided to challenge the reserve clause. They played the 1975 season, their option years, without contracts, the thinking being when the option year lapsed the reserve clause ceased to exist. The owners' position was that the reserve clause just kept renewing itself.

The parties went to arbitration and arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled in favor of the players. Major League Baseball appealed, thus the February 4, 1976 ruling. We've had free-agency ever since, and salaries have... skyrocketed.

Contributing sources:
Associated Press (AP), February 5, 1976, Kansas City, Missouri
More on the reserve clause

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Not So Fast

CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS - Future Baseball Hall of Famer, manager and broadcaster Lou Boudreau was a two-sport star at the University of Illinois - baseball and basketball. But on this day in 1938 the college Junior got suspended from both Fighting Illini teams for taking money from a professional baseball team.

The Cleveland Indians ball club was sending his mother monthly checks in exchange for the Harvey, Illinois native's word that he would give the Indians the right of first refusal when he graduated.

Boudreau missed six basketball games that season. The team won two and lost four and finished with an uninspired 9-9 record in the Big Ten.

Boudreau ended up not returning to the University of Illinois in the fall because he signed a contract with Cleveland and started his professional baseball career. He played 13 seasons for the Indians, mostly at shortstop, including nine as player-manager. He guided the team to a World Championship in 1948, winning the American League's Most Valuable Player award.

Boudreau also played two years for the Boston Red Sox. Louis Boudreau was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1970.

Contributing sources:
Boudreau as manager
Associated Press (AP), February 4, 1938

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"Senior circuit" formed

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - The National League of Baseball Clubs was formed on this date in 1876. What became known as the National League survives to this day, and it owes as much to the marketing of sporting goods as it does to play on the field exciting enough to get people to pay to watch. One of the chief architects of new league was Albert G. Spalding of Rockford, Illinois. He was thinking of the sale of baseball equipment as much balls and strikes.

As Leonard Koppett wrote in Koppett's Concise History of Major League Baseball Spalding thought he had a better way to run a professional baseball organization than the loosely held National Association founded in 1871. He didn't have much faith that the east coast dominated Association would survive, and he wanted desperately for professional baseball to survive so teams and their fans would buy baseball equipment from him. He and William Hulbert of Chicago began to put together a plan. The problem was Spalding and Hulbert were part of the National Association; Spalding played for Boston, and Hulbert was in the front office of the Chicago White Stockings.

The two needed a solid plan before the start of the next season to attract select east coast National Association teams. They got commitments from midwest teams in Cincinnati, Louisville and St. Louis to join Chicago. That's where the February 2, 1876 meeting came in. The gathering was held at the Central Hotel in Manhattan with representatives from Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Hartford. They all agreed and the National League was born. Play began that spring with those eight teams. As Koppett wrote, "It established a pattern that became the model for all commercialized spectator team sports from then on."

Contributing Sources:
Leonard Koppett, Koppett's Concise History of Major League Baseball, New York, 1998
Baseball-Reference

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Yankees let one get away

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - The New York Yankees traded a young prospect named Mike Lowell to the Florida Marlins on this date in 1999. They got three minor league pitchers in return; Mark Johnson, Eddie Yarnall and Todd Noel. Lowell became (as of this writing) a 4-time all-star and has two World Series rings, one as Most Valuable Player.

Eddie Yarnall appeared in just seven games for the Yankees and was out of baseball by 2001.

Mark Johnson was picked up by the Detroit Tigers after never making it out of the Yankees farm system. He appeared in handful of games for the Tigers in 2000, but he too was out of baseball by 2001.

Todd Noel never made it to the major leagues and is nowhere to be found.

With Mike Lowell, and a number of other quality players, the Marlins won their second World Series in 2003 - beating the Yankees. Lowell was traded to the Boston Red Sox after the 2005 season and helped them win the World Series in '07. They made the playoffs in '08 winning the American League Division Series but losing to the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL Championship Series.

If the goal of any move a team makes is to get to the post-season, the Yankees succeeded, more often than Lowell's teams, but the deal announced February 1, 1999 didn't work out as planned.

Contributing Sources:
Yankees post season
Marlins post season
Red Sox post season

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Did Giants steal the pennant?

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - Bobby Thomson's dramatic walk-off home run to win the 1951 pennant is immortalized by New York Giants radio play-by-play announcer Russ Hodges screaming, "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" But, the Wall Street Journal reported on this date in 2001 what had been rumored for years - the Giants dramatic comeback that season was aided by espionage.

Journal reporter and author of The Echoing Green, Joshua Prager, quoted Monte Irvin, Sal Yvars and pitcher Al Gettel of the Giants as saying that for about the last ten weeks of the regular season they had a scheme to steal the opposing catcher's signs.

The Giants clubhouse in the old Polo Grounds was in centerfield. The story goes that manager Leo Durocher had a player peer through an opening in the clubhouse wall with a telescope at the catcher's signals almost 500 feet away. An electrician sitting next to the spy activated a buzzer in the Giants bullpen before each pitch; one buzz meant fastball, two buzzes meant curve.

Giant utility player Sal Yvars is quoted in Dave Anderson's book Pennant Races as telling Giant batters, "Watch me in the bullpen. I'll have a baseball in my hand. If I hold on to the ball, it's a fastball. If I toss the ball in the air, it's a breaking ball." The Associated Press quoted Gettel as saying "Every hitter knew what was coming, made a big difference."

The Giants were 13½ games behind the Dodgers on August 11, 1951. They miraculously erased the deficit and tied the Dodgers on the last day of the season, forcing a best of three playoff. Bobby Thomson's home run in the bottom of the ninth of game three sent the Giants to the World Series and the Dodgers home.

Contributing Sources:
Wall Street Journal, Joshua Prager, January 31, 2001
The Echoing Gree: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World, by Joshua Prager, Vintage Books, 2001
Historic Baseball, Associated Press, February 2, 2002
New York Times

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