Baseball ownership seems simple enough. Pay for
good players, good players play well. Get paid
for people coming to watch the good players play
well. If only it were that easy. Before the players
union took control of the playing population,
the lords of the game held all the cards. Lords
was really short for overlords. Between the reserve
clause, antitrust establishment, and the popularity
of the boyhood game, the owners felt they could
do no wrong. From the start of the National League
in 1871 to now, so many owners still run the
game as they see fit. Sure, Landis came along
in 1920, but he was hired by the owners. The
commissionership is still an extension of the
owners, making sure money continues to flow into
their pockets for over 100 years. From John Hayler's
Lords of the Realm, some teams were operated
as a family business, but more were owned by
wealthy individuals. self -styled sportsmen.
There was money involved, but it was more of
a hobby. Ownership changed from the smaller clubs
frequently, but in this month's episode, we highlighted
nine owners we felt shaped baseball into what
it became, covering all eras of the sport. There's
truly no limit to where these stories end for
some of these owners, but we're going to do our
best to try to bring you the why to the household
names that you've known for so long. Today, here
are the owners we're covering. I'm Dominic Cotroneo.
And I'm Scott Sweeney. Let's learn about these
nine men and the hundreds of owners across baseball
history for episode three of the Service Time
Podcast. Before we get started here, I just want
to thank everybody for their support so far here
in the podcast. This is only officially our third
episode, four if you include the prologue episode,
but so many people have already reached out,
whether it be via social media, via email, via
Substack, to thank us for doing this work. Now,
I'll be honest. I'm going to pick up the slack
on the Substack here coming up this month. We
got an all -star break looming, a much more consistent
schedule on the way. But now things start to
get a little bit easier on the research front.
We're going to have some great screenshots and
articles in the Substack related to this episode.
Again, you can find us Service Time Podcast on
Substack. Also, make sure to tell your friends.
I think we're really about to start hitting our
stride here. If you ever have a question, thought,
comment, concern, You can reach out to us at
servicetimepod at gmail .com. All right. Thanks
again for the support. I'll check in a little
bit later. Now, let's learn about Connie Mack.
I tell you, this was a difficult episode because
whittling it down to nine is tough. The commissioner
episode, that was easy. They were all chronological
order. You never had two commissioners. All of
these stories kind of overlap. So it's going
to be a challenge, but I think we're up to it.
to kind of go through these owners. To start
out, we're going to go with the classic Connie
Mack. Going way back, his history in baseball
was long and near the beginning of baseball.
So what's interesting about the owners, a lot
of these guys, especially the ones we're going
to cover later in the episode, come from money,
come from power, come from somewhere where they're
able to buy a baseball team. Connie Mack was
a leather factory worker in the mid -1880s. that
had played some baseball in college. And he kept
trying to get tryouts with amateur teams, but
no one was biting. And a common theme, you'll
see this with another owner we'll talk later,
is Mack had a friend named Will Hogan, who was
a pitcher who did get signed with a team, who
then said he wasn't satisfied with the catcher
that was catching him. And he recommended, hey,
let's sign this Connie Mack guy. And so that
was Connie Mack's first job in baseball. He was
a catcher in 1884 with Meriden in the Connecticut
League. This is 1884. This is different baseball.
Like some of the things that Connie Mack did
that weren't done up to that day is he was one
of the first catchers that stood up to the plate
to catch the ball on a fly, catch a pitch on
a fly. Catchers used to catch it on a bounce.
And that was viewed as kind of odd. And another
thing he'd do was what was called bat tipping.
When a batter would swing, he would purposefully
get his glove in the way. Now we know this is
catcher's interference and it's a penalty, but
it wasn't at the time. And again, this is the
mid -1880s. There were also the conditions for
baseball were not very good. Will Hogan, the
pitcher that he followed to his first baseball
team, died at the age of 23 of consumption. Dom,
when's the last time you heard of someone dying
of consumption? I know where they treated people,
and that's Pinehurst, North Carolina. And that's
what led to that golf resort getting built. Oh,
wow. The day -to -day life of a ballplayer was
kind of different. If you've ever read the book
of Mice and Men, where you have these guys working
every day. The end of the day, they go and spend
their paychecks on booze. And the next day, the
same thing happens. That's what most baseball
players were doing in the 1880s. They were playing
their game, getting their money at the end of
the game, going out and spending it. being completely
broke and then playing the next day. But Connie
Mack was kind of an exception to this. He saw
his co -players, his peers doing this, but he
didn't. And he carried that philosophy into his
days as a manager and as an owner, where he would
even avoid signing or trading for some players
that were known drinkers or partiers because
he viewed it, hey, baseball should come first.
And then remember, this is how. the American
League sort of began with Ben Johnson wanting
to clean up the game, seeing the chaos that he
saw of the 80s and the 90s, and we're talking
1800s, 80s, and 90s of fights and brawls and
alcoholism and consumption like you're talking
about. And Connie Mack's not the only owner we're
going to talk about today that was a very devout,
very reserved man. I mean, I think of Branch
Rickey who refused to work on Sundays, refused
to work on the Sabbath. So this is just a time
of the era that... The reason why these owners
that we know about today, we're finally doing
something different as regards to the rest of
the league, saying, oh, this is a party, this
is meant to be just a layback, and yeah, we throw
a ball hard and we hit a ball hard, whatever,
let's go party after and go have our beverages
and be the town's entertainment as we see fit.
But Connie Mack, you know the phrase of journeyman
catcher, guy who jumps from team to team? Connie
Neck was a journeyman catcher jumping from league
to league. This is back when really the two big
leagues were the American Association and the
National League. And if you weren't in those
leagues, the league you're in had a pretty high
chance of failing. And the Connecticut League
he was in in 1884 failed at the end of 1884.
So he signed with the Hartford Mets in 1885 and
eventually got his big break signing with the
National League. Washington Nationals in 1886.
Like the worst team of all time, Washington Nationals?
Yeah. But this is where he kind of came across
someone we talked about in a earlier episode,
Montgomery Ward, who put together the Brotherhood
of Professional Baseball Players. And Connie
Mack was an active participant with the Brotherhood
of Professional Baseball Players. And when they
created the Players League in 1890, Mack joined
the league's Buffalo Bisons. So he left the National
League and joined the Players League. Unfortunately,
the Players League did not last very long and
he had to go back to the National League. But
in later in life, after he'd become an owner,
managed players contracts and done all this,
he said it altered his viewpoint somewhat. He
said, and I quote, I was younger then and things
look different to me. It seemed to me that we
had a good cause and the brotherhood intended
to correct some of the inequalities and abuses
which then existed in baseball. No doubt today.
Having some idea of the difficulties of operating
a major league club, I would take a different
view of such a movement. You remember my rant
on Bud Selig in the last episode where I go,
how can you go from being very, very pro, don't
have a team, leave a city, to later being commissioner
and almost taking the Minnesota Twins away from
Minnesota? You'll find a lot of these people,
their viewpoint mentality towards the union,
towards players trying to negotiate for contracts,
changes. as they are on the other end of those
negotiations. For Connie Mack to go through as
many minor leagues as he did, to then jump to
the Players League for the one year that he did
with the Brotherhood League, and then come back
to the National League with no problem, right?
Because the league folded on its own. You could
really argue the reason... why we view catchers
as great managers today. Connie Mack was the
OG. Oh, he's caught a lot. He's been a lot of
places. He's seen everything. He gets along with
everybody. He could totally be a manager. And
quite frankly, again, we talked about it briefly
in episode one when Cornelius McGillicuddy, as
he was still then known, he wasn't necessarily
Connie Mack yet, but eventually... Already people
were talking about in his time in Pittsburgh,
like you're going to be a manager of these Pittsburgh
Pirates one day. It wasn't long. He actually
signed with the Pirates and he was a well -liked
player known for his baseball mind, finding these
little inefficiencies, finding these changes
in the game. And the game was clearly changing
quite a bit during this time. But after the Pirates
had a down year in 1894, the team fired their
manager and offered the job to Mack. Now. Mack
took the job on the condition, and this is a
quote from Mack, I want to run the club, handle
the players my way, make the rules, and make
all of the trades. If I can really be the manager
and not have to do what someone else thinks.
Now, this is a key point of managers in this
day aren't like managers today, where they just
manage the players day to day, put out the lineups,
and do the tactical changes. They were essentially
the GM of the team. They would do the trades.
They would sign players. They would scout players.
It was a job that had a lot of facets and a lot
of roles to it. And although the Pirates owner
agreed, yes, you have full control, didn't necessarily
work out that way because people have egos, people
have opinions. he ended up clashing with the
owner over a few trades. There was a trade that
the owner did, and Mack said, I had nothing to
do with that. There was a trade that the owner
wanted to do that Mack vetoed. And within just
two years, Mack was fired. and was out on the
Pittsburgh Pirates. So this is 1896. This is
where we intersect again with Henry Killerly
again, who we talked about sliding doors moment.
Henry Killerly bringing baseball to Milwaukee
back in 19, right before 1900, before the American
League was born, trying to say, we can be an
American League franchise. Killerly didn't see
it through, but he brought Connie Mack along
the way. And in fact, it even ties to Ban Johnson
because the reason Killerly went after Mack is
Ban Johnson had his pulse of the National League.
And any discontent for some people that he possibly
wanted to bring over to the Western League at
this point, he kept an eye out for them. He was
aware that Connie Mack was having issues with
his owner. And he is actually the one that recommended
to Henry Killaly to go out and sign Connie Mack
as manager of the Milwaukee Brewers in 1896.
And he gave Mack full control of the roster.
Very different than Pittsburgh. Mack was given
full run. And Mack even admitted. that he wasn't
a very good manager in Pittsburgh. He was new
at the job. He had a hard time controlling his
players. And I think that two years of experience
and two years of failure made it so he was able
to come into the Milwaukee Brewers and be able
to manage the way that he had to manage to keep
his team under control and to perform well. You
know, here in Milwaukee, it was only for four
seasons, but what he learned... while being a
player manager in the beginning of it, at the
very end of his career, and then leading into,
like you said, the eye for talent that Ben Johnson
had to eventually try to pull somebody over to
new franchises, and Philadelphia was keeping
an eye on him, as we all know. But what became
so contrasting to the rest of baseball at this
time is Connie Mack's appearance, right? We've
all seen the photos of him, suit, tie. Remember,
this is the 1800s. This is normal streetwear
attire. No one had done this. On the field. He's
always holding a scorecard. He's giving signals.
He was nicknamed the tall tactician, which is
a perfect nickname for a man that's tall and
slender. He's over six foot five and just looking
like he's in charge. And he dressed like he was
in charge because, well, he wouldn't relinquish
power for really forever for the rest of his
life. And linking this being with the Western
League. which would eventually become the American
League, seeing all the stories from this time
of how the National League operated and how the
Western League, soon to be American League, operated,
Ban Johnson ran a tight ship for this league.
And it wasn't like eight different teams. He
viewed it as we're all together as one league.
And the only way we're going to compete with
the National League and eventually become a major
league is if we all work together. Even to the
point in 1900. The year 1900, when they renamed
the American League, he asked Connie Mack to
help set up a team in Cleveland, not to give
up his his management role and ownership or his
management role in Milwaukee, but go to Cleveland
and sign players for them, make trades for them,
bring everything together while still doing his
role in Milwaukee. This is something that wouldn't
be allowed today. You couldn't do BGM of multiple
teams. But this is how. Ban Johnson thought was
the best way to make this league a success. And
Connie Mack went there, scouted out a stadium
for them, set up a bunch of the financial backers.
He basically, for about three months, was running
the team in Cleveland. Again, while at the same
time running the team in Milwaukee, and they're
going to compete against each other. And then
after he finished setting up Cleveland, he went
back and for 1900 managed his team in Milwaukee.
But Ban Johnson was impressed. And then his other
tactic. that he thought that we need to do to
compete with the National League is encroach
on their territory. The cities that have National
League teams, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia,
we should set up a team there. Like, no slight
to Milwaukee, but Philadelphia and Boston and
Chicago is where the big baseball teams are.
It's where the National League's biggest teams
are. We need to put together a team in those
cities. And he tasked... Connie Mack, hey, do
you want to be the one to set up a team in Philadelphia?
And Connie Mack accepted. And Connie Mack did
the same thing that he did for the Cleveland
team. He got financial backers. He scouted out
places for stadiums. He built the entire roster.
And that kind of is where the legend of Connie
Mack begins because he became manager. He became
part owner of this team as well. His first time
actually owning part of a team. And he was manager
owner for the next 50 years. five World Series
championships, seven AL pennants. This started
as a minority stake and a management role. Ben
Johnson couldn't have imagined, A, the American
League would take off the way it did, and B,
that Connie Mack would stick around as long as
he did to not only becoming majority owner and
thus can't fire himself. The reason why Connie
Mack's record is unbreakable for games managed,
games won, he also has games lost as a manager
too, is he was the man that, decided, are you
hired or are you not? And Connie Mack got to
have that longevity run. And Connie Mack also
had a sense of humor, though, Scott. My favorite
thing, my favorite little antidote about Connie
Mack from the first World Series in 1903. Fun
fact, Pittsburgh refused to play in the first
World Series because of the acrimony between
the National League. It would be the New York
Giants against the A's, and it was nicknamed
the White Elephant A's. which is where we have
Stomper today. It all comes back to John McGraw,
who was complaining about the A's as a white
elephant. This is straight from Sabre. It was
a term generally used to describe an ornate,
impractical, and burdensome possession. Rather
than consider it an insult, Mack immediately
adopted the pachyderm as the team's symbol and
attached a white elephant patch to the athletic
uniforms from 1903 to 1928. And it's still there
today. still there today and this is going to
be kind of interesting this is going to seem
kind of weird for me covering Connie Mack but
you'd expect now I'd have a lot to talk about
but he intentionally was an uncontroversial figure
for his 50 years with the athletics that it's
it's almost more interesting how he got into
that role and the next 50 years everyone knows
what happened you know that you got the five
world series but there are were some ups and
downs because he wasn't necessarily the greatest
manager of finances And so whenever he had those
World Series runs, you know, three World Series
in the 1910s and two won and then won again in
1929 and 1930 and made it in 1931 but lost. But
every time he won, they kind of ran into financial
difficulties. And he was described as being one
of the best at being able to tear down a World
Series team. You know, like Florida Marlins eat
your heart out. Because after each World Series
run, they would have another string of multiple
100 -loss seasons. And when that happened in
the late 1919s and 1920s, he was able to recover
and get that later run, that second run later.
But after his World Series loss in 1931, the
team really didn't recover. And at this point,
we're Connie Mack's in his late 70s, into his
80s, into his 90s, and he continued to do a hands
-on manager -GM -owner role. And the question
was, did he kind of hang on a little too long?
Because the downside is, through the 1940s, when
the athletics were constantly losing 100 games,
the Philadelphia Phillies, who had been a dreadful
team through the 10s, 20s, and 30s, all of a
sudden started winning games. They were called
the Fightin' Phillies. And that was right around
the time where there was a sea change in baseball
where it's like, hey, these cities with two teams,
we should move one of these teams to somewhere
else. And just at that moment, the Phillies had
taken the crown as the more attended, more financially
viable, more viable on the field team. And unfortunately,
maybe Connie Mack holding on to the team for
that long is one of the reasons why they were
eventually sold to Arnold Johnson and moved to
Kansas City. Now, we don't know if he had resigned
as manager in the mid 1930s. We don't know that
it would have gone differently, but it didn't
help. It didn't help. So that is. While Connie
Mack is a legend, that is one of his criticisms.
Maybe he did it a little too long. The game had
changed. The game had passed him by. He wasn't
as great at scouting anymore. Baseball had become
much more of a business in that time. We hadn't
hit free agency yet, so that wasn't a thing.
But essentially, he managed till 1950. They ended
up selling the team in 1954. One of his sons
was involved and given a role with the Philadelphia
Athletics, but it was a token role to try to
get them to sell. And the entire Mack family
was no longer associated with the athletics after
1955, which is an unfortunate end to that dynasty.
And for Mac and his and his legacy, you look
at you mentioned how long he managed. I mean,
he literally managed some of the best teams in
the dead ball era before Babe Ruth arrived. And
then Babe Ruth arrives in the roaring 20s. And
he still managed to create a World Series team
in the 30s. And we're talking like in the early
days, we're talking Eddie Collins. We're talking
home run Baker. And then in the 30s, we're talking
double X, right? We're talking Jimmy Foxx. We're
talking some of the legends of Philadelphia sports,
Eddie Collins, Lefty Grove. And he found these
guys pre -World War II and surviving the dead
ball era and surviving Babe Ruth. And you got
to remember, like, Babe Ruth's in the American
League at the same time as the Philadelphia A's.
And the A's were still winning World Series despite
this. It was always the A's and the Yankees during
this time. But then as the 40s come along, the
difference was, well, Connie kept tearing it
down, relying on building it back up, tearing
it down, building it back up. But then finally,
as you said, he wasn't able to build it back
up after the 40s because the talent pool changed
so much. The Yankees and some of these other
mega powers had put their investment where they
could down on the farm system, which is something
Connie Mack never really did. Yeah, he never
really did. But there's one team he left out
there in the 1920s as far as competing, and that's
the Chicago White Sox. But the reason is they
didn't compete. I'm just kind of going to lead
into our next owner here. Why didn't they compete
in the 1920s? Well, let's talk about Charlie
Comiskey. And the thing that he's most known
for, much to his chagrin, is his ties to the
1919 Black Sox, which we've talked multiple times.
We talked on our last episode. But I have to
tell you something. When we first, to give a
little inside baseball to this podcast. Don,
you've set out like a draft of like an outline.
Here's what we want to cover on each episode.
And the month leading up to that, we'll meet
together and talk. OK, here's what we're going
to talk about. Here's what we're going to research
on. In our first episode, we covered the players
trying to unionize other events that failed,
court cases, things like that. But when we first
did our first meeting, what did I tell you? I
pitched you an idea of like, hey, we should open
with this. Hey, let's show a vignette of how.
Things were bad for the players. And let's look
at the 1919 Black Sox. They were so underpaid
by Charles Comiskey that they were disgruntled
and needed to fix games in order to make up the
money they weren't making. And you were like,
oh, that's a great idea. So I was going to go
and research on that. I came back the next week.
And what was the first thing I said? Oh, I was
totally wrong. Oh, yeah, I was totally wrong.
That was something that was put in eight men
out. that was then parroted over and over on
all these different sources I've read. But in
the last 30 years or so, people have been able
to get a hold of the accounting books of the
American League and the National League and the
owners at this time. And the White Sox weren't
underpaid relative to their peers. They were
actually the highest paid team in the league.
They had the highest payroll at $93 ,000. And
there were 15 players in the league in 1919 who
had salaries of $6 ,000 or more. Five of them
were with the White Sox. So I had to scrap that.
But the thing that I take away from that is we
know Charles Comiskey basically for one thing.
And that is his ties to the 1919 Black Sox. And
he has been painted as the villain of that episode
for a very long time. So for this episode, I'm
going to go back before that. How did he get
started in baseball? Much like Connie Mack, who
was working at a factory. Charles Comiskey was
a plumber's apprentice in 1875. And much like
Connie Mack, he had a college friend who was
playing baseball for a team and decided to recruit
Charles Comiskey to play Milwaukee in 1876. And
then over the next six years, he continued to
play on amateur teams across the Midwest in Chicago,
Elgin, Dubuque, and eventually... As I said,
you try to get to the National League or the
American Association. He eventually signed with
the American Association St. Louis Browns in
1882. Remember, I was saying that getting to
the American Association or the National League
was the goal at this time. All those other leagues
and teams tend to not last very long because
the financials just weren't very good. And again,
the only reason he made the St. Louis Browns
is his friend Ted Sullivan that he had followed
to his first amateur team. had also signed with
the Browns and recommended they sign Charles
Comiskey. So it's, again, it's not, in this time,
baseball's a small knit community. It's almost
who you know, not how well you play for a lot
of these players. And it also brings us to Ban
Johnson later in the 1890s, where, remember,
we talked about it, 10 -minute clubs, as we joked
about those back in episode one. Do you still
remember what a 10 -minute club is? Yeah. Oh,
God. Refresh my memory. 10 -minute club is when
you go into a club for 10 minutes and get as
drunk as possible and talk business. It was for
the wealthy and for the elite to try to figure
out who could work with who. And that's where
Charles Comiskey and Ben Johnson met each other
in Cincinnati to say, hey, I'm starting the American
League. You want in, kid? Also, just like this
is a similar story to Connie Mack, whose manager
that brought him in had a falling out with the
owner after two years, and then he took over.
Well, Ted Sullivan had a falling out with the
Browns owner in 1883, and Comiskey stepped in
as the player manager for the Browns. Although
unlike Mack, who had a rough time as the player
manager for Pittsburgh, Charles Comiskey found
immediate success with the Browns. They won four
straight American Association championships.
And after the American Association folded in
1890, Comiskey briefly played for the Chicago
White Stockings for the Players League. Again,
it's almost funny when I was researching for
Connie Mack and then researching Charles Comiskey,
how much their backgrounds up to this point just
linked, almost looked the exact same. Go play
for the Players League, you know, in the middle
of this. And when the Players League folded,
he went and signed with the Cincinnati Reds of
the National League. And you know who worked
at the newspaper in Cincinnati as a sports editor?
Ben Johnson. Van Johnson came into contact with
Van Johnson. And it was actually Comiskey had
to stop playing because he had a scare with tuberculosis.
It was very vague when I was studying this. He
didn't have tuberculosis. He was at high risk.
And the doctor recommended, hey, you should you
should stop playing baseball. And if possible,
you should go live down down south where the
temperatures are warmer and there's more humidity
because that's easier on your lungs. So he went
down south and he saw a bunch of these upstart
leagues and eventually made his way back to Cincinnati.
And he tells Van Johnson, hey, you know what?
We should start a league and actually try to
compete with the Western League. Yeah, Van Johnson
is the one who eventually did the Western League.
But it was actually Charles Comiskey put a little
little bug in his ear of like, hey, I saw these
leagues starting up. You know, maybe we should
try something the same. So then when Van Johnson
started the Western League. One of the first
people he brought in to be owners was Charles
Comiskey, who bought the Sioux City Cornhuskers,
moved them to St. Paul, and renamed them the
Saints. And when the Western League rebranded
to the American League in 1900 and declared their
intention to no longer be a minor league, that
the National League could push around, one of
Van Johnson's goals, remember I said this before,
teams in Philadelphia, team in Boston, team in
Chicago. Chicago was the headquarters of the
National League. It would be the biggest middle
finger to the National League in saying, hey,
we mean business. We mean war with you guys.
If they were able to get a team in Chicago. And
he said, Charles Comiskey is my man. Let's get
him to get a team in Chicago. And he named them
the White Stockings, which was a throwback to
the American Association team that was managed
by Al Spalding. Interesting story. I said that
he didn't join the American Association as a
player until 1882. He was trying out for teams
in the late 1870s, and one of those was the Chicago
White Sockings, and Al Spaulding said, no thanks.
Thanks, no thanks. I actually saw in a few sources
that they were saying him calling it the White
Stockings and then shortening it to the White
Socks was, again, kind of a middle finger to
Al Spaulding. I'm going to take your name and
change it. a little bit. And a reminder about
Spalding, Spalding's whole empire was based in
Chicago. He was seen, he was Spalding. Kind of
was a legend in his own mind. Granted, he was
a legend, but a legend in his own mind locally
in Chicago saying, I'm the sporting goods emperor
of this whole area. I should be the man in charge
of any sort of baseball team coming here. Because
the Cubs had just arrived. They're over on the
west side of Chicago. And now somebody's coming
to the south side of Chicago thinking, well,
why is it not Albert Spalding? Who's this guy,
Comiskey? And it's all because he had the blessing
of Ben Johnson. Another tie to that, Comiskey,
St. Louis Browns of the American Association.
One of their pennants was defeating the Chicago
White Stockings back in 1886. So he had some
history with the name. And Chicago also had some
history with the name. But with the American
Association folding, the name was up for grabs.
So he went and named his team the Chicago White
Stockings. It's kind of weird. I looked back
in newspapers when they were called the White
Stockings versus the White Sox. I could go on
a whole tangent of what teams names were back
then, because it was just kind of whatever the
press called them. So in 1901, most of the press
called them the White Stockings for a year. And
then over time, they eventually just evolved
into the White Sox. And then it becomes this
weird thing where then they'll officially change
their name to the White Sox. And then on baseball
reference, they'll say, oh, they were the White
Sox in 1901, which. Really, they weren't. It's
kind of like the modern day where we talk about
the Washington Nationals, but in shorthand, we
call them the Nats, right? Or you think about
sometimes in baseball history of shortening for
the sake of box scores and thinning it to print
in newspapers. Socks is easier to write than
stockings. And it just stuck. And now, you know,
100 years later, we're thinking, why is there
an X in socks? How do we pluralize this? What
do we do? Hey, just thank the guys in the early
1900s for why we're here today. Well, an interesting
thing on the Nationals as well, because I got
a little feedback and negative feedback from
one of my videos because I was describing the
Washington Nationals. in the 1950s. And everyone
goes, no, it's the Senators. Their name actually
officially was the Washington Nationals. Reporters
just called them the Senators. So it was just
like, well, technically they're both right. But
it's just this weird thing. Teams had, the Philadelphia
Phillies in the 1940s were also called the Blue
Jays. Like that's a weird one. And it's very
confusing when you're doing research and you
go find an article talking about the Phillies.
And the Sporting News in the 1940s, the things
the writers wanted to do was spruce up their
article. So they would refer to each team by
a different name each paragraph. So I'd be reading
an article and say, the Phillies manager, blah,
blah, blah, does this, this, and this. Next paragraph,
the Blue Jays, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like,
are they talking about a different team? No,
it would just be the same team every time. So
the Nationals, Nats, Senators, you would find
articles that would use all three. And it's funny
you mention that. because one of the books I've
used for research, and we'll have a full book
list at the end of this whole podcast, but The
Lords of Baseball, not Lords of the Realm, The
Lords of Baseball by Harold Parrott, who was
a sporting news columnist. He wrote for dozens
and dozens of years around baseball. He writes
like an old -timey sports writer in this book
about the stories of Walter O'Malley and Branch
Rickey and Mack, and it's just like... It's kind
of hard to read, you know, 100 years later of
like, wait, what? Everyone has a nickname. You
have to follow along. I'm rereading pages. It's
almost a different language, too. It truly is.
It's like old English, almost. And Comiskey dealing
with all this. You know what? They're the Sox.
Deal with it, Albert Spalding. That's how we
got on this tangent. Sorry. Yeah. But Comiskey
coming into Chicago, having the white stockings,
same city as the National League Chicago team.
I can't even recall what their name was at this.
I think they were the Orphans at this time, not
the Cubs yet. Again, we're getting into names.
They were very vague at the time. But again,
it seemed like a war. They were going to war
with the National League. But in being in Chicago
at the headquarters of the National League, Comiskey
also played a role in the peace talks. And eventually
he was one of the original signers of the baseball
constitution, or what we call the national agreement,
in 1903 that made peace between the two leagues.
When I look at Comiskey, one of the biggest pieces
of his legacy, aside obviously from 1919, is
building a ballpark. Building a baseball -specific
ballpark in the 1900s. We'll get into this in
the business and the boom of the 80s and the
90s of baseball kind of going through a wave
of, okay, in the early 1900s, there's this wave
of baseball -specific stadiums being built. Comiskey
was the first one of those. It was the largest
at the time. It had a double deck. It was state
-of -the -art at the time. Then the Yankee Stadium
comes around and copies kind of the style that,
okay, we can make this big and grand and make
it the greatest stadium in the land. You go further
along. You go away from these small parks like
Wrigley Field, like Fenway Park. And you get
to these grand stadiums. You get Tiger Stadium
in Detroit. You get these specific just cathedrals
of ginormous ballparks. Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.
Polo Grounds was multi -purpose. But trying to
get as many people as possible in in the 20s
and 30s as the game's popularity is soaring.
And then for some reason... We got away from
that in the 60s and 70s for these multi -purpose.
And again, we'll talk about this in the business
episode where owners work together to say, hey,
if you subsidize us to build us a new. we can
share it with the Cincinnati Bengals for the
Reds, right? Leaving Sportsman Park. Like, hey,
let's make a dual riverfront stadium here. Or
the Pirates. Or the list goes on of all these
ugly cathedrals of dual -purpose stadiums that
we left. Comiskey was the first one to say, no,
let's make it just for the White Sox. I don't
even know. Has there been a dual -use stadium
built in the last 40 years? I mean, not just
for baseball and football. The Coliseum was the
last one to exist until two seasons ago. Wow,
that's crazy. Well, you get Comiskey taking over
the White Sox and he would be the owner of the
White Sox for the rest of his life until his
death in 1931. And they saw some ups and they
saw some downs. They won the World Series in
1906 and they won the World Series in 1917. And
an interesting note, I talked about Connie Mack's
opinions changing once he was an owner and had
to manage contracts. even though he was a member
of the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players,
was in the Players League. Charles Comiskey was
also in the Players League, but he still had
some of his spats with players. I said he did
eventually pay his players fairly, but he did
not like negotiating, especially when the player
took it to the press. And one example would be
in 1909, Ed Walsh, Hall of Fame pitcher, star
pitcher for the Sox at the time, was holding
out for more salary and leaked some things to
the press. And Charles Comiskey wasn't happening.
He said, we will win the pennant without Walsh
if necessary. I have not written Walsh and will
open no communication with him as I'm through
with him. We had a splendid string of pitchers
and Walsh's return would make it harder to choose
among them. Walsh has been treated pretty well
by the White Sox, but he has forgotten the years
we carried him along the payroll at a comfortable
salary just to sit on the bench and learn how
to pitch when everyone else thought it was a
joke to carry him. He ended up winning. Walsh
ended up folding, ending his holdout and signing
with Comiskey. But it's just one of those things
of like, don't push me too far or I'm going to
be like, I'm going to talk bad about you back
if you talk bad about me and try to bring the
negotiations into the public. And Ed Walsh was
the best pitcher of the era. I mean, this is,
this is Walter Johnson level fame, hall of famer,
back -to -back runner up and MVP only lost to
position players. Cause at the time there was
no Cy Young award and, you know, losing to Ty
Cobb and to Tris Speaker, no one would bat an
eye. But if there was a Cy Young award, Ed Walsh
would have won it during these years. And yeah.
And another contract issue he had, do you know
the name Hal Chase? I don't tell me more. Oh,
this is actually, this is one of those things
where I stumbled on this story and I went, Oh,
there's more to this. So Hal Chase was at the
White Sox in 1914. 1915, we've talked about this
before. We had the Federal League for one year.
Hal Chase was one of the defectors. He went to
the Federal League. Him and the White Sox got
in some court cases where the White Sox were
suing. Then he countered sued, basically saying,
you can't go to the Federal League. We have the
reserve clause. And interestingly, Hal Chase
won this. It was before the 1922 ruling. and
it was before the other rulings on the federal
league how chase won his ability to play in the
federal league but the problem is federal league
folded after 1915 and he was blacklisted from
playing in the american league after the federal
league folded had to sign with the national league
but here's where the story gets really interesting
so when he signed with the national league his
manager was christy matthewson another hall of
fame pitcher who suspended him multiple times
for bribing players on both teams trying to fix
matches. He tried, he posed, he bribed his own
players to either play worse. He bribed players
on the other teams for them to play worse so
he could bet on his team. And he constantly was
getting suspended. The league stepped in, did
an investigation and cleared him. Said, no, no,
he can keep playing, which is really, really
weird. Then when the White Sox scandal, the Black
Sox scandal happened. He was one of the guys
brought up on charges as being one of the middlemen
who was bringing this opportunity to gamble on
the games to the White Sox players. Now, when
they looked into that, his involvement, I think,
is a lot less than what people are saying. But
Hal Chase, this guy that had a court case against
Charles Comiskey, is one of the guys that was
indicted for match fixing, for game fixing. I
think what it ended up being is he was more aware.
of what was going on and made bets himself and
ended up making like $60 ,000, they said, off
of the World Series. But he eventually was acquitted
as well. But at this point, he was now blacklisted
from the National League as well. Blacklisted
from the American League, blacklisted from the
National League. And looking up sources about
how Chase, it's interesting. Because he had that
court standoff with Charles Comiskey. There's
a lot of speculation of, hey, were all these
other things that happened later, like kind of
he wasn't guilty, but it was petty getting back
at him? Or is he the most corrupt player we've
ever had in baseball history? Like some websites
would say he's the greatest early player advocate
and a guy that was a pioneer for players' rights.
And then you read another article. I think the
Sabre article opens with the most corrupt player
in baseball. So it's interesting. But the fact
that it ties. Back to Charles Comiskey. The low
point of Charles Comiskey's career, the 1919
Black Sox, just kind of cracked me up of like,
this is a small world. Baseball is a small world
during this time. It still is a small world to
today. And I think the 1919 Black Sox, we talked
about, like I said, we talked about it plenty
in the Commissioner episode. If you want to listen
to us talk about that. But truly, Comiskey was
caught in between a rock and a hard place where
both he and Ben Johnson. knew the games were
being fixed before the games began, and still
did nothing about it. I think that's the ultimate
legacy on all this, where Comiskey had the opportunity
to try to put his quash to it, but his team's
back in the World Series. What if it's wrong?
What if this becomes a whole spat? Van Johnson
knew, and he did not order Comiskey to do anything
about it. There are multiple levels of failures
that led to the 1919 Black Sox. Well, here's
the interesting thing. Going into the research,
Did he know? Like, it's actually a little uncertain
if he actually did know. I mean, Shoeless Joe
Jackson testified that he went to Charles Comiskey
after game seven to turn in the money and say,
hey, they told us to fix the games, which also
didn't follow his previous testimony. All of
these testimonies are all all over the place.
And it's really tough to tell. When did Comiskey
first find out? Did he find out during the series,
before the series, after? It's a little unknown.
Same with Van Johnson. But the biggest thing
was it didn't matter. This ruined Charles Comiskey's
reputation. It ruined his team. After the 1920
season when all these players were banned for
life, the White Sox were terrible for the rest
of his life. They never finished above fifth
place until his death in 1931. And even Van Johnson,
his friend, the guy that brought him in to the
Western League, They're basically founding members
of the American League turned on Charles Comiskey.
When Commissioner Landis came in and started
cleaning up the game and making sure people weren't
involved in gambling and gamblers weren't involved,
there were a lot of individual cases where players
were accused of one thing or another. And one
of that things, one that happened in the mid
1920s with the White Sox. And when Charles Comiskey
tried to pitch in his opinion, Van Johnson said,
if any man ever talked out of turn when question
of baseball integrity, sorry, if any man ever
talked out of turn when the question of baseball
integrity was involved, then Comiskey is the
man. Mr. Comiskey, in my opinion, is an incompetent
witness when it comes to any sort of testimony
or statement. regarding the stand to be taken
when the safety of the national game is at stake.
He plainly holds the dollar paramount to the
integrity of baseball. And remember, these were
business partners for years that were pioneers
of this league. And because of the White Sox,
because of the Black Sox scandal, basically had
a falling out. Reputation for Comiskey is done.
And it was kind of a sad, sad ending to his tale.
Where from 1921 to 1931, he was constantly having
health problems. His team was terrible. Nobody
trusted him anymore. And that's really the end
of the Charles Comiskey story. Yeah, it's sad.
He dies in 1931. We talk about the curse of the
Bambino because it was a more famous curse for
some reason. The curse of the 1919 White Sox
was longer than the curse of the Bambino. It
didn't get broken until the year after the Red
Sox won, of course, in 2005. I mean, the White
Sox appeared in one other World Series. from
1919 until they won in 2005. But they hadn't
won since the previous one before the Black Sox
scandal. And it's sad because Comiskey and the
family still controlled the White Sox even while
they were into downturn and even while they continued
to struggle in the ballpark that was named after
the original owner. And eventually, another Chicago
man would come around. Another man connected
to the Cubs would come around and Bill Veck.
We'll talk about him a little bit. We're going
to stay in Chicago, though. After the break,
we're going to go to the north side. We're going
to talk about the man that also adorns his ballpark,
and that's Philip K. Wrigley. Take our first
break of the Service Time podcast. And back with
more, going to the north side, talking about
the Cubs. All right, 45 minutes in, talking about
a couple of old -school owners. We'll have some
of the new -ish owners toward the end of this
show. And a reminder, we'll have... Plenty more
to talk about when it comes to the modern owners
of baseball in later episodes of this series.
We're trying to get some of the old school guys
out of the way because, well, we're not going
to talk about them much moving forward. A reminder,
you can interact with us on the Substack page.
But for now, let's get back to the show. Welcome
back. Philip K. Wrigley, second generation gum
maker. empire that is chewing gum. You know,
when was the last time you had a juicy fruit,
Scott? A juicy fruit? No, no, I stick to Eclipse,
or Orbit. Orbits. Whatever. The point being is
this was a business tycoon that just so happened
to own a baseball team. You notice the common
thread in the first couple of owners we talk
about in Mack and Comiskey. Players who were
well -regarded, who were very popular, then were
seemingly obvious choices to then become an owner
of a team. Philip Wrigley now starts this shift
and his father, of course, who was the original
owner of the Cubs. But the reason why we're not
talking about him is because Wrigley oversaw,
the junior that is, saw the majority of the change
that we see that the Cubs had to go through during
their Billy Goat curse during the times. While
his father dealt with the Billy Goat curse, it
was Junior that really maintained that curse
on his own failures and his own issues that he
had at Wrigley Field. But it's a reminder in
1932 when his father passed away. He still took
on the gum empire, but also said, and by the
way, you get to run the Cubs now. And he didn't
really want to do it. When we think about owners
and businessmen, like the opening line of the
show where, you know, they see this as a hobby.
Wrigley is one of those guys that sees this like,
yeah, my dad had this baseball team, but I guess
I got to run it. And like you said earlier, you
were the general manager too. There's a whole,
a lot of extra going on when it comes to. Being
the owner of a team, you got to be the GM. You
got to run a farm system. You got to hire a manager.
You got to do a lot of things as the owner in
these 30s. We didn't have 150 -person front offices
in these days. It was just ticket takers, ushers,
and the owner. That's really all that was on
the payroll for a team. And Wrigley maintained
that while still maintaining Wrigley Field, the
ballpark that adorned his father's name. The
thing that you have to remember about the Cubs
and their... of success on the North side. When
they moved from the West side of Chicago to the
North side of Chicago to get closer to some of
the more wealth and some of the, I hate to say
it like this, but the truth is the white fans
that they wanted to attract. Because remember
in the history of Chicago and the history of
immigration to the second great city. A lot of
the immigrants moved to the west side of the
city. That's where you still see a lot of the
culture and a lot of the little pockets of neighborhoods,
the Ukrainian village, a lot of Latin influence
out there on the west side. And still to this
day, it's been pretty gentrified, obviously.
But the north side was still always white. wealthy,
even Jewish a lot of times on the north side
of Chicago. That's where the Cubs ultimately
wanted to go and how Wrigley Field was built
and maintained. And that standard was set by
his father and maintained by Junior and Phillip
saying, this needs to be the cleanest, most pleasant
ballpark in the National League. For a long time.
It wasn't, Scott. Fans were complaining about
sitting in the bleachers and sitting that their
pants were getting destroyed. The fans were not
having a good time. The wind was so freezing
off the lake that it became a wind tunnel underneath
the awnings. It was not a great place to watch
a baseball game. Wrigley, again, the son, saw
this and said, we got to clean this up. We got
to make this a world -class experience to come
to Wrigley Field. I would say legacies is cleaning
up Wrigley field after it kind of fell into disrepair,
struggling with, you know, the dirt and the grime.
And this is not just a Chicago isolated thing,
but remember most of the industry was isolated
to the South side of Chicago. The rich were on
the North. Chicago was not a clean city in the
early 1900s. We talk about rebuilding from the
fires and it's fascinating. If you ever go to
Chicago, by the way, just. Go on one of those
river architecture tours. You're going to learn
so much about the city of Chicago. And I really,
really enjoyed my time doing all that. But sidebar,
back here to Philip Wrigley. The other piece
that we have to talk about Wrigley and what makes
him famous, aside from the Cubs and aside from
how bad his teams were, was what we all know
now as a league of their own. That's right. Philip
K. Wrigley was one of the original founders and
one of the original... owners of the All -American
Girls Baseball League, and had games played at
Wrigley Field during World War II. I know you
know plenty about baseball movies, Scott. This
isn't just a movie. This is a real story about
a league of their own, and Philip K. Wrigley
is a big reason why it happened. If you notice
in the movie, they have the tryouts at Wrigley
Field. They all trained into Wrigley Field, and
then all the teams were around the area. They
didn't want a team in Chicago, but they had Rockford.
They had Kenosha. Kenosha. To a point you said
earlier, Philip K. Wrigley, that kind of ties
into someone we'll talk about later. You said
he hired the ushers and the ticket takers and
stuff like that. One name that we'll see later
that he hired, I think he was 18 at the time,
was a young Bill Veck. His first job was working
under Philip Wrigley with the Chicago Cubs. And
when you mentioned cleaning up the stadium. I
don't know if this is apocryphal, but they're
saying the idea of putting Ivy on the brick wall
came from Bill Veck. And they're saying that's
the one thing that stayed. I don't know if that's
true. I don't know if that's Bill Veck telling
tales. That's the thing you'll find with Bill
Veck later on. He tells a lot of tales that have
some truth to them, but a lot of fiction as well.
But it's just an interesting little tie -in.
Baseball is a small world. The fact that Philip
K. Wrigley employed someone who would be a notorious
manager. later and later years with the league
is just kind of funny, small little connection
in my book. And then furthermore, Vex father
worked under the original Wrigley and Bill Vex
senior. And this is a great quote from the society
of American baseball research. on Wrigley talking
about Bill Veck Sr. when he passed away in 1934
and was president of the team as Wrigley was
taking over, the junior was taking over. Quote,
God knows I don't want the job. If I could find
another Bill Veck Sr., I'd put him in there in
a minute, but he doesn't seem to be available.
No matter who's in there, if anything goes wrong,
I'm going to get blamed for it, so I might as
well take the job myself. That's Philip K. Wrigley
talking about it. Eventually getting Veck Jr.
into the fold and helping clean up Wrigley Field
as he talked about. We talk about the All -American
Professional Girls League, and it's fun for a
few years, but ultimately the bane of its existence
was it didn't make any money, and also the boys
were coming back home for war. So the Women's
League folds. Now all the focus for Wrigley has
to go back to the Cubs and trying to sustain
this juggernaut and trying to sustain this amazing
market that he has for baseball with the Cubs.
The two biggest flaws that Wrigley had during
his time is actually running the team and running
it as a consistent, trying to make it a consistent
winner. His inconsistencies in the manager position,
maybe his most notorious chapter is the College
of Coaches. Have you heard about the College
of Coaches? I have not. The College of Coaches
was an abject failure by all accounts where what
Wrigley instituted in the early 60s was saying,
okay, you know what? I've failed with hiring
so many managers. I've failed with hiring general
managers. Forget it. I'm just going to have a
rotating cast. I'm going to bring up guys from
the minor leagues and say, you're the manager
for this month, and then put them back down.
And then this guy will come in and be the manager
for a couple of months, and then he goes back
down. I'll have a different hitting coach for
this month. I'm trying to bring in all the great
minds in my organization to help the teams at
different times of trying to get the Cubs to
win games. How do you think that went, Scott?
I don't think it went well, but you'll find this.
There's a couple other stories I've got later
on of other owners of things that were done during
this day where today would seem crazy because
people tried it. It failed. No one ever did it
again. We have a standard thing in place now.
Now you have a manager and a GM that are in place
for a while unless the team goes bad or the Cubs
poach the Brewers manager or something like that.
But back then, this... These hadn't been tried
before, so maybe he thought he was on to something.
Maybe he thought he was going to be the first
analytics king. I mean, in 1961, four different
managers managed the Cubs that season. Betty
Himsel, Harry Kraft, El Tap, and Lou Klein. I
mean, it's all over the place. 16 games for Kraft,
11 games for Klein. And then in 1962, three more
managers. Klein and Tapp are still in this. Then
Charlie Metro joins the fold. Now, are these
all player managers as well? There's player managers
in here. There's different hitting coaches. There's
pitching coaches. It's crazy. And again, the
success did not follow. 1961, they lost 90 games.
1962, they lost 103 games. 1963, they're finally
above 500, but they still finished 7th in the
National League at 82 -80. In 1964, they only
win 76 games, and then it really all comes crashing
down in 1965, or excuse me, 1966, in Leo DeRocher's
first year as manager. Yeah, Leo DeRocher still
bouncing around, still being a manager in the
60s, loses 103 games on the 1966 Chicago Cubs.
Despite Ron Sanso, despite Billy Williams, despite
some of the great players of the mid -late 60s
arriving to the Cubs, Ernie Banks is still playing.
playing at this time at age 35, playing 140 games.
He wasn't himself anymore, but this was an abject
failure by Philip Wrigley in the early 60s, wasting
some of the final prime years of Ernie Banks,
Mr. Cub, who spent his entire career there with
Wrigley. We know the stories, back -to -back
MVPs in 58 and 59, in years that the Cubs weren't
great. but they still weren't going to the postseason
because there wasn't expanded playoffs at this
time. They were in the top half of the National
League, but they weren't going to the postseason.
Ernie Banks was making history being one of the
best players on the worst teams, but again, because
of the reserve clause, Ernie's staying put. Phillip
doesn't have to worry about overpaying him, doesn't
have to worry about, you know, could this guy
be poached, could this guy be leaving. Ernie
Banks is a big reason why Phillip Wrigley got
a lot of goodwill because he kept him around.
despite the fact that he's technically not his
own homegrown player. The other abject failure
that Wrigley had was demolishing his minor leagues.
This is something he totally misunderstood. from
Kennesaw Mountain Landis. We talked about that
in the commissioner episode where Landis thought
the minor leagues were a threat to Major League
Baseball. He was instructing owners, you should
not be operating minor league teams. And Wrigley
took that to heart. Okay, great, that's less
money that I have to spend. I don't care about
these teams. I don't care about these minor league
players. He would consistently be selling them,
selling them, selling them to anyone of the highest
bidder who just wanted these players who would
go on to become better players for those teams.
And now he's finding himself with a perennial
loser every single season. He can't find anybody
because he doesn't have anybody in his farm system.
So he's one of the last organizations to finally
go to the Negro Leagues and sign Ernie Banks
in 1952. I mean, most of the league was integrated
by this point, still in 1952, and Banks comes
along and becomes one of the best players and
arguably the best player in Cubs franchise history.
He might be the best player to never play a playoff
game. You always hit a list. Who's the best player
that never played in the playoffs? Of course,
back then, it was just the World Series. Actually,
when did the Championship Series start? The League
Championship Series started in 1969. Yeah, whenever
you see those lists, who's the best player to
never be in the postseason or the best player
on the worst team? I'm trying to see here. They
only had, like, what, three winning seasons with
Ernie Banks? 53 to 71? I guess they had a few
at the end of his career, but his first 14 years
of his career, they had a winning record once
at 82 -80. For having one of the best players,
that's bad. So we talk about a lot that went
wrong for Wrigley. Obviously, the teams didn't
win many games, and yes, he had Ernie Banks,
but there's one thing that his legacy gets to
stand on, and it's the thing that's going to
tie us to one of the final owners we talk about
in Ted Turner, and that is the relationship that
he created. with WGN and live television. I am
on a soapbox here for a second here, Scott, because
I found this quote in the sporting news trying
to understand in 1948 how WGN first started broadcasting
games for the Cubs and how Philip Wrigley had
the foresight to think, I need to make these
games available. 80 years later, we still can't
get this right. But in 1948, Philip Wrigley had
it right. Let me read you this quote from the
Sporting News. We do not propose to televise
our games solely for the dyed -in -the -wool
fans who can't attend. Instead... We hope to
perfect our telecasts so they will make new fans.
Wrigley explaining a visit to the LA version
of Wrigley Field where experiments are being
conducted by representatives of WBKB of Chicago,
KTLA of Los Angeles, and WGN -TV of Chicago.
Wrigley was openly auditioning television markets.
Say, hey, what are the best angles? How can we
set up the best sort of infrastructure for you
to televise our games and show us to the rest
of the country? And the fact that he was openly
saying, no, we need to televise these games.
It wasn't all the home games, but we need to
televise these games to show off why people should
be baseball fans. And one thing about this is
this is novel thinking because during this time,
there were a lot of owners that thought televising
a game means it will keep fans from going to
the stadium. They didn't view it as, oh, this
will grow our fan base. They viewed it as this
will make us less money. Because we want as many
people going through the turnstiles buying tickets,
which is how we make our revenue. Now, that seems
silly today based on how large these television
contracts are. But at the time, yeah, Philip
Wrigley was ahead of the game as far as his views
towards television. In 1948, it was a big deal
that spring training games are going to be televised
for the first time. And no one really knew how
to react to it. But Wrigley, again, was on top
of it saying, I'm in on this. I want this to
be broadcasted. And the way that he found on
WGN and the way that he was able to get to WGN,
in 1949, after one year after this experiment
of trying to see if we can televise games, the
Cubs and Wrigley actually donated their broadcasting
rights. There was not a rights fee to broadcast
Cubs games at this time because Wrigley said,
I just want to make sure I flood the market.
I want to make sure that anybody that wants to
watch or listen to the Cubs is able to do so.
So he donated it to three television networks
locally within Chicago. WENER, WGN is the one
that obviously stuck around, and a third locally
on the ABC network. Jack Brickhouse was hired
for WGN, one of the... OG voices of baseball
that we talk about in, you know, Fort C. Frick
Hall of Fame for broadcasters. But to think that
they donated it, GM Jim Gallagher at the time,
and one last aside on Jim Gallagher in a moment,
but to think that we believe in showcasing our
games. We believe in making it available to the
fans. Ultimately, WGN would be broadcasting games
up until marquee. came along for their own television
network because WGN was then owned by the Tribune
Company, which was the Chicago Tribune, and it
became a whole media conglomerate on the other
side, which is what we'll see again with Ted
Turner. But for WGN to be ready and invest in
this in the 40s became a cash cow in the 80s
when the Tribune Company owned the Cubs. It became
a free deal to broadcast these games to then
eventually Being owners of the Cubs until the
Tribune Company sold it to the Ricketts family.
I think that the biggest thing of WGN's legacy
and the biggest thing of Philip Wrigley's legacy
is starting this relationship with WGN. WGN obviously
became a superstation and was available on ultra
-high frequency cable and able across the country.
And I will bang on the table over and over and
over again about this take. The fact that...
You see so many Cubs fans. You see so many Braves
fans. It's the same reason why you see so many
Cowboys fans, so many Steelers fans, because
they were available. Just turn the game on. Just
be able to watch a game. All that is because
the last bit of legacy for Wrigley. He never
put lights in. He never put lights in at Wrigley
Field despite the constant public pressure. We
want lights. We need to generate revenue for
night games. He was, in fact, sued by a minority
owner trying to say, hey, we have lost revenues
by you refusing to install lights. They nearly
installed lights for the 1942 season, but instead
Pearl Harbor happened and they donated the copper
and steel they had already purchased to install
lights at Wrigley. to the war effort. All those
years that WGN was on at 1 .30 in the afternoon
for first pitch, there was daytime programming
for kids like me coming home from school. I could
turn on the end of the Cubs game. That was totally
normal for multiple generations of baseball.
And now we're sitting here going, oh, blackout.
Oh, I got to go to Apple TV for this one. I got
to go to this. Oh, wait, this game's actually
only streaming. They had it right in 1948. Why
can't we go back to that? And the kind of proof
of how this worked is, you know, WGN back then,
we didn't have cable, so it was all over the
air. So WGN a lot of times only broadcasted it
back in the 40s and 50s to the surrounding states.
And I don't know if you've ever been to Iowa.
And what team people from Iowa follow. But the
vast majority is Cubs fans. And you have the
Cardinals not far away. You have the Twins not
far away. You have the Brewers not far away.
But they're all Cubs fans. And people might go,
oh, it's because the minor league team is there
in Des Moines. The minor league team wasn't a
Chicago Cubs affiliate until 1981. So they won
the battle over having Iowa be their fan base
largely because of WGN. I mean, it wasn't because
of their play on the field, obviously. Yeah,
that's for sure. It's regionality. It's exposure,
and it's the ability to say, oh, hey, I watched
that team. I enjoy being entertained because
they were that daytime entertainment that WGN
was asking for because otherwise they had news
and all that sort of thing. Two little blips
that I didn't really talk about. Again, he was
sued by one of his minority owners. I'll put
that in the sub stack as well for some of the
information on that case in 1968. Wrigley won
the case, by the way, to keep lights away from
Wrigley Field, saying it would disturb the neighborhood.
So he won that case. And the other bit of legacy
that I didn't really talk about is Jim. Gallagher,
who was a sports writer at the time in Chicago,
who was openly critical of how Wrigley was running
the team. And Wrigley said, put his money where
his mouth is and said, okay, fine. You run the
team then. You're my general manager. And that
went exactly how you thought it would go in the
50s. Jim Gallagher was not a very good general
manager, and thus he was fired by Philip Wrigley.
I would love if an owner tried that today. Could
you imagine? Yeah. Hey, Skip Bayless, run the
team. So it's a complicated legacy for Philip
K. Wrigley. Look, Wrigley Field became one of
the most famous ballparks during his time. WGN
influence obviously saves a lot of the poor intentions
that his teams had on the field. But nonetheless,
Philip Wrigley made a ton of money between the
Gubb business and the Cubs business before ultimately
the family gave it up to the Tribune Company,
which then ultimately gave it up to the Ricketts.
I mean, there's not that many owners in the history
of the Chicago Cubs, and to think that Philip
K. Wrigley is... kind of the connecting thread
to all of it with establishing the relationship
to WGN is the biggest piece of his legacy that
will lead us eventually to Ted Turner. So while
all the struggles for the Cubs, and we laugh
in the 30s and 40s and 50s about the Cubs, granted
they were in the World Series in 1945, one of
the teams that really rising the power against
the Cubs in the National League. is the St. Louis
Cardinals. And while he's not technically an
owner, he needs to be discussed in this episode.
It's Branch Rickey. We talked a little bit about
Branch Rickey during the commissionership and
talking about the lawsuits and his farming and
his aggressive tactics while he was with St.
Louis. The inventor that he was, Branch Rickey,
ultimately going to the Dodgers and then the
Pirates. Dodgers where maybe he was most famous,
of course, signing for Jackie Robinson. He's
a man whose innovations were so fundamental,
they reshaped the entire industry. He's an Ohio
man. He saw the game differently. He was maybe
the father of sabermetrics, charting games, keeping
track of on -base percentage by hand himself,
watching the farm system, stockpiling as many
players as he possibly could, sometimes against
their will and sometimes nefariously as well.
But what Branch Rickey established? And what
the St. Louis Cardinals ownership enjoyed during
his time as the general manager and president
of the team from 1919 through 1942 is the fact
that he understood how to exploit the reserve
clause. He understood how to stockpile talent
that other teams either A, overlooked, B, wasn't
patient enough, or C, couldn't afford. Because
by the time these players were ready to go when
they were 19, 20, 21 years old, they were becoming
stars with... And you also got to remember, during
the 30s, when the Cardinals are starting to go
on a really good run here, it's the Great Depression.
Most owners don't have a ton of cash to deal
with to spend and try to outfit others if somebody's
in a holdout or somebody's trying to make a trade
and trying to, you know. create conflict between
each other. In the 30s, the Cardinals were one
of the best teams in baseball, right? They win
the World Series in 26. They win it in 31. They
win it in 34. They even lost two other World
Series during this time as well. And Branch Rickey,
on his way out the door in 1942, had his Cardinals
appear in four out of five World Series during
the World War II years because of all that talent
that he stockpiled heading into World War II.
And we've talked about three owners already.
Two of them had played Major League Baseball.
One of them hadn't. I believe Branch Rickey is
the last one we're going to talk about that actually
played Major League Baseball, and that was his
in to baseball. There is a sea change in how
ownership happens and who owns teams after this.
So he may be one of the last of a certain type
of person that was able to own a team. He went
to Ohio Wesleyan University, played college baseball
there and football there as well. And then he
started to be a player manager in semi -pro ball.
He moved all over Indiana, Iowa, Texas, then
was purchased by the Reds, came up to the Reds,
bounced around in their minor league system.
It was all over the place, but he did go to the
Browns and he did play major league baseball.
But again, he was being. A very devout, devout
man. He refused to play on Sundays. And again,
like we talked about with Connie Mack, some of
these prim and proper gentlemen, the Mahatma,
as he was nicknamed later in his life, he was
so God -fearing and Bible -thumping, Branch Rickey.
I mean, he would assign players that weren't
religious. He was very, I don't want to say he
wasn't, you know. open to signing black players
or signing Latin players because he eventually
would be. But in his early time with the Cardinals,
there's not exactly a great track record here
of Branch Rickey's diversity training, if you
will. But he was a genius coach. He even coached
University of Michigan when he was going to law
school. He was coaching that baseball team for
the Wolverines. Then he goes back into law school.
He goes to Idaho to... Want to be a decent lawyer?
Turns out nobody wanted to retain him. He only
had one client while he was in Idaho as a lawyer,
knowing he was going to eventually get back into
baseball. And that's when St. Louis came calling
and said, hey, can you be an area scout for us
up there in the Pacific Northwest working for
the Browns? Somewhere between a scout and a general
manager, according to the Society of American
Baseball Research. As ownership changes for the
Browns went around, the Cardinals had always
had an eye on him. And in 1917, a new ownership
group for the Cardinals came in and said, hey,
leave the Browns. You should come to the Cardinals.
And he created this monster that was the St.
Louis Cardinals from 1919 through 1946. Now,
granted, he didn't see those last four World
Series titles. By 1942, though, the Cardinals
and Ricky are starting to strain a little bit.
Sam Breeden was the owner at the time for St.
Louis. There's bonus payouts that aren't being
met. There's fights about the Cedar Rapids decision
that we talked about with Commissioner Landis
in the last episode of all of a sudden these
minor leaguers are freed, that Kennesaw Mountain
Landis ordered Branch Rickey was being too cheap
and retaining these players illegally, signing
players before they were 16 or 18 years old at
some cases. But ultimately, he's starting to
look around, and he's starting to look. the juggernaut
that could be the big market New York teams and
most specifically the Brooklyn Dodgers now in
1942 of course the world is at war and things
are changing in the landscape of ownership general
managers offices are slowly starting to get bigger
at this point and Larry McPhail was the owner
and general managing partner principal president
if you will of the Dodgers until 1942 when he
went back to war. He served in World War I and
in World War II, did McPhail, and thus doing
so created a vacancy at the very top of the Brooklyn
Dodgers organization. And that's where not only
did Branch Rickey decide to jump ship from the
Cardinals and go to the Brooklyn Dodgers, but
there's another man that he was introduced to
that also was at the top of this food chain,
and that's Walter O'Malley. Yeah, it was kind
of interesting. They later both become owners
of the Dodgers, but in 1942, Branch Rickey was
brought in. to help run the team and O'Malley
was brought in as a lawyer he was a he was a
representative that was he was a lawyer that
was tied to other aspects of the baseball industry
and it was kind of like hey we need to bring
a lawyer in as well and yeah that's when they
would first start working together which would
lead to a interesting future with the Dodgers
well during this time World War II is happening,
obviously. Minor leagues get contracted. There's
fewer players available. But Branch Rickey arrives
to this Dodgers team that's supposed to be, you
know, one of the richest teams in the land, right?
And he just sees an aging, bad roster, a team
that doesn't have a lot of investment in its
minor league side. He then earned the nickname
El Cheapo because of how much he relied on his
minor league talent trying to restock the system
while Walter O'Malley was getting ready to pay
the checks once the war was over. So as the war
ended and Ricky was able to retain some players
that were talented but not great getting into
the war, guys like Pee Wee Reese, who stuck around,
Hugh Casey, who stuck around, the biggest thing
that he also helped... create was a spring training
program and this is where the Dodgers for years
and years and years Vero Beach Florida Dodger
Town going down south for spring training to
get players ready for the season where they could
have everybody in there at once on hand training
beautiful weather everybody enjoyed Vero Beach
it cost a lot of money to do so but all of a
sudden teams saw this as a model saying we should
copy this and Walter O'Malley was the one footing
the check on all of this So an interesting thing
is they weren't originally brought in as owners,
but there was an ownership crisis among the Dodgers
where one of their primary owners had died and
one of their other owners had a bad experience
before and saw this with other teams where there
were teams owned by two people with 50 % stake.
And that made it anytime they needed to vote
on something, you could get into this gridlock.
And so they came up with a really interesting
strategy. I'm still the previous owner was still
going to own 25 percent and he was going to sell
75 percent of the team to three different people.
It would be Branch Rickey, 25 percent, Walter
O'Malley, 25 percent. And John Smith would cover
the extra 25 percent with a little asterisk of
whenever there was a vote. However, those three
voted. So the two to one or it would have to
be two to one or three to zero would be. how
would the one vote for the 75 % share of the
team would go? So you had this really interesting
dynamic where you had Branch Rickey, who mostly
managed the on -field. You had Walter O'Malley,
who mostly managed the business. And a lot of
times you had John Smith, who would be the one
who would be the final vote sayer, vote getter.
And the thing is, John Smith was more of a businessman
than a baseball man. So it was a constant battle
somewhat between Branch Rickey and Walter O'Malley.
how to get their way. But Walter O'Malley was
smart in one way. He knew Branch Rickey, knew
the baseball better. So anytime it became to
roster decisions, player signings, usually the
vote went with Branch Rickey. When it came to
business decisions, usually the vote went with
Walter O'Malley. One of those baseball decisions
that Branch Rickey made has been talked about
plenty. We have talked about it before on this
podcast as well. And that is the signing of Jackie
Robinson. They were just out of the World Series.
They finished in second place in 1946. They signed
Jackie Robinson from the Kansas City Monarchs
at the age of 27 and ultimately becomes the Rookie
of the Year. They lose the World Series in 1947,
but a whole new standard is created in Brooklyn.
to lead the Dodgers as the first integrated team
in baseball history. During this time, as the
seeds were planted by Branch Rickey, they lose
the World Series in 47 and in 49. But after Rickey
departs in 1950, some of those minor leaguers
that had come up, some of the players that he
had invested in... On the way up, keep going
back to the World Series. And then finally in
1955, after Ricky is gone, but with a lot of
players that he stockpiled and was able to help
scout and sign guys like Duke Snyder and Roy
Campanella, that finally in 1955, the Dodgers
do win the World Series once again. However,
in this time, 48, 49, 50, the Dodgers are good.
They are winning multiple pennants, but yet the...
relationship between Ricky and O'Malley is getting
frayed. And O'Malley's reputation as a dealmaker,
as the man that was really in charge, started
to really start to take hold here. And O'Malley
was not only in charge of the Dodgers starting
maybe in 1950, he was really in charge of all
of baseball for the next maybe 20, 25 years,
even during commissioners. And he had his hand
on the pulse maybe more than any other owner
during this time. Yeah, and it's the Jackie Robinson
story is legendary. And you've seen the movie
42, I'm guessing. Yes, Dom. So who played Branch
Rickey? Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford. Who played
Walter O'Malley? Who did? Nobody did. They did
not have Walter O'Malley in the movie 42. If
you go to the Jackie Robinson story, which came
out in 1951, they had a Branch Rickey character.
They did not have Walter O'Malley. Now, the question
is. Branch Rickey owned 25 % of the team. Walter
O'Malley owned 25%. They didn't have John Smith.
Why is Branch Rickey the one that's always depicted
when he had equal say to the other ones? And
really, it's because it was Branch Rickey's baby.
He did the baseball things. But once Branch Rickey
left the Dodgers, if you talk to Jackie Robinson
on his opinions of Walter O'Malley, he did not
like Walter O'Malley. He said, Jackie Robinson
said, I never had any real troubles with the
Dodger management until Mr. Ricky left. After
that, trouble of one kind or another became routine.
O'Malley had a burning dislike for Ricky people,
and I certainly was one. And what ended up happening
is around the end of Jackie Robinson's career,
he was much more outspoken about civil rights
issues. He was much more outspoken about player
issues. He's one of the few people that testified.
at Curt Flood's trial. And Branch Rickey did
not like that. If there's three things that Branch
Rickey has, he's a very simple man to understand.
If there's three things that kind of drive every
decision he does. Does it help the business and
the brand? Then I'll do it. Does it give me more
money or more power? Then I'll do it. And anything
that hurts the business or the brand, I'm very
much against. And O'Malley was very much against
Jackie Robinson making these statements. And
he had a very antagonistic relationship with
him. O'Malley would accuse Robinson of being
a prima donna for missing spring training exhibition
games because of minor injuries. Jackie Robinson's
wife, Rachel Robinson, said bringing Jack into
organized baseball was not the greatest thing
Mr. Rickey did for him. In my opinion, it was
this. Having brought Jack in, he stuck by him
to the very end. He understood Jack. He never
listened to the ugly little rumors like those
you have mentioned to us today. If there was
something wrong, he would go to Jack and ask
him about it. He would talk to Jack and they
would get to the heart of it like men with a
mutual respect for the abilities and feelings
of each other. So really, Walter O'Malley was
the one that coached Jackie Robinson, brought
him in, supported him. Walter O'Malley was not
that guy. And in the end, Robinson believed O'Malley's
attitude towards me was viciously antagonistic.
I was not O'Malley's kind of Negro. That was
the quote he said about it. So the question is,
Walter O'Malley doesn't like anything that rocks
the boat. Why would Walter O'Malley approved
Branch Rickey going after and signing Jackie
Robinson, which seems very out of character?
Well, those three things I said, does it help
the brand? Does it give him more power either
over the team or the league? And does it not
hurt the brand? Well, this was Branch Rickey's
thing. If it failed, if the Jackie Robinson experiment,
God forbid, failed, Walter O'Malley would have
a way to force Branch Rickey out. If it succeeded,
then it would be good for the bottom line for
the Dodgers. So it was a win -win for him. It's
really hard, especially when you look later at
Walter O'Malley, what he's known for. moving
the Dodgers out of Brooklyn is a lot of people
go and also moving into Los Angeles into a community
that had to get displaced. We'll get more on
that in a minute. Not just displaced, flat out
removed, flat out completely obliterated from
the face of the earth. I mean, there are people
still protesting the occupation of Chavez Ravine
where Dodger Stadium still sits today. It's a
very complicated story, but a lot of people bring
up, was Walter O'Malley a racist? You know, he
took, he... was fine with the Dodgers being in
Brooklyn until all the white people moved out
to Long Island and it became a minority community.
He was OK with Jackie Robinson, but was antagonistic
with him. And then he also had that site in Chavez
Ravine. And in reading everything I've read,
I just go, ultimately, he's a businessman. That
is what makes his decisions, because he made
also some decisions that were actually very favorable.
Again, he voted for Jackie Robinson to for Branch
Rickey to sign Jackie Robinson. It becomes very.
Very complicated on Walter O'Malley. And for
O'Malley, when he's trying to figure out how
can he retain power of the Dodgers, as him and
Ricky are starting to have this falling out,
you've got to remember, as O'Malley came into
the Dodgers, they were on the verge of bankruptcy.
He's there to be his lawyer. He's there to be
their sort of... Business and balancing the books
while simultaneously bringing in Branch Rickey
to say, you handle the baseball, I got the business,
he's the lawyer. So he's seeing where all the
checks are going right now. And he's trying to
find a way to say, okay, how do I get all the
power possible? He doesn't like Branch Rickey
as we've talked about too. And one of the controversies
of 1950, as they keep renewing Branch Rickey
on a one -year deal after his initial five -year
deal when he first came in 1942. 48 is on a one
-year deal. 49 is on a one -year deal. Then finally,
Ricky's like, enough. This team's worth triple
than what it was when I first arrived. You are
going to the World Series almost every other
year. We have a great farm system. Why are you
trying to undermine me? Why are you trying to
find a way out? Branch is thinking, all right,
I need to sell my stake in the team. I need to
get the heck out of here. I need to sell my 25%.
And O'Malley was thinking, there's no way you're
going to find a buyer for that amount of cash,
for what we're worth. And he found multiple buyers,
in fact. And the biggest one that came about
was a man named Bill Zeckendorf. Bill Zeckendorf
was... offering O'Malley, or excuse me, offering
Ricky to buy the team. O'Malley was trying to
call his bluff. There's no way this guy is able
to buy. And in doing so, O'Malley actually paid
Zeckendorf to not purchase a bid on the team.
He paid Zeckendorf $700 ,000 to not buy Branch
Ricky's stake in the team. That $700 ,000, by
the way, guess where it went? Where is that?
It goes to Branch Rickey. Branch Rickey had a
bluff the whole time. He knew that he was going
to get rich off of this one way or another. Somebody
was going to buy his stake in the team. Zeckendorf
was a bluff. He gave him the majority of the
cash. Ultimately, though, O'Malley saw this as
a shot across the bow, saying, wait a minute.
He really is trying to sell this team. He really
is trying to get out of this. So he creates a
fake resignation letter. And because of O'Malley's...
Power and the way that the press covered the
Dodgers at this time. The old man and the Mahatma.
There is obviously some infighting here. But
I want to read you this statement that Walter
O'Malley gave to the writers at his own personal
office. Not the Dodgers office. Because he knew
that it would get out if Branch Rickey. This
is on his own letterhead. This is not Dodgers
letterhead. It is very sketchy. I quote. I would
like to say for the record that over the seven
years that I've been associated with Mr. Rickey,
I have developed the warmest possible feelings
for him as a man. I've admired his intense devotion
to his family. I do not know of anyone who can
approach Mr. Rickey in the realm of executive
ability in baseball. I am terribly sorry and
hurt personally that we now have to face this
resignation. Thus ends Branch Rickey's time running
the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pittsburgh says, okay,
well, if you don't want him, we'll take him to
a multi -year deal. He goes to the Pittsburgh
Pirates, does not have nearly the same level
of success that he had with the Dodgers, but
now Walter O'Malley got what he ultimately wanted.
He bought out Branch Rickey. He now owns and
runs the Brooklyn Dodgers, and eminent domain
is on the horizon, and O'Malley is going to run
things how he wants to. Yeah, and also in the
bidding process, so Walter O'Malley, because
he was a partner, he always had the right. to
outbid whatever the current bid was. And I think
Walter O'Malley's initial offer for Branch Rickey's
stake was like $300 ,000, which was shockingly
low. And again, he didn't think anyone would
bid. Branch Rickey eventually did get another
bid for a million dollars. So Walter O'Malley
had to go out, get his million dollars, and I
think he bid a million and like five, a million
dollars and five to finally get it. But it still
tripled the price he had to pay. for his share
in the Dodgers. And then there was a rumor that
after Branch Rickey left, Walter O'Malley would
issue a $1 fine to anyone who mentioned Branch
Rickey's name in the clubhouse. So he could be
a spiteful man. But O'Malley became the man in
charge in 1950 for the Dodgers, and that would
set in the motion one of the biggest changes
in baseball. Because there's, we've mentioned
this before, 1950s was a bit of a sea change.
First, you had these three cities that had multiple
teams that probably couldn't support multiple
teams, Boston, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. And
what ended up happening is in the mid -50s, three
teams ended up moving away from those towns.
We talked about Philadelphia Athletics already.
There was a St. Louis Browns that moved away
to Baltimore. And there was the Boston Braves
who ended up moving to Milwaukee. But the biggest
move would be the doing of Walter O'Malley. And
that would be two of New York teams, two New
York teams, the New York Giants and the Brooklyn
Dodgers, would both move out to the West Coast.
Now, why did this happen? Again, Walter O'Malley
is a businessman at heart. And they were losing
attendance in the city of New York. All of the
people that went to games were moving out to
Long Island. And there was a city planner named
Robert Moses. who was not a fan of public transportation,
was a fan of highways, was a fan of everyone
should move by highway. And Ebbets Field, where
the Dodgers played, had a total of 300 parking
spots. They weren't near a train line. They had
300 parking spots and attendance cratered. We'll
see this when you look at the Dodgers attendance
in the late 40s and early 50s. They were near
the 2 million. When they won that World Series
in 1955, what do you think their attendance was?
Do you think it was 2 million? I mean, I would
hope it crossed 2 million when we won the World
Series. No, it was 1 .4 million. So they were
losing attendance even with the team being good
on the field. And Robert Moses, I don't know
if you know anything about Robert Moses. He's
called the power broker. There is a very interesting
book on him. But he was basically the most powerful
man in New York. for about a 60 -year period.
Even though he wasn't the mayor, he held 13,
I think, different positions within the New York
City government. City planner, city engineer,
all these bridges you see in New York, all these
aqueducts, all of these highways that you have
going out to Long Island, that was Robert Moses'
doing. Isn't Robert Moses who we have to thank
for how impossible it is to get onto Long Island
from Manhattan, given really the only way you
can is the LIRR? Yeah, yes, yes. And there's
there's even little things, though, like we don't
have buses out to there aren't buses out to Long
Island because he hated buses. So the overpasses
they built on the highway were just short enough
where a bus couldn't fit. Like he literally was
very much against public transportation. But
the problem for O'Malley now is he's got a stadium
in the middle of Brooklyn that has 300 parking
spots, has no public transportation. He needs
a new stadium. And who do you think he has to
go through to get a new stadium in New York?
Who controls all the land? It's Robert Moses.
And Robert Moses says, no, like Walter O'Malley
wanted this one spot in the southwest side of
Brooklyn. And Robert Moses says, no, we're going
to put you in the middle of flushing, you know,
in Queens. Yeah, the Brooklyn Dodgers are going
to play in Queens. So Walter O'Malley was not
a fan of that. And maybe it started as a bluff.
Maybe it started as a bluff of like, oh, Robert
Moses, you aren't going to give us our stadium.
I'm in talks with L .A. right now. And what started
as a bluff quickly, I think over the course of
six months, turned into an actual, hey, we're
going to do this. And a big thing of that is
the Boston Braves moving to Milwaukee. Milwaukee
was smashing attendance records. They had a.
ballpark that was kind of on the outskirts of
the downtown area that had a large parking lot
and people could go there. And Milwaukee was
putting up 2 .7, 2 .8 million. I was just talking
about the Dodgers winning the World Series with
1 .4 million. So the first eight years of the
Milwaukee Braves is arguably one of the most
successful periods as far as getting people through
the turnstiles. And Walter O'Malley took notice.
We talked about this in the last episode. Bowie
Kuhn was... On the legal grounds for some of
the representatives on the American League saying,
oh, or I should say the National League trying
to say, oh, well, you know, we can't compete
with the Milwaukee's, you know, given how great
they are at the gate. Because at this time, the
gate is what really mattered of how to make money
and how teams are viewing the health of their
franchises. Like the fact that teams feared the
city of Milwaukee, and it was the reason, not
saying the sole reason, but one of the reasons
that. The Dodgers decided to leave Brooklyn,
of all places, to go to Los Angeles. And the
red carpet being rolled out for the Dodgers in
Los Angeles, to LA's credit, they wanted it,
and they gave them the money to do so, which
is a trend started by Walter O'Malley. He didn't
get what he wanted from Robert Moses. He wanted
to go to Los Angeles to try to create his own.
And now he's not the only one, of course, with
the Giants going to San Francisco. But the point
being, this is where the antitrust really comes
in to shine. Because there's monopolistic practices
that they're allowed to maintain saying, we don't
have to follow bids from multiple teams. We don't
have to go through government bureaucracies and
saying, well, if this gets approved and this
gets approved, no, no, no. I can do whatever
I want. I think my team can't handle Brooklyn.
I'm going to go to Los Angeles because there
is antitrust exemptions that allow the Brooklyn
Dodgers, as great of a franchise as it was, to
up and leave on the drop of a hat. Any franchise
today can decide, yep, up, leave. Nothing you
can do about it thanks to antitrust. On top of
that. It was a good setup for O'Malley. When
they moved to LA, yeah, their attendance went
through the roof. Even today, the Dodgers still
have the highest capacity stadium and the highest
attendance in the league. And it's largely because
they built Dodger Stadium. Now, you said one
thing earlier that I do have to somewhat clear
the record on is the Chavez Ravine story is a
lot more complicated than people give it credit
for. But did you know before Walter O'Malley
scouted out in a helicopter to pick where the
stadium was, Chavez Ravine had already been 98
% of the families had already been left the area
because they were being forced out due to a public
housing project in 1951. By the time Walter O'Malley
came around, there was only, I think, a dozen
or so families left in Chavez Ravine. So while
he did force them out, it wasn't. It wasn't the
entire community. That had already happened in
1951. And the reason there wasn't public housing
then is kind of crazy. The red scare. The city
planner in L .A. that had set up this public
housing project that had eventually kicked out
thousands of families out of the Chavez Ravine
area was all of a sudden outed as a communist.
And public housing was viewed as a socialist
communist plan. So it was all canceled in 1952
after they kicked all these families out. It
was one of the most, that's local government
for you, I guess. It's amazing how all these,
you know, leaning right owners really hate socialism
until it comes to, oh, hey, give me 500 million
dollars to build this ballpark. Yeah. And Walter
O'Malley going there seeing what's basically.
Almost an abandoned neighborhood at this point.
And it's not far from downtown L .A. It's about
the same distance from downtown L .A. as Milwaukee
County Stadium where the Milwaukee Braves are
playing is to downtown Milwaukee, like just on
the outskirts. But as anybody who spent time
in Los Angeles knows. That doesn't mean anything
when it comes to the roads and the freeways.
As somebody who has stayed in downtown Los Angeles
for Dodger Stadium playoff games, it takes us
30 minutes on average just to go from the exit
of the TV compound to the exit of Dodger Stadium.
It is freaking impossible to get in and out of
that place. But, yeah. But for O'Malley, in the
end, it was a success. And what it also did since...
whatever team makes the most money, has the most
money, can sign the best players, and eventually
becomes the most powerful owner. Walter O'Malley
was basically, ever since they moved to Los Angeles,
basically ran the National League. Yeah, they
had a National League president. Yeah, there
was a commissioner of baseball, but it was Walter
O'Malley. I talked about Bowie Coon last episode,
and I was kind of wondering, how did he stick
around for 14 years when a lot of the new owners
hated him? A lot of the things he did didn't
end up working as far as combating the MLBPA.
It's because he was Walter O'Malley's man. Walter
O'Malley was the guy who said, hey, let's hire
this Bowie Coon guy. He'll do exactly what I
say. You know, and it really, to give you an
example. So one of the big things that happened
later was expansion. And the American League
decided to put a franchise in Los Angeles. Walter
O'Malley was not a fan of that. The Los Angeles
Angels were coming to town. And Walter O'Malley
was like, hey, that's my territory. Yes, I'm
making a lot of money with Dodger Stadium, but
that's my territory. It's the American League.
It shouldn't matter. The American League should
be able to do it. No, we're going to do it anyway.
But Walter O'Malley was such a powerful figure
that he was able to get it. The owner of the
Angels, Gene Autry, would have to, one, pay the
PCL. Los Angeles Angels, who the Dodgers had
to pay because they were encroaching on their
territory. The new Angels would have to pay Walter
O'Malley in order to make up for the money he
paid to the old Angels, basically saying, if
you're coming to this territory, you owe some
of the fines as well. Also, Angels, you can't
have a new stadium. You're going to play in Wrigley
Field. No, not the Chicago Wrigley Field. There
was a Los Angeles Wrigley Field, which was not
up to snuff. When it came to a major league ballpark,
the Dodgers were playing in the Coliseum, this
gigantic stadium with that can fit it to a bunch
of people. Wrigley field was this small little
dinky thing that could hold what? 18 ,000 people.
If that, but the funniest photos and I'll put
this in the sub stack to the Dodgers playing
at LA Memorial Coliseum. it's a joke imagine
putting a baseball field on the coliseum how
would you try to orient it what's the best way
on a football field to put a baseball field across
it how would you think to do it right you would
again this is a fixed coliseum bowl there's only
so many ways you can do it so what they did was
it was ginormous to right center field and super
short to left field situating it basically in
the southeast corner if you will of the coliseum
And right center field would go on forever. 440
-foot flyouts. I'm trying to find the dimensions
here on my notes. It was 250 feet down the left
field line, 320 to left center. Dead center was
425. Right center was 440, but then they put
a giant screen up in left field to try to help
make their own version of the green monster because,
hey, this is way too short for right -handed
hitters. It was a joke during their time in the
Coliseum, but we'll talk about stadium dimensions.
But all Walter O'Malley cared about was it could
hold 60 ,000 people. That's all he cared about,
for sure. But we'll talk about stadium dimensions
when we talk about Charlie Finley in a moment.
Oh, and the other thing, though, is once Dodger
Stadium was ready, Gene Autry's Angels would
have to be tenants and pay rent to Walter O'Malley.
And eventually, this might be why the Angels
eventually moved to Anaheim, was to basically
get under Walter O'Malley's thumb. He had so
much power that if someone was going to take
something from him, he was going to get his share.
to make up for his pain of having another team
to compete with. So Walter O'Malley has got his
wish. Along with the Giants, they've moved to
California using the antitrust exemption, using
eminent domain to get their new ballparks. Candlestick
up in San Francisco and Dodger Stadium opening
in 1962 down in Los Angeles. There will be more
movement across Major League Baseball. Expansion
is on the horizon. And a few other owners that
we need to talk about that try to take advantage
of this expansion. We talk about the innovators.
Bill Veck and Charlie Finley coming up after
the break. All right. You're about halfway through
this month's episode. We really do thank everybody
for their feedback and the content that you guys
have enjoyed so far. I will say, honestly, as
we get further along in this episode. It's ironic
that the more recent owners become the harder
ones to research. Now, granted, with Ted Turner's
recent passing and George Steinbrenner about
15 years ago, there is plenty of content that
comes with those guys. But for Charlie Finley,
there's really only about the 70s for him and
a little bit about the Kansas City time. And
then even for somebody like Bill Veck, if you
didn't read his books, there's just a lot of
sort of biased reporting about him over the years
of people who just wanted to keep him out of
the game. But they certainly... We're innovators
that we're going to talk about here in just a
moment. But we really do appreciate you for listening
for this long. A reminder, we're still word of
mouth right now, but you can, again, subscribe
to the Substack. You can subscribe to the YouTube
page. You can, you know, have our own social
medias. He's Baseball Not Dead. I'm Dom underscore
Catronio. You can find it in the show description
wherever you may be listening. Now, the owner's
episode has been a labor of love as far as how
hard it's been to research these guys, but these
are some of my favorite chapters of this episode
on the way. You know that. I'm a little biased
as an Oakland A's guy deep down at heart. So
let's get ready to talk about the innovators.
Back to the program with the owner's episode.
VEK as in wreck. We know the autobiography. It
is one of the most creative titles to teach you
how to pronounce Bill VEK. V -E -E -C -K. Yes,
it's VEK. But Bill VEK was one of the guys that
honestly, if he was around today, I think there'd
be a lot of mixed feelings. There were definitely
mixed feelings while he was, you know, in charge
of the White Sox. But the point being is this
man was a visionary. This man was a revolutionary.
He was quite frankly ahead of his time. And all
that mattered to Bill Veck, along other things
too, is making sure the fan had a good time.
This is an owner that's shifting and shifting
the priorities of owning a baseball team from
the bottom line, which still matters. It still
matters to have a bottom line. But the way that
you create that bottom line and the way that
you increase that is to make sure the fans are
taken care of. Really, the most noteworthy thing
of Veck is just how unique he is compared to
every other owner. We've talked about owners
that were... had a baseball background. We've
also talked about Walter O'Malley and Wrigley,
who were more had money and were able to buy
a team because they had money. Bill Beck had
neither. He didn't play baseball. He didn't have
a lot of money. He managed to have four different.
times where he owned a major league baseball
team. And how he was able to own a team, interesting
story. And then what he did as an owner was an
interesting story. As we said earlier, he got
his start in baseball. Really, his dad worked
under Wrigley with the Cubs, and he got a job
with the Cubs. But his first really thing in
baseball he did was bought the Milwaukee Brewers,
which was a minor league team in 1941. Now, I
said he didn't have money. How was he able to
buy the Brewers? Well, the one thing Bill Beck
was really good at is being creative with the
financials through a mix of loans, bringing in
other business partners. Almost every time he
bought a team, he wasn't putting up his own money.
He was putting up other people's money and he
was able to convince them, hey, I've got the
acumen to make this team a success. And the Milwaukee
Brewers were failing at the time. They were really,
really, really bad team in the minors. And Bill
Veck took over and transformed them almost overnight.
Now, how did he transform them? I think the biggest
way that he did it is he made the game a spectacle.
He put on like they would have almost like a
county fair type atmosphere at Milwaukee Brewers
games. They would literally auction off farm
animals at the game and they would. and they
would do other things. Like there's a whole bunch
of rumors of what he did of when the Brewers
were batting, they would move the fences in.
They had a right field fence that they could
slide out. That would make it shorter when the
Brewers were batting. And when the other team
was batting, they would slide it back and it
would be a longer distance. Now that's a story
where I haven't been able to verify. Bill Beck
will say it's true, but that is a thing that
you find with Beck. It's very tough to figure
out what was truth and what was fiction back
in the day because he knew how to spin a tale.
He knew how to make something entertaining and
never let the truth get in the way of a good
tale. But what he did with Milwaukee, they all
of a sudden were the best -selling minor league
team in baseball. They won three championships
in a row. And then Beck took his sights and said,
I should get a major league team. And he was
able to do a very similar thing. He didn't have
the money. He ended up selling the brewers and
using a little bit he had from selling the brewers
and being able to get business partners. He went
and bought the Cleveland Indians. And what he
did in Milwaukee, turning that team around, he
did the same thing in Cleveland. There's something
we've never seen to that level at the major league
level up to that point. We were talking about
attendance earlier and we were talking about
the 1940s and 50s with the... with the Dodgers
and them being around 1 .5 million. If you look
at a lot of attendance back in those days, even
the Yankees that had Yankee Stadium, getting
over 2 million didn't happen. You'd have teams
get close to that. But his third year with the
Cleveland Indians, who before he bought them
had attendance around 500 ,000, his third year,
2 .7 million. And they ended up winning the World
Series. Now, did you end up watching, I talked
to you about this earlier, the kid from Cleveland?
I watched bits and pieces of it trying to get
it for like stills for the sub stack. It's pretty
fascinating. I mean, it's Bill Beck in the broadcast
booth. It's pretty funny. So what is this? The
Kid from Cleveland is a 1949 movie that came
out right after the Cleveland Indians won the
World Series. And this was Beck's baby. He had
unique ideas to promote teams. to promote his
teams. And one of them was, Hey, let's make a
Hollywood movie and let's make all the actors
be the players. Let's just go and just film our
team. So the kid from Cleveland is fascinating
because that 1948 Cleveland team was stacked.
Like he had satchel page. You had, I was running
through some of the players with you earlier
that they had on there, but anyone who's anyone
in baseball was in that movie. Not necessarily
a good movie, but it's a very interesting way.
And it's kind of a love letter of Beck to Cleveland
because he loved Cleveland. They loved him. If
things would have things took a turn south for
him financially due to a divorce, he had to pay
out a divorce settlement, needed the money, didn't
have the money. And unfortunately, he was forced
to sell the Cleveland Indians after having that
incredible turnaround. But how did he accomplish
this turnaround? Well, like I said, he made a
bunch of changes to. the experience of watching
a game. Things that we see today that we consider
as part of the game that have been going on for
years originated with Bill Beck. We already mentioned
the Wrigley Field Ivy. That's a historic baseball
thing that everyone knows. There's Ivy in the
outfield for Wrigley Field that supposedly came
from Bill Beck. Every team does fireworks after
a home run now. Who was the first team to do
that? It was Bill Beck when he owned the Chicago
White Sox. players doing curtain calls after
home runs coming out of the dugout. Bill Veck
encouraged his players to do that, to kind of
make it an event, go out and take a bow in front
of the fans. You know, Harry Carey singing, take
me out to the ball game in the seventh inning
stretch, something that the Cubs still celebrate
to this day, even more than a, has it been a
decade since Harry Carey died? They still, yeah,
it's been over a decade. They still do that.
That started with the White Sox when Harry Carey
was an announcer for the White Sox and Bill Veck
owned the team. When you look at all the things
to Bill Beck's legacy, fan -first stuff, you
think of the giveaways, you think of the promotional
nights that are so standard today that we kind
of gloss over it, that it feels so normal to
us. I mean, watching a Brewer game just last
week, it was backyard baseball night. Two kids
who grew up – like I grew up on backyard baseball.
I loved that game growing up. It's fun. It's
a promotional night. It's just something to smile
about. This was unheard of for years until Bill
Veck brought it in. Ladies' Day was always a
big hit. Disco Demolition Night, though, that's
a different story. On top, yeah. Sometimes he
took it too far. Sometimes he took it too far.
He would throw anything on the wall and see if
it would stick. Sometimes it would. Sometimes
it wouldn't. But the other thing about Bill Veck
that I think – we need to reiterate and understand
this dude was a hustler in a good way that I
can describe it. Well, you said his first book
was Vec is in Wreck. His second book was The
Hustler's Handbook. That was the title of that
one. He described it as scrimp, beg, borrow,
and steal to cobble together enough money to
buy a ball club. And during that time with the
Indians, he did it. Got expensive. Moved on.
Then the Browns. And maybe one of his more famous
moments, of course, with Eddie Goodell when he's
with the Browns for one plate appearance. Just
an example of trying to make a mockery. Not necessarily
a mockery. Maybe that's the wrong word. But just
sort of to put light on the fact that this is
professional sports. This is entertainment. I
am here to entertain people. And that was within
the rules at the time. The only reason the commissioner's
office needs to approve any contract now is because
of Eddie Goodell. In case you're not familiar
with the Eddie Goodell deal. He was a legal little
person. He was 3 '7". And just for kicks and
giggles, Bill Veck signed him to a contract with
the St. Louis Browns. He got one plate appearance.
He's in the encyclopedia. One plate appearance,
one walk for Eddie Goodell. The next day, his
contract was voided. I don't think he was hated
by the owners yet in Cleveland. But when he took
over the Browns, he made some enemies. And there's
a couple reasons why. Bill Veck spoke his mind.
And when it came to... television rights and
things like that things that small markets you
know you wouldn't say you wouldn't have the Brewers
owner today going out there and going we should
get half the Dodgers television rights Bill Beck
at the time was going out going saying the St.
Louis Browns should get all the team's television
rights because we don't make as much money and
the other owners didn't like that the other thing
is when he took over the Browns remember I was
saying there were there were team there were
cities with two teams that couldn't support two
teams St. Louis was one of them They had the
Browns, which were like the little kid that was
was obviously looking to be moved. And they had
the Cardinals. And instead of buying the Browns
and moving them, he bought the Browns and did
a campaign to try to force Fred Sy, the owner
of the Cardinals at the time, out of town. And
the things he did were kind of crazy. I want
to. Give you a shout out here for the work that
you did on your channel to research this and
this conflict within St. Louis of the silliness
of why does St. Louis have two baseball teams
and how did Bill Beck create success at least
for one year? But ultimately, in the end, the
Cardinals did win. But for one year, Bill Beck
made everybody sweat. I mean, the Cardinals were
losing because what it was is Bill Beck comes
in. The Cardinals had a manager, Roger Hornsby,
Cardinals legend. They ended up firing him. Bill
Beck hires Rogers Hornsby. So he's like, hey,
the Browns now have the Cardinals legend. He
owned the stadium and he painted it in Browns
colors and covered up all the Cardinals things
in the stadium. Anytime the Cardinals would cut
a player, Bill Beck would immediately claim him
on waivers. So the Cardinals then would stop
cutting players because he's like, I'm going
to get all the Cardinals players that are beloved
in St. Louis playing for the Browns so the fans
will like the Browns. And it's just... A number
of things he did. And attendance was going up
for the Browns and was going down for the Cardinals.
But the weirdest thing happened. Fred Sy, the
owner of the Cardinals, got in trouble with tax
evasion and was sentenced to prison and forced
to sell the team. And at this moment, Bill Beck's
going, I've won. He was looking at selling to
Minneapolis. He was looking at selling to Houston.
And then out of the blue, A businessman in St.
Louis named Gussie Bush of Bush Brewery, basically
the brewery synonymous with St. Louis, came in
and decided to buy the Cardinals. And at that
moment, Bill Veck says, OK, I'm screwed. We got
to move. And so he decided we're going to move
this team to Baltimore, which the Browns did
have moved to Baltimore, but not under Veck.
The problem was to move a team in the American
League. All the American League owners need to
approve it. And they were getting sick of Veck.
So basically, when Vec went to, hey, let's go
to a vote. Can I move to Baltimore? The owner
said no. And Vec goes, but if I stay in St. Louis,
the team's going to go bankrupt. And they're
like, well, that's not our problem. And voted
against him moving to Baltimore, leaving him
in St. Louis and a team that was going to go
bankrupt. And eventually Vec was forced to sell
the team. Now, what do you think happened the
day after Vec sold the team to another owner?
They put in relocation efforts? They put in relocation
efforts and the American League owners approved
it and they moved to Baltimore. The whole reason
they voted against it was just to force Bill
Vec out of baseball. But that wasn't the end
of Vec. He constantly kept trying to buy teams,
which... wasn't really going too well because
the voters would vote him down every time. He
was one of the initial bidders on the Philadelphia
Athletics with the goal of moving them to Los
Angeles. Now, that would have been funny because
this is 1955. Imagine if Bill Veck beat Walter
O'Malley to the punch on going to Los Angeles.
Would he have become the next Walter O'Malley?
Would he have been the most powerful person in
the league for the next decade? We'll never know.
But he tried to buy a number of teams and he
wasn't able to get back in until the late 1950s
when he was able to buy a share of the Comiskey
share of the White Sox. White Sox president Grace
Comiskey had died and he was able to put an ownership
group of be able to buy 54 % of the team with
dozens, dozens of investors. This is the funny
thing about Feck. He never had money. to buy
a team himself. He would always get investors,
investors, investors, take out loans. Dom, it
would be like you or me buying a team. Just go
out there and just get a whole bunch of people
in town that have got money, be able to promise,
hey, do you want to own a baseball team? Let's
own a baseball team together. You were able to
do this back then. Beck was the last one to be
able to do this, really. There's a stat thrown
out there, and I don't really know. how they
quantify this, but the stat is he's the last
person without an independent fortune to be able
to buy a baseball team. Now, I don't know, again,
how they quantify that, what constitutes an independent
fortune. But he was able to buy the White Sox
in February of 1959, and he went back to doing
his old tricks. For instance, he gave away orchids
on Mother's Day. and he had a lucky chair in
the stands that would get a prize of 36 live
lobsters. Other fans would receive 1 ,000 cans
of beer, 1 ,000 pies, 1 ,000 bottles of root
beer, 1 ,000 cupcakes, and 100 free restaurant
dinners. He did giveaways. He did weird events,
Disco Demolition Night, as we talked about earlier,
and actually got the attendance to a Comiskey
Park record of 1 .4 million in 1960. And the
other thing that helps, too, in 59, They won
the pennant. They were a very good team. The
go -go White Sox, as Southsiders are known, that
this team brought some excitement finally to
Comiskey. And as you said, they followed up with
the record in 1960, but things were not good
on the horizon for Bill himself in 1961. Beck
took over the White Sox in 59. How long do you
think he lasted with the White Sox? He's known
for his long ownership stints. I would sure hope
this lasts at least 10 years, right? Yeah, no,
no. Just lasted two years, even though they broke
the Chicago attendance record the next year with
1 .6 million, meaning he got more attendance
than Wrigley. You know, the team that he got
his start with. Actually, the attendance record
in Chicago was set back when he was an employee
under Wrigley back in the 1930s. But he had some.
physical ailments. Had to go to the Mayo Clinic
for some tests. And in 1961, he was recommended
by his doctors to retire. And he ended up selling
the White Sox. So only a three -year stint as
owner of the White Sox. So would that be the
end of Vec? Of course not. Would he no longer
get into baseball? Nope. Back in 1975, he again.
was able to manage or was able to buy a majority
stake in the White Sox. Now, during this whole
time, from 61 to 75, he kept trying to buy teams
and he kept getting shot down, shot down, shot
down. It's kind of amazing he was able to get
those three years with the White Sox with how
much the owners hated him. But in 75, he was
able to put a team of 40 different investors
to buy a majority stake in the White Sox. And
what do you think the American League owners
did when it came to a vote? So they didn't want
him around. They didn't want him around. They
voted him down. So then he got more investors,
got more money, went back, went to a vote, voted
it down. And it was this point where it was almost
it was clearly out of spite. He had done everything
right. And Detroit Tigers owner John Fetzer finally
sat his colleagues down and said, look, I don't
like it any more than you do that. We're allowing
a guy in here who has called me a son of a bitch
over and over. But gentlemen, we've got to take
another vote. He's done everything that's been
required of him, and we keep shooting him down.
This is not right. And they finally passed his
purchase 10 -2. One more vote than the three
-fourths necessary, and he was able to take over
the White Sox again. But this was a different
time period. This is when free agency started.
Literally two months before he had bought the
team, he's already rounding up all these investors.
He's already getting everybody involved. And
Peter Seitz's decision comes in the offseason
between 75 and 76. So everybody knows the 76
season, for all the players who have the amount
of service time that they have, they're about
to be free agents at the end of this year. How
are you going to adapt to all this? Yep. And
there were different strategies, like, for instance,
the Reds. They refused to offer any money to
any free agent. The Yankees obviously were spending
money left and right. And Bill Beck's strategy,
and this is especially what he did in 1977, was
a unique one, one that you don't see today. He
decided, hey. the cheapest these guys are are
right before they hit free agency. So he traded
for a bunch of players that were good players
that were one year away from free agency, as
opposed to now, where if you're rebuilding, you
trade for a prospect that you're going to have
for six or seven years. If you're a team that's
in competition and contention, you can trade
for those assets, but you usually have, you know,
something set up for multiple years. No, Vec
went all in in 1977. traded for a bunch of players
that were about to become free agents. Won 90
games. Didn't make the postseason, but won 90
games. But, Don, how do you think that went out
after 1977? You need some farm system. You need
some talent on the way up. Yeah, it didn't. They
went from 90 wins to 71 wins and had basically
sold the farm, as they say, to be able to get
that one year of success. And then 79 was the
dreaded disco demolition night. And at that point,
it was clear Vec was going to be on his way out.
Again, a lot of health issues were coming up.
The White Sox were not very good. A couple of
those promotions had bit him in the back and
made him public enemy number one. And not just
in the eyes of the owners this time, some of
the fans. And other investors were saying, hey,
this isn't good for baseball. And he eventually
had to leave. He eventually had to sell the team
and leave baseball in 1981. This was great from
Lords of the Realm. I wanted to read this again.
Though ahead of his time in the 50s, he reentered
baseball at precisely the wrong moment. Because
he just didn't have the money. And this is the
shift that we see in ownership that goes from,
Guys who just want to make money to guys who
actually want to win and be the toast of the
town and be the most famous person in their city.
Vec wanted more of that than caring about a winner.
And he knew he would make money eventually, but
he cared about the attention and the popularity
of the sport and the popularity of the teams
that he owned. It just started to shift where
other owners cared about winning at this time
and not so much about the... that ownerships
had had forever when it comes to the reserve
clause. And this is where Bill Veck, again, was
ahead of his time in how staunchly opposed he
was to the reserve clause. He actually testified
in the Curt Flood case against the reserve clause
in front of all the other owners who were trying
to keep the reserve clause. Here he is in the
late 60s saying, no, we need to get rid of this
thing. This thing's awful. The reserve clause
is not what we need. He's the first one that
actually... was trying to put his hand up saying,
let's fix this, calling it human bondage for
the reserve clause to hold players to their teams
forever. I will give him that benefit of saying,
okay, you had the moral compass, right? To understand
there are other ways to make money. There are
other ways to keep players. But again, as the
quote, I just said, he just was not at all prepared
for what free agency was going to bring. Yeah.
And he definitely had the moral compass. He did
a lot of things through his days. That, again,
when he was with the Cleveland Indians, he signed
the first black player for the American League.
He also signed Satchel Paige, who was in his
40s at the time and was able to play in the majors.
Minnie Minoso, the only player to play, I believe
it's across four different decades. And it's
because Bill Veck's last run with the White Sox,
when Minnie Minoso was in his 50s, signed him
for one day and had him have it at bat. He definitely
cared about his players. He cared about the community.
And when he left the White Sox for the last time,
his last days, what he ended up doing is he had
last five years of his life. He spent in the
Wrigley bleachers, just watching game day games,
hanging out with the fans, drinking, even though
his health wasn't very good. Cause that's really
his life as a summer. He's just all about baseball.
He just loved baseball that much. He loved people.
He wanted to be involved, and he thought being
an owner was the best way to do it. Unfortunately,
that's not what the other owners are like. And
unfortunately, the other owners control the league.
He was somebody that was a character, wanted
the center of attention, wanted everyone to look
at him, not necessarily his teams. Well, let's
meet somebody that always was the center of attention,
for better or for worse, but his teams were talented
enough. to take the attention away and to say,
oh, Charlie. Charlie Finley. We have talked about
Charlie Finley a couple of times already on this
podcast series. Somebody that I have said needs
to be the subject of a movie series or a miniseries
of just the stories that this guy has from the
60s and 70s would be a thrilling, entertainment,
hilarious, are you serious type show like winning
time was for the Lakers. Charlie Finley, the
owner of the A's and really the architect of
the dynasty A's, 72, 73, 74. You may notice 75
is when things came crashing down. I wonder why.
So what do you know off the top of your head
here, Scott, about Charlie Finley? What did you
know before you started doing any research, before
we even started doing this sort of work? Well,
oh, I actually didn't know a lot about. Actually,
the only thing I knew about Charlie Finley is
I have a picture of my mom with Charlie Finley
because she sang the national anthem at a Oakland
A's game once. Shout out to Charlie Finley there.
So that was the only thing I really knew of Charlie
Finley. But in doing research, I've kind of learned
to, I don't know whether this is the right way
to describe him, almost Bill Beck light when
it comes to the promotions. Well, when it comes
to promotions, sort of. But when it comes to
the center of attention. Oh, center of attention.
He's not Bill Beckley. Yeah, that's when Charlie
Finley takes over. This quote, I used a handful
of quotes from Lords of the Realm, from Bowie
Kuhn's autobiography, from everywhere you can
find. There's a great one over in Society of
American Baseball Research of mustaches and mayhem
talking about the 70s Oakland A's. But this was
my favorite quote when I what I found. When his
team lost, he blamed everyone but himself. When
they won, he was apt to call the radio booth
during the game if his name was not mentioned
often enough. That is the synopsis of just what
you need to know about Charlie Finley. He wanted
all the credit. Everybody looked the other way
if we're losing. And they weren't losing very
often once they moved to Oakland. This man was
a hustler. This man knew what he wanted. He was
a self -made millionaire. And we'll explain how.
Charlie O comes to the fold with Charlie Finley.
But we've got to go back. You mentioned briefly
the Philadelphia A's and the Macca State selling
their portion of the team and then being moved
to Kansas City. Because Philadelphia was not
surviving as a two -team city, American League,
National League. Again, we still don't have interleague
play at this point. One of those teams gets moved
to Kansas City. And the original ownership of
the Missable Stadium thought they had a great
idea going, oh, fans are going to come from all
over. The boom of the automobile is starting
to make it easier for fans in the suburbs of
Kansas City and the surrounding areas to make
it to KC. Everyone thought this was going to
be a slam dunk. Great city. It's been a AAA city
for so long. Finally have Major League Baseball.
It did not go well. Yeah, they were not set up
for success because I mentioned Topping and Webb,
the Yankees owners. They coordinated this wholesale
to Arnold Johnson, who was the guy that owned
Yankee Stadium. And then when they moved to Kansas
City, the construction company was Webb Company.
So the Yankees owner, construction company, is
doing the construction in Kansas City. The guy
that bought the A's is the guy that they were
already had a lease with and a business partner
with. And over the next, over Arnold Johnson's
ownership in Kansas City. It was basically a
Yankees farm team. You know, Roger Maris, you
know him for 61 home runs. He was traded from
the A's to the Yankees. And there's about a dozen
other star players that went from the A's to
the Yankees because it was basically the Yankees
owners had their guy own the A's and they basically
just turned him into a farm team. And what it
took, yeah, what it took for that to end was
Arnold Johnson's death. And that's where Charlie
Finley comes in. Yeah, the quote from the Kansas
City Star, this is from Ernie Mel. For years,
Kansas City had been a great Yankees farm club.
I mean, it is a major league team sending everybody
to the Yankees. This is before free agency, too.
But when Arnold Johnson did pass away and ownership
groups started to pop up in Kansas City saying,
we want to make this work, we want to make this
work, Charlie was never shy about. I don't want
to stay in Kansas City. And did ultimately win
the bid to get the Kansas City A's. How did Charlie
get his money? It's sort of fascinating. He's
a dude from the Midwest. He's a self -made millionaire
through the insurance world after him nearly
dying of tuberculosis when he was in his 20s.
And he used that time that he was on the hospital
bed to say, hmm, I could probably make money
off of this, off of insurance. And that's what
he did. He became one of the best travelers,
you know, the company travelers. insurance agents
in the country, making himself a millionaire,
making himself self -owned. He was based out
of Chicago. When the Philadelphia A's first became
available, he tried to buy them first. The Mack
family, he was in touch with them, but he was
spurned by them, eventually going to Johnson.
Then he tried to put in a bid for the Tigers.
That went to Fetzer. He went in for a bid for
the White Sox. That went to Vec. He keeps getting
rejected on trying to be an owner. And it's not
because he's too poor to be an owner. It's just...
Again, the politics and the strings that are
being pulled behind the scenes by the men that
are already in the building, because Finley does
not have a way into baseball. But finally, in
December of 1960 is when he finally buys the
club in Kansas City and almost immediately is
saying, no, no, no, I want to move this team
to Atlanta. I want to move this team to Dallas.
I want to move this team to Louisville. And the
American League owners were saying. You just
got the team. This team just arrived in Kansas
City. We cannot be moving them. In fact, he actually
announced that he was going to be moving the
team to Louisville without notifying the rest
of his American League compatriots and saying,
all right, I've got a lease signed. I'm moving
down to Kentucky. There's nothing you can do
about it. And the American League owners immediately
all voted 100 % to zero. No, you cannot move
this team because you didn't let us know. He
was fighting the city of Kansas City for years
about Municipal Stadium, about, I don't like
this ballpark. You didn't build a very good ballpark.
I need to move. I'm going to move. All these
cities want me. Not really that many cities wanted
Kansas City because they weren't very good. But
the small little seeds that he was planting,
that Charlie Finley was creating a great farm
system. This is where, again, we talk about the
winning started to shift, where Charlie understood,
I need to develop something that has scouting,
that has player development. We haven't talked
at all in this podcast series about the advent
of the first year player draft in 1965. Charlie
Finley took advantage of this by far. He was
one of the best drafters and helped that he had
some dynastic teams coming out of Arizona State,
the Reggie Jacksons of the world, the Rick Mondays
of the world, the Sal Bandos of the world, that
became centerpieces of that Dynasty A's team,
among a handful of others. But his success in
the draft started to realize, okay, I've got
a team coming here, and if the city of Kansas
City isn't going to keep me around, I'm going
to go to the city that wants me, and that's going
to build me a brand new grand coliseum in Oakland,
California. Now, Oakland, if you're not familiar
with the Bay Area, Obviously is much smaller
than San Francisco. San Francisco already has
the Giants at this point. They have Candlestick
Park, another giant sort of multi -use football
and baseball. This one was meant to be multi
-use eventually, but it was built big enough
just to be for baseball in the beginning. And
Oakland is sort of the little brother. I know
maybe some people from Oakland will hate to hear
that, but it is the truth. It is the little brother
to San Francisco. It has a lot of culture. It
has a lot of unique identity versus San Francisco.
They really are a yin and a yang working together
as a duo of cities in the Bay Area. But yet,
a lot of fans in the East Bay were still fans
of the Giants because they were just fired up
that a team had come across the country to be
in their city. But now that the Kansas City A's
are coming, there's a mixed bag of feeling like,
well, this team's not very good, but... I guess
it's nice to have a team, and it's nice to have
a ballpark on our side of the bay. We don't have
to cross the bridge to get things ready. Ultimately,
he did get to go to Oakland, not without a lot
of chaos. In Kansas City, of trying to make changes
to Municipal Stadium, of trying to make silly
home run porches as he was complaining about
the New York Yankees home run porch. The pennant
porch. The pennant porch where he literally,
I'll put a picture in the sub stack, where he
literally moved the fence into one point that's
the same distance in right field like the short
porch at Yankee Stadium. Saying, well, the Yankees
are allowed to have it, why can't I? Well, it's
because the old Yankee Stadium was grandfathered
into the rule that the line had to be at least
315 feet down the line. And he had, well, I'm
going to put a statue of Connie Mack in center
field since at this time Yankee Stadium Monument
Park was in center field at old Yankee Stadium.
And again, he was shot down. So he's not getting
his way in Kansas City. He moves the team to
Oakland. And honestly, this is where things kind
of mellow out because the team's getting so good.
How familiar are you with the donkey, the one,
the only Charlie O? Well, I. I'm familiar with
the Oakland A's, the three -year run. Is that
the last three -peat? The Yankees, did they have
a three -peat? The Yankees had a three -peat
in the 90s. They were the last one to do it.
That was the last one, but my God, they saw some
success in Oakland. Charlie O, there is actually
a method to the madness behind Charlie Finley's
idea that people would want to see his ass. I
just love that line from Mustaches and Mayhem.
Charlie O was a mule. And it was meant to be
a team mascot in a way, a distractor in a way
in Kansas City. The other thing about Municipal
Ballpark back in KC, there was a really steep
grass berm in right field where it was really
hard to mow. So he actually created a children's
petting zoo that featured zoo animals that could
also nibble on the grass to mow it and to sort
of keep it in a decent length. in the meanwhile
charlie o becomes a team mascot everything was
meant to kind of distract from what's going on
the field to hey look at this cute horse that's
uh or cute mule that's got green and gold and
it's got uh i painted its hair to to match the
team it's meant to be for team spirit wait was
it a mule or a donkey i don't even know okay
oh my my uh my college team's mascot was a mule
so like very particular on that one the way it
all began finley always on the lookout for new
ideas called his business partner at four o 'clock
in the morning after reading an article in the
chicago tribune about how missouri mules which
is what charlie o was uh helped allies win world
war one by lugging ammunition and supplies through
the mud and the snow of france faster than the
germans could So Finley ordered to get the finest
mule in the state of Missouri. And ultimately,
Charlie O is arrived, and he is living the life.
He's driven everywhere in a trailer with air
conditioning. He's traveling with the team in
first class, mind you. He's staying in the team
hotels when they're on the road. He is truly...
for lack of a better term, a show pony, even
though he's not technically a pony. But again,
he's meant to be distracting. He's meant to be
something to endear. But when the A's did move
to Oakland after the 1967 season, Charlie O did
come with them. But it's kind of ironic that
the dynasty ends and free agency is beginning.
When Charlie O died. Charlie O did die in December
of 1976. A good eight -year run as the unofficial
team mascot of the Kansas City A's. But he was
everywhere. And you could not escape Charlie
O during this time in the A's because Charlie
Finley was a man of ideas. And he was not afraid
to share those ideas. And I just want to list
a few of the ideas that he was ahead of the game
on here that I think a lot of people need to
understand. Okay, yes, he was crazy. But he was...
really ahead of his time. He was first to the
punch on interleague play. He was begging for
interleague play, especially given the fact in
the Bay Area, the Giants across the Bay, their
popularity, the A's here in the East Bay. They're
getting popular. They're being a good team. How
great would it be to have a crosstown series?
We never saw this back in New York between the
Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Only see it
in the World Series. He was also the first to
push for the World Series and for the All -Star
Games to be played at night, trying to let people
to arrive, come off work. Remember how we talked
about during World War II and during the Great
Depression how important it was to have night
games and how ownership and commissioners felt,
yeah, this is a great way to have people come
from the factories and watch. But yet still,
World Series games were only being played during
the daytime, which to us now, we don't know it
any differently. But it's wild to think, wait
a minute, you had to convince people that you
wanted a night game for the most important games
of the season? That's bonkers to me. You know,
I'm going to do a first on this podcast, I think,
and actually talk about baseball stats. Is that
allowed? I don't know. Are we allowed to do baseball
stats? One of my favorite stats, just to talk,
since we're talking about these Oakland teams,
is the 1972 World Series. Do you know who the
MVP of that World Series was? Was it not Gene
Tennant? It was Gene Tennant. And his regular
season hit five home runs. In the 1972 World
Series, which was a seven -game series, he hit
four home runs. And of the... 16 runs the Athletics
scored. He knocked in nine of them. Like, it's
the most insane. This guy just went on a run.
And I know it has nothing to do with Charlie
Finley, but I figure at some point we got to
talk some baseball at some point on here. So
I just wanted to bring that up because it's one
of my favorite, like, World Series facts about
how Gene Tennant just went off in a very low
-scoring seven -game series to become the MVP.
Well, let's get into some of the players that
Charlie Finley was able to acquire. And the other
thing that we need to mention, as the A's start
to show signs of life in the early 70s and start
to realize, okay, there is a pretty good team
here that they have put together. But Finley
was always in the way of something. He was always
arguing about player bonuses, arguing about who
was available, arguing about... uh trades and
he was essentially running the team even for
the manager dick williams one of the best managers
to ever do it to ever work from the dugout but
this is a frayed relationship charlie finley
wanted all the attention as he usually did in
the early 70s but he's now realizing wait a minute
my team's really really good and maybe i can
step out of the way some of the things that he
used to do that would try to divert attention
from the game He had Harvey the Mechanical Rabbit
and Mr. Blowhard. Are you familiar with these
two? I know Harvey the Mechanical Rabbit was
to bring the baseballs to the ump, right? Yeah,
he was sick of seeing the umpire having the whole
baseballs in his pocket. Yeah, yeah. And it had
lights and looked kind of demonic from all the
videos I've seen. Mr. Blowhard took care of home
plate for umpires, where he would just go up
to home plate and... You know, push a bunch of
air and move on. And, of course, that took forever,
too. Of course, we talked about Charlie O. The
Finley Fund scoreboard that he tried to install
in Kansas City, this is, again, trying to copy
Bill Veck and the exploding scoreboard and the
exploding lights and trying to do this, spending
millions of dollars on a scoreboard was unheard
of at the time. And maybe one of his most famous
diversions and ideas was the Orange Baseballs.
The orange baseballs he carried with him everywhere.
Charlie had this idea to say, we shouldn't use
white baseballs anymore. They're too hard to
see. Let's use orange. Because at this time,
tennis is switching to a yellow tennis ball for
their premier events. So he said, well, why can't
we do the same? Literally everywhere you went,
you could find Charlie Finley holding one of
these orange baseballs saying, here, it's a prototype.
Let's do this. Let's do this. Other ideas. He
was first to the designated hitter. He was first
to, again, we talked about interleague play.
He wanted a pinch runner. freely or you can use
a designated runner in addition to a designated
hitter he also was one of the first people to
say let's speed up the game he installed a clock
in his scoreboard to enforce a long ignored rule
that mandated no more than 20 seconds between
pitches he was ahead of it on the pitch timer
50 years in advance trying to encourage speeding
up the game saying some pitches are taking way
too long. And all the while, his team is still
winning games. And in 1972, they win their first
World Series in Oakland. Everyone is going nuts.
Everybody's enjoying what it's been. But I think
one of the great quotes, again, from Mustaches
and Mayhem, because Charlie made everything about
him, the Oakland Tribune wrote, Finley makes
the games incidental. After the 1973 World Series
is over, I had to go back and read about the
games to see what happened. This is the World
Series that Charlie Finley is still distracting
folks. It's funny you mention speeding up the
games too, because if you look in the 1970s,
especially the late 60s and early 70s, the games
were not long compared to today. I mean, today
the average game time is 2 hours and 41 minutes.
In 1972, it was 2 hours and 23 minutes. So it
was already 18 minutes on average shorter than
we've got today. And they didn't have the Manfred
runner on second that we have now to shorten
those extra inning games. So it wasn't like baseball
was dragging. I guess maybe the way we look at
it now, we're like, oh, the game is too slow
today compared to what it was. Maybe that was
it for him because back in the 1920s and 30s
when he was growing up, games were under two
hours on average. He just wanted people in and
out, wanted to make as much money and win games.
But his relationship with players was strained.
And quite frankly, the A's of the 70s united
against Charlie Finley. to win despite of Charlie.
Reggie Jackson hated Charlie Finley. We'll talk
about Reggie in the birth of free agency in episode
five. He tried to sell virtually his entire team
in 1976, knowing he wasn't going to be able to
keep them from free agency coming up following
that season. He traded Reggie Jackson during
spring training, a handful of others during spring
training, tried to virtually sell the entire
team for three and a half million dollars in
1976 in a trade that was blocked by Bowie Kuhn.
But his most... maybe infamous moment as the
man in charge of the A's came in the 1973 World
Series. This is because of his treatment of Mike
Andrews and what it meant for the rest of the
A's. This was the beginning of the end for Charlie
Finley having trust within his organization.
Mike Andrews was a perfectly fine infielder.
You know, second baseman, didn't hit hard, but
is supposed to be known for his glove. But he
had been dealing with shoulder issues throughout
the season and was healthy enough to come into
the World Series. However, during the year in
1973, he made a million trades, as he usually
did, and he found himself short an infielder,
but having an outfielder, Manny Trio, available.
but he was signed after September 1st. Meaning,
if you were signed after September 1st, the other
team had to approve you playing in the World
Series. And they're playing the Mets in 1973.
The Mets said, no, Manny Trio cannot be on this
roster. You have to carry Mike Andrews. Charlie
was livid about this. He did not want to use
him. Dick Williams liked Mike Andrews. This is
terrible. I don't want this guy on my team. This
is brutal. He has a bad shoulder, all this stuff.
Well, they play the games. And lo and behold,
and in game two, The Mets beat the A's 10 -7,
aided by two key errors by Mike Andrews defensively.
So Charlie Finley storms down to the clubhouse,
brings Mike Andrews, while he's meeting with
the media, to the doctor's room and says, sign
this. And Mike Andrews is going, what is this?
This is a release to say, I am injured. I could
be taking off this World Series roster. Manny
Trio will be my replacement. He goes, I'm healthy.
I've just made two mistakes. I'm not signing
this. And Charlie Finley said, The heck you are.
You are signing this to help the team. Don't
you want to help the team? And Mike finds himself
stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's just
him and Charlie and the team doctor right there.
The team doctor has already signed off on this,
saying, you have a bum shoulder. You're out for
the World Series. Well, ultimately, Mike Andrews
did sign it and is down and out. He goes back
to New England to watch Game 3 as the team goes
back to New York. And then word gets out within
the clubhouse what Charlie did to Mike Andrews.
Not only did it get out in the clubhouse, it
got all the way up. to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn
and ordered Mike Andrews to be reinstated in
time for Game 4 in New York. And Mike Andrews
comes to pinch hit in Game 4 against the Mets
and gets a standing ovation from the Mets fans
for how poorly Mike Andrews was treated by Charlie
Finley. It's one of the worst chapters in Charlie
Finley to make up an injury for a guy that he
was convinced was going to hurt his team. Although
it hurt Andrews, a lot of people were glad it
happened because it was the first time it directed
attention at the way Finley treated people, even
if it was far from the first time he had treated
them that way. All of a sudden, he was not just
a quaint old guy, a fellow who did funny things,
but a man who could hurt people, and he did.
What makes that Mike Andrews story even worse,
that World Series Game 4 plate appearance. His
last major league plate appearance, he never
played in the majors again after that, only in
1975 playing in Japan. So that was literally
the end of this guy's career. And this is an
epic World Series. I would encourage folks to
go back and watch it on YouTube. 1973 World Series,
go seven games. Willie Mays, final World Series,
one of the best summers of baseball of all time.
The A's win in seven. Yogi Berra was the manager
of the Mets at the time. He comes over to congratulate
Dick Williams and say, hey, you know, well played,
good job. And it was just quiet and subdued,
and there wasn't a real celebration going on
in the clubhouse. It's because Dick Williams
just told his team. I'm resigning. I don't want
to work for Charlie Finley anymore. And the A's
are going, oh my God, we love Dick Williams.
He's the guy that's keeping us together. We all
hated Charlie because we loved playing for Dick.
How on earth are we going to keep moving on?
Well, the mistakes started to pile up now for
Charlie Finley as he's forced the resignation,
not forced, but encouraged the resignation of
Dick Williams. We talked about the Catfish Hunter
issue in 1974, which leads him to becoming a
free agent in 1975. And the cracks are beginning
to show. for Charlie Finley. Once the Sites decision
came down, that was the end. This was all over
for Charlie Finley. The way that he was able
to develop these players, these stars that he
had, like we talked about with Gene Tennis, Raleigh
Fingers being acquired. We talk about losing
Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Burt
Campanaris. I mean, there are some legends in
the Bay Area that played on these teams. But
as soon as Charlie had to bargain with players
as equals, He had to look an agent in the eye
and say, well, let's agree on this. He was not
capable of compromise or agreement or paying
a player more money given what he had been paying
his entire time. Charlie loved to do under the
table bonuses. He would invest in the stock market
for his players behalf. He would let them keep
all the wins and Charlie would absorb all the
losses. He thought this was sort of a... How
dare you bite the hand that feeds you free agency
is gonna kill this game and it killed Charlie
Finley's ownership And what could have been for
the A's? I mean they want to kept on winning
in the 70s if it wasn't for free agency and despite
Reggie Jackson hating him and the The mustaches
that those teams had and the white shoes the
green and gold they were the only team in green
and gold They still are the only team in green
and gold, but they were made fun of quite a bit
for their appearance Didn't matter. The mustaches
kept winning. Charlie Finley kept winning. But
once free agency came around, Charlie Finley's
reign was virtually over just a couple of years
later. Yeah, we probably in the late if it weren't
for free agency in the late 70s and early 80s,
we put a probably seen a series of athletics
versus Reds World Series because both those teams
suffered from free agency happening. Like I said,
the Reds were a team that that refused to sign
free agents and they went from the big red machine
to. i don't know what the 80s are but it's not
good yeah the big red machine uh losing to those
a's in 1972 and then winning of course in 75
and 76 so uh then the world changed in 1976.
then it went downhill yeah then they were down
to they lost 100 games in 1982 so it went that
quickly so here's an owner that did not enjoy
free agency What about the final generation,
the final chapter of owners that we're going
to talk about today? Two owners that understood
the power of free agency and the power of outbidding
and trying to win games. Next, we're going to
talk about Ted Turner and George Steinbrenner.
Stay with us after the break. Okay, now you've
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so far, and I'll talk to you at the end of the
episode. I don't know where to begin with Ted
Turner because this is a man whose entire world,
the Braves were like a tiny little footnote in
the legacy that was Ted Turner. Yes, Turner Field
get built, and yes, TBS and the Superstation,
and we will talk about all of that. But we have
to remember about Ted Turner and his philanthropic
efforts and his sailing and his chaos of his
20s that the Braves... Yes, he became famous
from the Braves, but he's really more known worldwide
for what he did with Turner Communications, what
he did with CNN, and what he did for the city
of Atlanta, building it up from a cultural hub
of saying, we can make 24 -hour news here. We
can make a brand -new station here. Oh, yeah,
and I also happen to own the Braves. During the
70s, I had a really good time to own the Braves,
but Ted Turner, having just passed about a month
ago, The obituaries are phenomenal. Atlanta Journal
-Constitution had a good one. New York Times
had a really good one, too. This is not about
the life of Ted Turner, but just sort of how
he got to the Braves. Because, again, we talked
about WGN making games available. I think we
talked to a lot of people a generation older
than us, Scott. Like, TBS was the Braves, and
everyone knew, oh, yeah, I can just flip on TBS,
and I would see a game at 7 .05, and it would
be the Braves wherever they were playing. Yeah,
TBS definitely changed the game. how baseball
media works. Because what a lot of people don't
realize, you know, we complain about blackouts
today. We can only, you know, you only get, depending
on what package you get, like you might only
get, if I'm a Brewers fan, I might only get 150
of the 162 games. But in the 50s and 60s and
leading into the 70s, except for the Cubs with
WGN, most teams, you only had single digits number
of games actually broadcast. Most people. listened
over the radio or went to the game in person.
And the Braves having almost all their games
available on TBS to a national audience was a
game changer. I still have a friend from high
school who grew up a Braves fan because it was
the one team he could watch in the 90s. You could
see in Wisconsin, you could see more Braves games
than you could see Brewers games during that
time. It wasn't until... The 80s and 90s were
other teams caught up and had the rise of regional
sports networks and it changed. But Ted Turner
was on the forefront because he was a media mogul
first before a baseball owner. So how did he
get his wealth in order to buy the Atlanta Braves?
Well, he was coming from an inherited billboard
business through his father. And a reminder.
Ted Turner was not a good kid. He was a spoiled
rich kid. He went through a lot of drugs, a lot
of brushes with the law, and yet came out on
the other side always seemingly unscathed. He
was a very good American sailor, as in like the
Captain's Cup, as in, hey, catamarans and yachting
is something that was a passion of his. It was,
again, rich people activities. But the way that...
ted turner built his billboard business because
again this is the 70s the best way to advertise
was either billboards or the newspaper and he
was dominating this in the south in the atlanta
area in the charlotte area and understanding
okay i can make money doing this and suddenly
there's this new innovation coming around it's
called ultra high frequency uhf uhf is a way
to beam a signal two cable televisions around
your area but it wasn't widely available everyone
was using one tier below that in uwf an ultra
wide frequency but there wasn't a lot of competition
on uhf stations and suddenly one became available
for him to buy which eventually became wtbs but
at the time it was wtcg and he had local programming
on there he also we should mention bought the
Atlanta Hawks. He was interested in sports, but
was trying to find programming for his station
more than he was interested in owning a baseball
team. And finally, as the Braves were really
struggling in the early 70s, even after moving
from Milwaukee, we've talked about that chapter
a couple of times where... Oh, Atlanta really
wants the Milwaukee Braves. Bring them to Atlanta.
And just three years in, they're already losing
money. The ballpark is empty virtually every
other game. And, in fact, the original owners,
Dan Donahue, was saying, we're losing a million
dollars a year. No one wants to buy this team.
This was not a good gamble. I can't believe we're
in Atlanta right now and not in Milwaukee. Well,
at this time, Ted Turner then negotiates with
the Braves to say, hey, I want you. to allow
me to broadcast your games. At this time, the
station was paying $200 ,000 to the Braves to
show 20 away games. Kind of what you were talking
about, Scott, where teams didn't even want to
show home games because they feared it would
impact the gate. Well, Ted's offer with Bill
Bartholomew was tripling the games and tripling
the payment. I want to do 60 of your away games
and for $600 ,000. At the time, the parent company
of the previous station, WSB, Cox Communications,
which also owned the flagship radio station of
the Braves and also owned the Atlanta Journal
-Constitution, saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, who
the heck is this guy? You cannot come in and
try to poach our bid. We should have the right
to match this bid. But Bill Bartholomew was saying,
well, I already kind of agreed to Ted Turner.
I like this deal a lot. Cox was furious, saying,
you need to let us match this. We will match
it right now. And because Bill was waffling on
the handshake deal that he had with Ted, Ted,
the salesman that he was, sat down and said,
hey, man, it's a handshake. You can't go back
on a handshake, you know? I thought we were friends
here. And Bill ultimately agreed, you know what?
WTCG, you can get those 60 away games. And that
simple handshake started the empire that was
Ted Turner. The ratings were good. People were
enjoying the Braves locally. All of a sudden,
the UHF receivers, the high -frequency receivers,
were up in the six figures for people buying
them to watch the Braves. There was certainly
an untapped market here of people wanting to
watch baseball on these new cable sets. But because
there was so little competition on the UHF channels
and the UHF stations, it was easier to find.
It just costed a few more dollars for the fan
to get. Well, maybe this you could call the first
paywall, if you will. But ratings were still
very, very strong, and I love this quote from
Ted Turner's autobiography. Call me Ted. I hadn't
been a baseball fan, but now that we were carrying
games, I went to the ballpark often and watched
a lot of the games on TV. Again, he was not a
baseball guy through and through. He was a businessman
and saw this as an opportunity. Oh, hey, I can
fill some programming. on my station. Well, the
Braves sucked. Okay, the Braves really sucked
in the early 70s. Yes, they have Henry Aaron,
the chase to break 714. He does so. Everyone's
fired up. It's an epic season in 1974. And then
he's quickly traded in 1975 back here to Milwaukee
to end his career. That's when attendance really
craters in Atlanta. Things are not going well.
Again, Don Donahue wants to sell the Atlanta
Braves. And Ted Turner comes in at the end of
the season in 1975 saying, how you doing, man?
Like, what's going on? And Dan just looks to
Ted saying, I'm selling you the team. Nothing
you can do about it. You're the only one that
cares about this team. And Ted's like, I don't
have the money for this. The billboard business
is going well, and I've got this UHF station
that's going well. But by the way, it costs a
lot of money to run a UHF station because you
need the signal, you need the satellites, you
need everything that's an innovation at this
time. He can't afford the $10 million price right
now. Dan Donahue was saying, Sam, I think you're
the best man for the job. You're the only one
that cares about the Braves in this city. So
what Ted did is he offered a million dollars
now for cash for the team, nine years to pay
the other $9 million that he would owe with interest,
which would ultimately make it a $12 million
sale. But he had to convince the other owners
saying that his UHF signal was not going to poach.
on their territory. This is where Ted kind of
pulled a fast one on the rest of the owners in
the National League. He even had a salesman on
his crew that was Stan Musial's son -in -law.
And you know how these old -timey baseball people
are. When they see Stan the man walking in the
door, they're like, oh my goodness, that's Stan
Musial. So when Ted was being interviewed by
the National League owners to be welcomed into
the fraternity, He brought Stan Musial to say,
this is a great man. You should let this man
be an owner of the Atlanta Braves. And it was
smooth sailing from there. Well, January 1976,
Turner Communications owns the Atlanta Braves.
All right. Congratulations, Ted Turner. You know
what happened in February, Scott? What happened
in February? Lockout. Nobody can go to spring
training. You got to deal with it, bud. Welcome
to Labor Negotiations. Let me introduce you to
Marvin Miller. Now, we'll talk about that a lot
with the birth of free agency again in episode
five, but here's Ted Turner in his first spring
training trying to understand, okay, wait, what
do I do now in a lockout? What do you mean I
can't be around my team? What do you mean? He
was such a personable guy that he wanted to be
around the team as much as possible. Now, when
the lockout ultimately ended, as they were trying
to figure out what to do with free agency, but...
When the lockout ended, this is one of my favorite
stories. It's well detailed in the book. One
of the ways that Ted Turner is trying to bring
himself up to speed when it comes to now owning
a baseball team. Again, he's not a baseball fan.
He hires a man, one of his people in his front
office named Terry McGurk. Do you know this story,
Scott? Sorry, I do not know Terry McGurk. Terry
McGurk was a non -roster invitee to the Atlanta
Braves, or so they thought. Terry McGurk was
meant to really be a spy for Ted Turner within
his own clubhouse, but not in a nefarious way
and not in a way that's meant to be, you know,
oh my goodness, catch dirt on this guy, catch
dirt on this guy, I'm going to use it as blackmail.
No, Ted literally just wanted to learn about
everything that... goes into a baseball team
how do guys interact with each other how do i
work things uh in the right directions how do
i make sure that guys are happy how do the managers
think of this now the only people that were in
on this bit on this non -roster invitee that
nobody had ever heard of were ted and his manager
and made it through weeks and weeks and weeks
of spring training without his you know his cover
being blown and ultimately there's a crazy game
in spring training where it's like 16 to 15.
He's the last man on the bench in the bullpen.
They're running out of arms. Clearly, all right,
if this guy's going to pitch in the game, it's
going to be right now. But they couldn't get
themselves to do so. And then the bit was out.
But it was all meant to be, hey, let's make sure
everyone gets along. Let's make sure that the
team is set up for success. That's how much Ted
Turner actually cared about the business side
and the human side of this while on top of it
trying to figure out how to compete with the
team. Another fun fact from the 76 spring training,
this is during the lockout, our old friend Bill
Veck, him and Ted had a good relationship. Again,
innovators and what they were able to do with
their teams. They had a 1976 non -game. meaning
they brought the Braves and the White Sox together
during the lockout for an exhibition, but it
wasn't officially an exhibition. It was a non
-game. It's just guys that just, oh, we'll throw
out a couple of bats, we'll throw out a couple
of baseballs. Just a good old pickup baseball
game, right? So they held that non -game and
they said, hey, if this lockout keeps going,
we're going to do this again. I just thought
that was a funny little antidote. And then finally,
Ted, when he met with his team and he was learning
the team in 1976 and bouncing around from player
to player. He was playing cards with them on
the team plane. He was fraternizing with them
in the clubhouse. He was checking in on their
families. He was doing things that no other owner
was really doing at this time. In fact, the owners,
Chubb Feeney, the National League president,
came to him and said, what are you doing with
your players? They work for you. Stop being friendly
to them. And again, this is the... The climate
of the 70s with Marvin Miller reminding them,
these are not your friends. And Ted Turner is
trying to sit here and go, well, I pay for these
guys' livelihoods. I want to take care of them.
I care about these people. And Chubb Feeney is
saying, no, you need to stop doing that. And
the quote from Ted Turner, and quote the title
of it, you can call me Ted just like everybody
else. No sir, no Mr. Turner, none of this. upon
some circumstance that some of these other owners
were begging for at this time, Ted Turner was
a down -to -earth millionaire that said, yeah,
no, just call me Ted. What do you need? I'll
take care of it for you because he really ran
Atlanta. Now, during this time, the free agency
boom starts to happen, okay? After the 1976 season,
things go crazy. But we talked about Andy Messerschmidt
in 1975 and how his free agency led the way to
the rest of the... the sport getting free agency,
which is how we transition into George Steinbrenner
while we close the book on Ted Turner. Now, the
reason why we're not going in super detail on
Ted Turner and the success of WTBS and the success
of the Superstation is because this is going
to come up again in the 80s. Again, he was asked
point blank by the owners, hey, are your UHF
channels going to make it into my city? He's
like, no, no, you got nothing to worry about
on that. I'm going to stay in Atlanta. No, he
would not stay in Atlanta. This would be a big
topic of the 80s of trying to understand television
rights and how to compensate appropriately on
national TV deals that weren't actually nationally
broadcasted, but they were just the Braves having
a massive signal. But in 1975, Andy Messersmith
becomes a free agent. And the bidding is open,
just like we just saw with Catfish Hunter in
1974. The bidding is open for Andy Messersmith.
And the first team to get to the punch saying,
I want to win free agency as much as possible
is not Ted Turner. It's George Steinbrenner.
George Steinbrenner is trying to sign Andy Messerschmidt.
He thought he signed into the deal that he wanted
to get. Worth over a million dollars for the
life of the deal over three years. Seems like
a pretty fair price for a young star pitcher
from the Dodgers. And Andy comes back and says,
wait, I didn't sign off on this deal. This is
the infancy of agency. meaning agents having
to agree to deals and clauses and this sort of
thing. It's George. There's a bunch of clauses
and little fine print because of George Steinbrenner.
We'll talk about him in a moment. And he's reading
this contract. I don't want to play for the Yankees.
This is terrible. I don't want to do this. And
he voided the contract based on agent negligence
saying, no, I'm a free agent still. I'm not signing
this. I don't care that the Yankees might have
beat me to the munch and offered me the most
money. I'm not signing this. Ted Turner swoops
in. Oh, well, okay. We'll give you the exact
same deal. None of the contingencies. None of
the clauses. Don't have to worry about it. Come
be an Atlanta Brave. This he sees like, this
is my splash, right? This is my guy that can
say. Let's finally care about winning again.
Let's finally go and get this guy that everyone
tells me is a really good pitcher. Do you know
how well it went for Andy Methersmith in Atlanta,
Scott? The first year was pretty good. Yeah,
the first year was pretty good. The rest of it
was not so good. After 1976, he made 29 games,
28 starts. He had a 304 ERA, now a far cry from
his 229 the year prior. But he was an all -star.
Things were looking up. Well, the rest of his
career. One more year with Atlanta, then in New
York, and then back to the Dodgers. He would
only make 33 more starts the rest of his career
for a 4 -7 -2 ERA. It was not the same for Andy.
But this is kind of selling. You mentioned he
went to the Yankees. This is almost kind of a
thing on Steinbrenner. Missed out on Messer Smith
the first time. Second time when the Braves realized,
oh, Messer Smith's injured. He's not going to
be good. Steinbrenner comes in and goes, oh,
I'll buy his contract. I missed on this guy this
first time. I'm not going to miss the second
time. And he was not good the second time around.
I think it was 1978 with the Yankees while he's
making this large amount of money and the Yankees
just paid cash to the Braves to get him. Negative
0 .8 war with a 5 .64 ERA. Like it was, it's
almost like Steinbrenner. He's got that pride
of, I missed out on this guy. I'm going to get
him this time, no matter what, not realizing
that his arm was basically shot at this point.
Well, making $333 ,000, which was a good, hefty
amount of money at this time. He was guaranteed
a million dollars when he signed that three -year
deal. But Andy Smith was the first, you know,
free agent. Obviously, we talked about the Mr.
Smith McNally holdouts and making it through
the season to abolish the reserve clause. But
what about that other guy that bid for him in
George Steinbrenner? This is another owner that
I promise we are going to have plenty more George
Steinbrenner stories in the 80s, in the 90s,
in the 2000s episodes. But for now, how did George
Steinbrenner become owner of the Yankees? He's
got a little bit of a flavor of every single
owner that we've talked about to this point,
where he needed multiple investors in order to
afford the team. And that's where we channel
Bill Veck. George was his own millionaire, kind
of like Charlie Finley was, where he was the
inheritance of a shipbuilding company. And you've
also got to remember the 60s and 70s, the Great
Lakes. A lot of trade is going through the Great
Lakes in Lake Erie and in Cleveland and in Ohio
and in Michigan, where this company, American
Shipbuilders, is based. So he gets that inheritance
from his father. And CBS at the time, yes, Columbia
Broadcasting System, owned the Yankees in the
60s. They were not very good in the 60s. Now
the past of Mickey Mantle is gone. The past of
Roger Maris in 61 is gone. In the late 60s, the
Yankees are really struggling, and they're trying
to find their identity again. Every Yankee team
had some sort of guy that you could point to
and say, yes, that's part of the future. They
hadn't been to the World Series since 1964 when
they lost in seven games. They don't want to
make it back until free agency was invented in
1976. And in the middle of this, George Steinbrenner
becomes the owner of the New York Yankees with
10 other partners, mind you, for a $10 million
price. Again, what? $10 million for the New York
Yankees in the 60s? That's how bad the Yankees
had fallen. CBS had struggled to keep up with
Yankee Stadium. It was decaying. They had to
figure out what to do with it. that it was that
cheap. And furthermore, George's stake in this
consortium of owners to buy the Yankees, he only
put forward $168 ,000 to buy the Yankees. It
all began with just a six -figure check to get
invited to this consortium. And very quickly,
George said, I am in charge. The rest of you
sit down. And this is a theme that we will see
from the boss, as he is nicknamed, as we all
know. But how did he become this hard and strict
and sort of a firework of a character that is
George Steinbrenner, his upbringing, an ultra
-strict father, again, of the American Shipbuilding
Company, where militaristic ideals, principles,
you are playing sports, you are going to be a
straight -A student, you are going to stay straight
-edge, you are wearing prim and proper boarding
school attire. I mean, he was the... poster child
of helicopter parent. You are not to do anything
wrong ever, ever, ever, ever again. And it kind
of scarred him. You could argue growing up where
he ran track in Ohio Wesleyan. He was a quite
the athlete growing up and he was a hurdler.
He was somebody that was very strict with his
own routines and very strict with what he was
able to do as he worked his way up in the American
shipbuilding. But he also learned. He could kind
of get his way. He had a way about convincing
people, it's my way or the highway. He talked
fast. He talked in a way that really sort of
intimidated people, especially in the Midwest
where American Shipbuilding was based in Cleveland.
He was just bang, bang, bang, just quick, fast,
very New York -like before he was even in New
York. But for George, owning a baseball team
was always on his radar. In fact, he wanted to
own the Cleveland Indians. He wanted to be involved
in that ownership group. He had small funds in.
He was a minority share owner in that. And when
it was announced that George was in this consortium
to buy the Yankees, you know, Yankees folks were
like, you want this guy from Cleveland? Are you
kidding me? He took that as a slight. He took
that as saying, oh, they don't believe in what
I can do. And they think, oh, the Cleveland Indians
are not very good at this time. There's no way
this guy's going to be a good owner for the Yankees.
Hold my beer. Watch me do this. And instantly,
in his first year on the job, he gets, he. He
comes under 1973. Catfish Hunter happens in 1974.
Bill Madden's book, The Last Lion of Baseball,
about George Steinbrenner, talked about how as
the bidding went up and up and up for Catfish
Hunter, George was always making the command
saying, just whatever it is, get it. Whatever
it is, we got the money. Whatever it is, we got
the money. And then the final price comes in
for Catfish Hunter. And it was silence on the
other end of the radio line saying, George, George,
George, are you there? I didn't think it was
going to be that much money. Are you kidding
me? Why is one guy worth this much money? Are
you kidding me? George didn't want to sign for
that much money for Cafe Chateau. Now, granted,
he was wrong. It turned out to be one of the
best moves he ever made. But for George, in the
beginning here, he was known for firing people
on a whim, his strict time code saying, you have
to be 10 minutes early to everywhere you go.
It was chaos in the time at old Yankee Stadium
because... He was just somebody that was trying
to run it his way. And he was trying to make
sure that everybody understood George is the
boss. George is the one who makes the final say.
Yes, there's other people involved. Yes, there's
a general manager. Yes, there's a manager. George
is the one in charge, a la Charlie Finley. And
you mentioned that the Yankees were in kind of
a bad... when he bought them. I just want to
put this in perspective. The 1961 Yankees, famous
squad with Maris and Mantle chasing the home
run record during all this time they're playing
at Yankee Stadium. So you think attendance would
be pretty good then. And it was their best attended
season in the 1960s at 1 .7 million, which doesn't
seem like a lot these days, you know, when you
have teams in the twos and three millions. In
1972, the year before Steinbrenner bought it,
under 1 million fans went to Yankee Stadium,
which just sounds crazy. And then by 1977, Steinbrenner's
Yankees were up to 2 .1 million. So 1977, they
saw more attendance than the 1961 Yankees, which
is kind of like 1961 is that year everyone goes,
oh man, they've made movies about that year.
And in 1980, a team that didn't even go to the
World Series, 2 .6 million. So this was right
on the cusp where attendance numbers in baseball
were starting to see a big change. There were
a lot more people going to the park than there
were prior to the 1980s. And then after... 19
like show you now nowadays the yankees are 4
million in 2008 and i believe that's still old
yankee stadium too that's the last year of old
yankee stadium yeah the last year of old yankee
stadium so from when steinbrenner bought the
team to the last year of yankee stadium attendance
quadrupled from under 1 million to over 4 million
and some of it is just baseball changing, the
environment changing, attendance going way up.
And some of it is also Steinbrenner's doing.
Fans get excited when you sign a catfish hunter.
Fans get excited when you purchase Andy Messersmith.
Fans get excited when you sign Reggie Jackson,
when you sign Dave Winfield. When you sign all
these gigantic contracts, fans get excited about
it and will go out to the stadium. Now, it doesn't
always work for every team, 2026 Mets, but...
Generally, Steinbrenner was on the forefront
of, like, if we pay for these guys, the fans
will come. If we build it, they will come. But
there were even teams in the 80s that George
was overseeing, and he was an impatient man that
kept making trades, trying to keep the World
Series vibe going. Because, again, they went
to three straight World Series, 76, 77, 78. They
went back to the World Series in 81. And in the
split season that year, they lose the World Series.
But yet... You look at the rest of the 80s, didn't
even make the playoffs during this time because
of George wheeling and dealing of not believing
in a farm system and trading guys left and right.
And the Yankees kind of fall into this in -between
of, well, wait, we're down to under $2 million
in attendance in the 90s? What do you mean, George?
I thought you were the richest guy. I thought
you were the guy that's going to be running things
here. Well, it's because he kept trading everybody
and trying to sign players. And you look at all
the managers that he had here year over year
over year. He fired Billy Martin five times.
Five times, Billy Martin. There was a great E60
back in the day, I remember, about Billy Martin
and George Steinbrenner that I would encourage
people to watch. But again, in 1978, even when
they win the World Series, Billy is fired, and
eventually it's Bob Lemon. who then manages the
team. Then Bob Lemon gets fired and Billy Martin
comes back. Then neither one of them want to
come back in 78, and it's Dick Hauser running
the team in 80. Then Gene Michael, the general
manager, is now running the team in 1982. You
get my point where there are multiple years with
two, even three managers in a single season because
George was so impatient of trying to say, no,
no, no, you're the reason why we're not winning.
I give you all the players. You got to make them
win and move on and try to figure this out. I
always remember Seinfeld, you know, that was
the depiction of George Steinbrenner. But they
had a joke in there where he starts listing off
all the people he's fired. And he's and he says
a name. Then he says Billy Martin. Then he says
another name. Then he says Billy Martin again.
And the joke is just how many times he's fired
and rehired Billy Martin. It's it's I I've never
heard of anyone, you know, that has been hired
and fired from the same company, you know, more
than twice, let alone five times. But the other
thing that we haven't talked about with George
is he did have trouble with the law and he did
have trouble with the federal government. He
was suspended twice, once for the federal government
and once for Major League Baseball. Now, 1975,
Richard Nixon is trying to be reelected. And
if you know anything about American history,
wait a minute, Nixon getting reelected. He didn't
get reelected. Oh, Watergate. This is where he
wasn't involved directly with Watergate, but
he was involved with. improper campaign contributions
to the campaign to reelect Richard Nixon. To
creep is what it's always known, the campaign
to reelect the president. So when Richard Nixon
was receiving funding to go run again, and the
way that George Steinbrenner hid these funds,
because there's taxes on this and there's public
interest in this, when George Steinbrenner was
ordering his American shipbuilders to donate,
to creep, to say, hey, Richard Nixon is supporting
us. We're going to support Richard Nixon. I'm
going to disguise these bonuses that I'm giving
to you so that way I can write these off as expenditures
to the company are really meant to be going to
Richard Nixon. He thought he was going to get
away with it. That is, of course, fraud. That
is illegal campaign contributions because you're
also, it's a labor issue, telling people to do
with your money, trying to keep it under wraps.
On the American shipbuilding company line, it
says it's an incentive bonus to his employees.
When the employees in reality are the ones giving
the money then to Richard Nixon to make it look
like it's not George Steinbrenner. It's George's
money all along. It's just incorporating a middleman
going to Richard Nixon. This was investigated
and found. He avoided jail time, of course, but
he also had to pay hefty fines. I have the articles
in the sub stack here as well. Major League Baseball
has to sit here and figure out, what do we do
about illegal campaign contributions? Bowie Kuhn,
again, is in charge. And this is the start of
a relationship that would be very rocky over
the years with George Steinbrenner and the commissionership.
Ultimately, the initial sentence was a two -year
suspension from Major League Baseball and from
day -to -day operations of the New York Yankees.
Meaning... You can't make trades. You can't call
anybody in the building. You can't even be in
the building for that matter. And ultimately,
it would be shortened down to 18 months that
he would serve. But here you are three years
into his tenure of you're already being suspended
for something you're not supposed to do. This
is baseball. You can be suspended for something
you do outside of baseball, which really irked.
George Steinbrenner for that. What I do with
my money, what I do with my business is none
of your business in baseball. Him and Bowie would
go fist to cuffs almost at time to time. But
all the meanwhile, you may notice a trend here.
While his hands weren't on the team, a winner
was being built. And it would set the stage for
1976 and losing the World Series, getting swept
by those Reds. But then in 1977, with one Reggie
Jackson and the birth of Mr. October. Having
the funds ready to go and having the farm system
ready to go for free agency meant that George
Steinbrenner finally had what he always wanted.
He just wanted a winner. Yeah, and that definitely
worked out with Reggie Jackson. Although, do
we want to talk about Winfield? Because he tried
to do the same thing with Winfield, but it didn't
go quite as well. They went back -to -back World
Series, 77 -78. They make it back to the World
Series in 1981, and they lose, but... Now you're
starting to realize, okay, what do you have available?
What else can you do for this team? How can you
make sure you have a sustainable winner, right?
Reggie's starting to get older. Some of the stars
you've been paying for are getting older. And
through the 80s, things were pretty rough. But
free agency is still... the way that the Yankees
are being built, trying to sign players as much
as they can for as much money as they can, flexing
their muscles on the Milwaukee's of the world,
flexing their muscles on the rumors of expansion
teams coming around. The Yankees wanted to get
back to their power in the 80s, and they thought
by doing so, they would sign by a player by the
name of Dave Winfield. Yeah, Dave Winfield. This
is a funny, this is almost an example of how...
These larger than life owners can sometimes have
an ego about them because he definitely did go
in on bidding for Dave Winfield. Eventually,
Winfield agreed to sign a contract. But during
the negotiations, during working with an agent,
one thing that was put in the contract was a
cost of living adjustment year to year. So what?
And George Steinbrenner was not aware, even though
he's drafting this contract and Winfield is signing
it, that what this impact would have on what
he would have to pay Winfield. He thought, I
don't have the exact numbers off the top of my
head, but he thought he was paying X dollar amounts.
It was nearly double when you factor in the cost
of living adjustment. And the thing about Steinbrenner,
this is the thing that probably paints him in
the most negative light, is he took that personally.
And Winfield signed a 10 -year deal for his entire
run with the Yankees. Steinbrenner almost made
life a living hell for Winfield. He talked bad
about him in the press when Reggie Jackson was
Mr. October. I think he called Dave Winfield,
was it Mr. May? It was because basically saying,
oh, he does good in the regular season. He never
does anything in the playoffs because they never
made the playoffs. But Dave Winfield was still
a productive player during this time. It was
just... Steinbrenner did not enjoy getting one
-upped on a business deal. And it really, really
hit the fan in the late 80s. Well, what happened
was he became the highest paid player in baseball
at the time. And to reiterate, Dave Winfield,
who is in the Hall of Fame, was a legend with
the San Diego Padres, another team that's never
won a World Series. He had not yet won an MVP.
In fact, he never did. He's maybe the best player
to never win an MVP in his career. Dave Winfield,
in his final year in San Diego, had 118 RBIs,
had 34 homers, and a hard place to hit. He was
clearly the best hitter available going into
free agency after 1980. He had a down year compared
to the year prior in 1980, but still George wanted
him, making him the highest paid player in baseball.
higher paid than Nolan Ryan, right? And think
about a position player getting paid more than
a pitcher nowadays, which was happening right
now with Juan Soto, but could have happened again
with somebody down the road with like a Paul
Skeens or a Tarek Skubal, whatever happens. But
that's modern. Let's go back. You mentioned the
late 80s, and we'll talk about this in this episode
more deeply, but George Steinbrenner hired a
gambler to gather dirt, to essentially spy. on
Dave Winfield to find a way to avoid the contract,
to find a way to suspend him, to find a way to
get him off my team. And again, Dave was not
a bad player with the Yankees. Dave hit 290.
He had an 850 OPS. He had 205 homers. He had
more homers than the Yankees than he did with
any other team in his career. I don't understand
the vibe because, like you said, he hated losing
a business deal. He couldn't believe that Winfield
won this battle to get the... cost of a living
clause in his contract in order to actually get
more compensation than was initially reported.
Instead of $23 million, it was much, much more
than that. And this led to another suspension,
this time from Faye Vincent, saying... George,
you cannot dig up dirt on your own players as
a spy, as a gambler. Again, gambling, baseball,
this is not what we want here. We'll talk about
it in more detail in the 90s episode about Dave
Winfield because also Dave has a book coming
out that I'm really excited to read and I'm sure
that he has a lot of details on what he learned
about this whole episode. But to say that George
Steinbrenner and Dave Winfield did not like each
other is the understatement of the century. That
being said... George was not out here trying
to make friends in the 80s and 90s. It wasn't
until while he was suspended in the early 90s
from this ordeal with Dave Winfield that his
team and his front office was signing and developing
and creating the core four. People have argued,
and I would agree with this, honestly, that while
George was suspended and during the chaos of
the early 90s, that George would have got impatient
and traded somebody like Derek Jeter, would have
traded somebody like Jorge Posada, would have
not allowed the core four to develop, but because
he was suspended by Major League Baseball for
this Dave Winfield incident, that the Yankees
became a dynasty because of Steinbrenner's greed
and because of his poor decision -making trying
to spy on Dave Winfield. Yeah, I do have one
funny thing for Dave Winfield, because see if
there's another player that has this, Weird honor
played for the Yankees for nine years, but his
only world series ring was with another team
after he left the Yankees. I don't know if you'll
find a, yeah, I don't know if you'll find a player
who played for the Yankees that long did not,
not only didn't get a world series ring with
the Yankees, but got it with another team. That's
just a tip of the iceberg with George Steinbrenner.
I wanted to talk about how he rose to power and
how he's sort of similar to Ted Turner and that
later in life. And we'll talk about this in the
2000s episode. with the creation of the YES Network,
branching away from MSG and creating his own
revenue stream. In that regard, the Yankees are
the biggest brand in the land. Understanding
that there is power on television, while Ted
Turner harnessed that first with WTBS, and maybe
you can even argue Philip Wrigley with WGN. But
the way that he was able to create that as a
revenue stream was something that was greater
than any other team could have imagined. through
the YES Network, and through the late 90s after
the 1994 strike, which is kind of how we're in
the situation once again 30 years later where
the Dodgers have a made -up TV deal and everyone's
jealous of it, and maybe we'll be holding the
sport hostage once again in 2026. That is the
owners that we wanted to talk about. The nine
owners. We know we left stuff on the cutting
room floor. We know there are other owners we
could have talked about. We could have talked
about the McPhails. We could have talked about
Webb and Topping. We could have talked about
Marge Schott. We could have talked about... So
many other owners. But I think this is a good
starting nine, if you will. These are the big
players that you hear a lot about throughout
baseball history. And in the case of the last
two, Ted Turner and George Steinbrenner, you're
going to hear plenty more from them in this series.
Yeah, this is definitely, I think this may, you
know, kind of more inside baseball here on what
we've been putting together here. But this may
have been the most difficult. episode to do just
because of how many different owners there are
how many personalities so hopefully the nine
we picked and going into what they do gives kind
of paints a picture of what levers an owner controls
what power an owner yields and how it's impacted
as we're going to get into the advent of free
agency the 90s the 2000s it how These people
left a mark on baseball either through changing
how a team is operated, changing how the league
is operated, changing how money flows throughout
baseball. But it's something we wanted to highlight
just to kind of set the stage of what are the
different players in this league. We have the
MLBPA. We have the commissioners. Now we have
the owners. Those are really the three tiers,
the three things that we're going to really dig
into when we start talking CBA negotiations.
They all have a say, they all have goals, and
they all have things that they want to accomplish,
which will play in huge in 2027. So we've introduced
the players, the players, the commissioners,
the owners. Now we need to introduce the game.
That is going to be episode four, the business
of baseball. How do owners make money? How do
players make money? And how does that relationship
work together leading into labor negotiations?
After we get through the business episode and
once we try to teach you some things about how
money is made and how the sausage is made, then
we get back to learning from our past to prepare
for our future. The split season of 81, the advent
of free agency in the late 70s, the collusion
of the 80s that George Steinbrenner is very involved
in there too. We talk about the strike in 1994,
the home run race, steroid era, all of that is
still to come. Once we get through the business
episode next month, then you're going to start
hearing about things you've heard stories about
your whole life. Oh yeah, they played two seasons
and the Reds didn't, the Reds had the best record
in baseball, but didn't make the playoffs. And
you know, the collusion of Uber off in the eighties.
And we talk about. you know, how the home run
race saved baseball, but it might've been because
of Andrew all along. I mean, this is a baseball
history is coming on the horizon here and stay
patient with us because I know clickbait is out
there trying to get you on labor stuff and trying
to understand, Oh, they want this. I'm like,
well, We're trying to do the slow game here so
that when we all wake up on December 2nd, you're
going to have this whole catalog ready to go
of how did we get here in the first place, and
that's the game that we're trying to play. We're
not trying to be the first to it. We're not trying
to break news on this. We're trying to react
to it all and put it in layman's terms for baseball
fans like Scott and I to understand. So that's
going to do it for this month's episode of the
Service Time Podcast. Thank you so much for listening.
This has been written and edited by Dominic Catronio
and Scott Sweeney. We are doing this fully independently
and supported by listeners like you. So you can
head on over to Substack Service Time Podcast
to subscribe for free, or you can support the
content by paying for a paid subscription there
as well. Next month's episode will be the business
episode. What does that mean? Well, how do these
guys make money? But we got to make sure to get
the facts right. So we'll talk to you in about
a month's time. We'll find you right around mid
-July this time coming up as the summer months
heat up. Thank you so much for listening. For
my co -host, Scott Sweeney, I'm Dominic Cotroneo.
Keep on swinging.