Three Days a Sox

[The Talented Allen Ripley]

The Baseball Hall of Fame's website has an in-depth article regarding the sale of Rollie Fingers and Joe Rudi to the Red Sox in June of 1976, which commissioner Bowie Kuhn overruled, invoking the "best interests of the game" clause in the league's charter. It's a well-known footnote in Sox history, but this piece provides a lot of fresh info:

Commissioner Bowie Kuhn first caught wind of the deal while attending a White Sox vs. Orioles game in Comiskey Park, on hand to take in a showdown between Goose Gossage and Jim Palmer, but soon finding himself in a showdown with a notoriously single-minded owner. Kuhn instantly contacted all teams involved and ‘froze’ the trade, until he made an official decision on the transaction.

He decided to hold an Executive Committee meeting by phone the next day, weighing the input of multiple owners, but they were still unable to come to a decision, and remained deadlocked.

Kuhn followed that meeting with another hearing, which included all of the parties involved: Charlie Finley, Dick O’Connell (the Red Sox general manager), George Steinbrenner (owner of the Yankees), Gabe Paul (the Yankees general manager), Marvin Miller (Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association) and Finley’s attorney, David Kentoff.

Ninety minutes later, the owners emerged from the meeting confident that the transaction would remain intact. According to the Sporting News, Finley had shown up in a bright golf shirt with a carnation tucked into the front pocket. Meanwhile, George Steinbrenner flashed a thumbs-up sign to the press while walking out of Kuhn’s office. Not traditional signs of defeat, one would conclude.

“We’ll continue to play short three players until we decide on another avenue. Right now, we feel that Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers are the property of the Red Sox and Vida Blue is the property of the Yankees,” Finley told the media. “We are certainly very confident that we will win this case because ballplayers have been sold since the beginning of baseball. The selling of ballplayers is nothing new.”

But the plot thickened. On June 18, Bowie Kuhn shook the baseball world almost as hard as Finley had days before. He held a press conference telling the media that he was nullifying the trade, citing Article 1, Section 4 of the Major League Agreement, written in 1921, the era of baseball’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. The section gave the commissioner permission to take “steps as he may deem necessary and proper in the interest in the morale of the game.”

A week after Kuhn nullified the trade, Finley decided to file a $10 million lawsuit in federal court against him, on the basis of ‘restraint of trade.’ For nearly two weeks, the Athletics’ owner refused to play Fingers, Rudi or Blue, insisting that they were property of the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.

“If Charlie uses any of the players, then in essence he is ratifying the commissioner’s position,” asserted Charlie’s lawyer. “Also, what if the A’s play Rudi and he breaks a leg and then the court rules Rudi belongs to Boston. Who is to determine who will compensate Boston for the loss of Rudi?”

In Finley’s mind, it was all too risky. Unlike the Red Sox and the Yankees, who were in a tight pennant race, the A’s were struggling to finish above .500. So the incentive for him to utilize three star players and put $3.5 million on the line, was basically nonexistent.

“I don’t even want them in uniform,” Finley told his manager, Chuck Tanner. “Also, keep them out of the clubhouse. Oakland players have been known to get hurt in there.”

When Kuhn realized that Finley wasn’t playing Rudi, Fingers or Blue, he directed the owner to use his players, stating that “this determination is contrary to the best interests of baseball and is inconsistent with the Oakland club’s obligation to give its best efforts to win games.” But Finley simply ignored Kuhn’s ruling, confident in his side of the argument.

While this was all going on, Rudi, Fingers and Blue were in complete limbo. Unsure of which club they were ‘officially’ affiliated with, they were forced to watch the hysteria between Kuhn and Finley from the sidelines. Tanner had to make due with a 22-player roster, three short of his usual complement, for nearly two weeks. With every day that passed, the Oakland Athletics felt more and more enraged by the stubbornness of their owner – and finally decided to take matters into their own hands.

“We would come out to the ballpark, warm up, but we were not in uniform during the game,” Fingers recalled in an interview a couple of weeks ago. “And finally it got to the point where all the guys on the team saw how frustrated we were, and we had a team meeting. And we all voted – Minnesota had just come into town – that we’re not going to play the game against the Twins. We will forfeit it, and they will get the automatic win, unless Rudi, I and Vida were reinstated.”

“[After being inducted] I yakked to Carl [Yastrzemski] about it once – when I was a Red Sox (player) our lockers were right next to each other,” Fingers says. “I mentioned it to Carlton Fisk once too. The guys took me and Rudi in like one of their own.”

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

Bowie Kuhn was the absolute worst. I can't believe that he's in the Hall of Fame.

And if the Sox just pitched Fingers for one inning, I bet that Boston would have at least another World Series ring. Though I have no idea where they would have played Rudi. Rice in left, Lynn in center and Evans in right and Yaz DHing (flip flop with Rice), doesn't leave a lot of space for Rudi. Maybe Dewey was going to be sent somewhere later?

Edit: Nice find, Rip.

 

[Rudi Fingers]

Nice find... and one of the best pictures of Rollie Fingers at the Oakland Coliseum that I have ever seen (next to the picture of Rudi and Fingers in my avatar, of course)

 

[BannedbyNYYFans.com]

That is a great picture. I've never seen it before.

The one I always see used is with the warm up jackets.

 

[chrisfont9]

Rudi went on to produce two more years of an OPS+ >100, but by '79 was fading fast. Fingers was the real loss to the Sox. He was extremely effective through 1984, including a Cy Young award in 1981, and racked up 25 bWAR wins -- a lot for a reliever.

 

[YTF]

Bowie Kuhn was the absolute worst. I can't believe that he's in the Hall of Fame.

And if the Sox just pitched Fingers for one inning, I bet that Boston would have at least another World Series ring. Though I have no idea where they would have played Rudi. Rice in left, Lynn in center and Evans in right and Yaz DHing (flip flop with Rice), doesn't leave a lot of space for Rudi. Maybe Dewey was going to be sent somewhere later?

Edit: Nice find, Rip.

I know Rudi played first base as well. Perhaps the idea was to move Cecil Cooper.

 

[mauidano]

I saw this on Twitter from Gordon Edes and read the whole article. It was fascinating. I vaguely remember this whole episode as a kid. What a great story and pictures!

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

This happened to Fingers another time too. He was the property of St. Louis for a few days in the 1980 offseason before he was traded to Milwaukee?

• December 8, 1980: Traded by the San Diego Padres with a player to be named later, Bob Shirley and Gene Tenace to the St. Louis Cardinals for Terry Kennedy, John Littlefield, Al Olmsted, Mike Phillips, Kim Seaman, Steve Swisher and John Urrea. The San Diego Padres sent Bob Geren (December 10, 1980) to the St. Louis Cardinals to complete the trade.
• December 12, 1980: Traded by the St. Louis Cardinals with Ted Simmons and Pete Vuckovich to the Milwaukee Brewers for David Green, Dave LaPoint, Sixto Lezcano and Lary Sorensen.

Thanks to Baseball-Reference!

The Cards didn't do too well in either trade, I don't think.

 

[mandro ramtinez]

That was a great read, thanks for sharing.

This line, however, took the air out of my tires: “With wording that vague, the power of the commissioner of baseball is, in effect, whatever the commissioner says it is,” wrote the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The catch is that the owners hire the commissioner and have the power to fire him if they don’t like the action.”

The more things change ...

 

[The Talented Allen Ripley]

Bowie Kuhn was the absolute worst. I can't believe that he's in the Hall of Fame.

And Marvin Miller isn't, which is a bigger crime. Miller's book A Whole Different Ball Game is an outstanding read for many, many reasons; one of them is the sheer disdain Miller has for Kuhn, he all but comes out and says he was an idiot.

I wonder how Kuhn would have handled L'Affaire Pomeranz.

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

I wonder how Kuhn would have handled L'Affaire Pomeranz.

Both teams would have been contracted.

 

[Zososoxfan]

That was a great read, thanks for sharing.

This line, however, took the air out of my tires: “With wording that vague, the power of the commissioner of baseball is, in effect, whatever the commissioner says it is,” wrote the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The catch is that the owners hire the commissioner and have the power to fire him if they don’t like the action.”

The more things change ...

Nice.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

Great article. Finley was definitely ahead of his time. And if his fellow owners had listened to his proposal to make every player a free agent at the end of the year, baseball might have been very different.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

Likewise if Finley had followed the terms of the contract he signed with Mr. James Augustus Hunter.

 

[Mueller's Twin Grannies]

And Marvin Miller isn't, which is a bigger crime. Miller's book A Whole Different Ball Game is an outstanding read for many, many reasons; one of them is the sheer disdain Miller has for Kuhn, he all but comes out and says he was an idiot.

I wonder how Kuhn would have handled L'Affaire Pomeranz.

I'm pretty sure Miller didn't want to be in the Hall.

Yeah, though I'm annoyed that the top link contains a Murray Chass column in it.