August 9- Seattle Pilots

I realize that today’s actual date is November 12^th, so just humor me when you read it. I’ll make more sense if you actually think it’s August 9^th.

There was one game that stood as “the one game I NEEDED to attend in 2012,” but an unfortunate series of events thwarted my efforts. Today the Seattle Mariners played host to the Milwaukee Brewers, a game that most casual baseball fans would chalk up as “another interleague matchup,” but to the borderline psychotic fans like myself, it’s a “Haley’s Comet” of matchups. See, interleague first started in 1997 as a method to not only make the game more entertaining, but it also gave fans a chance to check out teams who they would not normally see at their local Major League stadium, unless of course you lived in Los Angeles, New York, the Bay Area or Chicago. At that time the Brewers were still members of the American League and played the Mariners at least six times a season; typically one three-game series at home and the other on the road since they were in different divisions. Well, all of that changed at the end of the ’97 season as I cataloged in my Brewers post from two days ago. So, with the Brewers now members of the National League their impending visit to Seattle was bound to happen somewhere down the road. What few realized is that “somewhere down the road” turned out to be 16 years later.

Back in 2002 my best friend Sam Spencer and I had talked about this chance meeting while we were sitting in the first base side seats of Safeco Field watching my Oakland Athletics beating the piss out of his Mariners. One thing that never felt right to us was that with every interleague matchup each team had their “rivalry” team. The Athletics have the San Francisco Giants (Battle of the Bay), the Los Angeles Dodgers have the Los Angeles Angels (Freeway Series), the Kansas Coty Royals have the St. Louis Cardinals (I-70 Series), but there are even seemingly odd matchups like the Pittsburgh Pirates versus the Detroit Tigers (dates back to 1909) and the Boston Red Sox versus the Atlanta Braves which makes sense because they both started in Boston. However, the rivalry teams for both the Mariners and Brewers have huge question marks over them. Yes, I understand that the Brewers and Minnesota Twins are rivals, but their series name (I-94 Series) is what they call their matchups with the Chicago Cubs. As for the Mariners, I understand that they share their stadium in Peoria, Arizona with the San Diego Padres and that they both play on the West Coast, but they are the furthest away from one another. How do you call that a rivalry? Sam and I were both intent on the Mariners and Brewers being a legitimate rival for the same reason that the Braves and Red Sox were rivals, except for the fact that the Mariners and Brewers are way more connected than any other rivalry. And of course, Bud Selig is involved.

Back on June 21st I laid out the specifics as to how the Brewers became a team so I will give you the Cliff’s Notes version in just a moment. First I have to talk about the team that started it all, the Seattle Pilots. Actually, it started with the Athletics. Charlie O. Finley, the former owner of the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics had originally bough the team in 1960 under the guise that he wanted to keep the team in Kansas City. Unbeknownst to everyone else, he had been shopping the team around almost immediately after signing the team into his control. Finley had been pressing the city to build him a new baseball stadium, but when the voters finally agreed and a bond measure was put in place, it was too late. Finley and the Athletics were gone. Former Missouri Senator Stuart Symington caused a massive uproar and threatened legal action against Major League Baseball, challenging the antitrust exemption after the AL teams and their presidents Joe Cronin formerly approved Finley’s move of the team. The timing truly couldn’t have been any better/worse, depending on how you look it at, because MLB was in the market to expand the game in order to preserve baseball as the “national pastime” as the National Football League was starting to take over the public interest in 1967. Needing to add two teams to each league in spread out portions of the country, MLB added the Montreal Expos and Padres to the NL and for sure the Royals to the AL to appease Symington and the state of Missouri. The only question left was who the other team was going to be in the AL.

By the 1960s, with Seattle's population growing, the city became the largest to host a Pacific Coast League team, the Seattle Rainiers. The league's stature also declined with the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles and the New York Giants to San Francisco, which caused those cities' PCL teams to fold. In 1964, the city purchased Sick's Stadium for $1.1 million. In 1965, the Rainiers were sold to the Los Angeles Angels, who renamed it the Seattle Angels. The city made several attempts to lure a Major League Baseball team. In 1964, William R. Daley visited the city when searching for a new home for the Cleveland Indians. He was unimpressed with the stadium, citing it as the primary reason to terminate his quest to move his team. Finley also found the stadium inadequate during a 1967 visit, and so rejected Seattle as a potential target for moving the Athletics. Because of this, the city instead tried to lobby for an expansion franchise at the 1967 owner's meetings in Chicago. The delegation also had support from two Congressmen, Henry M. Jackson and Warren Magnuson, the latter of whom was the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, a committee which has "jurisdiction over the Major League’s business activities". Coupled with Symington's threats related to the move of the Athletics, the political influence swayed the AL owners. However, they were reluctant to expand in 1969 without a Seattle stadium bond issue. The Seattle delegation assured the owners that Sick's Stadium could be renovated in five months to fulfill the minimum requirements until a new stadium was built; with this, the owners agreed to a 1969 expansion, and approved the team in Seattle along with Kansas City. In December 1967 at the Winter Meetings in Mexico City, the franchise was officially awarded to Pacific Northwest Sports, which received $5.5 million in funding from Daley, who thus had 47% ownership of the venture. Other owners included Max and Dewey Soriano. The award was contingent on renovation of Sick's Stadium to increase its seating capacity from 11,000 to 30,000 by the start of the 1969 season. The Sorianos persuaded notable athletes to advocate for the $40 million King County stadium bond issue, including baseball players Mickey Mantle, Carl Yastrzemski, Joe DiMaggio, and football player Y. A. Tittle; the bond issue was approved by 62.3% of the electorate. The "Pilots" name originates from the owner's part-time job as a harbor pilot and the city's association with the airplane industry.

The front man for the franchise ownership, Pacific Northwest Sports, Inc. (PNSI), was Dewey Soriano, a former Rainiers pitcher and general manager and former president of the PCL. In an ominous sign of things to come, Soriano had to ask Daley to underwrite much of the purchase price. In return, Soriano sold Daley 47% of the stock, the largest stake in the club. He became chairman of the board while Soriano served as president. However, a couple of factors were beyond the Pilots' control. They were originally not set to start play until 1971 along with the Royals. The date was moved up to 1969 under pressure from Symington who wanted the teams playing as soon as possible. Because the AL didn’t want just one team to enter the league, causing an odd balance, the Pilots were forced to start way ahead of schedule. Also, the Pilots had to pay the PCL $1 million to compensate for the loss of one of its most successful franchises. After King County voters approved a bond for a domed stadium (what would become the Kingdome) in 1968, the Pilots were officially born. California Angels executive Marvin Milkes was hired as general manager, and Joe Schultz, coach of the NL Champion Cardinals, became manager. With the front office, a stadium in the process of being refurbished and a brand new stadium in the future, the Pilots were finally starting to look like a professional ball club.

Schultz and Milkes both optimistically stated that they thought Pilots could finish third in the newly formed, six-team AL West. However, to the surprise of almost no one outside Seattle, the Pilots experienced the typical struggles of a first-year expansion team. They won their very first game, and then their home opener three days later, but only won five more times in the first month. Nevertheless, the Pilots managed to stay in reasonable striking distance of .500. The Pilots were only 6 games back of the division lead as late as June 28. But a disastrous 9–20 July (and an even worse 6-22 August) ended even a faint hope of any kind of contention, though they were still in third place as late as August. The team finished the season in last place in the AL West with a record of 64-98, 33 games out of first. However, the team's poor play was the least of its troubles. The most obvious problem was Sick's Stadium. The longtime home of the Rainiers, it had once been considered one of the best ballparks in minor league baseball; by the 1960s, however, it was considered far behind the times. While a condition of MLB awarding the Pilots to Seattle was that Sick's had to be expanded to 30,000 seats, only 19,500 seats were ready by Opening Day because of numerous delays. The scoreboard was not even ready until the night before the season opener. By June there were finally 25,000 seats in place. Water pressure was almost nonexistent after the seventh inning, especially with crowds above 8,000. Attendance was poor (678,000) and the Pilots lost hundreds of thousand of dollars in their first season. The team's new stadium was slated to be built at the Seattle Center, but a petition by stadium opponents ground the project to a halt.

By the end of the season, the Pilots were gasping. However, Daley refused to put up more financing. It was obvious that they would not survive long enough to move into their new park without new ownership. It was also obvious that such a move would have to happen quickly, as Sick’s' Stadium was inadequate even for temporary use. During the offseason, Soriano made contact with car salesman and former Milwaukee Braves minority owner Bud Selig, who was leading the effort to bring major league baseball back to Milwaukee. They met in secret for over a month after the end of the season, and during Game 1 of the 1969 World Series, Soriano agreed to sell the Pilots to Selig for $10.8 million. Selig would then move the team to Milwaukee. The remaining owners of the Pilots turned it down in the face of pressure from Washington State's two senators, Warren Magnuson and Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson, as well as state attorney general Slade Gorton. Local theater chain owner Fred Danz came forward in October 1969 with a $10 million deal, but it fizzled when the Bank of California called in a $4 million loan it had made to Soriano and Daley to finance the purchase of the franchise. In January 1970, Westin Hotels head Eddie Carlson put together a nonprofit group to buy the team. However, the owners rejected the idea almost out of hand since it would have devalued the other clubs' worth. A slightly modified deal came one vote short of approval.

After a winter and spring full of court action, the Pilots reported for spring training under new manager Dave Bristol, unsure of where they would play. The owners had given tentative approval to the Milwaukee group, but the state of Washington got an injunction on March 16 to stop the deal. PNSI immediately filed for bankruptcy, a move intended to forestall post-sale legal action. At the bankruptcy hearing a week later, Milkes testified there was not enough money to pay the coaches, players, and office staff. Had Milkes been more than 10 days late in paying the players, they would have all become free agents and left Seattle without a team for the 1970 season. With this in mind, Federal Bankruptcy Referee Sidney Volinn declared the Pilots bankrupt on April 2, five days before Opening Day, clearing the way for them to move to Milwaukee. The team's equipment had been sitting in Provo, Utah (possibly with Alan Stanwyck’s parents) with the drivers awaiting word on whether to drive toward Seattle or Milwaukee. The move came so late that Selig had to scrap his initial plans to change the team's colors to navy and red in honor of the minor-league Brewers of his youth. Instead, the Brewers were stuck using old Pilots' uniforms, with the team name replaced. One legacy of the Brewers' roots in Seattle is that to this day, their colors are still blue and gold, although the shades have been darker since 2000.

Well, much like what happened with the Royals at the end of the 1967 season, MLB found themselves in hot water again after allowing the Pilots to be relocated after Selig’s purchase. The City of Seattle, King County, and the state of Washington (represented by then-State Attorney General and later U.S. Senator Slade Gorton) sued the AL for breach of contract. Confident that MLB would return to Seattle within a few years, King County built the multi-purpose Kingdome, which would become home to the NFL's expansion Seattle Seahawks in 1976 and the eventual co-habitation for the Mariners when they were introduced in 1977.

In short (way beyond that), it would be way more fitting if the Mariners and Brewers were actually rivals. But getting back to the matter tat hand, today is the day I should have been at Safeco Field for the historic return, but unfortunately not having a car, money or any of the other creature comforts that would have facilitated that dream. It’s very rare that a moment like this comes along. By that I mean having knowledge of a special event, as opposed to it happening by chance. I didn’t cry or anything, but it was certainly a huge disappointment. I was looking forward to wearing this cap to the game, the one symbol that connects both teams to the one that fizzled out before it could take off.

The cap until itself was truly historic as it was the first to feature graphics on the bill as opposed to just within the confines of the front panels. Even though it was only around for one season and one Turn Back the Clock Night on July 9, 2006, this cap is still as popular because of its exclusiveness and short lifespan. One thing that should be noted is that the typeface for the “S” was taken from the Seattle Turks whom I wrote about on July 3rd.

As for the marks, you’d be surprised what I can pull based on a team that was around for one season.

#12- Of all the players to find themselves on the Pilots, Tommy Davis holds the most unfortunate story. See, back in 1956 Davis was singed by the Brooklyn Dodgers, the year after they won their first World Series title in franchise history. Davis bummed around the minors for a bit which included a new team every year as the Dodgers were in the process of relocating to Los Angeles. The move to LA also meant that the team needed minor league facilities closer to Dodgers in case you were wondering what that entailed. On September 22, 1959 Davis made his MLB debut as a pinch hitter. Luckily for Davis he was brought back full-time in 1960 where he would hit .276 with 11 home runs and 44 RBI in 110 games. His effort was good enough to warrant him a fifth place finish for the NL Rookie of the Year. 1961 was a so-so season, but 1962 and 1963 were hands down the best of his career, and no I’m not just saying that.

In 1962 Davis hit .346, the best in the league. He also happened to lead the league in hits (230) and RBI (153), but he only knocked 27 pitches over the wall because some clown named Willie Mays hit 49 that season. But even with his incredible numbers, Davis still only finished third for the NL MVP behind Mays and his teammate Maury Wills who finished the season with a .299 average, six home runs and 48 RBI. Oh! And 104 stolen bases. You might be thinking that Wills also cleaned up in run. He did, with 130; however, that was only 10 more than Davis. Davis should have been the outright MVP that season. The same thing happened the following year when Davis once again won the batting title behind his .326 average, but that year he finished in eighth place for the award. Davis did make the All-Star team both seasons and won his only World Series ring of his career in 1963, but still, he deserved a lot more credit than he got then, AND for the rest of his career.

Davis had a mediocre (by his standards) season in 1964, was hurt in 1965 and picked things back up in 1966. At the end of the 1966 season Davis found himself on 10 different teams in 10 years. Crazy, right!? He was dealt to the New York Mets first for the 1967 season, then to the Chicago White Sox for 1968 only to be thrown into the list of names for the expansion draft where he was selected by the Pilots with the 16^th overall pick. 

Davis was a solid choice. His .271 average was the best amongst anyone who played in over 100 games for the Pilots, but he was dealt to the Houston Astros around the trade deadline. Davis played for seven more seasons and ended his career with a .294 average and 2,121 hits having played in an era that especially favored pitchers. Borderline Hall of Famer for sure, but never got beyond one vote as he received 1.8% in 1982.

#24- Born and raised in Holguin, Cuba, Diego Segui holds the unique distinction of having pitched for both of Seattle's major league baseball teams, the Pilots and the Mariners, in the first game ever played by each franchise (earning a save for the Pilots in 1969, and absorbing the opening-day loss for the Mariners in 1977). Segui played for 15 seasons; his time with the Pilots came after his seventh year in the league as a member of the Athletics as he found his name of the expansion draft list. Segui was picked 14^th overall. His most productive season came in 1969, for the Pilots, when he posted a career-high in wins, with 12, and 12 saves, against only 6 losses. Segui was also the only pitcher to start at least eight games and finish with a record above .500.  At the end of the season, his teammates voted him the Pilots' Most Valuable Player.

His final season was in 1977 as a member of the Mariners. Segui was the starting pitcher in the Mariners' inaugural game in 1977, earning him the nickname "the Ancient Mariner." Although he set a Mariner record against the Boston Red Sox with 10 strikeouts early in the season, he failed to get a win. After compiling a 0–7 record with a 5.69 ERA, he was released at the end of the season. He continued pitching in the Mexican League for another 10 years, tossing a no-hitter for the Cordoba Coffee Growers in 1978. His son David played in the Majors as well from 1990-2004, playing with seven different teams including the Mariners.

#50- Clearly the most notable name of the bunch, Jim Bouton was a well-known relief pitcher and World Series champion with the New York Yankees in 1962. He was also one of the most consistently used pitchers in the league when he was a starter in his first few years before his arm began to wear down. In 1965, an arm injury slowed his fastball and ended his status as a pitching phenomenon. Relegated mostly to bullpen duty, Bouton began to throw the knuckleball again, in an effort to lengthen his career. By 1968, Bouton was a reliever for the minor league Seattle Angels.

In October 1968, he joined a committee of American sportsmen who traveled to the 1968 Summer Olympics, in Mexico City, to protest the involvement of apartheid South Africa. Around the same time, sportswriter Leonard Shecter, who had befriended Bouton during his time with the Yankees, approached him with the idea of writing and publishing a season-long diary. Bouton, who had taken some notes during the 1968 season after having a similar idea, readily agreed. This was by no means the first baseball diary. Cincinnati Reds pitcher Jim Brosnan had written two such books, about his 1959 and 1961 seasons, called The Long Season and Pennant Race respectively. Those books were much more open than the typical G-rated and ghost-written athletes' "diaries", a literary technique dating at least as far back as Christy Mathewson. Brosnan had also encountered some resistance. Joe Garagiola made a point in his own autobiography, Baseball Is a Funny Game, to criticize Brosnan for writing them.

Bouton chronicled his 1969 season with a frank, insider's look at a professional sports team, eventually naming his book Ball Four. The backdrop for the book was the Pilots' one and only operating season, though Bouton was traded to the Astros late in the season. Unlike previous sports publications, Ball Four named names and described a side of baseball that was previously unseen. Bouton did this by writing about the way a professional baseball team actually interacts; not only the heroic game-winning home runs, but also the petty jealousies (of which Bouton had a special knowledge), the obscene jokes, the drunken tomcatting of the players, and the routine drug use, including by Bouton himself. Upon its publication, baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn called Ball Four "detrimental to baseball," and tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying that the book was completely fictional. Bouton, however, refused to deny any of Ball Four‘s revelations. Many of Bouton's teammates never forgave him for publicly airing what he had learned in private about their flaws and foibles. The book made Bouton unpopular with many players, coaches, and officials on other teams as well, as they felt he had betrayed the long-standing rule: "What you see here, what you say here, what you do here, let it stay here." Although his comments on Mickey Mantle's lifestyle and excesses make up only a few pages of the text, it was those very revelations that spawned most of the book's notoriety, and provoked Bouton's eventual blacklisting from baseball. Oddly, what was forgotten in the furor is that Bouton mostly wrote of Mantle in almost reverential tones. One of the book's seminal moments occurs when Bouton describes his first win as a Yankee: when he entered the clubhouse, he found Mantle laying a "red carpet" of towels leading directly to his locker in Bouton's honor.

Bouton retired midway through the 1970 season after the Astros sent him down to the minor leagues. He immediately became a local sports anchor for New York station WABC-TV, as part of Eyewitness News; he later held the same job for WCBS-TV. Bouton also became an actor, playing the part of "Terry Lennox" in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973), plus the lead role of "Jim Barton" in the 1976 CBS television series Ball Four, which was loosely adapted from the book and was canceled after five episodes. Decades later, Bouton would also have a brief one-line cameo as a pitching coach in the James L. Brooks film How Do You Know. By the mid-1970s, a cult audience saw the book Ball Four as a candid and comic portrayal of the ups and downs of baseball life. Bouton went on the college lecture circuit, delivering humorous talks on his experiences.

Bouton launched his comeback bid with the Portland Mavericks of the Class-A Northwest League in 1975, compiling a 5-1 record. He skipped the 1976 season to work on the TV series, but he returned to the diamond in 1977 when Bill Veeck signed him to a minor league contract with the White Sox. Bouton was winless for a White Sox farm club; a stint in the Mexican League and a return to Portland followed. In 1978, Ted Turner signed Bouton to a contract with the Braves. After a successful season with the Savannah Braves of the AA Southern League, he was called up to join Atlanta's rotation in September, and compiled a 1-3 record in five starts. His winding return to the majors was chronicled in a book by sportswriter Terry Pluto, The Greatest Summer. Bouton also detailed his comeback in a 10th anniversary re-release of his first book, titled Ball Four Plus Ball Five, as well as adding a Ball Six, updating the stories of the players in Ball Four, for the 20th anniversary edition. All were included (in 2000) as Ball Four: The Final Pitch, along with a new coda that detailed the death of his daughter and his reconciliation with the Yankees. After his return to the majors, Bouton continued to pitch at the semi-pro level for a Bergen County, New Jersey team called the Emerson-Westwood Merchants, among other teams in the Metropolitan Baseball League in northern New Jersey, while living in Teaneck, New Jersey.

Once his baseball career ended a second time, Bouton became one of the inventors of "Big League Chew," a shredded bubblegum designed to resemble chewing tobacco and sold in a tobacco-like pouch. He also co-authored Strike Zone (a baseball novel) and edited an anthology about managers, entitled I Managed Good, But Boy Did They Play Bad. His most recent book is Foul Ball (published 2003), a non-fiction account of his unsuccessful attempt to save Wahconah Park, a historic minor league baseball stadium in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Although Bouton had never been officially declared persona non grata by the Yankees or any other team as a result of Ball Four’s revelations, he was excluded from most baseball-related functions, including Old-Timers' Games. It was rumored that Mantle himself had told the Yankees that he would never attend an Old-Timers' Game to which Bouton was invited (a charge Mantle subsequently denied, especially during a lengthy answering-machine message to Bouton after Mantle's son Billy had died of cancer in 1994. Mantle was acknowledging a condolence card Bouton had sent). Things changed in June 1998, when Bouton's oldest son Michael wrote an eloquent Father's Day open letter to the Yankees which was published in the New York Times, in which Michael described the agony of his father following the August 1997 death of Michael's sister Laurie at age 31. By juxtaposing the story of Yogi Berra's self-imposed exile with that of his father's de facto banishment, Michael created a scenario where not only were the Yankees placed under public pressure to invite his father back, but the article paved the road to reconciliation between Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and Berra. In July 1998, Bouton, sporting his familiar number 56, received a standing ovation when he took the mound at Yankee Stadium. He has since become a regular fixture at Yankees Old-Timers' Games.

I read Ball Four for the first time around the age of 14 and once again during my time in New York while I was a member of the MLB Fan Cave, but never in between. Both times I felt a sense of duty surging through me. The first time it was after really understanding my gift of writing. Everything I wrote I wanted to mimic the same honest and tone that Bouton displayed during his time with the Yankees and eventually the Pilots and Astros. When I read it again in New York it motivated me to speak from the heart and not hold anything back in my day-to-day experiences, something that inevitably turned around and bit me in the ass on multiple occasions with the powers that be. In any event, I didn’t care. There’s a part of my banishment from the Fan Cave that came as a result of not knowing when I should have kept my mouth shut. While some would ponder of it for the rest of their days, wishing they had done things different, I take the exact opposite approach. I take solace in what I did. The Fan Cave wasn’t just supposed to be about the nine of us that were brought on to watch all the games and interact with the guests, it was about swapping stories and sharing the experience with anyone who is a fan of the game, a reality that no one else past or present seems to understand with the exception of season one Cave Dweller Mike O’Hara. Without Bouton, I doubt I would be the writer, let alone the person that I am today.

June 21- Milwaukee Brewers

Well, I guess it was going to happen sooner or later. On a grand-scale plane I’ve been quite happy with every single New Era Cap I’ve collected over the last 15 years or so… except two of them. I picked this Milwaukee Brewers cap on May 19, 2012 along with a Seattle Mariners hat that I will be writing about in the next few days. Right now you’re probably think, “How the hell does he remember the exact date of when he bought those two hats?” Excellent question; there are two reasons why I know this:

1. This was the last order I did with Lids before I get the axe from the MLB Fan Cave. I tend to not forget a little thing like that.

2. It was an on-line order so I had the luxury of going through my order history and pinpointing the exact date. Ha!

While neither of those points explains why I don’t like this hat, I know refer you to clicking on the link for the Milwaukee Braves cap I wrote about on April 13^th. Notice anything peculiar? If it’s not registering, it’s ok. What you’re not seeing, if you can’t tell, is that it’s pretty much the same cap, but with a different color scheme. Now, I love the Braves cap. I think because of its color scheme and plainness it gives it a classic, sophisticated look. Not to mention the fact that Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn and Hank Aaron were pretty much badasses when they popped this lid on. As for anyone on the Brewers… does it really matter?

To be fair, I really don’t have any personal beef with the Brewers players; however, my entire issues stem from 1970 (well before I was born), the inaugural year of the Brewers franchise. For those of you who don’t know the story… In an effort to prevent the relocation of the Braves to a larger television market, Braves minority owner Bud Selig, a Milwaukee-area car dealer, formed an organization named "Teams Inc." devoted to local control of the club. He successfully prevented the majority owners of the Braves from moving the club in 1964 but was unable to do more than delay the inevitable. The Braves relocated to Atlanta after the 1965 season, and Teams Inc. turned its focus to returning Major League Baseball to Milwaukee.

Selig doggedly pursued this goal, attending owners meetings in the hopes of securing an expansion franchise. Selig changed the name of his group to "Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club Inc.". The "Brewers" name, honoring Milwaukee's beer-brewing tradition, also was traditional for Milwaukee baseball teams going back into the 19th century. The city had hosted a major league team by that name in 1901, which relocated at the end of that season to become the St. Louis Browns (now the Baltimore Orioles). From 1902 through 1952, a minor league Milwaukee Brewers club in the American Association had been so successful that it lured the Braves from Boston. Selig himself had grown up watching that minor league team at Borchert Field and intended his new franchise to follow in that tradition.

To demonstrate there still was support for big-league ball in Milwaukee, Selig's group contracted with Chicago White Sox owner Arthur Allyn to host nine White Sox home games at Milwaukee County Stadium in 1968. A 1967 exhibition game between the White Sox and Minnesota Twins had attracted more than 51,000 spectators, and Selig was convinced the strong Milwaukee fan base would demonstrate the city would provide a good home for a new club.

The experiment was staggeringly successful - those nine games drew 264,297 fans. In Chicago that season, the Sox drew 539,478 fans to their remaining 58 home games. In just a handful of games, the Milwaukee crowds accounted for nearly one-third of the total attendance at White Sox games. In light of this success, Selig and Allyn agreed County Stadium would host Sox home games again the next season.

In 1969, the Sox schedule in Milwaukee was expanded to include 11 home games (one against every other franchise in the American League at the time). Although those games were attended by slightly fewer fans (198,211 fans, for an average of 18,019) they represented a greater percentage of the total White Sox attendance than the previous year - over one-third of the fans who went to Sox home games in 1969 did so at County Stadium (in the remaining 59 home dates in Chicago, the Sox drew 391,335 for an average of 6,632 per game). Selig felt this fan support lent legitimacy to his quest for a Milwaukee franchise, and he went into the 1968 owners meetings with high hopes. Those hopes were dashed when National League franchises were awarded to San Diego (the Padres) and Montreal (the Expos), and American League franchises were awarded to Kansas City (the Royals) and Seattle (the Pilots). That last franchise, however, would figure very prominently in Selig's future.

Having failed to gain a major league franchise for Milwaukee through expansion, Selig turned his efforts to purchasing and relocating an existing club. His search began close to home, with the White Sox themselves. According to Selig, he had a handshake agreement with Allyn to purchase the Pale Hose and move them north. The American League, unwilling to surrender Chicago to the National League, vetoed the sale, and Allyn sold the franchise to his brother John. Frustrated in these efforts, Selig shifted his focus to another American League team, the expansion Seattle Pilots.

To make a long story short, and because I’ll go into more detail on this story in August, Selig purchased the Pilots after they filed for Bankruptcy after their one, and only season in 1969. The original Brewers uniforms were "hand-me-downs" from the Seattle Pilots. Since the move to Milwaukee received final approval less than a week before the start of the season, there was no time to order new uniforms. Selig had originally planned to change the Brewers' colors to navy and red in honor of the minor league Brewers, but was forced to simply remove the Seattle markings from the Pilots' blue-and-gold uniforms and sew "BREWERS" on the front. However, the outline of the Pilots' logo was clearly visible. The uniforms had unique striping on the sleeves left over from the Pilots days. The cap was an updated version of the Milwaukee Braves cap in blue and yellow. Ultimately, it was decided to keep blue and gold as the team colors, and they have remained so ever since.

The Brewers finally got their own flannel design in 1971. These were essentially the same as the 1970 uniforms but with blue and yellow piping on the sleeves and collar. In 1972, the Brewers entered the doubleknit era with uniforms based upon their flannels—all white with "BREWERS" on the front, blue and yellow trim on the sleeves, neck, waistband and down the side of the pants. This is the uniform that Hank Aaron would wear with the club in his final seasons, and that Robin Yount would wear in his first.

The main thing I wanted to point out in all of this, besides the team history, is that even when the Brewers had a chance to change things up they still decided to bite off of the old Milwaukee Braves. With this cap in particular they did it from 1970-1973 as their game cap and from 1974-1977 as only their home cap. It wouldn’t be until 1978 that a fan would design this awesome logo in a contest for the team to use. I love the colors, I love the team, but I hate it when teams rip off of others, a theme that will surely be brought up down the road. As for the marks on this bad boy…

#41- Having written about the two most popular and only Hall of Fame players in franchise history in Yount and Paul Molitor, it became surprisingly difficult to find a few names and numbers to grace my cap. It also didn’t help that I stuck with the era in which this cap was used. Sooooooo… Jim Slaton was a 15^th round draft pick by the Pilots in the 1969 amateur draft out of Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, California. During the 1969 season Slaton spent the entire year in the minors, which also carried on into 1970 when he was still with the Class-A Clinton Pilots of the Midwest League. Despite the Major League franchise relocating, all the minor league affiliates stayed put and kept their original names. Weird! In 1971 Slaton pitched four games with the AAA Evansville Triplets throughout the season, going 1-0 with a 1.41 ERA; however, Slaton got his call to The Show and made his debut on April 14, 1971.

Slaton pitched in a lot of games during his tenure from 1971-1977 and then again from 1979-1983 while taking 1978 to play for the Detroit Tigers.  He is the Brewers all-time leader in Wins (117), Innings Pitched (2025.3), Games Started (268), and Shutouts (19), and he is third in Strikeouts, trailing Teddy Higuera and Ben Sheets, and Complete Games, trailing Mike Caldwell. He represented the Brewers and the American League in the 1977 All-Star game and was the winning pitcher for the Brewers in the 4th game of the 1982 World Series against St. Louis. His All-Star Game appearance in 1977 was the only one of his career.

After his playing career ended, he started coaching in the minor leagues. He coached in the Oakland Athletics organization from 1992–1994 and then became the pitching coach for the Class A Daytona Cubs (1995–1996), his hometown Lancaster Jethawks (1997–98) and the Tacoma Rainiers (1999–2003). In 2004 he was a special assignment coach for the Seattle Mariners and from 2005-2007 he was the Mariners bullpen coach. Before coaching in the minor or major leagues, Jim coached an all-star team for the Monte Vista Little League, while pitching for the Angels. He was the pitching coach for the Las Vegas 51s in 2008, also serving briefly as the bullpen coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers when Ken Howell temporarily left the team for medical reasons. After the season, the Dodgers announced that Slaton would be the pitching coach in 2009 for their new Triple-A affiliate, the Albuquerque Isotopes, a position he held through 2010. In 2011, he was named the pitching coach at Camelback Ranch.

#48- Here’s another guy you’ve probably never heard of. After graduating from Whittier College with a degree in sociology, Jim Colborn studied for his masters’ degree at Edinburgh University in Scotland, where he also starred in basketball as well as baseball, being named all-Scotland. He was planning on becoming a sociology professor until baseball lured him away. In 1966, while in college, Colborn struck out 21 batters in a College All-Star Game in the Netherlands. In 1967, the Chicago Cubs signed Colborn as an amateur free agent. He found himself in Leo Durocher’s doghouse after struggling as a young relief pitcher for three years. At the end of the 1971 season, Colborn was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers for José Cardenal.

In his first season with the Brewers Colborn went 7-7 with a 3.11 ERA and 97 strikeouts as he started in 12 of the 39 games he pitched in on the season. In 973 however, things took a turn for the best. That season he became the first 20-game winner in Brewers franchise history. He finished the year with a 3.18 ERA, 314 1/3 innings logged, 135 strikeouts, his first, and only All-Star Game appearance and a sixth place finish for the AL Cy Young award.

Over the next three seasons, however, Colborn posted losing records (10-13 in 1974, 11-13 in 1975 and 9-15 in 1976) before being traded, along with Darrell Porter, to the Kansas City Royals. In 1977, Colborn won 18 games for a Royal team that won the second of three consecutive AL West titles (all three times, however, the Royals lost to the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series; Colborn did not pitch in the 1977 ALCS). On May 14 of that year, Colborn no-hit the Texas Rangers 6-0, the first no-hitter by a Royal at Royals Stadium and second overall in that park, after the first of Nolan Ryan's seven career no-hitters (1973).
For eight seasons, Colborn was on Jim Tracy's staff as a pitching coach: from 2000 to 2005, when Tracy managed the Los Angeles Dodgers, and in 2006 and 2007, when Tracy managed the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 2008, Colborn became the Texas Rangers bullpen coach.
In his career, Colborn won 83 games against 88 losses, with a 3.80 ERA and 688 strikeouts in 1597⅓ innings pitched.

May 13- Seattle Mariners

I just took my temperature a little bit ago and it barely cracked the 100 degree mark, but… I’m still trying to keep my head up and my hands moving to get tonight’s post out for y’all. This is actually going to be a two-part post because the Seattle Mariners are the only team in which I have both of their Stars and Stripes caps from last season. The second part of this post will come on Memorial Day, and I promise that I will do some solid work on it for all of you Mariners and baseball fans out there.

The Mariners, like a lot of teams, have had their history of inviting active and retired veterans of the US and Canadian military into the ball park for a few special nights to pay tribute and praise. One night in particular came on August 4, 2008 when the Mariners invited all service members who were in town for Sea Fair, a month-long celebration and participation by the US Navy, Coast Guard and Canadian Navy similar to that of other major cities who honor the military with fleet weeks. On this particular night, as the Mariners took to the field against the Baltimore Orioles, former Mariners pitcher Brandon Morrow served as ambassador for the team to welcome everyone who came out for an early batting practice session and pre-game concert.

"We are very thankful for what the men and women in uniform do," said Morrow. "On behalf of the Mariners and myself I want to thank you guys. Thank you for what you are doing. I look up to you guys and I have a great appreciation for what you do."

The thing I’ve learned over the last few years, and especially with these posts, is that paying tribute to the military doesn’t necessarily have to be relegated to one night, or week, or month, etc. By simply thanking a neighbor or stranger in uniform on the street for the work that they’ve done for our country is more than enough. At night, before you go to bed or eat a family meal you can give thanks by honoring the memory of those who have fallen to protect the values of the constitution in which we all hold sacred.

Since the Mariners are a newer team I couldn’t find anyone who had played for the team who had also served in the military during, before or after their baseball career; however, there was one gentleman within the organization who is just a part of the legacy of this team as anyone who has donned the blue, gold or teal. His name… well, you’ll just have to sit and ponder that for the next few weeks.

7-1: I had to reach a bit back in history for these numbers, but my findings were quite interesting until I double-checked my work; which thankfully I did before I marked my cap up. The Mariners' first year in the Majors came at the start of the 1977 season. The former Seattle Pilots had moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers roughly a week before the 1970 season and started to make quite a name for themselves by the time ’77 rolled around. The Mariners; however, were starting from scratch. From ’77-2012 the Mariners have played on 31 of a possible 36 Memorial Days; however, two of those days came with double headers while five of those days the Mariners happened to have a day off. In 1977 and 1981 the Mariners played double dips with the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals respectively and took wins in both ends of each series. Not a bad concept to win 100 percent of your Memorial Day games when double headers are played, but I found a slightly better team accomplishment which has proved a little more consistent… sort of.

It’s interesting that I mentioned the Orioles earlier in this post as they are the subject of my marking. And I say that because I didn’t look at these numbers until after I wrote the initial paragraphs. In 1984 the Mariners lost to the Orioles by the score of 7-4 on Memorial Day that year despite the best efforts of Ken Phelps’s bat (Seinfeld reference). In 1985 and 1986 the Mariners and Orioles squared off again, this time with the Mariners reigning victorious. In 1988 the Mariners would topple the Orioles again… and again in 1992… and again in 1998… and again in 1999. In 2002 the Mariners didn’t play on Memorial Day; however, the day before (Sunday, May 26) they cleaned the Orioles’ clock to the tune of 6-2. It would be another nine years before the two met up again on Memorial Day which ended with a victory for Doug Fister giving the O’s the business by the score of 4-3. So, if you’re playing at home, the Mariners lost the first meeting in ’84 and proceeded to embarrass the black and orange seven times over the next 27 years. Unfortunately the Mariners play the San Diego Padres on Memorial Day this season otherwise I would have highly recommended that all of you baseball gamblers out there might benefit from betting on the Mariners if matchup number nine was set. 

May 11- Milwaukee Brewers

The Vietnam War had been raging on for a solid 14-and-a-half years when the Seattle Pilots moved to Milwaukee and re-established themselves as the Brewers. During this particular era there hadn’t been a Major League player who had seen any speckle of combat since the Korean War which ended on July 27, 1953, just two years before Vietnam. Teams in Major League Baseball who had been around before 1953 had at least one member of their team who had been involved in a previous war; however, the times were changing and baseball players didn’t rush to the enlistment lines or get drafted like in years passed. The reason I bring up this point is because you, as readers, need to know how difficult it is to pull together some of these posts. As much as I’d like to focus my attention on the veterans who served and also played/worked in baseball, it’s a little bit more of challenge than I had expected. Even though members of the Brewers in their 43-year history didn’t fight for their country, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t done anything to support the troops. I hope with this post I do some justice.

The Brewers first season in MLB came in 1970, and for the past 43 years the Brewers have tallied a record of 13 wins, 25 losses and six years in which they didn’t play. As much as I want to focus my attention on a specific game or date range for this cap I was able to find something more fitting to pay tribute to, which I‘ll get to later in this post.

One of the days I had originally chosen was May 30, 1977; the Brewers had split a double header with the Chicago White Sox, winning the first game 4-3 and losing the nightcap 8-3. It would be the only time in their Memorial Day history in which the Brewers played a doubleheader on the holiday. With that another day of interest popped up. On Sunday, May 24, 1981 the Brewers hosted another doubleheader against the Boston Red Sox in which they won both games; 2-1 in 14 innings in the afternoon and 10-7 at night. The only reason I bring this up is because they played and lost the next day, Memorial Day, against the Detroit Tigers by the score of 12-3. The Brewers would end up winning their next four.

Another time frame I need to bring up took place between 1989 and 2007. During that stretch the Brewers didn’t play on four of those Memorial Days, but they did amass a record of 2-15 in the other 17. If you couldn’t tell by the record I posted above the Brewers tend to struggle on this holiday. The two wins the Brewers were able to claim came in back-to-back seasons, both of which were against the San Diego Padres. In 1999 the Brewers won 8-2 behind former 1995 National League Rookie of the Year Hideo Nomo, while in 2000 the Brewers won 8-3 behind Jimmy Haynes.

The last interesting little tidbit I dug up was that the team the Brewers played the most on Memorial Day was the Seattle Mariners, which they did four times (1980, 1982-83 and 1990). This may not seem like a lot in a 43-year history; however, you might be forgetting that the Brewers jumped ship into the National League at the start of the 1998 season. Therefore that stretch shrunk down to only 29 years. But the most important thing to note from this is that the Mariners wouldn’t exist had it not been for the Brewers relocating after their one-and-done season in Seattle back in ’69. I like to find weird little connections like that. While I’m at it they really should have played for five of those years; the fifth being in 1993. The Brewers didn’t play on Memorial Day that year, but they did play a two-game series in Seattle on June 1 and 2. Seemed like they really should have made it a full three-game series, but that’s just me.

As much as I like this hat I only have one complaint against it. Actually, looking back on the other 128 posts I’ve done thus far, this is the only time I’ve had an issue with any of my caps. For some reason the logo is significantly smaller than their regular game style which I wrote about on February 5^th. Check it out and compare: http://hatsandtats.blogspot.com/2013/02/february-5-milwaukee-brewers.html I’m not sure if this was an accident or done on purpose, but the fact that they made this cap’s logo more three dimensional might have something to do with it. Just a little something I noticed is all.

8/11/12: While I realize that this date is still a few months away this date is probably the most significant in the history between the Brewers and the troops. On August 11, 2012 the Brewers hosted a movie premier at Miller Park. The film, “Honor Flight,” is a documentary that chronicles a community coming together to honor living World War II veterans, one last time. The film follows a devoted team of Midwest volunteers as they race against the clock to send every local WWII veteran to the Washington, D.C. memorials built in their honor. The more they do, the more the cause takes on a life of its own. The film captures Honor Flight from the point of view of the volunteers and veterans who share their war and life stories along the way. One of the veterans primarily focused on in the film is Julian Plaster, a Milwaukee native who was a cook in the Navy from 1942-1945.

The response from the fine folks of Milwaukee was overwhelming as 28, 442 people attended the premiere which went down as the highest attended film premier in history. Seriously, look it up; it’s in the Guinness Book of World Records. Even though the Brewers have taken part in other outreach and tributes for the troops, it was hard to pass up such a momentous occasion; especially one that went down as a world record. Tip of the cap to you Milwaukee.