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50 Years Ago: Pilots Land in Milwaukee — Part 3
By Daniel Dullum
(Author’s note: This is the third 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 2, the Seattle Pilots’ financial woes continued into 1970 spring training, the American League publicly admitted that the Pilots were broke, leaving the players and coaches wondering about the team’s future while trying to focus on preparing for the upcoming season.)
Mike Hegan explained, “There are extraneous factors that enter into day-to-day baseball, and you usually take the cue from the manager, the coaching staff and the front office. At that time, Dave Bristol, a pretty levelheaded guy, just continuously said, ‘Hey, you don’t have any control over this. You can worry about certain things, but you have no control. So what you want to do is prepare to play baseball, whether it be in Seattle or someplace else.’”
Ken Sanders concurred, “I think the manager and the coaches of that team were really good — Dave Bristol, Wes Stock, Jackie Moore — those guys kind of helped keep it together. They would say, ‘We know we’re going to play, we know we’re going to play somewhere, we just need to get ready and prepare for the season.’” Wes Stock added, “Dave [Bristol] wanted everything focused. His idea was to play the game right and he worked on fundamentals. He was real focused, we all had a job to do, and we didn’t think about [the possible move]. Dave was strong that way. His thing was, ‘We’re going to win as many games as we can for a big league ballclub and just go from there. It didn’t bother him where we’d go, and I think that’s what he tried to tell everybody else — ‘We’re in spring training today, tomorrow we’ll be in Milwaukee or Seattle, and let’s go play.’”
While the Pilots were 5–5 in Cactus League exhibition action following a 19–14 win over Cleveland in Tucson, team management returned to the courtroom, this time in Seattle at King County Superior Court. At 9:30 a.m. on March 20, attorney Alfred J. Schweppe was scheduled to place his “outraged self” before a judge to argue that the American League had no right to remove the Pilots from Seattle.
AL attorney Alexander Hadden, meanwhile, tried to convince the judge to lift the restraining order that was preventing the league from moving the shaky franchise. In addition, an antitrust suit filed by the State of Washington and the City of Seattle was to be considered in conjunction with Schweppe’s suit.
If the judgments went against the AL owners, the antitrust action reportedly could cost them as much as $82 million. But by the day’s end, the Pilots’ owners delivered yet another headline-grabbing salvo when they filed a petition in U.S. District Court, asking that the team be sold to Milwaukee Brewers Inc. for $10.8 million under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Act.
This petition stated that Pacific Northwest Sports Inc., “is unable to meet its debts,” listed as $7.4 million (an amount later increased to $8.13 million). The petition also listed demand notes of $200,000 by Max Soriano (with his brother, Dewey, 34 percent owners) and $300,000 by William Daley, a 60 percent stockholder in the Seattle club. Smaller items, as low as $6 to the Seattle Fire Department for permits, were listed as well.
Other debts on the petition included: • $3.5 million to the Bank of California. • $2 million to Sportservice. • $500,000 to First National Bank of Phoenix. • $250,000 to the American League. • $165,000 to the City of Seattle for rent at Sicks’ Stadium. • $161,250 to the Pacific Coast League for indemnities due in 1970 and 1971. • $31,011 to King County for property taxes. • $5,000 to the Major League Scouting Bureau, Inc.
Among those listed on the list of creditors was none other than Fred Danz, whose group loaned the Pilots $261,875 in hopes of keeping the club in Seattle. But there were more legal hurdles. On March 20, E.B. Smith, president of Pilot Properties, Inc., of Phoenix, Arizona, filed a lawsuit for more than $1 million against the Pilots’ owners to “preserve the interests of investors” in the Pilots’ spring training facilities at Tempe.
Smith also cancelled Pacific Northwest Sports’ contract to use the facilities, saying the group had failed to meet obligations in forming a company to operate the training camp. That same day, Superior Court Judge James W. Miffin continued a restraining order that prevented the Pilots from relocating.
Alfred J. Schweppe then jumped in and took a public swipe at Milwaukee Brewers Inc., calling the group “suckers.” But William J. Walsh, an attorney who represented the Pilots’ owners, said even if an injunction is granted, “the team is in too poor shape financially to play in Seattle this season.” As a precaution, the California Angels, who were scheduled to open the 1970 season on the road against the Pilots, reserved hotel rooms in both Seattle and Milwaukee. And through it all, the Pilots players and coaches soldiered on. “[The coaches] tried to keep it non-disruptive because we had a lot of young guys, guys who played ‘A’ ball, like Jim Slaton and Bill Parsons who came back [to the majors] with us,”
Coach Wes Stock said. “We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t know what was going on. There was nothing we could do about it. The two owners were the ones with the control of what was going to happen. We just had to do what we could, regardless of what was going to happen. “We said, ‘Hey guys, don’t worry about it, we’re all in the big leagues. You guys want to be in the big leagues?
This is where you’re trying to get to, whether you play in Seattle or Milwaukee. Let’s just make the best of it.’” This was easier said than done for players like Ken Sanders, who was under enough pressure just to make the 25-man roster. “I was traded by Oakland to the Pilots that winter, and I hadn’t really established myself in the big leagues,” Sanders said. “I’d been up and down at that time. I was hurt [broken leg] the year before and I only pitched about a month in the minor leagues. So we go to spring training like a lot of the players on that team — enthused about the upcoming season. “Then the Seattle Pilots filed bankruptcy, so it was a very difficult time, not only for myself and the younger players, but also the veterans. We didn’t have any idea of where we were going. We assume we’re going to Seattle. ‘Do we get a place to live there? Are we going to get paid?’ … All of those issues. You have to realize that at that time, we weren’t making a million dollars a year or even a hundred thousand, so every paycheck was important.”
As hearings began on March 24, Dave Cohn, a Seattle restaurateur, told King County Superior Court that he could put a group together in 90 days to buy the Pilots and keep them in Seattle. Cohn said his group would be willing to pay $5.25 million — the original cost of the franchise — and that the price was negotiable.
Cohn never had a chance to put that group together or negotiate the price. Federal Bankruptcy Court Judge Sidney C. Volinn, the referee for the case, issued an injunction on March 25, allowing the American League a chance to vote on Milwaukee Brewers Inc.’s offer of $10.8 million to buy the Seattle Pilots and move the club to Wisconsin.
Volinn said the effect of the injunction was “to maintain the status quo” until he made his decision on March 30 to approve or disapprove the sale. The morning session of the hearing was devoted to legal jousting over the language of the injunction.
The final wording, approved by Volinn, prevented further legal action in King County Superior Court, where Washington state, the City of Seattle, and attorney Albert J. Schweppe all sought injunctions to prevent the sale and relocation of the Pilots. “Though various arguments have been presented to keep the Pilots in Seattle, no one has offered a financial plan to support it,” Volinn said. “Every way we turn around, we have an assured $10.8 million offer from Milwaukee. If we don’t take that, we have nothing.”
At the same time, Volinn emphasized he was not endorsing a sale to the Milwaukee group, saying that his primary responsibility was to Pacific Northwest Sports, and the best interests of the Pilots and their creditors. This was good news to the creditors, especially after team treasurer Max Soriano testified that the Pilots were losing $12,500 a day, and Robert W. Schoenbachler, the team controller, projected a $1.5 million loss for the Pilots if the team stayed in Seattle for 1970.
While all parties waited through the weekend for Judge Volinn to make his ruling, Dewey and Max Soriano were burned in effigy at a downtown Seattle shopping mall, Florida Judge John Hodges dissolved a temporary injunction that barred the AL owners from voting on the proposed sale of the Pilots, and King County was given the legal go-ahead to build a $40 million sports complex in downtown Seattle.
Faced with the possibility of overseeing a white elephant, county executive John Spellman said he hoped to convince the AFL’s Boston Patriots to move west if they couldn’t find a suitable home in New England, all but conceding that the Pilots were leaving. — — As the 1970 exhibition season wound down, the Pilots won three games the weekend of March 27–29, edging Cleveland 2–1 and enjoying victories of 19–1 and 7–6 over Oakland.
Word also leaked out of the Pilots camp that two players, who asked to remain anonymous, said they rented apartments in Milwaukee on a contingency basis. Other players said they would live in hotels until they could find permanent residence in Milwaukee if the team did move there. But Bobby Sullivan, the Pilots’ equipment manager, insisted, “Until I’m told otherwise, I have to tag [the equipment and gear] for Seattle.”
Summing up a common approach by the players, Ken Sanders said, “I hadn’t gotten a place to live in Seattle yet. That’s one of the things the ballplayers still do — wait until the last few days to find an apartment. I’m in the real estate business and I’m sure they still do that today. It wasn’t a real inconvenience, just the stress and strain of where you were going to go.”
As the bankruptcy hearing reconvened on March 30, Judge Voiinn expressed disgust that, in his opinion, no offer for the Pilots had been formally presented by anyone representing Milwaukee in his court. Attorney Elwen Zarwell was at the hearing on behalf of Milwaukee Brewers Inc., but said he was “awaiting instructions” before he could represent the group officially. Another last-minute offer came from California businessman Fred Ruge, who said Statewide Security Depositors of Sacramento, California, would invest $100 million to buy the team and build the domed stadium.
However, Carl Dumbra, who called Statewide Security Depositors “basically himself,” said the announcement was “premature,” adding that his company “has no money at all like that.” Dumbra explained that his company has “liaison with investors that desire to place funds in good investments.” Attorney C.T. Hatten, representing Ruge, asked for a delay so the court could consider an $11.5 million offer to buy the Pilots. Noting that the Ruge offer was “based on several contingencies,”
Volinn suggested that the hearing proceed as scheduled until the various attorneys had a chance to study the new development. During the bankruptcy hearing, Max Soriano testified that the Pilots were nearly broke, had only $91,000 in cash, and were unable to meet current expenditures, such as a $216,000 note due on March 31.
Dewey Soriano testified that the club didn’t have the funds to make necessary upgrades to Sicks’ Stadium. Marvin Milkes told the court there wasn’t enough money to pay the players, coaches and office staff, noting that if the Pilots were more than 10 days late with payroll, all of their players would become free agents. And W.B. Campbell, representing the Bank of California, said the Pilots owed his bank $3.65 million plus interest, and that “others,” including the Soriano brothers, owed another $4 million in personal notes.
William Dwyer, special assistant to the state attorney general in Washington, referred to the American League constitution, claiming that since the Pilots filed for bankruptcy, the action automatically put the league in charge of the club. Dwyer argued that the team was not bankrupt because the American League wasn’t.
Milwaukee attorney Elwen Zarwell, the last to speak, told Volinn the Brewers “were ready, willing and able” to proceed with the purchase of the club. Volinn said he was aware that the 1970 season was about to begin, but didn’t want to rush a decision, explaining, “I realize … there is an atmosphere of haste. But the court will take all the time necessary in order to receive all the evidence that is necessary to make a decision in this case.”
Apparently, Volinn didn’t need much time for contemplation. At 10:21 p.m. on March 31, he ordered the Pilots to be sold to Milwaukee Brewers, Inc., for $10.8 million. Thinking back to that night, Bud Selig said he “took nothing for granted,” and was convinced the purchase of the Pilots went from pipe dream to reality “on the night of March 31, 1970. “But we knew about a week before, because [the Pilots] were in bankruptcy court. My lawyers were telling me, ‘We’re going to be OK.’ But in everything in life, I’m a Yogi Berra theorist in that it ain’t over until it’s over,” Selig said, while recalling the telephone conversations he’d anxiously waited for. “When our lawyer [Elwen Zarwell] called from Seattle, he called from a pay phone. But I’d already heard about it from [Lloyd Larson] the sports editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel. He yelled in the phone, ‘You got it!’ and hung up.
Then the lawyer called and said the same thing,” Selig said. “I went out and took a walk … I was stunned. It was five-and-a-half years. It was a long journey.” Ken Sanders recalled, “Bud Selig did a good PR job when he came to town. I remember … Selig came down and he was one of the minority stockholders — I think he invested $100,000 — he announced that he bought the team and he was moving it to Milwaukee. They purchased that team for $10.8 million, and [Selig] said his greatest fear was how he was going to pay the salaries of the team, which included 25 players and five coaches.
The combined total of those salaries was $729,000.” As expected, Dwyer said the City of Seattle and the State of Washington would proceed with their $82 million antitrust suit, which already was filed and waiting for Volinn’s decision. And, on April 16, 1970, Senators Jackson and Magnuson followed through on their threat to introduce legislation to remove baseball’s antitrust immunity when Congress reconvened.
In a joint statement, Magnuson and Jackson said, “It seems apparent that the nature of baseball has changed dramatically in the many years since organized baseball received antitrust exemption. It is our feeling that all aspects of baseball — including radio and television contracts, concessions, player-management relations, and all other relevant factors — should be reviewed to determine the wisdom of continuing to exempt baseball from the antitrust laws.” Amidst the rampant finger-pointing for losing the Pilots, Washington Governor Dan Evans took his turn, saying, “I think the leadership in the American League and the league owners that have led us to this sorry state of events can’t be condemned too much for the way in which they treated this area.
Next up: Part 4
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