A one-year franchise. Were it not for Ball Four they would probably been totally forgotten.
Posted on 06/23/2019 6:06:31 AM PDT by Rummyfan
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the only season in which the Seattle Pilots graced major league baseball. “Graced” is probably a stretch. They finished last in the American League West with a record of 64-98.
The Pilots punched above their weight in the notoriety department though, thanks to Jim Bouton’s tell-all book Ball Four. The book chronicled the 1969 season in which Bouton pitched for Seattle until being traded to Houston late in the year for Dooley Womack. Bouton was one of 25 pitchers to appear for the Pilots, an expansion team, in 1969.
Today, the Seattle Mariners held Seattle Pilots day. The team dressed in Pilots’ uniforms, as did even the ball girls. The Mariners did all they could to recreate the atmosphere of 1969 — e.g. with music and old-fashioned lettering on the scoreboard.
The Baltimore Orioles were in town. Back in 1969, they were hands down the best team in the American League. Now, they are the worst. However, as if on cue, they came to life against the “Pilots,” snapping a ten game losing streak.
Jim Palmer was in the house today doing color work on the Orioles’ television cast of the game. Palmer faced the Pilots three times. He went 2-0, pitching 27 innings and allowing six runs on 18 hits. Information on the number of times he told his outfielders to re-position themselves was not available.
I’m impressed with the Seattle Mariners marketing and promotion department. Yesterday was Lou Piniella day at the ballpark. I understand that, among other promotions, the team handed out Hawaiian Lou-au shirts. Unfortunately, Lou himself, now age 75, did not attend. I hope he’s doing okay.
Despite being a Yankee for much of his career, Piniella was one of my favorite players. He’s also an underrated manager, I think.
Pinella’s teams won six division titles in 23 years at the helm and he was named manager of the year three times. His 2001 Mariners won 116 games.
Eight times, Piniella’s teams won 90 games or more, and he accomplished this with four of the five teams he managed — the Yankees, Cincinnati, Seattle, and the Cubs. Only in his native Tampa did Pinella fail to produce a winner, but even there the team’s performance picked up after he took over. Piniella was also a world class arguer with umpires.
Appropriately, Seattle won on Lou Piniella night and lost on Seattle Pilots day. The fans, I imagine, enjoyed both occasions.
A one-year franchise. Were it not for Ball Four they would probably been totally forgotten.
If I’m not mistaken, the franchise moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers, a rare eastward team relocation.
Ball Four literally rocked the baseball world when it came out. Bouton was reviled and castigated no end for dating to Sully the images of the baseball hero’s of the day.
Compared to the behavior of the major league jerks in the game these days,Bouton’s book simply humanized the players.
My Royals haven’t done too bad since then. Four World Series with two wins.
I never thought Lou Paniella was underrated as a manager. His record speaks for itself.
The Pilots ownership had been promised a park-deal which the mayor and city council fell through. It was the same kind of situation for the SuperSonics...they were told that a new arena would come, and it just never did.
Selling the Pilots to a used car dealer named Bud Selig would reverberate the baseball world for decades with Bud (as commissioner, no longer as owner) forcing the Brewers into the National League and eventually extorting the Astros as their replacements in the American League with their hideous Designated Hitter rule.
May Bud rot in hell.
That was a great season, but they couldn't get past the Yankees in the postseason.
He was the manager of the 1990 Reds who won it all.
I proudly still have my autographed Ball Four book. The funny thing is that he got the notoriety but there was a book written about 10 years earlier that was similar but forgotten. The reason Ball Four was so notorious in it’s day was that it revealed that Mickey Mantle was not the saint everyone thought during his playing days.
My dad took me to the last home game of the season. I distinctly remember after the last out, a guy ran out onto the field with a sign that said “KEEP JOE”, referring to Pilots manager Joe Schultz.
The St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles.
He was also largely responible for that debauchery called “Interleague Play”. The baseball equivalent of shacking up.
I lived in da Bronex as a kid, moved just across the GWB when I was 9 and have always been a big fan of the NYY.
I seem to recall the Cops Cabana incident where Mantle, Billy Martin, Hank Bauer and I think Whitey Ford mixed it up with a few antagonizers (no doubt Brooklyn Dodger fans). It took place in the early-mid 50s and long before Boutens book and was in the papers. Back in the day the sports headlines/stories were on the back page of the NY DAILY NEWS and the DAILY MIRROR.
The Boston Braves moved eastward from Milwaukee to Atlanta.
The St. Louis Browns to Baltimore (Orioles)
The original Baltimore Orioles to New York (Highlanders)
Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee (Brewers)
4 out of 13.
IIRC the news of the Pilot’s move hit Seattle’s media on 4/1/1970. Everyone thought it was an April fools joke! I bought Bouton’s book, Ball Four, that summer.
And the Expos to Washington via Puerto Rico, a north-south move. And now there is talk of the Rays going to Montreal....
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