Baxes played one year in the majors and was the brother of Mike Baxes, who got a couple of shots with the A's in the late 50's. Jim split his lone year, 1959, with the Dodgers and then the Indians, bopping some homers and getting named by fans to the Topps All-Rookie team.
Apparently that wasn't good enough for the Indians, and they sold him to the White Sox, who farmed him back out.
George Freese was a longtime minor leaguer who popped up in the majors in 1953 for the Tigers, 1955 for the Pirates, and 1961 for the Cubs. His brother Gene was a pretty solid third baseman in the early sixties for a few teams.
George Freese was sent to Portland by the Cubs in 1957 and stayed there through a couple of changes that saw that team transfer from the Cubs to the A's then to independent status in 1960.
Jim Baxes was in San Diego in 1960 for the White Sox. The two were swapped during the season in a previously undocumented (by Baseball Reference and Retrosheet) trade found here in the July 14, 1960 San Bernadino County Sun...
"Beavers Trade Freese to S .D. For Jim Baxes PORTLAND (AP) - The Portland Beavers yesterday traded George Freese, their leading home run hitter, to the San Diego Padres in exchange for Jim Baxes. It was a straight player deal..."
Baxes finished up at Portland the next season, which had been picked up by the Cardinals. Freese would be re-acquired by the Cubs somehow...still looking for that one.
Baxes stolen from the great Dodger-centric blog at
Per the 4/19/1961 Sporting News, San Diego sold Freese to Houston, a Cubs farm team.
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