Los Angeles Gives Denver Flowers for Fridley

Big Jim Fridley was an outfielder for the Indians, Orioles and Reds and several minor league teams in the fifties. Ben Flowers pitched for quite a few teams in the early fifties.

Between stints with Baltimore in 1954 and the Reds in 1958, Fridley was involved in a few transactions, as noted on his Baseball Reference major league page.

• May 30, 1957: Purchased by the Brooklyn Dodgers from the New York Yankees. (Date given is approximate. Exact date is uncertain.)
• April 10, 1958: Purchased by the Detroit Tigers from the Los Angeles Dodgers. (Date given is approximate. Exact date is uncertain.)
• April 11, 1958: Purchased by the Cincinnati Redlegs from the Detroit Tigers. (Date given is approximate. Exact date is uncertain.)  

That certainly looks funny and very uncharted. But thanks to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner of May 24, 1957,  we can unravel one of these transactions:

"Los Angeles announced the acquisition of outfielder Jim Fridley from Denver of the American Assn., in exchange for pitcher Ben Flowers, who was 1-4 with the Angels this year. Fridley has lit .313 for Denver this season."

Los Angeles was a Dodgers AAA team, and Denver a Yankees AAA team. Flowers' Baseball Reference major league page has no mention of the deal at all.

Haven't cracked the other two Fridley deals yet!

Next time, a debt gets paid in a previously Unknown Transaction!

Flowers from Wikipedia, Fridley from COMC.COM