Bob Short, the owner, also served as his own general manager. That probably tells you all you need to know about why his Washington Senators were such a dismal failure. The only thing worse would be to hire a social media critic to do the job. Always undeterred, Short pulled off a blockbuster trade on the eve of the 1970 World Series. Major League Baseball has always eschewed announcing trades during the Series, but even commissioner Bowie Kuhn knew that this one would be leaked to the press anyway. Going to the Detroit Tigers were shortstop Ed Brinkman, third baseman Aurelio Rodriguez, and pitchers Joe Coleman and Jim Hannan. The marquee piece coming Washington’s way was pitcher Denny McLain.
Today, McLain is still MLB’s last 30-game winner. In 1968, he was 31-6 and won the American League Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Awards on a Tigers team that won the World Series. He shared the Cy Young Award with Baltimore Orioles pitcher Mike Cuellar in 1969 when he went 24-9. McLain was at the peak of his fame, recording two albums of Hammond organ instrumentals, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show, spending a day hanging out with the Smothers Brothers, and getting the red-carpet treatment at casinos. “Baseball seemed almost ancillary to him,” said David Diles, who co-wrote McLain’s autobiography, to Craig Thomashoff of The Boston Globe in 2002.
“It’s Your Trade”
However, it all came crashing down for McLain in 1970. He was suspended at the beginning of the season for alleged ties to bookmaking. When he returned to the Tigers in July, he wasn’t the same pitcher after tossing 661 innings over the previous two seasons. He was 3-5 with a 4.63 ERA in 14 starts. Then, in late August, the Tigers suspended McLain for dousing two reporters with pails of water in an apparently unprovoked attack. Before that suspension was up, Kuhn suspended him indefinitely for carrying a gun on a team flight and compelled him to undergo psychiatric treatment. The doctor in charge determined McLain was “not mentally ill.” To get the deal done, Kuhn had to agree to lift the suspension.
Also coming to the Senators in the swap were third baseman Don Wert, pitcher Norm McRae, and versatile Elliott Maddox. Wert was a regular on those 1968 Tigers, a slick fielder and light hitter with a penchant for big hits. Senators manager Ted Williams wasn’t as pleased with the deal as Short. Williams reportedly told him, “Remember, it’s your trade.”
“I Need the Money”
The following November, Short engineered another trade designed to bring another gate attraction to the nation’s capital by obtaining Curt Flood. Flood had been a standout center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals for 12 years, hitting .293/.343/.390 while winning seven consecutive Gold Glove Awards and two World Series rings. When the Cardinals traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies after the 1969 season, Flood refused to report and instituted a challenge to MLB’s reserve clause. Speaking to William Gildea of The Washington Post in the spring of 1971, Flood claimed not to know what was in his contract. “I think all players ought to take a closer look at their contracts. I was guilty of not doing that until somebody, my lawyer, spelled it out to me in terms that a layman can understand,” said Flood
Flood sat out the 1970 season. In Ball Four, Jim Bouton wrote that the opposite of a prospect was a suspect. Short obtained Flood, or I should say the right to negotiate with Flood, along with a player to be named later, for three minor league suspects, Greg Goossen, Gene Martin, and Jeff Terpko. Goossen began his career with the expansionist New York Mets, where his manager, Casey Stengel, gave him this ringing endorsement: “He’s 20 years old, and in 10 years, he’s got a chance to be 30.” Terpko was sent back to the Senators as the player to be named later, making him one of the rare players in MLB history to be traded for himself.
Short enticed Flood to return to baseball with a $115,000 contract. Flood explained his decision to return to baseball by telling Associated Press, “Like everybody else, I’ve had some business reverses, and I need the money – but I still think the reserve clause stinks.” (“Like everybody else?” I’ve never had a “business reverse.” How about you?) He continued, “I’m paying alimony, and I’ve got five kids to support. That’s enough to drive any man back into the game.” It seemed that Flood was as enthusiastic about playing for the Senators as Stengel was about Goosen. Even so, Flood told Gildea that he was “going to try like hell.”
The man who fought the commissioner (Flood v. Kuhn), the last 30-game winner, and the last .400 hitter.
OF Curt Flood, P Denny McLain, and manager Ted Williams of the Washington Senators. (Spring training, 1971.) #MLB pic.twitter.com/pe4Hp8A0S5
— Alex Cheremeteff (@AlexCheremeteff) July 24, 2018
“Big Hondo”
The Senators’ best player was six-foot-seven, 255-pound right-handed-hitting left fielder/first baseman Frank Howard. Also known as Big Hondo, The Capital Punisher, and The Washington Monument, it seemed that Howard led MLB in nicknames. In 1970, despite hitting in a weak lineup, he led the AL with 44 home runs, 126 RBI, and 29 intentional walks while hitting .283/.416/.546 (170 OPS+). Previously, the four-time All-Star led the majors with 44 homers in 1968 and hit 48 more in 1969.
The Los Angeles Dodgers signed Howard as an amateur free agent in 1958 when he was 21 years old. They gave him the proverbial cup of coffee in the majors in 1958 and 1959. Howard finally got to the majors for good in 1960, when he hit .268/.320/.464, 23 HR, and 77 RBI, and won the National League Rookie of the Year Award. But manager Walter Alston was platooning him, and Howard was unhappy in La-La Land despite being on a team that won the 1964 World Series. After the 1963 season, Howard requested a trade. He considered quitting baseball altogether. He finally got his wish in December 1964, when the Dodgers dealt him to the Senators in a multi-player trade, with the key piece coming to Los Angeles being pitcher Claude Osteen.
Despite going from a champion to a perennial loser, Howard was happy to go to Washington, where he’d play every day. The Dodgers seemed glad to let him go. They apparently felt he lacked fire and baseball smarts. His hitting coach in Los Angeles, Pete Reiser, complained to Melvin Durslag of The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, “When Frank makes up his mind he’s going to swing, he does, no matter where the ball is.” Dodgers vice president Fresco Thompson groused that Howard never asked an umpire to inspect a ball. “They all look alike to me,” Howard told him. Personally, I’ll take 44 home runs, you can take a guy with fire who inspects baseballs, and I’m sure Williams felt the same way.
Ted’s Way
You knew that eventually I’d get around to the regular season, right? The traditional AL opener was held in Washington each year. In the 1971 opener, with President Richard Nixon unable to attend, the Senators hosted the Oakland Athletics. Left-hander Vida Blue, who would go on to win the AL Cy Young and MVP Awards that season, was on the mound for Oakland. Short probably looked forward to a Blue/McLain matchup that was sure to make headlines everywhere. However, Williams would do things his way. His Opening Day starter was right-hander Dick Bosman, who led the AL with a 2.19 ERA in 1969. Flood was in center field, batting second, and Joe Foy started at third base in place of Wert, who injured his back in a spring training game.
Foy was an enigmatic, talented right-handed hitter who was running out of second chances because of his poor fielding, a wild lifestyle (he admitted to the newspapers that he smoked marijuana), and an inability to get out of his own way. The Boston Red Sox drafted Foy from the Minnesota Twins organization in 1962. After posting a solid .286/.383/.421 slash across five minor league seasons and four levels, he joined the Red Sox in 1966 and was inserted as the regular third baseman. There were frequent clashes with manager Dick Williams, who took the reins in 1967 when the “Impossible Dream” Red Sox won the AL pennant. In 1968, Foy was driving a car that collided with a taxi at 3:00 AM. Police were called to the scene when a heated dispute ensued. Foy and his passenger, teammate Juan Pizarrro, were arrested and charged with drunkenness.
After that incident, the writing was on the wall for Foy, and the Red Sox exposed him to the 1968 expansion draft, when he was chosen by the Kansas City Royals. After a year there, the Royals traded him to the New York Mets for Amos Otis and Bob Johnson. The deal came to be known as one of the worst in Mets history. After Foy hit a meek .236 for the Mets in 1970, they allowed him to be taken by the Senators in the Rule 5 draft.
While Blue had trouble locating home plate, Bosman tossed a complete game, beating Oakland, 8-0. Flood was on base three times with a bunt single and two walks, scoring two runs. Howard drove in two runs with a single and a sacrifice fly. Foy added a sacrifice fly of his own. The newly revamped Senators looked good. All was right in Robert F. Kennedy Stadium.
“Much Better Stuff”
McLain didn’t get a start until the third game of the season, a Friday night home game against the New York Yankees. He won his Senators debut, 5-4, pitching all 10 innings. The Senators were down, 4-3, with one out in the bottom of the ninth when Foy doubled, and Maddox drove him in with a single to tie it. In the bottom of the 10th inning, over McLain’s protestations, Williams sent newly acquired Tommy McCraw to pinch-hit for him. McCraw launched a home run deep over the right field fence off Lindy McDaniel to win for McLain. McLain evaluated his pitching thusly for the Times-Picayune: “Right now, my control’s excellent. But I’m not throwing as hard as I could and probably won’t until about the first of May.”
In his third start, McLain threw a complete game shutout at Cleveland Stadium, allowing just three hits and three walks in defeating the home team, 4-0, in a performance that he described as “very uncoordinated” to The Toledo Blade. Flood was in center field behind McLain, but he wasn’t hitting and was benched for two games the previous week. Meanwhile, Foy was hitting .342 after that day’s doubleheader, undoubtedly reminding Williams of himself, and had a solid hold on third base. Wert was never the same after the injury and couldn’t wrest the third base job from Foy. Wert was released in June after going 2-for-40 as a Senator.
So, how was McLain pitching? What better team to ask than his former team, the Tigers? On May 14, McLain beat the Tigers at RFK, 3-2, with a complete game. When he returned to Tiger Stadium for the first time as the opposition on May 23, he lost, 5-0, pitching seven innings and surrendering home runs to Al Kaline and Norm Cash. The Tigers’ winning pitcher that day, Mickey Lolich, told Tom Loomis of The Blade, “[McLain] pitched a good ball game other than the two home runs.” Said Kaline, “Denny has much better stuff now than he did last year. He’s the toughest pitcher in the league against a right-handed batter.”
Two days later, Foy, who had cooled off, went 4-for-5 at Fenway Park against the Red Sox. His throwing error allowed Boston to tie the game in the eighth inning. Then, Foy won the game with an RBI single off Mike Nagy in the 11th inning. Foy was now hitting .246. Of his manager, Foy told AP, “He stuck with me. He played me, and when I fell into a rut, he helped me and gave me advice. . . If you don’t listen to a .340 hitter [actually, .344], who are you going to listen to?”
Behind the Scenes
However, not all was happy beneath the surface. Flood abruptly retired from baseball on April 27. He was only 7-for-35 as a Senator and was benched the previous night. He informed Short of his retirement via a telegram sent from John F. Kennedy International Airport as he readied to board a flight to Barcelona, Spain. “I tried,” wrote Flood. “A year and one half [away from baseball] was too much.” After Foy’s heroics at Fenway, the Senators were just 17-26, in last place in the AL East Division. Williams “stuck with” Foy for just two more games. Foy was dispatched to Triple-A Denver, where he hit .191, and was released in July.
McLain didn’t enjoy his time with Washington. He told Thom Loverro of the Washington Times, “We had the greatest bunch of guys in the world but they couldn’t hit a cutoff man, they didn’t know what bunting was, they didn’t know what run and hit was, they didn’t know hit and run. We just could not play the game.”
The players didn’t like playing for Williams. McLain clashed with him frequently and led a group of players who tried to get him fired. The knock on Williams as a manager was that he understood hitting, but not the other aspects of the game. It was particularly evident in his handling of pitchers, having relievers warm up too frequently until they had nothing left for the game. McLain told Loverro that Williams wasn’t interested in managing, that he got into managing only to make himself visible to a new generation. He was in danger of losing an endorsement deal for Sears outdoor products because he’d become yesterday’s news. Indeed, in his autobiography, My Turn At Bat, Williams wrote, “I said at the time, after only one season [as Senators manager], if I was smart, I’d get out now. I could see it was the kind of job you suffer through, get a lousy ulcer, get buried. . . I managed out the contract, but it was over.”
McLain finished the year with a 10-22 record and 4.28 ERA. It could have been worse; he sat out the second half of July with an injury. Years later, he would admit that his arm was shot by 1970.
“That Boy May Never See the Minors”
In his search for a drawing card, Short had one more trick up his sleeve. In the Secondary Phase – Delayed of the MLB June Amateur Draft, he selected right-handed pitcher Pete Broberg from Dartmouth. Oakland drafted him in the 1968 draft, but Broberg refused to sign despite owner Charlie O. Finley dangling a $175,000 signing bonus. This time, Washington was expected to draft third baseman Rob Ellis from Michigan State. Short changed his mind, believing he could land Broberg with a $150,000 offer and a promise of an immediate promotion to the big club. Short’s plan worked, but the draft worked out best for the Chicago Cubs, who chose Burt Hooton with the next pick.
Short thought so highly of Broberg that he publicly declared Bosman could be on the block. Broberg earned his first MLB victory on July 4 with a complete game, 9-4, win in Cleveland, aided by home runs from Howard, Del Unser, and Lenny Randle. Williams told AP, “That boy may never see the minors.” Broberg finished with a 5-9 record and a respectable 3.47 ERA.
Texas Bound
While he was hoping Broberg would become the drawing card that McLain and Flood weren’t, Short was arranging for the Senators to move to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas. With $19.8 million in debt hanging over RFK Stadium, Short told an unhappy House of Representatives district committee that he had done all he could to increase attendance, bragging that he even gave away free pantyhose to female fans.
The AL approved the move on September 21, 1971, with only the Orioles and Chicago White Sox opposed. The move was announced by AL president Joe Cronin, who, ironically, as a player/manager led Washington to its last pennant in 1933. (That was the first incarnation of the Senators, who moved to Minnesota and became the Twins.)
The wire services surveyed a few fans, who didn’t seem choked up over the news. One bar patron said, “If they take Short with them, let them go to the moon.” A policeman suggested, “Now we can get a National League team in here, and it will be better baseball.” He was a sage. It only took 34 years.
Riot
The Senators ended the 1971 season and their time in Washington with a home game against the Yankees on September 30. The 14,460 fans, plus the usual assortment of freeloaders, who showed up at RFK were in a foul mood. They screamed at Short, who skipped the game, and hung banners eviscerating him. (The most clever: “We’ve been Short-changed!”) They littered the field with debris throughout the game. But none of the bad feelings were directed at a player. Fans occasionally ran onto the field to touch a base or shake hands with one of them.
When Howard stepped to the plate in the first inning, he received a two-minute standing ovation. The Yankees took a 5-1 lead against Bosman after five innings. Howard led off the bottom of the sixth by crushing his 26th home run of the season to deep left field. For that, he received a six-minute standing ovation that required two curtain calls before the game could resume. Fittingly, it was the last home run hit at RFK. It sparked a four-run rally. The Senators then took the lead in the bottom of the eighth thanks to RBI singles by McCraw and Maddox off Jack Aker.
For the ninth, Williams turned to lefty Joe Grzenda to save it. Grzenda quickly retired the first two batters. Then a mob stormed the field, mobbing players, grabbing bases, stripping numbers from the scoreboard, taking any souvenir they could get their hands on. The public address announcer pleaded with them to clear the field, lest the game be forfeited. As the crowd ignored the pleas, the umpires forfeited the game to the Yankees. The official score for a forfeit is 9-0, although the stats accumulated during the game still count. Thus, Howard’s place in history was affirmed.
Nobody seemed upset about it. Williams told AP, “One more loss won’t affect our overall performance this year.” The Senators finished 63-96, in fifth place in the division, 38.5 games behind the first-place Orioles. “This wasn’t my game or the team’s game tonight,” said Howard. “It was [the fans’] game. They’re the greatest fans in the world, and I ain’t kidding.”
McLain pitched for two teams in 1972, after which his career was over. Meanwhile, Coleman was a two-time 20-game winner for the Tigers, while Rodriguez and Brinkman anchored the left side of their infield for several years. Broberg never lived up to the hype. Over his eight-year career spent with four teams, he was 41-71 with a 4.56 ERA.
