Chuck Cottier: An Angel Traded By the Pilots to the Indians

Just searching around for my next topic I stumbled across the minor league Baseball Reference page of Chuck Cottier.

He bounced around quite a bit as a player, and finished with a short stop as an Angel in 1968 and 1969.

His last two transactions listed on his major league page ...

• February 16, 1967: Purchased by the California Angels from the Washington Senators.
• April 6, 1970: Released by the California Angels. 

...that would make sense enough, but doesn't explain a 1968 stop at Portland in the Cleveland Indians system.

The truth is very strange. From  Spokane Daily Chronicle of May 14, 1968...

“The Portland Beavers and the Seattle Pilots have traded two second basemen.

The Pilots, an American League baseball team, paid an undisclosed amount of cash and traded Chuck Cottier of the Seattle Angels for Gus Gil of the Beavers.

Both the Angels and the Beavers are members of the Pacific Coast League.

The Cleveland Indians, the parent club of the Beavers, said Cottier will play for the Beavers beginning today. Gil will play for the Angels until the end of the 1968 season.”

SO. The PILOTS traded Cottier from the ANGELS to the INDIANS, in effect.

Yet, Cottier finished the season with the Angels!!!

From the Arizona Republic of Phoenix Weds. Aug. 7 1968... (no link, sorry)

(The Angels) “purchased the contract of veteran infielder Chuck Cottier from Portland”

That is a lot more complicated than a straight-up purchase.

From Gus Gil's Baseball-Reference major league page: 

  

May 13, 1968: Purchased by the Seattle Pilots from the Cleveland Indians. (Date given is approximate. Exact date is uncertain.)

Now we know what really happened!

Cottier from www.ootpdevelopments.com


 

 Gil swiped from flickr