Tony Gwynn diagnosed with cancer

SAN DIEGO -- Tony Gwynn, the prolific-hitting Hall of Fame outfielder who spent his entire 20-year career with the Padres, has been diagnosed with cancer of a salivar

Time will tell. He was/ is one of the goods guys I think. He stayed with the Padres his whole career.

He was lucky to have had the choice of staying with the Padres his whole career. It often shocks people to realise that team-shifting did not begin in the free agency era, and that there was actually not too much greater "team loyalty" in the reserve era---the distinction being that, in the reserve era, teams could (and did) swap players at will (shall we now talk about "team loyalty"), the players having no say mostly in those swaps.

You could almost (underline that) make the case, in fact, that people like Johnny Bench (who played a decent portion of his career in the free agency era), Carl Yastrzemski (see Bench note), Mike Schmidt, George Brett, Ryne Sandberg, Cal Ripken, Jr. (who played his entire career in the free agency era), Tony Gwynn, Jeff Bagwell (see the Sandberg rule), Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Albert Pujols (thus far, and he's expressed a wish to remain a Cardinal for the rest of his career) may have brought or restored the concept of loyalty back into baseball.

I did an analysis a couple of years ago. I broke down the Hall of Famers in the reserve and the free agency eras, elected by the Baseball Writers Association, who did or didn't spend their entire careers with a single team. The result may surprise you:

Here is a run down the entire roll of Hall of Famers elected by the BBWAA, presented in the order of their election, noting the number of teams for whom they played. (What order is that? Look at the first five, all elected in 1936. They’re presented according to who got the most first place votes. Take it from there, folks, and enjoy the ride.)

THE RESERVE ERA

TY COBB: Two. Released once, then signed as a free agent by another club. You don’t think he could have filed for free agency on his own, do you?

BABE RUTH: Three. Sold once, released once to be signed by another club. (See Cobb, with whom he shares the probability that he lasted as long as he did in one place on talent alone for the most part.)

HONUS WAGNER: Two. Traded once, in a seventeen-player swap that also made Pirates out of a couple of fellow future Hall of Famers (Fred Clarke, Rube Waddell) and a Louisville Colonel (this was the prehistoric National League) out of one future Hall of Famer (Happy Jack Chesbro), not to mention putting twenty-five grand into the Colonels’ coffers.

CHRISTY MATHEWSON: Let’s cut Big Six a break and call him a lifelong Giant, considering that a) he was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds out of the Giants’ system of the time in the Rule V draft of the day, but b) he never pitched a game for the Cincinnati parent until he was traded back to the Reds (the deal that made a Red out of future Hall of Famer Edd Roush) and pitched one game for them (in 1916) before becoming their manager.

Call it the Sandberg-Bagwell Rule: Ryne Sandberg had about half a cup of coffee if that much with the Philadelphia Phillies before he was traded to the Chicago Cubs; Jeff Bagwell---who’s a Hall of Famer in waiting---saw no Show action before he was traded out of the Boston Red Sox system to the Houston Astros. For all intent and purpose, both men can be called one-club careerists.

WALTER JOHNSON: A Washington lifer.

NAP LAJOIE: Three. Jumped once (those goddamn contract hoppers!); was declared a free agent once (not by his design, mind you); was sold once (from Cleveland to the Philadelphia Athletics, to whom he’d jumped from the crosstown Phillies in the first place).

TRIS SPEAKER: Four. Traded once (for two players and fifty-five thousand balloons); released to be signed by new clubs twice.

CY YOUNG: Five. “Assigned” once (to the Cleveland Spiders---this, again, is the prehistoric National League---by the St. Louis Perfectos, the future Cardinals); jumped once (to Boston in the American League); traded once; released and re-signed by a new club once.

GROVER CLEVELAND ALEXANDER: Three. Traded once; picked off the waiver wire once. (Alexander would also be traded back to his original club toward the end of his career.)

GEORGE SISLER: Three. Sold twice (the first time, after twelve seasons with the St. Louis Browns).

EDDIE COLLINS: Two. Sold once (to Chicago; he was one of the 1919 Clean Sox and eventually succeeded Kid Gleason as the club’s manager while still a player); released by the White Sox and re-signed by his original club (the Philadelphia Athletics).

WEE WILLIE KEELER: Four. Sold once; traded once; “assigned” once (back to Brooklyn from Baltimore, when the ancient Orioles were a prehistoric NL franchise); jumped once (from Brooklyn to the New York Highlanders---that’s the Yankees, folks); released (by the Highlanders) and re-signed (by his first club, the New York Giants).

LOU GEHRIG: One. (Note: Gehrig was elected to the Hall of Fame by proclamation, waiving the retirement rule in light of his illness-mandated retirement.)

ROGERS (DANCES WITH HORSES) HORNSBY: Five. Traded thrice (including the swap that made him, as a player-manager, the first manager ever to win a World Series and get traded practically as soon as the club could find a taker for him, the 1926 swap from the Cardinals to the Giants); released twice.

CARL HUBBELL: The Meal Ticket was a Polo Grounds lifer.

FRANKIE FRISCH: Two. Traded once. (The Hornsby deal).

In due course the Fordham Flash would wreak near-irrevocable havoc upon the Hall of Fame when, as the co-cheese of the Veterans’ Committee, he and Bill Terry would act as Bill James described them---hell bent, apparently, on getting as many of their Cardinals and Giants cronies into Cooperstown as they could get away with, never mind that two if that many of the lot could really have been considered bona-fide Hall of Famers.

MICKEY COCHRANE: Two. Traded once.

LEFTY GROVE: Two. Traded once.

HERB PENNOCK: Three. Waived once; traded once.

(He was also released by the Yankees and re-signed by the Red Sox, who waived him to the Bronx in the first place. Pennock is one of those Hall of Famers with debatable credentials, when all is said and done. His lifetime ERA is twenty ticks below his league average but he has a terrific postseason record. To what extent Pennock reflected rather than transcended his teams seems a very open question.)

PIE TRAYNOR: A Pittsburgh lifer and a somewhat overrated Hall of Famer, unless there really were very, very few virtuoso third basemen out there in his time and place.

FIRST INVENTORY: The total number of one-club Hall of Famers to this point is five out of twenty. That’s 25 percent. Ever onward and upward, as Duke Ellington’s right-hand man Billy Strayhorn liked to say . . .

CHARLIE GEHRINGER: Once a Tiger, always a Tiger, was the Mechanical Man.

MEL OTT: Once a Giant, always a Giant, was Master Melvin.

JIMMIE FOXX: Four. Traded once (in Connie Mack’s second great fire sale); waived once; released to be re-signed once.

HARRY HEILMANN: Two. Sold once.

PAUL WANER: Four. As if validating his nickname in some perverse fashion, Big Poison was released four times.

DIZZY DEAN: Technically, three; realistically, two. (Dean as a St. Louis Brown when he was all but washed up, pitching four innings in one game. Big whoop.) Traded once.

AL SIMMONS: Seven. If the Beach Boys were baseball fans, they’d have done “I Get Around” in Old Bucketfoot’s honour: Sold five times (once in the second Mack fire sale); released thrice; traded once.

RABBIT MARANVILLE: Five, noting that he began and ended his long career with a long enough stint aboard the Boston Braves. Traded twice; waived once; released once; sold once.

BILL DICKEY: Once a Yankee, always a Yankee.

BILL TERRY: A Giants lifer. Eventually joined Frankie Frisch in defining the Hall of Fame down while helping steer the Veterans’ Committee. (Note: Maranville, Dickey and Terry went in in the same year, with Dickey and Terry making the first time a pair of one-club inductees went in together since the Bigs Six and Train.)

JOE DiMAGGIO: One.

TED LYONS: One, amazingly. (How many men can you name---prior to George Brett and Tony Gwynn---who played twenty-plus season careers with the same club?)

DAZZY VANCE: Five. Sold twice; traded once; waived twice; released once.

GABBY HARTNETT: Two. Released once.

HANK GREENBERG: Two. Sold once.

JOE CRONIN: Three. Sold once, traded once.

The number of Hall of Famers to this point who can be called one-club men: Twelve, out of 36. That’s 33 percent. Not even close to half, never mind most. Continue . . .

BOB FELLER: An Indian from end to end.

JACKIE ROBINSON: Always a Boy of Summer---when he decided to make his retirement after the 1956 season stick.

I’d better explain. Robinson had written a Look article, “Why I’m Quitting Baseball.” Before the article was published, the Dodgers traded him to the New York Giants, of all people. That was before Sal Maglie---erstwhile Brooklyn nemesis as a Giants marksman, but making the 1956 pennant possible for the Dodgers when he shored up the pitching and reeled off thirteen wins after he was acquired from Cleveland---was allowed to escape to the Yankees. Sport commissioned an illustration of Maglie the Dodger pitching to Robinson the Giant.

You can imagine the fun the back page boys in New York would have with that idea, all things considered.

Robinson’s retirement move was prompted by his aging and battered knees, but the Giants actually proposed a far more lucrative contract. Robinson even faced accusations of peddling his retirement story to lure more money from the Giants, and that settled it: his retirement had to stick. Not that he was destitute: he’d been offered a vice presidency at Chock Full O’Nuts, the coffee company that also operated lunch counters staffed entirely by black workers.

(That employment gave Casey Stengel a little inspiration, after Robinson had criticised the Yankee manager for one or another thing: “Robinson was a great ballplayer,” Casey cracked, “but everybody now knows he’s chock full o’nuts.”)

LUKE APPLING: One, in another runoff vote (Gehringer was elected similarly) when nobody got the required first place votes the first time around. (Old Aches and Pains fell short by one of Ted Lyons’s record for the longest tenure in White Sox silks.)

TED WILLIAMS: One.

RED RUFFING: Three. (Don’t be surprised if lots of Yankee fans forget he began as a Red Sox---once being a 20-game loser.) Traded once; released twice. (Joe DiMaggio may have said, “I thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee,” but Ruffing probably should have said it: He probably wouldn’t have been a Hall of Famer otherwise.)

JOE MEDWICK: Four. Sold once; released four times. (Actually, Ducky had six releases, but late in his career his original club, the Cardinals, released and re-upped him twice.)

STAN MUSIAL: One. (Everybody remembers: The speculation about trading Joe DiMaggio for Ted Williams. Nobody remembers, practically: The Yankees and the Cardinals once pondered swapping Yogi Berra, a native St. Louisian, for Musial. But pondered was all they did.)

ROY CAMPANELLA: One.

LOU BOUDREAU: Two.

SECOND INVENTORY: The roll of Hall of Famers who were one-club men to this point: Nineteen of 45; or, 42 percent. Moving right along . . .

SANDY KOUFAX: One.

(Remember: Before the 1966 season, Koufax and Don Drysdale staged a joint holdout looking to split a million between them for three years. During that holdout, the two pitchers were told in no uncertain terms not to even think about looking to pitch for other clubs, when Walter O’Malley told them, “We have rules preventing you from doing that.” The Koufax-Drysdale holdout is credited, rightly, with opening a peephole into the potential that lay ahead if and when the reserve clause as applied and abused by the owners could ever be invalidated.)

YOGI BERRA: One.

(Believe it or not, Yogi kind of falls under the Sandberg-Bagwell Rule. You probably don’t remember that he actually signed as a player-coach when he joined the New York Mets in 1965, after the Yankees fired him disgracefully enough the day after his seven-game World Series loss to the 1964 Cardinals---and hired Johnny Keane, who managed that Cardinal team, but resigned after a season of intrigue in which the Cardinals sought another manager actively, to replace him. But Yogi appeared in only four games as a Met pinch-hitter before calling it a playing career for keeps. Kind of a shame, too: The 1965 Mets also started the season with Warren Spahn, who was asked whether pitching to Berra would make the two the oldest battery in baseball, and who answered, “What difference would that make? We’d be the ugliest by far.”)

EARLY WYNN: Three.

SPEAKING OF WARREN SPAHN: Three. (The Mets sold him to the San Francisco Giants in August 1965.)

MICKEY MANTLE AND WHITEY FORD: One each. (It figures, considering how often Ford had to pick up Mantle’s pieces, that Whitey and Mickey would go in together . . . )

RALPH KINER: Three.

(The flip side of Branch Rickey’s saintly image---he did, after all, re-break baseball’s colour line with Jackie Robinson---is that he was so penurious and devious with player contracts that Kiner, whom Rickey lowballed and diminished, often saying how the lowly Pirates could lose just as easily without him, never mind him being just about the only reason the era’s Pirate fans had to go to the ballpark in the first place, eventually credited Rickey with the final inspiration for a players’ union.)

ROBIN ROBERTS: Four. (Roberts was one of the original movers among players behind the formation of what became the Major League Baseball Players Association.)

THIRD INVENTORY: We now have 23 one-club reserve-era Hall of Famers out of 53 Hall of Famers. The percentage bumps up . . . to a whopping 43 percent. Back to business . . .

BOB LEMON: One. (And it made three out of four Hall of Famers from among a classic pitching rotation, the 1948-54 Indians of Feller, Lemon, Wynn, and Mike Garcia.)

ERNIE BANKS: Mr. Cub said “Let’s play two,” not “Let’s play for two.”

EDDIE MATHEWS: Three. Traded twice; released once and retired.

WILLIE MAYS: Two. Traded once. (To the Mets, where he finished a career that should have ended before he and we had to see a mere imitation of Willie Mays.)

AL KALINE: One

DUKE SNIDER: Three. (Sold to the Mets, 1963; sold to the Giants, 1964.)

BOB GIBSON: One.

HANK AARON: Two. Traded once. (To the Milwaukee Brewers, enabling him to finish his career where he’d really made his name in the first place).

FRANK ROBINSON: Five. The swap for Milt Pappas was only the most infamous of the four trades involving Big Frank.

BROOKS ROBINSON: One Hoover, one club.

JUAN MARICHAL: Sold once, released once to be signed by another club. (The Dodgers, of all people.)

LUIS APARICIO: Three. Traded three times, including back to the club that raised him (the White Sox) and where Little Looie enjoyed his best seasons.

HARMON KILLEBREW: Two. Released once to be signed by another club.

DON DRYSDALE: Once a Bum, Always a Dodger.

FOURTH INVENTORY: Now, we have twenty-nine reserve-era Hall of Famers who spent their careers with one club, out of sixty-seven total Hall of Famers. The percentage hovers at 43.

HOYT WILHELM: Nine.

LOU BROCK: Two.

WILLIE McCOVEY: Three.

WE’LL TAKE A LITTLE BREAK HERE . . . because Lou Brock and Willie McCovey are the first two Hall of Famers whose careers ranged into the era in which they could have been granted free agency by their choice.

We now make it 29 out of 70; or, 41 percent. Continuing . . .

BILLY WILLIAMS: Two.

CATFISH HUNTER: Two.

Hands up to everyone who remembers Hunter was not the first free agent of the free agency era as we know it. (He earned his free agency a year before Messersmith-McNally, after an arbitrator held that Oakland owner Charlie Finley breached contract by failure to make insurance payments called for in the deal. He signed with the Yankees, pitched usefully enough until body began telling spirit where to shove it, and retired.)

WILLIE STARGELL: A Pittsburgh lifer. Pops chose to stay even after Messersmith-McNally, but the bulk of his career was played in the reserve era

JOHNNY BENCH: One. Played almost half his career in the free agency era and stayed in Cincinnati by mutual choice.

CARL YASTRZEMSKI: One. Played only the final third of his career in the free agency era, but Yaz stayed in Boston by mutual choice.

JIM PALMER: One. Cakes played almost half his career in the free agency era.

JOE MORGAN: Five. Traded once, before the free agency era, Morgan actually played more than half his career in the reserve era.

ROD CAREW: Two. Traded once; filed for free agency once and re-signed with his incumbent club.

GAYLORD (GREASE) PERRY: Eight. Played over half his career in the reserve era; traded five times, including thrice in the early free agency era.

FERGUSON JENKINS: Four. Played just over half his career in the reserve era; traded thrice before the free agency era and once during it.

TOM SEAVER: Four. The Franchise played just less than half his career in the reserve era; traded three times during the part that covered the free agency era. Not to mention being picked off the Mets by the White Sox in the insane compensation pool of 1983.

ROLLIE FINGERS: Three. The founding father of the Mustache Gang played just over half his career in the reserve era; he was one of the Messersmith-McNally ruling’s class of free agents.

FIFTH INVENTORY: By now, the number of one-club Hall of Famers who played in or mostly in the reserve era is 33, out of 82. That, ladies and gentlemen, is 40 percent.

Think about that. Of all the Hall of Fame players elected in the standard fashion whose careers were played more than half in the reserve era, 40 percent---less than half---were single-club men. And I’ve yet to mention Tony Perez, who would be elected to Cooperstown by the Baseball Writers Association of America in 2000, but who actually played a little more than half his career in the reserve era. He would make it 34 out of 82 such players, hiking the percentage of one-club men from that era to 41 percent.

Big deal?

THE FREE AGENCY ERA

Now, let’s look at the Hall of Famers elected by the BBWAA who played the majority of their careers (however slim) in a time when they had the option to file for free agency and were no longer bound by the abused and abusive reserve clause.

REGGIE JACKSON: Four. Mr. October actually played just over half his career in the free agency era; he, too, was one of the free agents made thus in the Messersmith-McNally ruling. Traded once before the free agency era.

STEVE CARLTON: Six. The Sphinx (I’m not sure who first hung that one on him, but it might have been Tim McCarver) played a little more than half his career in the free agency era. Traded once during the reserve era and once during the free agency era; released four times during the free agency era; filed for free agency only once.

MIKE SCHMIDT: One. Played most of his career in the free agency era. Filed only once for free agency and stayed with his incumbent club.

PHIL NIEKRO: Four. Played a little more than half his career in the free agency era but only filed for free agency once, staying with his incumbent club at that time. He was released thrice and traded once, all during the free agency era.

DON SUTTON: Five. Played a little over half his career in the free agency era; filed for free agency twice in the free agency period of his career. Traded thrice and released twice, all during the free agency era.

NOLAN RYAN: Four. Played more than half his career in the free agency era. Traded once during the reserve era. Filed for free agency twice and changed clubs both times.

GEORGE BRETT: One. Played all but three seasons in the free agency era. Never filed for free agency.

ROBIN YOUNT: One. Played all but two seasons in the free agency era. Filed for free agency thrice; signed with his incumbent club twice and retired after the third filing.

CARLTON FISK: Two. Played a quarter of his career (in terms of calendar seasons) in the reserve era; filed for free agency five times and changed clubs only the first time; released once and retired.

TONY PEREZ: Four. Played just over half his career in the reserve era. Traded once; filed for free agency thrice and stayed with his incumbent club twice. We factor him in the reserve era group, of course, making him the last reserve era player to be elected to Cooperstown by the BBWAA.

DAVE WINFIELD: Six. Played the bulk of his career in the free agency era; filed for free agency five times, staying with an incumbent club once and retiring after his fifth filing.

KIRBY PUCKETT: One. The first Hall of Famer elected by the BBWAA to have played his entire career in the free agency era, Puckett filed for free agency once and re-signed with his incumbent club.

OZZIE SMITH: Two. The second BBWAA Hall of Famer (based on vote results) to have played in the free agency era entirely, The Wiz was traded once; filed for free agency once and re-signed with his incumbent club.

EDDIE MURRAY: Five. Steady Eddie was the third Hall of Famer (based on vote results) to have played entirely in the free agency era, though he was in the Orioles’ farm system on the threshold of Messersmith-McNally. Traded twice; released once; filed for free agency five times, changing clubs three times, retiring after the fifth filing.

GARY CARTER: Four. Played three reserve-era seasons; traded once (in the free agency era); released once; waived once; filed for free agency twice, retiring after the second filing.

PAUL MOLITOR: Three. He played his entire career in the free agency era, the fourth such BBWAA Hall of Famer. Granted free agency five times, re-signed with his incumbent club twice, retired after the fifth filing.

DENNIS ECKERSLEY: Five. Played two seasons in the reserve era. Traded four times; filed for free agency four times, re-signed with his incumbent club once, retired after the fourth filing.

WADE BOGGS: Three. Filed for free agency three times and re-signed with his incumbent club once.

RYNE SANDBERG: One. Co-founder for our purposes of the Sandberg-Bagwell Rule.

BRUCE SUTTERr: Three. Traded once, filed for free agency once.

TONY GWYNN: Mr. Padre. Filed for free agency twice; re-signed with the Pads once and retired after the second filing.

CAL RIPKEN, JR.: One. Filed for free agency once and re-signed with his incumbent club.

GOOSE GOSSAGE: Nine. Played five seasons in the reserve era. Traded twice; filed for free agency seven times; re-signed with his incumbent club twice.

RICKEY HENDERSON: Nine. (This would tie the Man of Steal with Gossage as Hall of Famers having played for the most clubs in their careers.) Played his entire career in the free agency era. Traded three times; granted free agency eight times; re-signed with his incumbent club once.

ANDRE DAWSON: Four. Never traded; granted free agency four times; re-signed with his incumbent club once.

SIXTH INVENTORY: From the free agency era, the number of BBWAA-elected Hall of Famers who can be considered one-club men: Seven out of 24. That’s 22 percent.

But the total BBWAA-elected Hall of Famers who’ve played with a single club, up to and including Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, Jr.: 40, out of 105. That would be 38 percent. Between the reserve era and the free agency era, neither is close to even half full of single-club Hall of Famers.

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