Category: MLB

Seattle Pilots image from sportslogos.net

By Daniel Dullum

(Author’s note: This is the fifth of a five-part series detailing an unusual Major League Baseball franchise shift — In 1970, the Seattle Pilots arrived at spring training in Tempe, Arizona, and left at the end of March as the Milwaukee Brewers. This story is part of a baseball history book project.

At the conclusion of Part 4, the Seattle Pilots moved to Milwaukee with only six days to prepare for their 1970 home opener at County Stadium, an adjustment for all parties concerned, some with more serious issues than others. As the Brewers settled in to their new home, legal battles continued.)

Bob Bolin thought going to Milwaukee was “quite a thrill.” He added, “It’s a great sports town and of course the snow was a little deep that time of year. It was a little colder and we had to build a fire in the bullpen, things like that!”

Mike Hegan said, “The thing I remember most was the enthusiasm of the fans, in spite of the fact that there was only a week to get ready. [Angels pitcher] Andy Messersmith beat us 12–0 and people were still cheering for us in the seventh inning. I think people were just happy that baseball was back in Milwaukee. “The people in Milwaukee accepted the team and the players to a degree, I will say. There was still a lot of animosity because of the fact that the Braves left town. I think that Milwaukee, at that time, was considered a National League city more than an American League city.”

Ken Sanders recalled, “the guys really liked Milwaukee, but we had to do some embracing there because [of how] the Braves had left. And a number of us were familiar with Milwaukee because as American Leaguers, we played the White Sox in one game there. A lot of the players ended up making their home there.”

On April 16, 1970, the Atlanta Braves agreed to play a special exhibition game against the Brewers on May 14 at County Stadium — the Braves’ first appearance in Milwaukee since their acrimonious 1965 exit. — — Back in Seattle, Judge Volinn wasn’t through dealing with the legal woes of Pacific Northwest Sports, Inc.

In a U.S. District Court ruling on June 7, 1971, he ordered the Pilots’ old ownership group to pay the Pacific Coast League $150,000 plus interest to complete payments on a 1969 territorial indemnity fee of $300,000. The Pilots’ former owners felt their Chapter 11 bankruptcy ruling should have freed them from that obligation, but Volinn disagreed. As publicly promised, the City of Seattle, King County and the State of Washington followed through on their threat to file a lawsuit against the American League, but by the time the case went to trial on April 22, 1974, the dollar amount dropped from $82 million to $32.5 million.

Three days later, the suit was postponed until January 1975 to give the American League time to craft an out-of-court settlement. Washington State Attorney General Slade Gorton held a news conference, saying that a special meeting in Chicago produced assurances that Seattle would receive an American League expansion team by 1976. Gorton felt the league would make a “sincere effort” to field a team that would move into the yet-unnamed domed stadium that was under construction.

Negotiations continued on a cordial level, and on January 31, 1976, American League owners resolved to add Seattle as its 13th team on three conditions: 1) The State of Washington, City of Seattle and King County would drop the $32.5 million antitrust lawsuit. 2) The franchise would go to a Seattle group headed by local businessman Lester Smith and entertainer Danny Kaye. 3) A satisfactory lease agreement would be worked out.

While the antitrust lawsuit dragged on, the Kingdome was built and opened on March 26, 1976, originally to house the Seattle Seahawks, an NFL expansion team. Smith and Kaye called a press conference for February 7, 1976, announcing their purchase of the new Seattle franchise for $5.56 million.

A 20-year lease at the Kingdome was included in the deal, with a key clause binding the franchise to stay in Seattle. Still unresolved was the antitrust suit, as the City of Seattle wanted to recover $600,000 spent on renovations at Sicks’ Stadium.

On February 13, Seattle City Council members approved a plan to settle the antitrust suit, saying they would accept a proposal from the American League, King County, and the state of Washington to recess the suit until the new franchise officially took the field. Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman insisted on keeping the lawsuit alive in case the AL reneged on the agreement.

After smoothing out the details, the Seattle Mariners played their first official American League game at the Kingdome on April 6, 1977, and the seven-year lawsuit was dismissed. — — – As satisfying as it was for Bud Selig to bring major league baseball back to Milwaukee, landing in the American League initially was perceived as a consolation prize, mostly by older fans who followed the Braves.

Changing times provided an unlikely opportunity for the Brewers to again make a noteworthy relocation. When Major League Baseball expanded to Phoenix and Tampa in 1998, the resulting realignment gave the American and National leagues 15 teams each. But to properly accommodate interleague play, both leagues needed to carry an even number of franchises, and the owners decided that one team would move from the AL Central Division to the NL Central — a division that included the popular Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals.

At this point, Selig was wearing two hats — owner of the Brewers and commissioner of baseball. To avoid the perception of a conflict of interest, he gave the Kansas City Royals first choice to make the move. The Royals declined, and, on November 6, 1997, the Milwaukee Brewers joined the National League as part of Phase One of MLB’s realignment plan, the first modern major league baseball franchise to make such a transfer.

Ken Sanders, who led the American League with 31 saves and 83 relief appearances for the Brewers in 1971, said, “I think it’s a good thing they went to the National League later, because Milwaukee was always a National League town.” Mike Hegan concurred. “Even though the Brewers stayed in the American League for that many years, they might even be more comfortable now back in the National League.”

It took 32 years, but Selig’s quest to bring a National League baseball club back to Milwaukee was now complete. — – Within their first four seasons in Milwaukee, the Brewers gradually weeded out most of their Seattle on-field lineage.

By 1972, only infielders Mike Ferraro and Ron Clark, and pitcher Skip Lockwood remained from the 1969 Pilots. Lockwood was the last to go, traded to the California Angels after the 1973 season. In 1982, their 14th season, the Brewers reached their first World Series, losing in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals — the first Fall Classic hosted by Milwaukee since 1958. By that time, the Brewers’ only active links to the Seattle days were two selections from the 1969 amateur draft — two-time AL home run champion Gorman Thomas (1st round) and pitcher Jim Slaton (15th round).

Serving in a middle relief role, Slaton was the winning pitcher in game four of the ’82 Series. Five decades removed from their one glorious season in the Pacific Northwest, the Pilots have yet to completely disappear from the Brewers’ all-time individual record book.

As of 2020, they’ve maintained two final entries from 1969 — Tommy Harper’s major league-leading 73 stolen bases for the season; and his four stolen bases in a game at Chicago on June 18, 1969, against the White Sox, a record Harper shares with John Jaha, who tied the mark in 1992.

Locating visual evidence of Harper’s exploits on the base paths, or any other highlight of the Pilots’ brief history, has confounded baseball historians for decades. Very little film footage or audio recordings exist of Pilots’ games, a remarkable fact considering that the club played in 1969 — not exactly the Dark Ages of media coverage. KVI (570 AM, Seattle), the flagship station of a vast Pilots radio network that included 50 stations spread throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Montana, North Dakota and Alaska, didn’t record any of the team’s broadcasts. And given the nature of the Pilots’ history, it’s apropos that five of its network radio stations no longer exist.

Neither does Sicks’ Stadium, which was razed in 1979. The stadium’s location at the corner of Rainier Avenue South and South McClellan Street eventually became the site of a Lowe’s home improvement store. A display inside the store contains Rainiers and Pilots memorabilia and a plaque marks home plate near the Lowe’s exit. Thanks in large part to “Ball Four,” Jim Bouton’s classic memoir of his days as a knuckleball-throwing relief pitcher in Seattle, the one-year expansion team has achieved a cult status and popularity level that far exceeds their original fan base. And yet, the Seattle Mariners don’t claim the Pilots as their major league ancestor, saying they belong to the Brewers’ heritage.

Milwaukee doesn’t want them either, claiming they belong to Seattle. Thus, the Seattle Pilots have earned a unique status as the Flying Dutchmen of baseball history. For years, the Mariners turned a deaf ear to requests for a Pilots’ old-timers day. Begrudgingly, the team honored the Pilots with a “Turn Back the Clock” promotion for its game against Detroit on July 9, 2006, at Safeco Field, wearing replica Pilots uniforms and bringing back many of the former Pilot players for a curtain call. Shaking his head at the thought of the Pilots’ legendary status, Rich Rollins mused, “I played eight years with the Twins. I played in two All-Star Games, the World Series, and yet, I’ll bet almost 90 percent of the fan mail I still get is about the Pilots.” And Mike Hegan noted, “I played for three teams that were very popular in terms of memorabilia — the A’s, Yankees, and Seattle Pilots. And not necessarily in that order.”

A popular Web site devoted to the Pilots is http://www.seattlepilots.com, run by Mike Fuller, a Seattle paralegal. In 2006, he told The Seattle Times that his site receives more hits than the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, according to the Web company that hosts both. When Fuller got in touch with Jim Bouton and told him this fact, the old knuckleballer was struck with a 1960s flashback — a famous verbal faux pas by The Beatles’ John Lennon in particular — and responded, “Can I put it on my Web site that the Pilots are more popular than Jesus?

Daniel Dullum authored the five part series of the defunct but well remembered Seattle Pilots from 1969 in his book 50 Years Ago the Pilots Landed in Milwaukee

JSOnline.com file photo: The Milwaukee Brewers who moved into County Stadium in Milwaukee in 1970 from Seattle at the last moment is a five part series “50 Years Ago Pilots Land in Milwaukee”

50 Years Ago: Pilots Land in Milwaukee Part 4

By Daniel Dullum

(Author’s note: This is the fourth of a five-part series detailing an unusual Major League Baseball franchise shift — In 1970, the Seattle Pilots arrived at spring training in Tempe, Arizona, and left at the end of March as the Milwaukee Brewers.

At the conclusion of Part 3, Bud Selig’s Milwaukee Brewers Inc. group was awarded the Seattle Pilots in bankruptcy court on March 31, 1970. The Brewers had six days to get ready for the 1970 home opener at County Stadium. Meanwhile, the City of Seattle and the State of Washington would proceed with their $82 million antitrust suit, which already was filed and waiting for Judge Volinn’s decision.)

However, Judge Volinn pointed out that the only alternative was forcing the American League to operate the team on deficit financing to more than $3 million over the ensuing three years. He explained, “It’s obvious that the club cannot pay its debts and may well be insolvent. With the baseball season only a week away, the Pilots were in an emergency situation.

“The unique character of a major league baseball team has been considered, and its importance to the community has been considered. But it’s obvious the debtors [Pilots] are incapable of carrying on. That is beyond question.”

A prominent defender of Volinn’s decision was C.C. Johnson Spink, editor and publisher of The Sporting News. In his April 18, 1970, editorial, Spink quoted an anonymous American League source: “The Sorianos tried all over the city to find local people who would invest in the club. Part of the American League’s agreement with Daley was that control would be in Seattle. Daley himself met with people all over the Pacific Northwest — the biggest people — and couldn’t interest any of them.

“The Pilots had no cooperation from anyone, not even the newspapers. They had no cooperation from the Chamber of Commerce, the city or the county. The city did not finish the park on schedule and it was never put into the condition that the city promised.”

Spink wrote, “We believe that Seattle and Washington state officials should be red-faced about the club’s failure and should put the blame where it belongs, instead of attempting to make the American League the fall guy through a multi-million-dollar antitrust suit.”

— – On the appropriate date of April 1, 1970 — April Fool’s Day — the name “Milwaukee Brewers” appeared on an active American League standings board for the first time since September 28, 1901. Ironically, the original Milwaukee Brewers had lasted only one season and also filed for bankruptcy. They were dropped from the American League on December 3, 1901, and replaced by the St. Louis Browns.

Manager Dave Bristol expressed relief at the announcement of the verdict, saying, “I’m glad they finally reached a decision. The players should be relieved. It’ll be much easier to get the total concentration of the players now. … I’m happy for the players’ sake. My job is managing wherever the team goes.”

Pitcher Gene Brabender, who led the Pilots with 13 wins in 1969, looked forward to playing closer to his home in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, 110 miles from Milwaukee. He told The Associated Press, “I regret things couldn’t have worked out better for the people of the Northwest. They were great fans last season through thick and thin. But playing in Milwaukee will be closer to home, and my wife and family will like that.”

Upon learning of Volinn’s decision, truck drivers who were hauling the team’s equipment could now leave Provo, Utah, where they waited in limbo along I-80, and move along to Milwaukee. And with less than a week to go before Opening Day, the Pilots/Brewers players now had to make creative decisions to secure living quarters for the upcoming season.

Catcher Phil Roof recalled, “We’d already sent our wives out on the road, headed to Interstate 90, which is straight north [from Phoenix] and it’s an east-west link between the West Coast and the Midwest. We told them to call in after each day — it was going to be at least a two-day ride to get to Interstate 90 — and on the second day out, we found out that we were headed to Milwaukee. We told them to hit I-90 east, and that’s where we started.

“It was unsettling because at the time, I had a wife and three kids and we were expecting the fourth one. There were other wives in the same boat, and it was more unsettling for them than it was for us, because we didn’t know where to put them, and once we got to Milwaukee, we finally had to rent apartments in Waukesha, which is 22 miles from the ballpark. That was the only thing available that would give us short-term leases, and we managed to survive there. I stayed there for almost two years.

“Those things are a part of baseball. It’s part of travel, part of being involved with a trade — I got traded three times in the course of a season once — and you just get kind of used to it.”

Or, in the case of new homeowner Mike Hegan, it was a matter of coming to grips with an unfortunate housing decision. “We bought a house in Seattle in January of 1970 and we never lived in it!  We went to spring training and never came back,” Hegan said. “The problem with that was, it was during the first major layoff in Boeing history — they laid off about 40,000 people — so it took me about two-and-a-half years to sell my house that I never lived in!

“That was a personal problem, obviously, but there were other guys who were making plans for apartments and different places to live, people getting ready to drive cars and ship belongings to Seattle, and ended up going to Milwaukee instead.”

This is what happened to pitcher Bob Bolin, among others.

“[I’m] going to spring training with the Pilots, an expansion team, and I’m excited about it because I played in Tacoma in the minor leagues,” Bolin said. “Then, three or four days before the season opened, I shipped my car to Seattle and they turned around and Milwaukee bought the team. We got our car about a month later when somebody found it on some rails somewhere in Chicago.

“In baseball, you’re always flexible. It wasn’t that unsettling for the team, because you’re out there playing a game. It was a little troubling the first couple of weeks to get settled, trying to find a place and getting the family situated.” The City of Milwaukee tried to help the players feel welcome in a variety of ways, mostly superficial.

When the Brewers deplaned in Milwaukee, they walked on a red carpet into the airport terminal before participating in a downtown motorcade. A downtown hotel offered three days’ free lodging after the team left spring training in Tempe, and the Milwaukee Association of Commerce honored the team with a luncheon, selling 650 tickets at $5 apiece. But players like Rich Rollins needed more than a parade and a complimentary rubber chicken lunch.

When it came to being inconvenienced in this last-minute upheaval, Rollins was the uncontested grand champion. “I remember [the move] well. It was a Sunday afternoon game we played in Tempe, and we didn’t know until after the game where we were going,” Rollins said. “My wife was in Seattle. We’d moved lock, stock and barrel from Minneapolis to Seattle. We had a duplex out there and were looking forward to going back to Seattle. “We didn’t know [where we were going] until we were in the parking lot. I’ll never forget the day. A big bus was there, and we’re either heading to Seattle or Milwaukee. It ended up at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee.

“That whole situation cost me a whole lot of money. I’d moved three-fourths of our furniture from Minneapolis, and now I had to move out of Seattle lock, stock and barrel. We had five kids — including a real young daughter who was born in Seattle [on April 16], she was only a month or so old — it wasn’t a good situation.”

Rollins felt the ballclub did “absolutely nothing” to help the players. “Fergie (Tom Ferguson), the traveling secretary, tried to help a whole lot of people. He was a class guy. But there wasn’t a whole lot he could have done. He expressed his concern, but it was costing me a lot of money. “My furniture was being sent by moving van to Cleveland, but was supposed to be held up until we decided where to go with it. The driver was on the turnpike wondering where to go,” Rollins said.

“I wasn’t about to settle in Milwaukee. I had my family out in Seattle; my original home was in Cleveland, so we finally decided to move to Cleveland after this thing was over with, and my family had to move in at my mother’s house.” And, when Rollins didn’t think the situation could get much worse … “I had all of our furniture — sofas, the television, chairs, tables, everything — in storage and it was all stolen out of the warehouse. I got 20 percent of the furniture’s value in a settlement, but the whole thing was a nightmare. It eventually cost me around $6,000 to make that move.”

Then, adding the coup de grâce, Rollins was released by the Brewers on May 13, 1970. “I wasn’t there very long, about a month and a half, and I was released. My wife was still in Seattle. I went home to Cleveland,” Rollins said. “The thing I remember: I’d never been released before. I got called into [Dave] Bristol’s office and he said, ‘We’re going to let you go.’ And that was it. I watched one of the games from the right field stands with the clubhouse guy.

“I got back to the hotel after the game and I get this phone call from [Brewers executive] Frank Lane. He had a reputation [as a wheeler-dealer], but he was the only guy who called me. He said if I wanted to keep playing, he’d find me a spot. It was impressive that he would do that.

“So, I went back to Cleveland. I was there for three or four days when the Indians called me. Alvin Dark was the manager there, Hank Peters was the general manager, and they said, ‘We want to sign you for the rest of the year.’ That was really nice. It really helped me, moving back to Cleveland because I’d been away from there for a whole long time and I really didn’t know that many people there. I’d kind of lost contact.” Mike Hegan philosophically observed, “It’s a problem in that it’s the unknown factor — you don’t know. I think for a lot of us, it wasn’t a huge problem, except for somebody like me who had the house.

“The other part of that equation is that this was an expansion team, so a lot of guys were used to traveling. I had played in four minor league cities in five years while I was up and down with the Yankees, so you never really established roots and were in one place for any length of time. So it was like going to spring training with a minor league team, and ‘Was I going to Buffalo, or was I going to Erie?’

It was probably a little more complicated than that, but I don’t think there were a lot of people who had real feelings about going to Seattle or going to Milwaukee. “What made it psychologically easier was that you were still in the major leagues. It would be much different if you were sent to a minor league team. Those are problems that everybody faces in life — moving around and doing certain things — it was something that got in the way a little bit, but you learned to live with it and handle it.”

As local newspaper headlines proclaimed “Baseball to Return Here” (Milwaukee Sentinel) and “We’re Big League Again” (Milwaukee Journal), the Brewers had less than one week to put together a ticket office, hire an office staff, find batboys, and get County Stadium ready.

The team didn’t have time to order new uniforms, so the Pilots logo and front jersey number were removed and “Brewers” was stitched over it. The pilot’s stripes on the sleeves were too difficult to remove quickly, so they remained on both the home and road jerseys for 1970.

The team’s color scheme of royal blue and gold — the one used in Seattle — was adopted by default, even though Selig preferred navy blue and red that was used by the old minor league Brewers. As Selig explained to The Sporting News correspondent Terry Bledsoe, “The ‘S’ on the cap comes off and an ‘M’ goes on. The ‘Pilots’ on the uniform comes off and ‘Brewers’ goes on.

The letters and the embroidery stay the same [except for the ‘scrambled eggs’ on the cap bill]. The uniforms are fine.” In addition, the Brewers issued Pilots media guides and yearbooks, new schedules and tickets were hastily printed, and broadcasting deals were pulled together quickly with radio station WEMP (1250 AM) and WTMJ-TV (Channel 4).

Former Braves play-by-play announcer Merle Harmon asked for and received a release from his contract with the Minnesota Twins to return to Milwaukee and call the Brewers games. The grounds crew at County Stadium was under the gun as well, with only six days to get the partially snow-covered field ready for the home opener. They came through, and earned rave reviews. “The grounds crew got an award,” Bobby Bolin said. ”In fact, that was the highlight of the Brewers for 1970 — they had the best grounds crew in the league!” Mike Hegan added, “You know what? The field at County Stadium was better than the field in Seattle the first day that we were there! It didn’t make any difference!” Phil Roof observed, “The field (in Milwaukee) was in pretty good shape because the White Sox played some regular season games there and they kept the field maintained.

It was nice of the city fathers of Milwaukee to do that because they wanted a major league franchise back. By keeping the stadium in tip-top shape, it was easy for the owners to vote Milwaukee in.” While Pacific Northwest Sports Inc. was busy liquidating Seattle Pilots merchandise (which would become highly sought-after memorabilia), William Daley, the Pilots’ former principal owner, quietly invested $1 million in the Brewers, but had no management control. And fans in Milwaukee stood in up to six inches of wet snow, waiting to purchase either single-game or season tickets for Brewers baseball.

Over 2,000 season tickets were sold on April 2 alone, at prices ranging from $150 to $375. “I think the fans here have missed baseball,” Selig told the local media. “I sense an excitement about the team that probably is better than mass hysteria.” Selig wasn’t too far off the mark. Despite the cool spring weather in Wisconsin, 37,237 fans showed up on Opening Day at County Stadium to see the Brewers pick up where the old Pilots left off, with a 12–0 loss to the California Angels.

NEXT: Part 5 — Epilogue 1