Hairs vs. Squares Read online

  The finale of the brief two-game series was almost as dramatic, the Twins winning 3–2 when Carew beat the Catfish with a two-out RBI double in the eighth. Two nights later McLain opened a three-game series against Kansas City by not allowing an earned run over seven innings, and the A’s won by another 3–2 final.

  Afterward, a beaming Williams greeted reporters. “McLain was fabulous,” he said, “just fabulous.”

  Attendance, however, was anything but fabulous. The series opener against the Royals drew a paltry crowd of 4,494, and when Oakland drew fewer than 15,000 fans combined for a two-game series in Yankee Stadium one week later—a series punctuated by Stadium fans chanting, “We want Vida!”—a summit conference was convened in Chicago on Thursday, April 27, involving Finley, Blue, Gerst, and Kuhn.

  The group met at the Drake Hotel, and their twenty-two hours of marathon negotiations to get one of baseball’s meal tickets back on the field were highlighted by Finley’s storming from the room and Blue’s leaving to take a nap. A compromise settlement was finally reached. Finley’s offer of $50,000 was agreed upon, but Blue would receive a $5,000 retroactive bonus for his 1971 accomplishments and another $8,000 to be put in a reserve scholarship fund should the pitcher decide to return to college. The latter was part of the original contract Blue had signed in 1967.

  While Finley wanted to announce Vida’s salary as $50,000, Blue and Gerst wanted it listed as $63,000. Finley withdrew his offer. Kuhn returned to his New York office and issued a statement: “I feel a fair offer has been made. And I am urging [Blue] to reflect upon this. And I am ordering Finley to keep the offer open. . . . I have the authority to do what I’m doing under my general powers, which includes actions that are in the best interest of baseball.”

  Finley fumed, then issued a statement of his own: “It’s ridiculous for the commissioner to get involved and I resent it very much. . . . Should he call another meeting I will not attend.”

  A fed-up Kuhn ordered Finley and Blue to meet with Cronin at the Boston office of the American League president. Finley told Kuhn to go to hell. Kuhn countered forcefully: “Charlie,” he said, “either you show in Boston and sign a contract with Blue or I will make him a free agent. Take your pick.”

  Blue decided to sign. Gerst arranged for Vida to make his official announcement May 1 on Howard Cosell’s Monday night ABC-TV show. In the interim President Nixon was asked to comment on the situation. Unaware that the two parties had already reached a deal, Nixon said at a Sunday barbecue on the Texas ranch of Treasury Secretary John Connolly that Blue “has so much talent, maybe Finley ought to pay.”

  The next night, Blue announced that he had ended his holdout. He hopped a plane bound for Boston, and the following day he and Finley met with reporters at American League headquarters. “I’m happy and ready to play,” Blue said.

  In truth he was neither happy nor ready. He stated that Finley had soured his stomach for baseball—“He treated me like a damn colored boy,” Blue spat—and that after months of press conferences and contract negotiations, his body was not in shape.

  At the time of his signing, Vida’s mood was, in fact, true blue.

  5

  Sparky Anderson always referred to it as “the Deal.”

  Baseball writer Roger Kahn considered it closer to larceny.

  On November 29, 1971, Bob Howsam pulled off one of the most celebrated trades in baseball history, the Reds general manager acquiring second baseman Joe Morgan, outfielders Cesar Geronimo and minor leaguer Ed Armbrister, right-handed pitcher Jack Billingham, and infielder Denis Menke from Houston for first baseman Lee May, second baseman Tommy Helms, and utility man Jim Stewart.

  There had been many good trades in baseball during his years in the game, but the one Howsam engineered with Houston GM Spec Richardson was to Anderson the best ever.

  Cincinnati fans decried the Deal initially. Howsam had surrendered the right side of the Reds’ infield. A few thought it was a great trade, Reds radio announcer Al Michaels said at the time, but many Reds fans thought the big trade was a big mistake. Some bumper stickers in and around Cincinnati read, “Trade Howsam.” What everyone agreed on was that the Deal was one of the most startling moves in franchise history.

  Along with Pete Rose, May had been one of the few bright spots of the Reds’ offense in ’71. He was a popular slugger, and in ’71, the Big Red Machine’s best run producer, rapping 39 homers and driving in 98 runs, both career highs. Only Hank Aaron and Willie Stargell hit more homers than May in the National League that season. From 1969 to 1971, May had 111 homers and 302 RBIs. His towering three-run shot in Game Four of the 1970 World Series in Baltimore allowed the Big Red Machine to escape the embarrassment of a sweep. With Rose, Bobby Tolan, and Johnny Bench batting in front of him, May was often denied his rightful share of publicity. “They got all the handshakes,” May would say, “and I got all the knockdown pitches.”

  With Bench slugging 45 home runs in 1970, Perez 40, and May 34, the Big Red Machine was the most devastating National League club since the Mays-McCovey-Cepeda San Francisco Giants of the early 1960s. That October Curt Gowdy called May the “Big Bopper from Birmingham, Alabama.” A free swinger, May often went for the first pitch. “If he hits it right,” Gowdy said, “it’s gone.” Despite his power May was, according to Gowdy, “one of the less glorified thumpers” of the Red Menace. Still Baltimore Orioles’ 20-game winner and future Hall of Famer Jim Palmer called May the “quickest bat this side of the Mississippi” during the ’70 Fall Classic.

  As critics of the Deal noted, May had it over Morgan when it came to offensive production. May had hammered 38, 34, and 39 homers each of the previous three seasons and knocked in around 100 runs each of those years. Morgan at the time was a .263 hitter who had never hit more than 15 homers or driven in more than 56 runs in a season.

  Helms, meanwhile, was a Gold Glove winner who was viewed by Cincinnati fans as the second coming of Rose and Morgan’s equal at second base. Stewart was the team’s super sub, and along with May and Helms, Ol’ Stewball, as his friend Bench called him, was a favorite among fans and teammates.

  Morgan, on the other hand, was believed by some to be a troublemaker, a reputation stemming from acrimonious dealings with Astros manager Harry “the Hat” Walker. Morgan knew that in baseball, a reputation can be as indelible as a birthmark, but Howsam knew better than to believe the bleating of others. He wouldn’t rely on rumor mongering when it came to rebuilding the Reds. Like the character in Dickens’s Great Expectations, the GM would take nothing on its looks; he would instead take everything on evidence.

  For the better part of the 1971 season Howsam had Reds scout Ray Shore follow Morgan and the Astros. The GM’s orders were to the point: find out what kind of player Morgan was and what kind of presence he was. The Reds were a conservative team in a conservative town. Their Queen City was a quiet city, as American as apple pie, and the Reds knew the kind of men they wanted on their club.

  When Shore filed his report, he answered all of Howsam’s questions. The Reds had a need for speed, and Morgan’s quickness could help the club. On whether Morgan was a troublemaker Shore said he didn’t think that was the case.

  Howsam believed May could be replaced at first base by the younger Perez, who had been playing third. The rebuilding of the right side of the infield continued with the addition of the Mercury-quick Morgan, who excelled at scoring runs in bunches; he had 131 steals in 166 attempts over the previous three seasons. The teaming of “Go-Go Joe” with Rose (a.k.a. “Charlie Hustle”) and Tolan at the top of the order would restore the lightning to Cincinnati’s attack and complement the thunder from the booming bats of Bench and Perez. Anderson knew Bench and Perez were strong enough to power the Machine. What Sparky wanted was another sparkplug.

  The genesis of the Deal came in the twilight of the summer of ’71. The Reds’ move in 1970 from Crosley Field to Riverfront Stadium required Cincinnati to stock itself with different ballplayers, different kind
s of ballplayers. The Astroturf field in Riverfront made speed an essential ingredient. The deeper distances from home plate to the outfield walls meant that power hitting alone would not suffice. The Big Red Machine would need to become a sleeker, quicker, more athletic squad.

  The Reds were not alone in their realization. Dodgers speedster Maury Wills knew the game was changing, knew the new ballparks put as much stress on speed as power. The big parks with their artificial turf demanded speed. If you have to choose between speed and power, Wills said, you have to take speed because power alone won’t do the job as it did in the days of the great Yankee teams.

  Wills had stolen pennants for the “Tap Ball” Dodgers of 1965–66; Lou Brock had done the same for the Cardinals in ’67–68. In the final months of the season, with his team out of contention, Howsam began calling for regular meetings in his office with his advisers: Chief Bender; the Bowen brothers, Rex and Joe; Shore; Anderson; and Reds coaches.

  The GM peppered his lieutenants with questions: Should we deal Helms, a solid second baseman but one who lacks speed? Could the club afford to keep both a slow May at first base and a slow Perez at third? Could a modern team be successful with no speed at the corners?

  All parties at the meetings agreed: either Perez or May would have to be dealt. The synthetic surface dictated that the Reds couldn’t keep both. Anderson recalled there being “100 percent agreement” that May was more expendable than Perez. Perez, the Reds’ brass reasoned, could be moved from first to third. He had, after all, joined the Reds in 1964 as a first baseman. He switched to third in 1967 to make room for May, but Perez had always preferred playing first base.

  Team speed dominated the discussions in Howsam’s office. San Francisco had unseated Cincinnati atop the West due in part to a lineup that took advantage of its new carpeted field in Candlestick Park, a lineup that included speedy young outfielders in Bobby Bonds and Ken Henderson, who flanked the legendary Willie Mays in center.

  Shore had watched intently early in ’71 as the Giants’ ground-eating outfielders seemed to run down every fly ball that didn’t leave the stadium. He shook his head when watching the Giants’ fleet-footed fliers. One howling liner down the right-field line convinced the batter to make the turn at first before abruptly jamming on the brakes, but a throw from Bonds was already on its way to second base. Shore gasped; he couldn’t believe it.

  Three innings later another foul-line hugger headed for the left-field corner. Before the batter could dig for second, Henderson had unleashed a laser from the shadows. The runner continued his mad dash for a double, but Henderson’s speed and strong arm made the outcome at second base inevitable.

  In the eighth inning Mays gunned down another runner’s bid for extra bases. Shore stood to leave; the super scout had seen enough. “Now I know,” he stated, “where base hits go to die.”

  The flash and dash of the Giants’ outfield, which would come to include a young Garry Maddox and Gary Matthews, left a lasting impression on the Reds. It was agreed in Howsam’s office that Cincinnati simply had to get quicker to compete.

  The Reds also needed another good left-handed hitter in their lineup to counterbalance Bench and Perez. In 1971 the switch-hitting Rose and Bernie Carbo had often been the club’s only lefty bats against right-handed hurlers. In addition, the Reds’ rotation was in need of a solid starting pitcher to complement southpaw Don Gullett and right-hander Gary Nolan.

  During the 1971 World Series between Baltimore and Pittsburgh, rumors made the rounds the Astros were preparing to trade Morgan to Los Angeles for first baseman Wes Parker. Morgan, meanwhile, heard he was heading to Philadelphia in a trade. Privately he told his wife Gloria he was prepared to give up the game rather than go to a last-place club. Houston hadn’t fared much better in the West, finishing fifth in a six-team division, but Morgan felt he had invested too much of himself in the Astros’ organization to be treated, as he told Gloria, “like a piece of meat.”

  When Howsam heard of the trade rumors during the Series games in Pittsburgh, he sent Shore and Anderson to find Richardson and tell him the Reds were prepared to put together a package deal the Astros would find “very interesting.”

  The Deal was worked out, but the original trade didn’t include Geronimo. It was May and Helms for Morgan, Menke, Billingham, and Ed Armbrister, whom the Red Sox would rue in the 1975 Fall Classic.

  Howsam wasn’t satisfied. He had heard good things about a speedy young Astros outfielder who had originally been found in the Dominican Republic by the Yankees. It was said he could flip the wall switch and be in bed and under the covers before the room was dark. Anderson wasn’t impressed. What the hell do I care, he thought, about Cesar Geronimo?

  Geronimo joined the Astros as a twenty-one-year-old in 1969 and played sparingly for Houston, making just 133 plate appearances in three seasons. His batting average dipped from .243 in 1970 to .220, and from what Anderson had seen of Geronimo in an Astros uniform, he wasn’t convinced Cesar could hit big league pitching.

  Among the Cincinnati coaches, Ted Kluszewski believed Geronimo had the kind of batting stroke that could eventually deliver a respectable batting average. Based in part on “Big Klu’s” opinion, Howsam was persistent in his pursuit of Geronimo.

  Anderson grew concerned. “Let’s not lose the deal,” he told his boss, but Howsam assured him everything would be all right. Eventually the Astros agreed to include Geronimo in the swap.

  The day the Deal was consummated at baseball’s annual winter meetings, a beaming Anderson told Howsam the Reds had just secured the 1972 pennant. The GM knew it was a controversial trade and braced for feedback from the fans. But in the weeks that followed, the Reds’ front office didn’t receive nearly as many letters of criticism as it expected—only about sixty from a fan base that drew nearly 3.5 million in 1970. The front office patiently answered each letter, explaining that there were four reasons May and Helms had been dealt: to acquire speed, get left-handed hitting, add depth to the pitching staff, and strengthen the defense. Once the Reds stated their reasons, 60 percent of the letter writers who had been critical of the trade wrote back saying they agreed with it.

  Anderson thought the Deal indicative of the length to which Howsam and the brass would go in fine-tuning the Big Red Machine. They knew Morgan and Menke would be on base more than May and Helms. While Big Klu had green-lighted Geronimo, it was another Reds coach, Alex Grammas, who had pushed hard for Morgan. Grammas had grown impressed watching Morgan’s range at second base, especially on the artificial turf of the Astrodome. Nicknamed “Little Joe,” the 5-foot-7, 160-pound Texas native and Oakland product was known as “Go-Go Joe” for his quickness on the base paths.

  Morgan knew he wasn’t as fast on the bases as Wills or Brock. What Morgan did was rely on his quickness in breaking away from the bases. He would single or draw a walk, take his lead off first base, then dig his cleats in the dirt and take off for second. At times his speed would force the catcher to make a hurried throw to second. Anderson knew that like Bobby Bonds or Cesar Cedeno, Morgan could control a game from the base paths.

  Despite Morgan’s ability to get to second base on the field, he could never get to first base with Walker. That led to Little Joe’s being thought of as big trouble.

  Morgan’s problems in Houston were due primarily to his disagreements with Walker. Morgan believed the Hat was a bigot, believed this son of the South and World Series star for the 1946 Cardinals felt he was more intelligent than any black or Latino player, and he pointed to Walker’s conflicts with the Astros’ Bob Watson, Jimmy Wynn, and Jesus Alou as proof. Walker went to the front office and spoke bitterly of Morgan’s “attitude.” Jim Bouton would praise Walker in his book, Ball Four, as a knowledgeable field boss, a compliment Wynn would later scoff at. Wynn said Walker often ignored what was going on out on the field, instead walking up and down the dugout talking about hitting. It would get to the point where Wynn would finally say, “Harry, pay attention to the field.”r />
  Wynn also resented Walker’s trying to alter his batting style and change him from a power hitter into a .300 hitter. The “Toy Cannon,” as Wynn was known, told Walker he was too far along in his career to change. He was a pull hitter, having hit between 26 and 37 homers every season from 1967 to 1970, and he had hit that way too long to suddenly change.

  Morgan had his disagreements with Walker as well and knew in 1971 his days were numbered on any team managed by the Hat. But Morgan also considered the idea of leaving Houston a one-way ticket to Siberia. Initially the trade to Cincinnati left him anything but happy. When he turned up at the Reds’ camp, Morgan’s attitude was that he couldn’t care less about his clouded reputation; he was there to just play ball and help his new club win. In time Bench would come to regard Morgan as the finest player he had ever played with, a man who could win more ball games in more ways than anybody.

  Anderson, a former minor league infielder, helped speed Morgan’s development on defense. NBC sportscaster Tony Kubek noted on a Game of the Week telecast in 1972 that Morgan was turning the double play better than he ever had. In 1973 Morgan would win the first of five consecutive Gold Glove awards.

  Figuring Morgan shared the same assets of great players like Rose, Anderson went to Bernie Stowe, the Reds’ delightful clubhouse man and equipment manager, and suggested he put Morgan’s locker next to Rose’s. Anderson felt that what made Charlie Hustle baseball’s most exciting player might rub off on Morgan.

  Rose was the ignition switch for the Big Red Machine. He was the Cincinnati Kid, and his “Charlie Hustle” nickname had been applied by Yankee veteran Whitey Ford during a spring training game in the early 1960s. Ford’s teammate, Mickey Mantle, recalled that Rose gained the nickname after Ford had watched him trying to climb a fence in spring training to catch a homer that was sailing far beyond the outfield wall.