Of all the thousands of baseball transactions made over the decades, only one was mentioned by Annie Savoy in her opening monologue for the film Bull Durham.
“But bad trades are part of baseball – who the hell can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas?” said Savoy when discussing the off-field attributes of several Minor League players.
Such tantalizing comparisons aside, it’s now been 60 years since the Cincinnati Reds traded Robinson to the Orioles, not only for Pappas but also as a reliever. Jack Baldschun and young outfielder Dick Simpson.
It’s one of the most important and potentially lopsided trades in baseball history. Robinson, now in the Hall of Fame, was one of the best players in the National League, right there Willie Mays, Hank Aaron And Roberto Clemente.
When he went to Baltimore, he turned the Orioles from a contender into a dynasty by leading them to four pennants and two World Series titles in six years. His 1966 season was the best year of his career as he won the Triple Crown by hitting .316 with 49 home runs and 122 RBI. Not only was he MVP of the American League, but he was also MVP of the World Series with two home runs in the Orioles’ four-game sweep of the Dodgers.
So what were the Reds thinking when they made such a foolish trade? Were they that stupid? Was it really because Robinson would become an “old 30,” as Reds general manager Bill DeWitt suggested after the trade.
The Reds couldn’t have been that stupid. Earlier that year, in the very first June amateur draft, they selected the high school catcher Johnny Bank in the second round. They took Bernie Carbo in the first round and Hal McRae in the sixth round. The 1965 Reds already had two other future Hall of Famers in Pete Rose and Tony Perez in place.
It came down to one thing for a team that had finished 89-73 in 1965 and had finished eight games in first place.
“The name of the game is pitching,” DeWitt said when announcing the trade. “The lack of that, especially in the bullpen, is what defeated us last season.”
Pitching was the name of the game for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1965. They won the World Series with a rotation led by Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Claude Osteen And Johnny Podresplus saviors Ron Perranoski And Bob Molenaar.
The Dodgers had the best pitching across the board with a team ERA of 2.81 and WHIP of 1.117. The Reds had the second-highest ERA (3.88) and WHIP (1.333) in the National League.
That’s where you start when you look back on the 60th anniversary of one of baseball’s most famous games and try to figure out how it went down.
Offensively, the Reds led the NL by scoring 5.09 points per game. The Braves came in second at 4.37. Robinson, who hit .296 with 33 home runs and 113 RBI, was just part of the Reds’ offensive arsenal.
Rose had a breakout season as the Reds’ 24-year-old second baseman, hitting .312 with 117 runs scored, 35 doubles, 11 triples and 11 home runs. He batted second behind an outfielder for most of the year Tommy Harperwho hit .257/.340/.393 while stealing 35 bases and leading the league with 126 runs scored.
See Pinson batting third, the center fielder who spent 18 years in the major leagues and had near-Hall of Fame career marks. He hit .305/.352/.484 with 22 home runs and 94 RBI in 1965. He was also 27 at the time of the trade and was considered at the top of his game.
The big bat that replaced Robinson in the middle of the lineup was the third baseman Deron Johnsona former failed prospect for the Yankees and Athletics. The Reds had acquired him from Kansas City in April 1963 and he spent that entire season with Triple A San Diego. He joined the Reds lineup in 1964 and had a career year in ’65, hitting .287/.340/.515 with 32 home runs and a league-leading 130 RBI.
In 1966, the Reds moved Johnson to left to join Pinson and Harper in the outfield. Tommy Helms took over third base and became Rookie of the Year. Perez platooned with a veteran Gordy Coleman initially.
Three-time All-Star catcher Johnny Edwards (two golden gloves) and short stop Leo Cardenasa five-time All-Star who had won a Gold Glove in ’65 also helped create a formidable lineup. Behind it all were two excellent batting prospects Lee May And Art Shamskyand a highly regarded infielder in Chico Ruiz.
When you look at all that, the Reds had reason to believe they could do just fine offensively without Robinson in their lineup. They wanted guns. They had two.
Jim Maloney And Sammy Ellis were the best starters in the rotation. At least they presented that perception and there was no doubt in Maloney’s mind. He was 25 years old and was 20-9 with a 2.54 ERA and 1.17 WHIP in 1965. He struck out 244 in 255 1/3 innings with a fastball in the upper 90s and a good curve.
On June 14, he struck out 18 and walked one in a 1–0 loss to the Mets in 11 innings. The Mets didn’t get a hit until the 11th. On August 19, he threw a 10-inning no-hitter in a 1–0 win over the Cubs. He walked ten and struck out twelve.
Ellis wasn’t in Maloney’s class. He was a 22-game winner in 1965, but with an ERA of 3.79. He gave up 111 earned runs, the most in the league, and his ERA-plus was 99, slightly below average. It is clear that he benefited from offensive support. But if you won 22 games in 1965, you were considered an elite pitcher.
The Reds’ next two starters had once been elite pitchers until they fell in 1965. Left-hander Jim O’Toole had won 81 games between 1960 and 1964, including 19 in 1961 when the Reds won the pennant. JoeyJay won 21 that season and 21 in ’62. But in 1965, O’Toole was 3-10 with a 5.92 ERA, while Jay was 9-8 with a 4.22 ERA. Fifth starter Joh Tsitouris was 9-8 with an ERA of 4.95.
The Reds thought O’Toole or Jay could bounce back in ’66. They still wanted a top starter in the era of four-man rotations.
Trading a hitter for a pitcher worked for the Dodgers last winter when a seven-player deal with the Senators sent a power-hitting outfielder Frank Howard to Washington for left-hander Claude Osteen. That gave the Dodgers a reliable third starter and Osteen won 15 games. He also pitched a five-hit shutout in Game 3 of the World Series after the Dodgers lost the first two games in Minnesota.
“I would still have said the Reds had the strongest starting lineup in our league last season,” the Giants manager said Herman Franken told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Outside of pitching, the Dodgers couldn’t compare to the Reds position-wise.”
Pappas has been a solid starter for the Orioles for eight years. He was 18 when he broke into the Orioles rotation in 1958 and had averaged 13.8 wins over seven seasons with a 3.25 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP. He was good for 200 innings per year, but hardly overwhelming. He averaged 5.2 strikeouts and 2.9 walks per nine innings.
The Orioles were willing to make the deal because they were loaded with young pitchers, as many were Dave McNally, Wally Bunker, Jim Palmer, Dave Leonhard, Eddy Watt And Tom Phoebus who would become part of the burgeoning dynasty in Baltimore.
Clearly, Pappas was not a fair trade for Robinson. But Annie Savoy forgot to mention that the Reds also had reliever Jack Baldschun and outfielder Dick Simpson.
Interesting point: The Orioles had acquired Baldschun and Simpson from the Phillies and Angels in separate trades earlier that month. Orioles general manager Harry Dalton later insisted those deals had not been made so the two players could be included in a deal for Robinson.
The Reds had every reason to believe that the 29-year-old Baldschun would be a big help to their bullpen. He had spent five seasons in the Phillies bullpen, averaging 66 appearances and 108 innings per season. His ERA in that stretch was 3.18 with a WHIP of 1.34. A savior of that quality was a valuable commodity. The trade was intended to strengthen both the Reds rotation and bullpen.
Simpson, 22, was not a throw-in. He spent 1965 with Triple A Seattle in the Angels organization, hitting .301/380/.523 with 24 home runs and 29 stolen bases. Speed and strength in a man only 22 years old were not a bad addition to the profession. That he struck out 148 batters might have been a red flag, but he was No. 3 in the deal. DeWitt compared him to Tommy Harper.
So there you have it. For Frank Robinson, the Reds picked up a No. 3 starter behind Maloney and Ellis, proven utility help and an outfield prospect.
So what did everyone say to their local reporters?
“I’m very happy with the deal,” Dalton told the Baltimore Sun. “Because it gives us the power hitter we’ve been looking for for so long.”
“We hated to give up Robby,” DeWitt told the Cincinnati Post. “But you have to give up something to get something good, and we would rather sacrifice an older player than a younger player. A top-level starter and a top-level reliever was just too attractive a package to turn down.”
The trade turned out to be a disaster for the Reds. They went from winning 89 games in 1965 to 76-84 in ’66. Manager Don Heffner was fired after 83 games.
So what went wrong?
Pappas wasn’t a top starter. He had a nice career, winning 209 games, but at best No. 2 or 3. In 1966 he was hardly that, going 12-11 with a 4.29 ERA in 209 innings. He won sixteen in 1967, then was traded to the Braves in 1968. In 1970 he was traded to the Cubs, where he became manager. Leo Durocher established him as a “clubhouse lawyer” and disruptive personality.
Baldschun? The Reds discovered what everyone in baseball should understand. Relievers pose a risk due to their heavy workload and infrequent use over multiple seasons. Baldschun went 1-5 with a 5.49 ERA, either because of arm fatigue or because hitters were no longer fooled by his screw ball. But he was ready as an effective reliever.
Simpson was no Frank Robinson or Tommy Harper. He was a classic ‘4A player’ who could run, but couldn’t score at the highest level. His less-than-memorable seven-year career spanned six organizations and finished with a .207 batting average.
The Reds offense suffered without Robinson, scoring 133 fewer points. Their pitching was no better, as the team ERA rose from 3.88 to 4.08. Ellis was 12-19 with a 5.29 ERA, a bigger disappointment than Pappas or even Baldschun.
Then again, the Reds weren’t stupid. They were just a few years removed from the greatest era in franchise history, when the Big Red Machine won four pennants and two World Series from 1970 to 1976. Over a 21-year period, from 1961 to 1981, the Reds had 19 winning seasons.
It just comes down to what Annie Savoy said. Bad trades are a part of baseball.
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