Some Easy Ex-Twins; Uhlaender and Stigman

A couple easy ones for mid-week.

Dick Stigman was a solid pitcher for a couple of years in the sixties, especially for the Twins. He was sent to the Red Sox and didn't fare so well in 1966. He would miss the 1967 Series team as he was sent to the Reds in the off-season, and to their minors at AAA Buffalo. Very late in the year, he ends up at San Diego with no explanation...until now...

From the Spokane Daily Chronicle of Aug. 15, 1967...

"Lefthanded pitcher Dick Stigman of the Buffalo Bisons has been sold to the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League by the Cincinnati Reds, Jack Guthrie, Bisons president, said yesterday."

Stigman went 1-1 with a complete game in two appearances, both starts, and his career was done.

Ted Uhlaender was a pretty fair outfielder for the Twins and Indians who, strangely, had his best Major League season in the year of the pitcher, 1968.

He was dealt to the Reds for 1972 and didn't take well to the new league. In 1973 he was in the minors, at AAA Iowa for the White Sox system, with no mention why on his player page. We found it!

From the Milwaukee Sentinel of June 21, 1973...

"The Cincinnati Reds sold the contract of outfielder Ted Uhlaender  to the Iowa Oaks of the American Association Wednesday. (June 20, 1973)”

 Stigman and Uhlaender were both on the 1965 AL Champion Twins, but neither saw action in the series. Uhlaender DID make it in the series with the Reds in 1972.

Uhlaender from the great 1967topps.blogspot.com 

Stigman from the great resource www.ootpdevelopments.com

Don't Forget Darrell Osteen!

Darrell Osteen was a pitcher (NOT related to Claude) for the Reds and A's in the late 60's to 1970. He didn't fare very well in the majors at 1-4 with an 8.05 ERA. He found himself at AAA Iowa for the A's to start 1971, and finished the season (and his pro career) at Syracuse and the Yankees' chain.

How did he get there? No listing on his Baseball Reference major league page...

We find the answer in the Des Moines Register of May 26, 1971...

"The New York Yankees Tuesday night traded first baseman-outfielder Curt Blefary 27, to Oakland for minor league pitchers Rob Gardner and Darrell Osteen. Blefary, who has also played for Houston and Baltimore, batted .194 with one home run and two RBIs in 21 games with the Yankees. Gardner just reported to the Iowa Oaks after being demoted by the Athletics 10 days ago. He started the season with the Yankees, then went to Oakland with pitcher Ron Klimkowski in the Felipe Alou deal. Osteen had been with the Oaks all season, but had seen little action. Both he and Gardner will be assigned to Syracuse of the International League."

 AHA! This trade is listed on Ron Gardner's Baseball Reference major league page as...

"May 26, 1971: Traded by the Oakland Athletics to the New York Yankees for Curt Blefary."

Now we can add Osteen to that trade. Don't forget Darrell!

By the way, Ron Gardner was traded by the Yankees to the A's for Felipe Alou...traded back to the Yankees in this deal....then traded by the Yankees to the A's for MATTY Alou.

He was back in the Yankees' minors in 1975 (we have no transaction detail on that yet), so one can assume that he was at least OFFERED to someone for Jesus Alou.

Darrell Osteen from Topps Archives, Rob Gardner from Baseball Almanac website

Gathering Clues in a Larry Elliot Trade

Larry Elliot was a minor league slugger that made the majors for a few seasons with first Pittsburgh, then the Mets. As was the case with players such as Elliot, he bounced around for awhile in the AAA's for a few teams before calling it a career.

In 1968 Elliot starts the season with Vancouver, having been traded to the A's the year before. He moves to Seattle and the Angels' chain during the season, then back to the A's and AAA Iowa for 1968. Curious.

I found this article from The Des Moines Register of April 6, 1969, 

Parsing together the interesting pieces regarding the move of the Vancouver A's AAA team to Iowa:

" An indiscreet move had (cost?) Vancouver yet another muscleman before former lowan Phil Seghi was brought in as the new farm director. -  Phil's predecessor... gave outfielder Larry Elliot to Seattle in exchange for a first baseman who flopped."

Okay, I can't find right now who else was involved in that deal, so we go to the 1968 Vanouver Mounties Baseball Reference page  and see if we can find a first baseman who "flopped" after coming to Vancouver from Seattle.

The only player that fits the bill is Charlie Vinson!

For the entire season, Vinson hit just .215 with 6 HR and 24 RBI, while Elliot hit .232, 13 HR and 71 RBI. No Vancouver player hit more than 10 HR that season.

To be fair, the former Angel first baseman Vinson had several good AAA seasons afterward, while Elliot would have just one more year in baseball.

The Register article talked about how the Iowa club would be much better than they were in Vancouver. Well, the Mounties were 58-88, the Oaks were 62-88.

Elliot for Vinson in the trade, can someone find the date?

Elliot pic from Trading Card Database, Vinson from Baseball Birthdays

Upon Further Review...Don Young for Roberto Rodriguez

In the last blog we looked at a strange deal where apparently Don Young was sent to the A's Iowa farm club by the Cubs in exchange for a purchase of Roberto Rodriguez from the Cubs' Tacoma club. Now we find this from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal of June 25, 1970.


"Outfielder Don Young was sold to Des Moines of the American Association, farm club of the Oakland A's. Pitcher Jim Dunegan, a converted outfielder, was optioned to Tacoma. Lefthanded pitcher Larry Gura was recalled from Tacoma where he had a 3-4 record. The Cubs also bought the contract of righthanded relief pitcher Roberto Rodriguez from Tacoma. Rodriguez was obtained by San Diego May 25 in a conditional deal from the A's. His contract was sold to Tacoma Tuesday and brought by the Cubs Wednesday."

" a conditional deal"

Still looking but possibly a condition of that deal was that Rodriguez would either have to be returned to the A's or compensation would have to be worked out. That would make the Young-to-Iowa quid pro quo make sense...

Interesting....

Don Young and the Oddball Trade

Don Young will be forever linked to the Cubs collapse in 1969, if you need a rundown of that, you can look it up many places on the web.

He was sent outright to Tacoma by the Cubs before the 1970 season, and mid-season went to Iowa, the AAA team for Oakland. No transaction was listed for this.

After some research, I found this article from The Bryan Times of June 25, 1970.

It mentions Young being sold to Iowa as compensation for the Cubs purchasing Roberto Rodriguez from Tacoma.

This doesn't make a lot of sense on the surface. Rodriguez started the season with Oakland, but supposedly went to the Padres and THEN was bought by the Cubs.

Further study is warranted.

Rodriguez/quez from Check Out My Cards, Don Young from the great Wrigley Wax blog

More Bill McNulty!!!

You can't get enough McNultyMania!

In our last post we looked at the transaction career of Bill McNulty, and found several holes. We have now found an apparent mistake in a transaction listed on a few internet sites.

Some of them have McNulty being sent as part of a late 1971 deal that sent Adrian Garrett from the Cubs to Oakland for catcher Frank Fernandez, but we have uncovered an article in the Salt Lake Tribune that seperates the McNulty transaction from that trade. Quoting the article:

"When Tacoma lost Adrian Garrett, the league's top homerun hitter with 43 and a 119 RBI man to Oakland in a deal Wednesday, Tacoma purchased McNulty (.249 and 25 homers) from Oakland's farm in Iowa of the American Assn. Bobby Adams, general manager of Tacoma, said the Cubs'got special clearance to use McNulty in the series since they lost Garrett"

So Tacoma purchased McNulty AFTER the trade. Also, McNulty didn't play in the regular season for Tacoma, only postseason.....he was in Evansville in 1972.

The Bend (OR) Bulletin of Sept. 3. 1971  has a small recap of one of the playoff games. McNulty homered in a loss...and it mentions his being acquired two days before the playoff series.

McNultyMania running wild!