1960s Baseball

As I mentioned 2 posts ago, I went to an Expos' spring training game in 1974. Here are a few other things I found recently. (It's amazing how a little thing like moving will shake all the dust off of one's forgotten archives!)


An 11 x 8 tri-fold team roster (with Gary Carter as a non-roster invitee!)  The visiting Dodgers' roster is on the back flap. (Why are there periods after INF and OF, but not after P and C?)



My ticket for that game:



Jim from The Phillies Room: Wait until you see what else I found! (it's from April 1966)

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Look what I found in my house a few weeks ago:

In 1974, I went to Disney World, with a side trip to Daytona Beach, the spring training site of the Montreal Expos. Here's a program from a game vs. the Dodgers. (Looks like I planned to keep score, but gave up after entering Lee Lacy's name in the batting order!)

 

There are 3 autographs on the back: Tim Foli and Walt Alston at the top, and Ron Fairly at the bottom.

The MLB network was showing a 1970 game between the Expos and Pirates. The lighting was so bad at Jarry Park in Montreal that not only do the players have shadows, but when the camera behind home plate follows fly balls to the outfield, you can't even see the outfield fence, because the entire area is in shadows.

In 1969, expansion added 4 new teams, unleashing 100 "major-league" players on the public. The National League added the Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres. It had been seven years since the previous NL expansion added the Mets and Colt .45s (later renamed Astros).

This time, the expansion draft guidelines were going to be more favorable to the new teams. (I guess they wanted to avoid another team losing 120 games!) Each established team would protect 15 players on their 40-man rosters, and the Expos and Padres would each select up to 30 players (3 per established team, so that the existing teams would each lose a total of 6 players). When a team lost a player, they could protect 3 more players on their roster. (So, each team would theoretically lose their 16th, 20th, 24th, 28th, 32nd, and 36th best players.)

Here's how it went (click to enlarge):


After the draft (held in October 1968), teams also signed free agents, made rule 5 draft picks, trades, etc. The deals listed above were those that occurred before opening day 1969.

Notice that Johnny Podres is listed with the Padres. He had been out of baseball in 1968, but came back at age 36 for one season with the Padres.

The Phillies' Larry Jackson decided to retire, rather than to play for an expansion team. For compensation, the Phillies offered a group of players from which the Expos could choose one. When they chose shortstop Bobby Wine, this cleared out the Phillies roster of all their major-league shortstops (Bobby Wine, Gary Sutherland, Roberto Pena). No matter, it was already planned that Don Money would be promoted from triple-A and handed the shortstop job in 1969.


Out of the above collection of prospects, has-beens, never-weres, and other assorted backups, the teams settled on these lineups:



Next time: The 1969 American League expansion


10/13/2013 edit: I just found another blog entry about expansion today. It never occurred to me that Mickey Mantle would be left unprotected, but it doesn't make sense to protect him.