by David Fleitz

(coming from McFarland in 2004)

The Yankees and the A's, 1955-60

by David Fleitz

Comments? Send e-mail to
dlfleitz@wcnet.org

Roger Maris in a 1959 Topps card.  He was traded to the Yankees in December of that year.

The Yankees sent Ralph Terry to the A's in 1957 and recalled him in 1959.  He posted a 16-3 mark for the world champion Yankees in 1961, and followed it with a 23-12 log in 1962.

In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, the New York Yankees played the player-acquisition game better than anybody. Their scouts signed future stars like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, and their minor-league system was one of the best in the game.

However, by the mid-1950s the other clubs appeared to be catching up to the Yankees. Some teams, most notably the Dodgers, moved quickly to sign the excellent African-American players made available by the ending of the color line in 1947. Some good young players decided to sign elsewhere, not wanting to get stuck in the large Yankee farm system. Other teams became more active on the trade front, and built their own minor-league systems, following the model created by Branch Rickey in St. Louis and, later, in Brooklyn and Pittsburgh.

The Yankees won a record five World Series in a row ending in 1953, but they lost the pennant in 1954 to Cleveland. Their dominance of baseball was threatened.

However, the Yankees were the richest and most resourceful club in baseball, then as now, and they found a way to ensure a continuous supply of good players. They managed to turn one of their American League rivals, the Kansas City Athletics, into a virtual farm team.

How did this happen? Connie Mack's family sold the Philadelphia Athletics in 1954, and Yankee principal owner Dan Topping arranged for one of his business friends, Arnold Johnson, to buy the A's and move the team to Kansas City. It's still unclear how much influence the Yankee ownership held over the A's, but the two teams then embarked on a six-year series of trades. These trades, as we shall see, almost always favored the Yankees.

The Yankees, in fact, rarely traded players with any other team in this six-year period. From 1955 to 1960, the Yankees gained many outstanding players from Kansas City, and managed to give up only marginal value in return. It must have worked, since the Yankees won four more pennants in a row beginning in 1955, while the new Kansas City team struggled to stay out of last place.

Were the A's simply bad traders, or did the Yankees and Athletics have some kind of secret agreement that gave the Yankees their choice of all of Kansas City's good players?

Let's look at these trades in detail:

December 16, 1953 – Philadelphia sends Eddie Robinson, Loren Babe, Harry Byrd, Tom Hamilton, and Carmen Mauro to NY for Vic Power, Jim Finigan, Don Bollweg, Bill Renna, Jim Robertson, and John Gray.

This 11-player deal really began the transfer of players from the A’s to the Yankees.  First baseman Vic Power had won the American Association batting title in 1953, but the Yankees were not yet willing to add a black player to their roster.  They instead decided to put the veteran Eddie Robinson at first and wait for Bill Skowron to develop.  Harry Byrd was one of the A’s best pitchers, but the cash-strapped ballclub sent him and his large salary to New York.  The Yankees gained some experienced players, while the A’s gained some salary relief and two fine young players in Power and Finigan.  Advantage – Athletics.

March 30, 1955 - KC sends $50,000 to NY for Ewell Blackwell, Tom Gorman, and Dick Kryhoski.

The A's were beginning their first season in Kansas City after moving from Philadelphia, so perhaps they wanted to put a recognizable name on the playing roster. However, Blackwell, once one of the most formidable pitchers in baseball, was done by 1955, though Gorman pitched fairly well for two years. Advantage - Even.

May 11, 1955 - KC sends Sonny Dixon and cash to NY for Enos Slaughter and Johnny Sain.

Sain and Slaughter were two more famous names for the struggling new team. Sain's career ended that year, and Slaughter merely marked time with the A's until the Yankees could find room for him on their roster. Advantage - Even.

June 14, 1956 - KC sends Bill Renna, Moe Burtschy and cash to NY for Lou Skizas and Eddie Robinson.

The Yankees sent Robinson back to the A’s after Bill Skowron claimed the first base job.  Advantage – Even.

July 11, 1956 – KC sends Tom Lasorda to NY for Wally Burnette.

This was a simple exchange of a lefthanded pitcher (Lasorda) for a righthanded one.  Burnette went 14-21 for the A’s in the next three seasons, while Lasorda never pitched for the Yankees.  Advantage – Athletics.

August 25, 1956 - KC sends Enos Slaughter to NY for the waiver price.

The Yankees needed a bat on the bench for the stretch drive, so they recalled Slaughter from exile. This was also the day that they released Phil Rizzuto after sixteen years in the Yankee infield. Slaughter was the A's best hitter with a .322 average in 1955 and .278 in 1956. Advantage - Yankees.

October 16, 1956 - KC sends cash to NY for Bob Cerv.

The Yankees didn't have room for Cerv, so they sent him to KC to get some playing time. By 1958 he was an All-Star. Advantage - Athletics.

February 19, 1957 - KC sends six players (Bobby Shantz, Art Ditmar, a player to be named later, and three others) to NY for Billy Hunter, Rip Coleman, Tom Morgan, Mickey McDermott, Milt Graff, and Irv Noren.  On June 4, 1957, KC sent Clete Boyer to NY to complete the deal.

Shantz, Ditmar, and Boyer all played important roles in the Yankee pennant-winners of 1957, 1958, and 1960, and the Yankees didn't have to give up a single key player in exchange. Hunter batted only .191 in 1957 for the A's, while Graff batted .181, and none of the rest of the players did much better.

There was another angle to this deal. The Athletics signed Boyer to a bonus contract in 1955, when Boyer was 18 years old. The rules of baseball then stated that when a player signed for a large bonus, he had to remain on the major league roster for two years before the club could send him to the minor leagues. The Yankees didn't want Boyer to waste a spot on their roster, so the A's obligingly signed him, then sent him on to New York when the two years were up. Advantage - Yankees.

June 15, 1957 - KC sends Ryne Duren, Jim Pisoni, Harry Simpson, and Milt Graff to NY for Billy Martin, Woodie Held, Ralph Terry, and Bob Martyn.

The Yankees accomplished three things with this trade. They dumped Martin after an embarrassing incident at the Copacabana nightclub, they sent the 21-year-old Terry to KC to get some innings under his belt, and they strengthened their bench with Simpson, who drove in 105 runs for the A's in 1956. The Yankees also scored big when Duren turned into a premier reliever. Advantage - Yankees.

June 15, 1958 - KC sends Virgil Trucks and Duke Maas to NY for Harry Simpson and Bob Grim.

The main object of this trade was Maas, a righthander who pitched well for the Yankees for the next three seasons. Grim, who won 20 games as a rookie in 1954, had a sore arm by this time, and soon found himself traded to Cleveland. Advantage - Yankees.

August 22, 1958- KC sends Murry Dickson to NY for Zeke Bella and cash.

The Yankees were already far ahead of the rest of the league at this point, but they wanted another lefty in the bullpen for the upcoming World Series. Dickson, 41 years old, was one of Kansas City's few reliable pitchers with a 9-5 mark, but the A's accepted the undistinguished Bella in return. Bella batted under .200 in his brief major league career. Advantage - Yankees.

April 8, 1959 - KC sends Jack Urban to NY for Mark Freeman.

This trade of pitchers accomplished little. One month later, Urban was gone to St. Louis, and the A's obligingly sent Freeman back to New York. Advantage - Even.

April 12, 1959 - KC sends Mike Baxes and Bob Martyn to NY for Russ Snyder and Tommy Carroll.

Snyder, a good hitter, batted .313 in part-time action in 1959, while neither Baxes nor Martyn played for the Yankees. Advantage - Athletics.

May 9, 1959 - KC obtains Murry Dickson from NY for the waiver price. KC also sends Mark Freeman to NY for the waiver price.

This evened out the Freeman-Urban trade, since the Yankees had no use for the 42-year-old Dickson. The Yankees gave up very little (Bella and some cash) for the privilege of renting Dickson's services for a few months. Advantage - Even.

May 26, 1959 - KC sends Ralph Terry and Hector Lopez to NY for Johnny Kucks, Tom Sturdivant, and Jerry Lumpe.

Lumpe was a solid second baseman, but the Yankees had no room for him after Bobby Richardson won the starting job in 1959. Terry was now ready to take his place in the Yankee rotation, so he returned to New York. Lopez proved to be a valuable utility player and spot starter in the infield and outfield. Kucks and Sturdivant pitched well earlier in the decade, but performed poorly for the A's. Advantage - Yankees.

December 11, 1959 - KC sends Roger Maris, Kent Hadley, and Joe DeMaestri to NY for Norm Siebern, Hank Bauer, Marv Throneberry, and Don Larsen.

This is one of the most lopsided trades in history.

Siebern was a good hitter, but he fell out of favor with Casey Stengel after a few fielding lapses in the 1958 World Series. He performed well for the A's for several years after this. However, Bauer was at the end of the line (he became the A's manager in 1961), Larsen went 1-10 on the hill in 1960, and Throneberry never lived up to the potential he displayed in the minors. The Yankees wanted DeMaestri to back up Tony Kubek at shortstop, so the A's let him go because they thought Ken Hamlin was ready to step in. However, Hamlin hit only .224 in 1960. Maris, on the other hand, belted 39 homers for the Yankees in 1960 and 61 more in 1961, winning the MVP Award in both years. Advantage - Yankees, by a wide margin.

May 19, 1960 - KC sends Bob Cerv to NY for Andy Carey.

Cerv, whom the Yankees sold to the A’s in 1956, set the Kansas City team record in 1958 with 38 homers and was a starter on the American League All-Star team that year. The Yankees needed him to fill their left field hole, so they sent Andy Carey, who lost his third base job to Clete Boyer, to the Athletics for Cerv. Carey had annoyed Casey Stengel by swinging for the fences and striking out too much, and he didn't last long with the A's. Advantage - Yankees.

Athletics owner Arnold Johnson died in early 1960, so the team was put up for sale and the cozy arrangement was finished as far as the A's were concerned. However, they couldn't resist making one more trade.

June 14, 1961 - KC sends Bud Daley to NY for Art Ditmar and Deron Johnson.

At the beginning of 1961, the Athletics had one good starting pitcher in Bud Daley, a popular lefthander who won 16 games in 1959 and 16 more in 1960 for a bad team. However, the Yankees needed a lefty, and they dispatched Art Ditmar, a 15-game winner who started the first game of the 1960 World Series, to Kansas City for Daley. Ditmar didn't win a game in KC, going 0-6, while Daley won 8 games and pitched in the Series that fall. The Kansas City fans protested this move so vehemently that new team owner Charlie Finley promised to stop trading with the Yankees, and nearly four years passed before the two teams made another deal. Advantage - Yankees once again.

In all, from 1953 to 1961 the two teams made 18 deals in which the Athletics sent 34 players and four hunks of cash to the Yankees and received 42 players and two hunks of cash in return. However, the Yankees got a whole raft of good players - Maris, Boyer, Terry, Cerv, etc. - while the A's got the Yankees' problem children (Martin), old guys at the end of the line (Bauer, Sain, Blackwell), and players who couldn't get out of Casey Stengel's doghouse (Siebern, Carey). It seemed that any time the Yankees needed to fill a hole, they'd find someone in KC to fill it, and the A's would be satisfied with peanuts in return.

The real outcome of this series of trades can be measured by the standings. From 1955 to 1960, the Yankees won five pennants and finished third the other time, while the A's never finished higher than sixth in an eight team league. The A's 73-81 record in 1958 was their best record in the six-year period, but after they traded Cerv, Maris, and Terry they dropped to last place again in 1960.

Many people call the 1961 Yankees the greatest team of all time. Ten of their players came directly from the Athletics. In return, the A's were left so decimated that their 1961 team finished tied for the cellar of the American League, behind the Los Angeles Angels expansion team and tied with the expansion Washington Senators.

The solid core of the Yankees, provided in large part by these lopsided trades, stayed intact for several more years, and the Yankees won four more pennants in a row from 1961 to 1964 while the A's floundered some more.

I don't have a sense of the feeling at the time about this unhealthy friendship between the Yankees and the Athletics. I would surmise that the rest of the American League teams were screaming mad about this arrangement, but there wasn't a thing they could do about it. The Yankees were the richest and most powerful team in the league, and they could pretty much do whatever they wanted.

Could such an arrangement happen today? Well, there's still a lot of disparity between wealthy teams like the Yankees and small-market clubs like the Royals or Twins. Today, poor teams have to trade their good players for whatever they can get, while the Yankees signed Cuban defector Jose Contreras for millions of dollars and added him to a pitching staff with six other legitimate starters. What would stop the owners of a rich team from making an offer to a poor one, and passing along some money for the right of first refusal on the poor team’s best young players?

Unless the major league owners institute some kind of meaningful revenue-sharing and close the money gap between the top and bottom teams, we may see some form of the 1955-60 "friendship" between the Yankees and the A's play itself out all over again.