The period March 29 through April 4 saw tragic, untimely deaths, significant trades, and disputes over money, large and small, and you won’t believe how small.
Easter Murdered
March 29, 1979: Luke Easter, a big, slugging first baseman for the Homestead Grays (1947-48) and Cleveland (1949-54), was shot and killed during a robbery outside a bank in Euclid, Ohio. He was 63, which surprised his former teams, to whom he lied about his age when he was a player. Easter was working as a union steward for TRW, Inc., and had cashed about $40,000 in paychecks as a favor to several co-workers. Two men armed with shotguns, one a TRW employee who knew his every-other-Thursday routine, accosted Easter as he left the bank. When he refused to hand over the money, Easter was shot twice at close range. Police chased their car to Cleveland. When the assailants’ car crashed into an embankment, they were apprehended. Both received life sentences.
If you ask me, they got off too easily. Had it happened a year later, I would have sentenced them to listen to “Go, Joe Charboneau” on an endless loop for the rest of their lives.
Cubs Acquire Slammin’ Sammy
March 30, 1992: The Chicago Cubs traded left fielder George Bell to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for left-handed relief pitcher Ken Patterson and outfielder Sammy Sosa. At the time, it seemed the deal heavily favored the White Sox. Bell was the American League’s Most Valuable Player in 1987 and was an All-Star in his lone season with the Cubs. Sosa had hit .203 with 10 home runs in 116 games for the White Sox in 1991, while also spending time in the minors. The Cubs had no inkling that Sosa would hit 545 home runs for them in 13 years, including three seasons when he hit at least 63. Those feats were later tainted when Sosa came under suspicion for steroid use.
Dispute Over $4.50 Results in Trade
March 31, 1945: This story begins in August 1944. The Pittsburgh Pirates were in Philadelphia. It was after midnight, and their center fielder, Vince DiMaggio, was hungry. The only place he could find to eat was a fancy dining room in the hotel where the team was staying, complete with a floor show for the amusement of the late-night diners. It’s unknown whether DiMaggio paid attention to the show while he dined, or whether he tapped his foot and snapped his fingers while repeating, “Dig that crazy beat!” Nevertheless, the bill for his steak dinner came to a little over nine dollars and included a cover charge for the entertainment. As was the custom for road games, DiMaggio charged his room for the tab.
The problem was that the team’s daily meal allowance was $4.50. DiMaggio’s extravagance was noticed by a sharp-eyed employee in the team’s accounting department, and the excess was deducted from his next paycheck. DiMaggio was enraged and went public with his grievance, saying he didn’t want to play for a team that refused to underwrite his partaking of culinary delights. Pirates vice president Sam Waters countered that $4.50 was one of the more generous allowances in the majors—that’s $83.81 in today’s dollars, so he had a point—and that they didn’t fuss over small overages.
Fast forward to March 1945. DiMaggio refused to sign his contract or report to the team for spring training in Muncie, Indiana, preferring to remain on the West Coast, where he was managing a shipyard’s baseball team. Finally, on the last day of March, the Pirates traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies for left-handed pitcher Al Gerheauser. Pirates manager Frankie Frisch had not yet joined the team, remaining home in New Rochelle, New York, while recovering from arthritis (what?), but endorsed the trade. He wasn’t planning on playing DiMaggio regularly anyway, after the center fielder led the National League in striking out for the third consecutive season.
Now Not Coming to a Theater Near You
April 1, 1966: Los Angeles Dodgers star pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale ended their joint holdout by agreeing to contract terms. It seemed like an early April Fool’s joke when the duo threatened to retire, claiming that they had better offers from Hollywood. Indeed, both had appeared on several network television programs, mostly cast as themselves. Talks had stalled until Chuck Connors, the former major league first baseman and actor who portrayed the lead character on The Rifleman, of all people, intervened and mediated a settlement. Perhaps he aimed his rifle at Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi.
The duo sought a $125,000 salary each. Finally, Bavasi put contracts in front of them: $125,000 for Koufax and $100,000 for Drysdale. Drysdale was ready to sign, but Koufax objected. He felt Drysdale should be paid the same as he was getting. Bavasi bumped Drysdale’s deal up to $110,000, and Drysdale signed. The pair returned to the Dodgers. Hollywood survived. Of Koufax, now the highest-paid player in baseball, Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley told the press, “The young fellow is in a higher tax bracket than I am.” Yeah, I’ll bet.
Fast forward to 1976. With free agency now the law of the land, Major League Baseball Players Association rep Marvin Miller negotiated a new basic agreement with management. The owners flashed back to the time when Koufax and Drysdale had the Dodgers by the proverbial short hairs, and insisted on language that prevented players from colluding in the same way ever again. That was fine with the players, as long as there was also language prohibiting the clubs from “acting in conjunction with another club.” The owners, displaying the business acumen that made them rich in spite of themselves, readily agreed. This clause was used against them in the famous 1985 collusion case, causing the owners to pay $280 million in damages.
Hodges Passes Away
April 2, 1972: Two days before what would have been his 48th birthday, New York Mets manager and former Dodgers first baseman Gil Hodges died of a heart attack after a round of golf. Playing for the Dodgers (1943, 1947-61) and Mets (1962-63), he was an eight-time All-Star and batted .273/.359/.487, 370 HR, 1,274 RBI, and 120 OPS+. At the time he retired, he’d hit more home runs than any right-handed-hitting first baseman in NL history. As the Mets manager, he led them to the 1969 World Series championship, with his platoon system creating enough offense to support a solid pitching rotation.
Gil Hodges at Wrigley Field. Hodges managed the Mets from 1968-71, leading the miracle Mets to a title in 1969. pic.twitter.com/PyyZw6EbND
— Baseball’s Greatest Moments (@BBGreatMoments) March 28, 2026
Hodges may have been the most beloved athlete in the history of New York. He married a woman from Brooklyn at a time when ballplayers hung out with regular people. When, as a Brooklyn Dodger, he went hitless for the entire 1952 World Series, he was never booed. “Everybody loved him,” said former teammate Dick Williams in an Associated Press story. “He was very easy to get along with. He got along with his teammates and he got along with the opposition. He was known as Mr. Nice Guy.”
In the same article, another former teammate, Johnny Podres, said, “I’m sick. This ruins everything for me. . . I’ve never known a finer man.”
The Closer is Born
April 3, 1987: It received little more than a passing mention in the sports reports when the Chicago Cubs traded pitcher Dennis Eckersley and infielder Dan Rohn to the Oakland Athletics for three minor leaguers. After all, the 32-year-old right-hander Eckersley was coming off a 1986 season during which he posted a 6-11 record to go with a 4.57 ERA. But his 1.9 walks per nine innings were the lowest in the NL, and the Athletics’ brain trust must have thought there was still something there.
Eckersley pitched well in relief for Oakland in 1987, and by June 21, he became the ace of their bullpen. He notched 16 saves, and the next year, manager Tony La Russa mostly limited him to the ninth inning. La Russa provided the bridge between the starter and Eckersley with endless trips to the mound based on whether the batter was left- or right-handed. If Mike Hargrove was The Human Rain Delay, La Russa was at least The Human Bathroom Break. In 1988, Eckersley pitched 72.2 innings in 60 games and recorded 45 saves. He was on his way to the Hall of Fame, finishing with 390 career saves and winning the AL Cy Young and MVP Awards in 1992.
The other major league teams followed suit and declared that pitching in the ninth inning somehow required a special talent that only the chosen few possessed, which must have come as a surprise to some 110 relievers, give or take, throughout the majors. La Russa had created the modern “closer,” and indirectly spawned the three-batter minimum rule. The four-time Manager of the Year Award winner could have been the perennial Over-Manager of the Year Award winner if there were such a thing.
