Tag: Charles O. Finley

The day the DH was born – January 11, 1973

After a seven-hour meeting in the Lancaster Room of the Sheraton-O’Hare Motor Hotel in Rosemont, Illinois, American League owners voted 8-4 for something they called the “designated pinch hitter for the pitcher,” or DPH, an abbreviation quickly modified to DH. I asked Clark Griffith how the Twins voted and here is what he had to say. “The Twins voted for it and I think that was a mistake. The vote was based on having Killebrew and Oliva for DH. I was involved in the drafting of the rule and after the vote it occurred to me that we used the wrong statistic to support it. The stat used was pitcher BA v. hitters BA and it should have been pitchers and those who hit for pitchers v. other batters. In essence, that means measuring the ninth hitter with all others. The effect of not removing a pitcher for a PH was not considered either. The DH is a horrible rule that should be allowed to go away. I love reading NL box scores for their complexity.”

From what I can determine, Charlie Finley, former Oakland Athletics owner, is generally credited with leading the push for the DH in 1973. He was strongly supported by American League President Joe Cronin and owners Nick Mileti (Cleveland), Jerry Hoffberger (Baltimore), John Allyn (Chicago) and Bob Short (Texas). John Fetzer (Detroit), Bud Selig (Milwaukee) and Calvin Griffith (Minnesota) would make 8 votes in favor with Boston, New York, Kansas City and California voting against the DH.

 

Current rules for the DH

A hitter may be designated to bat for the starting pitcher and all subsequent pitchers in any game without otherwise affecting the status of the pitcher(s) in the game. A Designated Hitter for the pitcher must be selected prior to the game and must be included in the lineup cards presented to the Umpire-in-Chief.

The Designated Hitter named in the starting lineup must come to bat at least one time, unless the opposing club changes pitchers. It is not mandatory that a club designate a hitter for the pitcher, but failure to do so prior to the game precludes the use of a Designated Hitter for that game.

Pinch hitters for a Designated Hitter may be used. Any substitute hitter for a Designated Hitter himself becomes a Designated Hitter. A replaced Designated Hitter shall not re-enter the game in any capacity. The Designated Hitter may be used defensively, continuing to bat in the same position in the batting order, but the pitcher must then bat in the place of the substituted defensive player, unless more than one substitution is made, and the manager then must designate their spots in the batting order.

A runner may be substituted for the Designated Hitter and the runner assumes the role of the Designated Hitter.

A Designated Hitter is “locked” into the batting order. No multiple substitutions may be made that will alter the batting rotation of the Designated Hitter.

Once the game pitcher is switched from the mound to a defensive position this move shall terminate the DH role for the remainder of the game. Once a pinch-hitter bats for any player in the batting order and then enters the game to pitch, this move shall terminate the Designated Hitter role for the remainder of the game.

Once a Designated Hitter assumes a defensive position this move shall terminate the Designated Hitter role for the remainder of the game.

At first, the designated hitter rule did not apply to any games in the World Series, in which the AL and NL winners met for the world championship. From 1976-1985, it applied only to Series held in even-numbered years, and in 1986 the current rule took effect, according to which the designated hitter rule is used or not used according to the practice of the home team. The list below shows the career numbers for players that played at least 50% of their games at DH.

Rk Player G From To Age AB R H HR RBI BA
1 Harold Baines 2830 1980 2001 21-42 9908 1299 2866 384 1628 .289
2 Frank Thomas 2322 1990 2008 22-40 8199 1494 2468 521 1704 .301
3 Don Baylor 2292 1970 1988 21-39 8198 1236 2135 338 1276 .260
4 Edgar Martinez 2055 1987 2004 24-41 7213 1219 2247 309 1261 .312
5 David Ortiz 1969 1997 2013 21-37 7057 1208 2023 431 1429 .287
6 Hal McRae 1837 1973 1987 27-41 6568 873 1924 169 1012 .293
7 Chili Davis 1562 1988 1999 28-39 5525 808 1540 249 954 .279
8 Andre Thornton 1225 1977 1987 27-37 4313 650 1095 214 749 .254
9 Travis Hafner 1183 2002 2013 25-36 4058 619 1107 213 731 .273
10 Billy Butler 1015 2007 2013 21-27 3768 445 1124 118 562 .298
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/5/2014.
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The list below shows the numbers for Twins players that played at least 50% of their games at DH.

Rk Player G From To Age AB R H HR RBI BA
1 Glenn Adams 501 1977 1981 29-33 1387 138 390 29 196 .281
2 David Ortiz 455 1997 2002 21-26 1477 215 393 58 238 .266
3 Paul Molitor 422 1996 1998 39-41 1700 237 530 23 271 .312
4 Chili Davis 291 1991 1992 31-32 978 147 276 41 159 .282
5 Jose Morales 290 1978 1980 33-35 674 79 200 12 101 .297
6 Dave Winfield 220 1993 1994 41-42 841 107 222 31 119 .264
7 Jim Thome 179 2010 2011 39-40 482 69 128 37 99 .266
8 Danny Goodwin 172 1979 1981 25-27 425 52 103 8 55 .242
9 Jim Dwyer 145 1988 1990 38-40 329 47 95 6 43 .289
10 Rondell White 137 2006 2007 34-35 446 40 102 11 58 .229
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/5/2014.

This Day in Twins History – September 20, 1965

A Catfish whips a Mudcat, at least on this day

Catfish Hunter
Catfish Hunter

Just 537 fans paid to watch the Kansas City A’s Jim “Catfish” Hunter beat Jim “Mudcat” Grant 8-2 at Met Stadium in a makeup game in a cool 52 degree drizzle. Don Mincher hits two home runs. It is the smallest paid crowd to ever watch the Twins play at home. B-R shows paid attendance of 547 but Twins media guide states 537.

Mudcat Grant
Mudcat Grant

The Twins were up by 9.5 games going into this game and would clinch the 1965 AL pennant just 6 days later. The team went on to win 102 games in 1965 the most in Twins history and yet the Twins would finish 1965 with an attendance of just 1,463,268 in 77 home dates for an average of 19,003 fans per game. The Twins played the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Twins first ever World Series and lost 4 games to 3.

How do you get a nicknames like Mudcat and Catfish? Legend has it that this is how it came to be. Jim Grant was with the Indians and was the roommate of his boyhood idol Larry Doby when he first came to Cleveland, and Doby dubbed him “Mudcat”, saying that he was “ugly as a Mississippi mudcat”. The nickname stuck. As for Jim Hunter, it was in 1965 that the PR-conscious Athletics’ owner Charles O. Finley that gave Hunter the nickname “Catfish” in an effort to pique fan interest. A story circulated that Hunter’s family gave him the nickname as a child when he went missing and was later found with a string of catfish but there seems to be no truth to that story.

This Day in Twins History – November 6, 1976

After having a season for the ages (still holds AL record for most wins and saves in the same season) with the Minnesota Twins going 17-5 with 20 saves and a 3.01 ERA in 167.2 innings, reliever Bill Campbell (Soup) becomes the first player in MLB to cash in on the new free-agent system. The reliever signs with the Red Sox for big money, a four-year deal for  one-million dollars after being paid $23,000 by the Twins for the 1976 season. How did free agency come into play anyway?

The Reserve Clause, it doesn’t sound that bad, right? But what it really did was to tie a player to the ballclub that originally signed him for as long as the team wished to pay him for his services. It was a paragraph in each player’s contract that allowed a baseball team to keep him indefinitely until he was sold, traded or released. It was part of baseball’s antitrust exemption and allowed the team to renew his contract the following year even if the player refused to sign. The players insisted the renewal was good for one year; owners said it could be invoked indefinitely.

 

Curt Flood

After the 1969 season, 14-year outfielder Curt Flood was traded by the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies. Flood appealed in vain to commissioner Bowie Kuhn to be declared a free agent, then sued for it, writing that he was not property to be bought and sold regardless of his wishes and that “any system that produces that result violates my basic right as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States.” On June 19, 1972, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 against him.

After the 1974 season Oakland A’s pitcher Catfish Hunter claimed that the Oakland A’s owner Charles O. Finley had violated a portion  of his contract and an arbitrator agreed allowing Hunter to sign with any team of his choice and on December 31, 1974 signed a five-year $3.75 million contract with the New York Yankees. Those damn Yankees spent big money even back then.

Unhappy with their contracts, pitchers Andy Messersmith, 30, of the Dodgers and Dave McNally, 33, of the Expos played the 1975 without signing contracts and when the season ended they declared themselves free to sign with whom they pleased. A three-man panel made up of an owners representative, a players representative and an independent arbitrator, Peter Seitz heard the case. You can guess how the owners rep and players rep voted and then Seitz cast his vote in favor of the players making them free agents. The baseball owners quickly fired Peter Seitz and appealed their case in Federal Court but in February of 1976 they lost their appeal. In the spring of 1976 after instituting a spring training player lock-out the owners and players finally agreed on a free agency system. McNally never benefited from the system retiring from baseball before the 1976 season began but Messersmith signed a 3-year, $1.75 million contract that contained “renewal clauses after each season” and Braves owner Ted Turner  stated that “Messersmith will never be traded, he will be a Brave as long as I am”. However; after two seasons in Atlanta where Messersmith put up a 16-15 record the Braves sold him to the New York Yankees who kept him for one year before releasing him, Messersmith with his tail between his legs returned to the Dodgers in 1979 but in August the Dodgers said they had seen enough and Messersmith’s big league career was history. I guess you can make a case that paying big bucks for multi-years to free agent pitchers didn’t work back then and seldom works now. Keep this in mind when you get after the Twins brain-trust to pay big money for a free agent pitcher.

Sports Illustrated did a rather lengthy piece about the 1976 MLB free agent class back in their April 16, 1990 issue called “the first to be free“.

Check out the other Twins events that occurred on November 6th in our Today in Twins History page.