He Played for Huhhhhh? (Part 2)

He began his career in a Reds uniform, compiling statistics that really wouldn’t register and service time that really wouldn’t count, but baseball fans will always associate the man with the uniform he didn’t want to take off — or, more significantly, the uniform he hoped to change into one of his choosing.

As a teenager, Curt Flood spent a pair of partial (if completely forgettable) seasons in Cincinnati, posting four plate appearances in eight games in 1956 and 1957, but following a trade to St. Louis he began to establish himself as one of baseball’s best outfielders. At 25 he notched the first of two 200-hit seasons and seven Gold Gloves. As a consistent five-win player, he helped the Cardinals to World Series titles in 1964 and 1967 while becoming a popular figure in St. Louis. But after his critical Game Seven misplay contributed to the Cards’ defeat in the 1968 World Series, Flood learned he had been traded to Philadelphia.

Aggrieved, he did not want to leave St. Louis. Nor did he want to report report to the Phillies, a team and franchise he considered substandard. Yet despite his 14 seasons in the big leagues, Flood could not sell his services to another team because of baseball’s reserve clause, which gave a club the right to renew a player’s contract for a period of one year in perpetuity. Flood was stuck. He didn’t want to retire, but he didn’t want to “play ball.”

In 1970 he sued Major League Baseball for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act while sitting out the season; later that year a federal court issued a ruling in favor of the owners. Flood had lost his lawsuit, but his efforts would open the door for a new Basic Agreement giving players the right to independent arbitration while galvanizing efforts toward free agency. That didn’t do Flood much good in 1971, however. Nearly broke, he accepted an offer to play for the Senators, but by then his skills had deteriorated, and after 13 games in Washington he retired from the sport.

As fans, we might never envision Curt Flood in a Senators uniform.

We certainly won’t envision him in any of the uniforms he never had a choice to wear.

…

Curt Flood is one of many players who gained fame in one uniform before (or after) wearing other colors. Without his challenge to baseball orthodoxy, many of those same players might never have had the opportunity to choose their own uniforms. What follows is a continued look at players whose careers benefited from Flood’s efforts, and at others whose playing days preceded free agency. Regardless of their timelines, these men have one big thing in common: At least one of their uniforms has failed to secure our memory.

Rickey Henderson: Extremely Free Agent

In retrospect, Rickey Henderson seems to have been a mercenary of the highest order, a man who, in the gilded age of free agency, parlayed his peerless talents and shocking longevity into a collection of home jerseys and addresses begotten by an equal collection of high bidders. Of course, when a guy plays big league ball for a quarter century, much of it as the game’s best leadoff hitter, it’s just good sense — both common and business — to take the money and run.

And run he did, stealing a season-record 130 bases for the A’s in 1982 and an all-time record of 1,406 bases for nine teams across his 25-year career. Today, it’s easy to envision Henderson in the green-and-gold, not only because he began his career in Oakland but also because he won a World Series and an AL MVP there, the latter after re-signing as a free agent in 1990. (A free agent yet again, he would return for a third stint in 1994, months after scoring a key run in a certain World Series, and then a fourth stint in 1998, after playing 32 games for a team you might not recall.) It’s easy, too, to see him in a Yankees uniform, not only because the Yankees are the Yankees but also because he played five seasons in the Big Apple, a relatively long tenure for a man bound for vagabondage. It’s easy, too, to see him in the uniform of Joe Carter’s Blue Jays, despite the fact that he played just 44 regular-season games for Toronto after his midseason trade from the A’s in 1993. Indeed, following his ninth-inning leadoff walk, he scored ahead of jumpin’ Joe Carter in the decisive Game Six of the 1993 World Series.

Squint a bit harder and you might see him in a Padres uniform, if only because he served two stints in San Diego. Squint yet harder and you might see him in the colors of the Mets, still thieving bases at a high rate at age 40, and in Red Sox and Dodgers uniforms, if only because both are high-profile teams and because he finished his career, at long last, in L.A.

Finally, squint past his 92 games as a Mariner and you just might see him in — drum roll, please — an Angels uniform. Don’t remember? Understandable. He was forgettable, putting up a .183/.343/.261 line and compiling -0.2 fWAR in his 32 games for the Angels in 1997.

One wonders: Does Rickey remember that Rickey played for the Angels? (Perhaps he so often referred to himself in the third-person as a way to track his own whereabouts.) After all, it’s been reported that while a teammate of John Olerud’s in Seattle, he didn’t remember that he had also been a teammate of Olerud’s in Toronto. That’s just Rickey being Rickey, in whatever threads.

From Old Time to New Space

The year was 1947, and late in the season a scrawny 19-year-old made his major league debut for the 46-year-old Philadelphia Athletics and their 85-year-old manager, Connie Mack, a baseball lifer who had made his own debut as a big leaguer in 1886. In 1950, after playing just 98 games in his three seasons with the Athletics, the scrawny second baseman found himself traded to the Chicago White Sox, a team that began as the Sioux City Cornhuskers in the late 19th century. For the next 14 seasons the scrawny infielder would epitomize the term “old-school” before “old-school” became a thing, honoring his Dead-Ball Era ancestors by choking up on his bat to slap opposite-field singles and turning cloud-of-dust double plays while sporting a fist-sized chaw of tobacco in his left cheek.

In the mind’s eye, his photos are as black-and-white as his White Sox cap.

Then in 1965, a year after he left Chicago for a team with the most old-school name of all, he signed as a free agent with the Houston Astros, the team that the Colt .45s had just become. Suddenly, 37-year-old Nellie Fox was playing for a colorful squad that stood for the dawning Space Age. He would play his final game on July 25, 1965, in the Astrodome.

Vous Etes Ici, Brièvement

At first glance — and even on a second and longer look — Maury Wills and Bartolo Colon would seem to have little in common. Wills, a wiry infielder, led the league in stolen bases six times and compiled 586 lifetime steals. Colon, a full-figured pitcher, has never stolen a base in his professional career — not just his big league career; his professional career. Nor has he drawn a walk or hit a home run. Wills, though not exactly known for his on-base percentage or power, nonetheless notched 552 walks and 20 home runs across his 14-year major league career.

Of course, on the other side of it, the ageless Colon has pitched nearly 3,000 big league innings and posted 218 wins. Wills? Nope. No mound duty left a mark on his stat line.

So, what do these two men have in common? Well, in the tradition of the holiday movie A Christmas Story, you could say each won “a major award!” If so, you aren’t wrong. Wills earned NL MVP honors while playing for the Dodgers in 1962, and Colon won the AL Cy Young Award while pitching for the Angels in 2005. Still, it’s not the right right answer.

The right right answer is that each spent half a season, though for an entirely different reason, with the Montreal Expos. Weird, right? After all, we associate Wills with the Dodgers — and always will. Not only did he win his MVP hardware and three World Series rings in L.A., he also spent the final three and a half years of his career there, following his 1969 midseason trade from those Expos.

As for Colon, we associate him with a lot of big league cities: Cleveland, where he spent his first five and a half seasons; Anaheim, where he won his Cy Young and appeared in a pair of playoff series; Chicago, where he spent two separate seasons with the White Sox; New York, where, with the Yankees, he revived his career after a year away from the game; Oakland, where he experienced an impressive renaissance after his revival; and New York once again, where, with the Mets, he appeared in his first and only World Series. But Montreal? Oui.

Pushing for the playoffs in 2002, the Expos executed one of the worst deadline deals in the modern era by sending Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Lee Stevens to the Indians in exchange for Colon and Tim Drew. After finishing second in the NL East and missing the playoffs, the Expos would make another bad offseason deal by trading Colon for three players who, collectively, would go on to post a -2.3 fWAR in Montreal.

Wills, by contrast, landed in Canada after the Expos took him in the 1968 expansion draft, playing 47 games in the tricolor cap while slashing .222/.295/.238 and posting -0.3 fWAR.

And then? “Vous n’êtes pas ici , même brièvement.”

You are not here, even briefly.

A Big Piece of History, Small Pieces of a Past

He was known — is known — as Mr. Red Sox. In April 2005, five months after Boston had vanquished the Curse of the Bambino by winning its first World series since 1918, he strolled across the grass at Fenway Park and, with fellow icon Carl Yastrzemski, raised the title banner while wearing his honorary championship ring. Three years later, having served the franchise for six decades as a player, manager, coach, broadcaster and ambassador, he saw the Red Sox retire his number just five months after he had raised a second banner while wearing a second championship ring. His most lasting Boston legacy, though, is the object that bears his name.

Born John Michael Paveskovich and selected by the Red Sox as an amateur free agent in 1940, he would go on to spend 61 years with the Boston franchise. As a rookie shortstop in 1942, he led the league in hits with 205. After serving in the military from 1943 through 1946, he returned to the Red Sox and again led the league in hits in 1946 and 1947. Few of those hits, however, were home runs — in 1947 he had zero — and his lack of pop inspired teammate Mel Parnell to identify the right field pole as the physical extent of the shortstop’s power potential. Standing 302 feet from home plate at Fenway Park, the pole was officially christened Pesky’s Pole in 2006.

Now that an iconic piece of the historic ballpark officially bears his name, it seems odd to acknowledge that Johnny Pesky, who managed the Red Sox in the early ‘60s before serving the franchise in a variety of capacities, could have donned the colors of any other team. Yet in defiance of perception, he did, suiting up for the Tigers and Senators at the end of his career. Fittingly, his final game came against the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

Getting the Start

Memory can ignore the easy material while collecting harder content. As a baseball fan, you remember that Bob Gibson posted a 1.12 ERA in 1968 while pitching from a 15-inch mound but forget that not only did Trevor Hoffman finish his career with the Brewers, he started it with the Marlins. You recall that the Cubs were once called the Orphans, and that Candy Cummings invented the curveball, but forget that Adrian Gonzalez began his career with the Rangers.

Indeed, with regard to modern and even current players, you often forget where they came from.

Prior to starring for 15 seasons in Chicago, Ryne Sandberg cameoed for one season in Philadelphia, notching six plate appearances for the Phillies in 1981. (By now, you have to reckon that Philadelphia would like a do-over on that trade, thus foregoing the services of Ivan DeJesus.) Like Adrian Gonzalez, future slugger Sammy Sosa began his career with the Rangers, playing 25 games (and hitting one home run) in 1989 before his midseason trade to the White Sox. (Wait, you didn’t remember he played for the White Sox? Yep, he played two seasons on the South Side before moving on to bigger — much bigger — and better things.)

A sort of recency bias can cloud even our fresher recollections, with nightly highlights and page-refreshed blogs often fortifying the impression that this or that guy has played for this or that team his entire career, but David Ortiz can tell you differently. Having won three rings and two postseason MVP honors, Big Papi is synonymous with Boston, but he began in Minnesota.

J.J. Hardy is a fixture in Baltimore, but not only did he, too, play in Minnesota, he started his career in Milwaukee. And yet to see him in a Brewers cap is to see Drew Brees in a Chargers helmet.

And what of Hardy’s teammate Adam Jones? At ages 20 and 21, he played for the Mariners.

A’s for Answers

Some teams have a knack for serving as starting points, way stations or final stops for players who’ve made their bones in other cities. The Oakland A’s have been one such team. Ask your neighbor if he knows that Joe Morgan — he of the Big Red Machine — played his final season in Oakland. Ask your most knowledgeable pal if she remembers Ron Cey in an A’s uniform in his final year. Pose this question to your pub quiz foes: Which Hall of Famer played his first 15 and final four seasons with the San Francisco Giants but played 11 games, in 1976, for the Athletics?

You might have to wait for the answer.

Those stars are hardly alone. Catcher Manny Sanguillen spent the first nine and final three seasons of his 13-year career in Pittsburgh, winning a World Series ring in each stint, but somehow managed a lone season in the gold and green, in 1977, between his two tours of duty in the gold and black. After starring in Boston and, to a lesser extent, in Chicago and L.A., Nomar Garciaparra played his final — and forgettable — season for the A’s. And what about newly minted Hall of Famer Mike Piazza? Funny you should ask. He, too, played his final season there, posting -0.3 of his lifetime 62.5 fWAR in the (other) city by the bay.

Worse for the A’s, however, is that one current star spent a season in Oakland at the beginning of his career before earning three Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers in Colorado. It’s hard to recall now, but Carlos Gonzalez played 85 games for the A’s in 2008.

Today it’s just Oakland trivia, painful as it might be.

Speaking of Oakland trivia, the answer to the question is Willie McCovey.

Teams and Times, Teammates and Places

Other teams, some simply by virtue of being old, play host to a number of players we associate with other colors. After all, who remembers that the Reds employed the Yankees’ Bob Meusel, the Orioles’ Paul Blair, the Royals’ Hal McRae, the White Sox’s Paul Konerko and the Cubs’ Joe Tinker, he of the North Side’s legendary Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance double-play combination?

Who recalls that Detroit’s Hal Newhouser, L.A.’s Don Newcombe, New York’s Roger Maris and Cincinnati’s Brandon Phillips each played for Cleveland? Keith Hernandez earned fame in two cities, St. Louis and New York, and Dave Winfield in four, but does anyone remember that each spent his final season in Cleveland, as did Washington Senators Hall of Fame outfielder Sam Rice?

Fernando Valenzuela gained stardom in Los Angeles — Fernandomania, anyone? — but finished his career in St. Louis, as did Doug DeCinces, Will Clark, Larry Walker and John Smoltz. Suiting up for the Dodgers were Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, Mark Belanger, Gary Carter and Garrett Anderson. For the Red Sox were Lou Boudreau, Juan Marichal, Tom Seaver, Willie McGee and Brady Anderson, and for the White Sox, Ron Santo, George Foster, Rob Dibble and Manny Ramirez. In New York, the Yankees suited up Paul Waner, Jim Kaat, George Scott, Andruw Jones and Joses Cruz and Rijo, and the Mets employed Gil Hodges, Amos Otis and Larry Bowa.

Few teammates are teammates from start to finish. Frank Chance, of Chicago’s famous trio, would finish with the Yankees in 1914, the year Babe Ruth made his debut with the Red Sox. As for second baseman Johnny Evers, he would finish his career as a player/manager for the Boston Braves in 1929, six years before the Babe would finish his own career with the same franchise.

This is the End

The greats are not great always; they’re like everyone else in the end.

Despite the brilliance of their careers, they bear the weight of age and mortality in whatever colors they wear. Even the game’s greatest have overstayed their greatness by a season or more, serving in a uniform (or in uniforms) other than the one they wore to stardom.

A Tiger for 22 years, Ty Cobb ended his brief retirement by playing two seasons for the Athletics in efforts to vindicate his reputation following his involvement in a gambling investigation. In his final season, at age 41, he put up the third-worst WAR of his career and went out with a whimper by going 0-for-1 in his final game, against Babe Ruth’s Yankees. As for Ruth, he spent a final and forgettable season with the Boston Braves after his long stint in pinstripes, accruing 0.2 of his lifetime 168.4 fWAR while serving as little but a gate attraction for franchise owner Emil Fuchs.

Following his own Yankee career, future Hall of Famer Lefty Gomez worked briefly for a defense plant before spending a final season — if you can call it a season — with the Senators, pitching 4.2 innings to a 5.49 ERA before his July release. In 1965, after a year managing the Yankees after his retirement as a player, Yogi Berra went crosstown to manage the Mets while playing in four games that season, registering the only negative WAR value (-0.1) of his 19-year career.

Warren Spahn pitched 20 years for the Braves, racking up 20 or more wins 13 times en route to 363 career victories, but spent his valedictory season with the Mets and Giants while suffering 16 of his 245 lifetime losses. Like Spahn, Duke Snider spent the final games of his career with the Mets and Giants, stumbling to a mere 0.1 of his lifetime 63.5 fWAR. Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron both started as 20-year-old Braves and spent the bulk of their careers with the franchise, but Mathews played a pair of final and unproductive seasons in Houston and Detroit and Aaron went on to finish his 23-year career in Milwaukee, putting up just 0.3 of his lifetime 136.3 fWAR.

Willie Mays displayed just a trace of his former greatness while playing his final games with the Mets, putting up 0.4 of his lifetime 149.9 fWAR in his farewell season at age 42. Harmon Killebrew spent the first 21 years of his 22-year career with one franchise, playing for the Washington Senators before they became the Twins prior to the 1961 season, but donned the uniform of the Kansas City Royals in his final season, batting .199 at age 39. More recently, Andre Dawson made his Hall of Famemark with two teams, starring for both the Expos and Cubs, but spent his final four seasons with the Red Sox and Marlins while posting negative WAR values in all of them.

In each instance the player might have been better served by retirement, if only to forestall the accusation if not the statistical proof that he had played past his prime. It is worth remembering, however, that each wanted to wear a uniform, any uniform, one more time